Glee--Funk

As this is my first Glee review, I’ve decided that it’ll be easiest to break this up into three parts, the three Ss (S’s? Esses?), if you will: Story, Songs, and Sue.

Season One’s penultimate episode was a hit-or-miss affair. Some stories worked, some fell a bit flat, and some felt like rehashes of earlier plots. We’ll start with the weakest and work our way up.

First, a message to the writers: so hey, the name the episode is funk? That’s funky. Funk is a good title, because there was lots of funky funk music for the funky funksters to funk to…. Please. For the love of wearing the same outfit twice in the same week, DO NOT KEEP REPEATING THE TITLE LIKE A MANTRA. Seriously, it was like Rand al’Thor with the dead chicks (okay, only four of you will get that, but you’ll really appreciate it). We don’t need it, we’re not stupid. You don’t need to hit some minimum usage per minute. And while we’re on the topic of underestimating viewers, why did the divorce paperwork that Will and Terri were filling out have to have the word “DIVORCE” in caps across the top of the page? There’s a lawyer there, the recently-split couple is filling out paperwork…wasn’t it obviously for their divorce? But I digress…

Utilizing an idea given to him by former glee club coach Sandy (the always hilarious and underused Steven Tobolosky), Schue makes “regrets” the lesson of the week. Your assignment, young misfit singers? Dig deep into the root of your soul to find that repressed, boiling anger, that despair, angst, and frustration, and express it the only way the kids of Glee know how. Soon-to-pop Quinn, full of regrets (“Thinking ‘Trust Me’ was a reliable contraceptive”) jumps at the opportunity to sing first, much to the chagrin of Mercedes.

Which brings me to my Glee storytelling faux pas of the week: the white guy with soul story. I say “guy” because the story is more often done with a male, but the result is the same:

White Guy: I have soul!

Black Guy: No, you can’t have soul. You’re white.

White Guy: What? No, really, I do! See, I’m sad! (White guy cries)

Black Guy: That’s not soul. That’s a wuss.

White Guy: Well, here, watch me (rap, sing, write, martyr myself)!

Black Guy: I stand corrected. I have learned much about the plight of others today.

White Guy: As have I. It was wrong of me to encroach upon thine bitterness.

Black Guy: Nay, it was I who have vexed you in my narrow-mindedness

I’m not entirely sure why they turned all Medieval near the end, but you get the point. Moreover, the whole Quinn-Mercedes tension has been examined already this season, which wouldn’t be bothersome, except that it had seemed resolved last time. Where the hell did this come from, all of a sudden? The only bright spot during this storyline (besides Quinn’s musical number, which I’ll get to later) was Dianna Agron’s performance during her resolution with Mercedes. When Glee first started, I wasn’t thrilled with the character of Quinn; she was so two dimensional, so generic: a beautiful, mean cheerleader. The arc that she’s been on this season, from getting pregnant to losing her spot on the Cheerios to losing Finn to losing her parents (or at least, getting kicked out of their house) has been well-executed, but it’s Agron’s performance of Quinn, especially in her moments of vulnerability, that have soared beyond the other dramatic performances this freshman season.

Schue’s main story this week revolved around his continuing war with Sue. After a largely Sue-free episode last week, seeing Jane Lynch back and on screen for a good portion of the show was nothing short of glorious; well-written and delivered by a singularly comedic voice like Lynch, Sue’s dialogue this week once again rose to a repeat-it-with-friends-the-next-day level. However, the idea that, to sabotage Sue, Schue would try to seduce her, only to dash her hopes later, seemed not only convoluted, but as the episode progressed, not at all in keeping with the characters as they’ve been established. While we’ve seen Will’s darker side on occasion, his seduction—especially when he knew it was working—seemed terribly malicious; coming from Will, of all people, who takes his role as teacher and mentor so seriously, his attempts to break Sue’s heart came off as a kind of horrific pedagogical malfeasance. And it isn’t just Will’s character that hurt the storyline so. While Sue has been built up as complete in her disinterest in Will’s more social conventions (like romance), we’ve seen the chinks in her armor: her care of her sister with Down Syndrome and her romance with Rod Remington instantly spring to mind. But I don’t think I’m alone in my strange love of Sue; when she’s beaten by the glee club it’s one thing, and we cheer against her; to see her actually attacked emotionally by Will just didn’t line up. Plus, did anyone else feel that Sue wouldn’t have fallen for it in the first place? While I could understand her reasoning that she’s so alone she’d even take up with Will—who she hates—they didn’t go very far to make it believable. Yes, her admitting how alone she is is one thing, but the writers have proven before that they can push a storyline without making the characters make blatant expository admissions (again, Sue taking on a girl with Down Syndrome for the Cheerios is a perfect example). I know that this is the final episode before the big finale and Regionals, but too much of the episode just felt contrived. Not to mention that the reason for Schue to take such drastic measures is never really satisfactorily revealed. Was it because of the TP incident in New Directions’ rehearsal room? If so, it was a rather weak point on which to build such a malevolent scheme.

