Community 4x13: Advanced Introduction to Finality

Jeff passed history, and now he's graduating. His old partner offers him a job at his new firm, and the study group makes him a banner. He has everything he could ever want. Nevertheless, he's not as excited as he should be. He tells Britta that he's worried that the group won't be able to handle him leaving, but she says that everyone will be fine, even Abed, whose sanity is evidenced by the fact that he hasn't spoken about the darkest timeline in months. In order to stir up trouble, Jeff rolls a die to see who will bring the soda to his graduation party. It lands on its edge.

That probably means nothing.

Later, a one-armed Jeff phases through a dimensional portal in the Dean's office. The darkest timeline is invading the prime timeline to force Jeff to graduate and leave Greendale forever. Dark Jeff toys with Annie's emotions and makes her cry, then blasts Abed in the chest with a fancy paintball gun and sends him to the other universe. While Abed's away, Dark Jeff and Dark Annie wreak havoc and destroy Jeff's relationships with the rest of the group.

The Dean is particularly upset.

With everyone acting weird and no one coming to his graduation ceremony, Jeff wonders just what the hell is going on. Dark Annie arrives to try to use her boobs to convince him to take the job with his old partner, but when he resists, she has to call in Dark Jeff. They do that thing where they say the same thing at the same time, which was done much better on Fringe, and then Dark Jeff tries to convince regular Jeff to take the job using Dark Logic. Jeff still won't do it, so his doppelganger has no choice but to shoot him. Fortunately, the dark ones haven't mouthed off to Chang, so he dives in front of the paintball and takes the hit for his new friend. In the confusion, Jeff escapes, and Dark Jeff is forced to call in some backup.

Evil Shirley is almost as drunk as regular Shirley.

Abed returns from the other side with a sackful of paintball guns, and a shootout with really bas special effects ensues in the cafeteria. The evil study group really sucks and goes down quickly, leaving Dark Jeff as the last one standing. Jeff doesn't think he can take him alone, but Abed explains that this is all crazy and clearly just a manifestation of Jeff's subconscious battle between the Jeff he is and the Jeff he was. New Jeff decides he doesn't want to go back to being a sleazy lawyer, then pulls some Matrix stuff and shoots Dark Jeff. The show phases back to 'reality' and the next day, everyone shows up for Jeff's graduation. Including the recurring guest stars and some girl who I can't remember.

The credits tell me it's Marcy McCusker, who played Quendra. I guess she was in town.

Jeff tries to give an emotional speech, but has a little trouble getting it out. He loves everyone, even Pierce, who interrupts the ceremony when he decides he wants to graduate, too. Everyone has drinks and cake at the after party, and Jeff resolves to look into some smaller firms around town so he can pop in from time to time to see how the group's doing. Evil Troy and Evil Abed do the tag, and the season ends.

What I Liked
-Pierce recognizes that the timeline on the show doesn't make any damn sense. Who would have thought that he would turn out to be the voice of reason on this show?
-Evil Pierce.

Mainly the hair and the wheely leg.

-After Abed explains that the whole thing is in his head, Jeff realizes that he doesn't actually need to fight Dark Jeff. At least he was still somewhat sane.
-This week's best line: "If you call a sandwich a 'Troyjan Horse' people are gonna think there's horse in it." -Dark Jeff

What I Hated
-They tried to do paintball again. They caught lightning in a bottle back in season one, then they became a sad parody of themselves, trying to do it again.
-It was all a dream. Only two shows have ever managed to get away with that, and neither Patrick Duffy nor Bob Newhart are on this show.
-Dream Abed says they finally figured out a way to make paintball cool again. No you didn't, Megan Ganz. No you didn't.
-Really bad green screen work. Why even try to do it when it's clear that the show just doesn't have the budget for that kind of stuff?
-"Six Seasons And A Movie" on the chalkboard.

Even four was too many.

Final Thoughts
I'm going to start with my thoughts on this episode before I get into the series as a whole.

Since this was a finale, a little self-reference was to be expected. But the problem is that they've already done paintball twice, and the darkest timeline was never all that compelling. So, the things they wound up referencing the most were overdone and boring. Also relatively obscure, since they brought back Quendra for some reason.

They also managed to reference the facts that Annie's majoring in forensics and Troy's still in AC repair school, the latter of which was a fairly major story point last season and then all but ignored in this one.

As for the way they wrapped up Jeff's storyline, I'm not really sure I bought it. He's not quite as sleazy as he once was, but he's still been engaged in some sleazy things over the past four years. Plus, didn't he go back to consult for his old firm at some point in season two? I know they brought back Rob Corddry last season to tell him that Drew Carey died, but that didn't exactly make a whole lot of sense. What has Jeff been doing for money for the past few years if not working as a consultant? How could he be concerned about going back to his old life if he's been basically living his old life for two years?