The other main story this week involved the throwing down of the gauntlet, as it were, between Vocal Adrenaline and New Directions. McKinley High’s finest walked in on a performance by Vocal Adrenaline to start the episode—a truncated “Another One Bites the Dust” with Rachel’s erstwhile beau, Jesse St. James, singing lead—right in their own auditorium. I’ve forgiven the rush of the Jesse-Rachel story because I want to believe that it was more a vehicle for Rachel to find out who her mother is (Vocal Adrenaline coach Shelby Corcoran, whose portrayer, Idina Menzel, bears a striking resemblance to Lea Michele). There wasn’t much development with Rachel this week—most of her few interactions with Jesse included “meaningful” stares and campy dialogue (Yolk-covered Rachel defiantly says, “Do it. Break it like you broke my heart.” “I loved you,” says Jesse, before smashing a raw egg on her head). Which left me wondering: why doesn’t he love her anymore? What the hell happened? Also, how did he actually love her in the first place? They dated for, what, three weeks? (No, I don’t mean in TV time, I mean in the show’s timeline…it didn’t seem like they dated for that long)

To get back for the TPing mentioned above, Finn and Puck slashed the tires of Vocal Adrenalines’ Range Rovers. (On a side note, every kid on that team got a Range Rover for being able to sing in key and follow a choreographed dance number, which I found appalling, until I realized that my old high school’s booster club treats our football team like war heroes) Shelby meets with Principal Figgins, Will, Sue, and the boys to demand that they pay for the damage in lieu of her pressing charges. To do so, Finn and Puck get a job at Sheets-N-Things, working for the former Mrs. Terri Schuester. This leads to a few cringe-inducing exchanges between Terri and Finn. At first, Terri sees Will in Finn (which harks back to Terri creepily telling Will, “You’re still that sixteen year old boy to me”), and proceeds to begin a passively flirtatious relationship with him. While it’s definitely creepy, this is the kind of over-the-top humor that’s made Glee such a riotous show in the past—faked pregnancies, making a guy believe you can get pregnant just by being in the same hot tub, etc.—and, improper though it is, I think they can get some mileage out of this story in the second season.

The aftermath of the already-mentioned egging of Rachel brings me to another strong point on the show: the friendship between the members of the glee club. At this point, Finn, Puck, Mike, Matt, and Kurt (?!?) were ready to pound the guys of Vocal Adrenaline, not so much out of friendship, but comradeship. (By the way, my questioning of Kurt's sudden machismo is not a slight on the gay character he portrays; it just seemed really out of character, as Kurt has more than once avowed his aversion to physical violence) They have already made a point this season of building up the tension, the fights, and the uneasy, unsteady friendships between many members of glee club. In the long run, I hope that this becomes one of the cruxes of the show, the idea of how much these kids need each other. Though if it turns out that the glee club was some strange purgatory that their collective transcendent consciousnesses created so that they could come together, then I’m out.

So that’s pretty much it, story-wise. We’re left ready for Regionals. It all comes down to this. Let’s get ready to rumble. In seriousness, I think that the mid-season finale (“Sectionals”) was one of the best episodes of television in the past few years. As a fan of fantasy literature, I think non-fantasy fans would be surprised to find out how many fantasy tropes and underpinnings the writers of Glee used to build towards the climax, some serious Joseph Campbell-type stuff—the loss of the mentor (Will’s banishment from the competition), the mentor’s final lesson (convincing Finn to go to Sectionals), the hero’s return with elixir (Finn saves the day, not just by showing up, but by having a new song for them to sing)—and my hopes for the season finale are incredibly high. And though I won’t ruin it on you, let’s just say that the song choices for New Directions will, much like the storytelling, adhere to the most basic (and I mean that in a good way) fantasy tropes, a kind of perfect symmetry in the universe.

This week’s songs were pretty much middle-of-the-road. The Vocal Adrenaline performance of “Another One Bites the Dust”, albeit short, sounded good, and Jonathan Groff especially shined in the lead.

Puck and Finn singing Beck’s “Loser” in Sheets-N-Things was fantastic, albeit random, but one I’d certainly put on my iPod.

For Quinn’s funk selection, she sang “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World.” Much like her dramatic performances, I feel that Dianna Agron’s voice is drastically underused; great performance, but the backup dancers were definitely strange. In the show, were they supposed to be actual pregnant teens, or teens in pregnancy bellies?

Puck, Finn, and Mercedes performed Marky Mark’s “Good Vibrations,” which was as goofy as you would imagine it would be. Though I must admit that Cory Monteith and Mark Salling both rap much better than Matt Morrison. And, of course, there was Mercedes. If Amber Riley were on American Idol, Randy would say “When you can sing, you can sing, it doesn’t matter what, you can sing the phone book!” And he’d be right.

Finally, the kids of New Directions performed “Give Up the Funk,” probably the strongest performance of the night. As they proved all the way back in the pilot, with a rendition of “Don’t Stop Believing” that I still listen to at least twice a week, these singers’ voices were meant to be heard together.

In this week’s Sue’s Corner, the five best Sue Sylvester lines of the episode. Enjoy, and see you next week!

• ”You know what it has to look like? Elvis’s gold-record room at Graceland. Except I’ll be wanting far fewer morbidly obese white women waddling around and crying.” (When explaining to the drafting class how to redecorate the glee club choir room)
• ”You know, for me, trophies are like herpes. You can try to get rid of them, but they just keep coming. You know why? Sue Sylvester has hourly flare-ups of burning, itchy, highly-contagious talent.”
• (When Schue says that the tire-slashing was a harmless prank) “That’s what they said about a young man in Chicago, in 1871, who thought he would play a harmless prank on the dairy cow of one Mrs. O’Leary. He successfully ignited its flatulence and a city burned, William. That young terrorist went on to become the first gay president of the United States: Abraham Lincoln.
• ”Well, the week before nationals every year, I have a placenta mask right after a rigorous session of microdermabrasion.” (After Will tells Sue she looks radiant)
• ”I’ll admit that in the past I’ve fantasized about waking up with Will’s head on the pillow next to me, except now I picture it attached to the rest of his body.” (Entry in Sue’s diary about her burgeoning attraction to Will).

Welcome Back to Hell

There’s a reason that I believe that every single reality competition in America should be judged by the same three people. Regardless of what type of competition—singing, dancing, variety acts, cooking, surviving on a deserted island (with or without a smoke monster)—the judges should be Simon Cowell, Piers Morgan, and Gordon Ramsay. Simon’s brutal honesty gets us through the midseason Idol drudgery, Piers is the sole voice of reason and clarity on America’s Got Talent, and Ramsay, whether it is an original or American incarnation of his various shows, accepts no excuses for failure. And of the three, Gordon is the most entertaining, which is why I was so excited for the season premiere of Hell’s Kitchen.

Sixteen aspiring chefs congregated on the set of this year’s competition and found a surprise waiting for them: a press conference created by Ramsay to hype the show. Ramsay dropped jaws (mostly the contestants’, since I’m guessing much of that “press” was there for effect) by announcing that this year’s opening dinner service would be completed. Now, if you’ve watched this show before, you know that shut-downs during dinner tend to happen regularly in the first four to six services, and can continue all the way up to the final five or four. That being said, I admit that I didn’t think it was truly possible for Ramsay to make good on his promise, though I don’t think anyone was ready for how he planned to do it. But more on that later. First, we meet the contestants.

Following a strange makeout session between Ramsay and a contestant (who was actually his wife, revealed in a Mission Impossible-style de-disguising), Ramsay sent the hopefuls back to the kitchens to prepare their signature dishes. Every year I hope for something to top what is, in my mind, the greatest signature dish presentation ever, when Louis Petrozza pulled the top off a gourd and proudly declared, when asked by Ramsay what his dish was, that it was “hen in a pumpkin.” Sadly, no one came close to this, though there were a few dishes that made Ramsay smile. What was more interesting was getting to know some of the contenders:

Holly is a banquet chef from San Bernardino. She believes she can win by playing the “cute factor,” because she can cook, and she’ll “look good doing it.” Nothing makes me happier than when someone says something like this, and thanks to the miracle of editing, the next shot is of said person falling down. Needless to say, I was happy.

Salvatore moved to America from Naples, Italy twenty-one years previously, though he still speaks with a thick Italian accent. Why? “Causa tha girls! Theya likea tha accent!” I actually hate this guy so much that, when he later burned scallops—twice—during dinner service, I wrote down, “Burned the scallops twice…f***ing accent, what a douche.” He will be eliminated quickly. I hope.