So where are we after everything that happened this year? Jeff graduated, but he somehow earned a degree in education, so he'll be back at Greendale next year as an instructor. Troy and Britta became a couple, but then the show barely mentioned it and they broke up. Shirley has a new baby who she apparently never sees, and is somehow on track to be valedictorian. Annie and Abed are both still in school, and I'm not sure if either of them has shown any character growth at all this season. And Chang is also on the show. Basically, either nothing happened to the characters this season, or something stupid and nonsensical did. The only one who showed any real growth was Pierce, and that was only because Chevy was tired of playing a horrible racist.

Beyond that, "It's all a dream" episodes rarely make any sense, and this one was no exception. We saw a bunch of stuff that Dream Jeff couldn't possibly have seen, unless he was omniscient, in which case he should've realized it was a dream a lot sooner. Not that I expect a lot of realism from this show, but things like that are why shows just plain shouldn't do dream episodes.

Inexplicably, NBC decided to renew Community for another season. As with HIMYM, I won't be watching it. The show's decreased in quality so much over the past two seasons that I really don't enjoy it anymore. I stuck it out until the end of this season out of some misguided sense of loyalty and a desire to see it through to the end after investing so much of my time in it over the first three years. Since the production staff were well aware that this could have been the final episode, it had enough of a sense of closure that the only reason I would want to watch any more of the show is if I thought I would enjoy it. And I don't think I will.

It's difficult to quantify why I feel that way... or it would be if I hadn't been reviewing the show for the past three seasons. Season two earned and average of 3.3 stars and 24.3 laughs. Season three faltered starting with the Christmas episode, but still managed a very respectable 2.6/16.9. This season earned a 2.0/10.8, making it 60% as good and less than half as funny as it was two years ago.

The whole thing is a shame, really. This season actually started off relatively well; I actually liked the first three episodes. But then it all went to hell when the Germans showed up. Episodes 5, 7, 9, 11, and 12 were bad, while episode 6 was both bad and blatantly offensive. When the best a show can aspire to is mediocrity, it's time to stop watching.

Castle 5x13: Recoil

A woman with all her teeth knocked out turns up burned to a crisp in a homeless guy's fire barrel. It looks like it could be hard to identify her until Lanie pulls a titanium screw out of her jaw and the serial number leads them straight to who she was: An engineering postdoc from New Jersey. No one has any idea who might have wanted her dead, but she left her half-sister a voicemail that contained the sound of her murder, and a check of her phone and credit card records leads to the Standish Hotel. Now, the Standish is famous as a place where powerful men can get a little discrete side-action, and after a little arm twisting, the concierge reveals that the dead girl had been meeting one man there on a regular basis.

Senator William H. Bracken, the man who had Beckett's mother killed.

The team decides to move slowly, so when Esposito and Ryan go to question the Senator they act as if the dead girl is merely missing. Bracken's wise to their tricks, though, and after a couple questions, he suggests that all further inquiries should come through his attorney.

Back at the station, the Team verifies the Senator's alibi for the time of the murder and through some fancy cross-referencing, coupled with FBI analysis, they discover the site of the dead girl's killing. There, they find a stolen car containing a sniper rifle and detailed plans of a hotel where the Senator is attending a conference. Bracken's not the killer, he's the target.

Smilin' Bill's not gonna be smiling for long.

Beckett is now in the awkward position of having to protect a man she wants to see behind bars. Neither of them is particularly comfortable with the situation, but they can't exactly explain to the public why they don't want to work together, so they're stuck with each other. Esposito thinks she should just sit back and wait for the killer to put a bullet in his brain, but Ryan believes that would make her no better than him.

Castle and Beckett go through the many death threats the Senator has received in hopes of finding something that matches the handwriting in the killer's notebook. When Beckett finds what she's looking for, she hides it from Castle and sends him home, then goes to visit Counsellor Worf. He doesn't tell her what to do, but says for her the right choice is whatever she can live with.

So she considers burning it.

The next day, she's troubled, but she hasn't destroyed the evidence and merely continues hiding it from the others until her conscience gets the best of her. However, when she goes to tell them, it no longer matters, since they have a better lead. Some items in the stolen car's trunk contained traces of motor oil and transmission fluid, and Esposito and Ryan are able to use that to find a service station where the guy used to work.