Andrew is going to win after every other contestant mysteriously disappears from the dorms. Fear not, though, he will not win by default: Ramsay will be exceptionally impressed with Andrew’s recipe for “Mystery Meat Wellington.”

Mikey, a line cook from Santa Cruz, impressed (read: scared) everyone with his fanatical love of Hell’s Kitchen, which was depicted by the great—and by great I mean large, not good—pitchfork n’ logo he got tattooed on his abdomen. He also sports a pompadour-like Mohawk (Pompahawk? Mopadour?), which, for some reason unbeknownst to me, I seem to like.

The signature dish test was the first challenge of the season, and Ramsay wasted no time in splitting the teams up by gender and calling one person from each team up at a time. The boys won, earning a prize to be announced later. At this point, Ramsay announced what the winner of this season would win: the Head Chef position at Ramsay’s restaurant in the Savoy Hotel, the famous West End hotel in London. This was big news to the contestants, but all I could picture in my mind was Al Bundy chained to a prison wall, saying he stole a “towel from the Savoy.”

Everyone retreated to the dorms for a night of studying to prepare for opening dinner service the next day, but before anyone could get too comfortable, a fire alarm sounded, calling all the contestants back down to the kitchen. In the kitchen was a television, playing a video lesson of Ramsay teaching the contestants how to properly cook one of the HK favorite appetizers, lobster risotto. Not crab risotto, mind you, but lobster risotto. And yes, that is important for later. Anyway, after being dismissed back to the dorms, this fire-alarm procedure repeated itself numerous times, each time leading to a different video lesson on how to prepare a dish, all the way past two a.m. After a night of running up and down the dorm stairs and alternately studying their recipe binders and Ramsay’s videos, the contestants retired for a nice, long sleep…

But the girls were awakened with the rising sun, told that their punishment for losing the first challenge was to make breakfast in bed for the guys. This they did, and with very little complaint, actually, which was nice; it seems that, as each season progresses, teams become more and more bitchy about whatever their punishment is, until the every confessional from losing team members is nothing more than vitriol against their opponents. But for now they were cool about it, and the boys certainly enjoyed it (“Isa thisa every day?” asked Salvatore).

Dinner service began with Ramsay assigning Jay and Nilka to tableside preparation of Caesar salad. Unlike seasons past, there seemed to be little drama surrounding the tableside work (at least, none was shown). Scott took an early leadership role, trying to rally his team during dinner prep, which of course led to complaints from other contestants (in this case, blue-haired Jay). I’ve never quite understood this; whenever someone tries to be vocal and lead, everyone just jumps all over them, never for a moment stopping to ponder whether or not that person might just know what the hell he or she is talking about.

Early on, Siobhan jumped to the aid of Stacey, who had just before presented Ramsay with over-curried, raw scallops. Mistakes were the name of the game for the girls, who time after time halted service with raw or badly-prepared food. Stacey stood out in this, as stated above, as did Fran, who put crab in the lobster risotto (I told you it mattered), then admitted to Ramsay that she was afraid of him. Things similarly went sour on the men’s side; besides Salvatore’s aforementioned eff-ups on the scallops, Benjamin tasted a dish for flavor, for which we all jumped up and cheered—Ramsay has to remind people so, so, SO often to taste the food!—only to be jarred back to reality by Benjamin putting the spoon back in the food.

Ramsay’s ire came to a head after Scranton native Maria laughed as he scolded the girls for undercooked beef. Before I go on to what he did to her for this, I’d like to point out that this is the first time a Scranton native has appeared on any reality show I’ve watched. I was excited to see her on this, and after seeing her perform, I can say with assuredness that I cannot wait for her to get eliminated. She was annoying, loud, and obnoxious, and though she didn’t really get a chance to show whether or not she could cook, she ingrained herself in my mind (and, from comments on posts about the show, many other viewers’ minds) as this year’s Suzanne, but with less talent.

By the way, did anyone else hear that obnoxious, braying laugh? I think it’s fitting that, after seven seasons of Ramsay calling people “donkeys,” we finally have a real one on the show.

The donkey laugh pushed Ramsay over the edge; in a fit of outrage, he kicked Maria, Fran, and Jamie out of the kitchen, which raised the question: why Jamie? Either they didn’t show what mistakes, if any, she made, or she was, as Darren Franich pointed out at EW, she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. From the boys, Benjamin and Salvatore (who, by this point, I was convinced was just a cartoon character acting alongside real people, just like Roger Rabbit) also got the boot, followed by Mikey for two raw halibuts in a row.

At this point, Ramsay combined the teams, and Ed emerged as a leader, keeping well-composed throughout the remainder of service. Service ended (not by shutdown, woohoo!) and Ramsay assembled the troops, including the booted contestants, to announce a losing team: the girls.

Here followed the obligatory four-minute reel of “Why do you think I did worse than her?” and “Yeah, I served raw pork seven times, but did you see what SHE did?” Okay, while the hyperbole might have gone too far, it always amazes me how often HK contestants can look one another in the eye and suggest that their own mistakes were somehow less offensive than others’ errors. In the end, the girls made their choices, relayed to us by Autumn (Ramsay always seems to pick a strong performer to give nominations), who announced that Stacey and Fran—who hates Autumn, apparently because Autumn didn’t screw up as much as she herself did—were on the chopping block.

In the end, chef to the stars Stacey walked the long walk of shame, while Ramsay hung up her jacket and set her face on fire. Er, the picture of her face.

So, any early front-runners in your opinion? Do you think Ed or Autumn are the ones to watch? And who'll be the first to fight back against Ramsay?

The Good Guys, Season 1, Episode 1

The premise of Fox’s new buddy cop show, The Good Guys, is as simple and played out as it gets: take a badass, 80s-style, past-his-prime, hardnosed, we-did-it-our-way-in-the-day cop, and pair him with a by-the-book rookie. The premise is old, and part of the mental furniture of anyone born in the last thirty years; within the first five minutes, we know how this is going to play out: rookie cop will resist veteran’s off-the-record means of interrogation/investigation/apprehension of perp, while veteran will resist rookie’s use of things like Miranda rights. And of course, in the end, they'll each learn that hey, maybe there is something to how my partner does things. A bit.

In a time when the television and movie saturation is so great in America that it feels as if every conceivable story has been told in one way or another, many writers or TV producers resort to telling the same story again and again, but with a twist. The twist can be a plot device, a setting, a new character archetype or, in the case of The Good Guys, it can be the lead actors, Bradley Whitford and Colin Hanks. And despite myself, I have to say that Whitford and Hanks might just be enough to elevate this dramedy above mediocrity.

Whitford plays Dan Stark, an 80s cop hero who relishes reliving his glory days, rehashing stories of his exploits with then-partner Frank Savage to anyone who will (sometimes unwillingly) listen. Jack Bailey, portrayed by Hanks, is the by-the-booker (book-er?), ostracized by many on the force for his razor-straight attitude (correcting his captain’s grammar; panning the “childlike” investigation of a now-cold case to his captain, who happened to be the investigating detective at the time). What creator Matt Nix has done is focused his attention on creating two starkly different characters who are, despite their differences, in exactly the same place, literally and figuratively. Stark only remains on the force because he saved the governor almost thirty years previously, according to Lieutenant Ruiz (Diana Maria Riva); Bailey is on the outs with everyone in the force for his geeky, passively smarter-than-thou demeanor. These are two alienated people, who do not cherish each other’s partnership—though it clearly bothers Bailey more than Stark—but who are stuck together, working the lowest of the investigations. Add to that Stark's eccentricities (his fear that computers might turn on people one day, for instance), and it's a regular Felix and Oscar scenario.

As I said, these stories have all been told before, but with shows like The Good Guys, the life or death of this series will lie not so much in the stories themselves, but in the characters, or more accurately, the actors’ portrayals of the characters. Since Orange County, Hanks has proved he can play the straight man while still effusing charm, likeability, and relatability. Whitford, best known for The West Wing, breathes life into Stark, right up to the absolutely superb mustache. And I do think that Whitford is up to playing the quirks and silliness inherent in a character like Stark—while I may be one of the only thirty or so people who watched it, I absolutely loved Whitford on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, where he imbued director Danny Tripp with the perfect mix of snarkiness and heart. If he can continue to make Stark likeable, half the battle’s won.

Still, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out just how far this show goes into cliché. Stark is supposed to be a cliché—not to be taken completely seriously—but some of the minor characters fell just too far across the line of obnoxiously melodramatic, to the point of cheesiness. I think mostly it was the drug dealer antagonist and his cousin who, due to the writing of their characters, became complete caricatures of actual bad guys. That being said, I don’t think it hurt the story as a whole (though it could easily become a chore), and I did like seeing Andrew Divoff, who played one-eyed Mikhael on Lost, as the world’s “second best” assassin.

I really think there could be a future for The Good Guys. With a bit tighter writing, and Hanks and Whitford performing at the level of the pilot, this show could go far. Though if we’ve learned anything in the last few years, it’s that even the best shows need an audience, and networks don’t seem to want to give them a chance to get one.