They load up and bust the guy's door in, but he's not home. Beckett heads down to the apartment manager's office to see if he knows anything, and on the way she runs into the guy when he's getting off the elevator. She pulls her weapon on him and tells him to freeze, but he bolts. As he heads down the stairwell, she puts two bullets into the wall to make it look like she tried harder to stop him.

The owner's gonna be ticked.

Later at the station, Beckett admits to Castle that she missed the guy on purpose. The letter she found accused Bracken of murdering the guy's son. He was an intern in Bracken's employ, and the day before he was scheduled to meet with a reporter, he was found hanged.

Inside the killer's apartment, they find materials for making a bomb and C4 residue, but the bomb itself isn't there. Fortunately, the cops find the guy hiding on a rooftop a few blocks away. Beckett tries to convince him that she's on his side because Bracken killed her mother, but he's schizophrenic and too far gone to believe her. She still thinks she can get him to tell her where the bomb is, but the Cap'n pulls her out: The FBI has already found it.

Beckett thinks it's all to easy, though. The bomb they found is far too neat to have been created by a schizophrenic who's off his meds. The Senator's about to give a big speech that'll put him on the national stage, but Beckett calls in a bomb threat and has the building evacuated. When the bomb squad can't find anything, her career is effectively over. Bracken tells her she's going to ruin her, but as he heads back to his limo, Beckett notices that his driver is acting suspiciously. She shoves the Senator out of the way just as the limo explodes.

They can probably just buff that out.

Bracken suspects that his driver was hired by a kingmaker who was upset that he was no longer following orders. He tells Beckett he owes her one and gives a statement to the press. He's now a folk hero who seems to be willing to fight for the little guy, even at the cost of his life.

What I Liked
-The article in the newspaper next to Senator Bracken's photo seems to be made of corporate analytical gibberish. My favourite line is "Thus any exponential coefficient mandates staff meeting level attention to the anticipated repercussions."
-Beckett asks Bracken if there's anyone he can think of who would like to kill him. Irony is hilarious. Just ask Alanis Morrissette.
-Castle makes air quotes when describing how he expected the kingmaker to wind up dead in a "plane crash" or a "car accident". Nathan Fillion does the goofy stuff so well.

What I Hated
-The driver sets off the bomb before Bracken gets in the limo. After all that planning, to screw up so badly right at the end is just ridiculous.

Final Thoughts
Because of who he is, I thought Michael Dorn's part would be much larger, but he really only shows up for about thirty seconds at a time. It's very odd.

Esposito's been getting a bit darker this year. He threatened to murder a small-time hood, dated a suspect, and thought about standing aside while some nutjob murdered a Senator. Meanwhile, Ryan's settled down into married life and is acting like a good Catholic while he tries to become a father. Plus, Beckett saved Bracken's life when Castle says he would've just stood back and watched. I guess we know who's who when they play 'Good Cop-Bad Cop'.

I'm not really buying Bracken as an arch-villain. Jack Coleman's a big, imposing guy, but the Senator's just not evil enough to be much of a threat. He's had people killed, but when he talks with Beckett, he seems far too much like an everyday politician who spends his days slinging bullshit with a smile on his face. They teased the idea of him running for President in the future, but the next US election isn't for almost four years and I honestly don't expect this show to last that long, so the threat of him in the White House rings somewhat hollow.

With so much time devoted to a villain who I just don't find credible, the episode really fell flat for me.

30 Rock 7x12: Hogcock! & 7x13: Last Lunch

Let me preface this all by saying that I've now seen a total of about four episodes of 30 Rock. The show just never appealed to me, so I never bothered to watch it. That being the case, I'm liable to screw up a few names, and I'll probably miss out on any running gags that the series has had. However, I thought it might be good to take a look at the finale to see if there was anything in it that would appeal to people who hadn't really watched it before, which are exactly the kind of people a low-rated show like 30 Rock needed to attract. But, so I wouldn't be going in completely blind, I took the time to read the synopses of the last few episodes on Wikipedia. Now, without further ado:

With TGS cancelled, Liz is now a stay-at-home mom, and it's not working for her. After she sends her kids off to school, she logs on to a local parenting forum, but finds it just as welcoming as one would expect. With nothing else to do, she visits Jack at his office to see how he's coping with his new life. Kabletown is on track to become an unstoppable force in the entertainment world, and yet, Jack's still not happy.

But you know who is happy? NBC's new President, Kenneth.

At least he's more qualified than Jeff Zucker.

Liz goes in to pitch an idea for a new show, but Kenneth's not interested. Shows about writers in New York are a bit overdone, and he just wants to do simple shows. Despondent, Liz returns home and gets back on the forum. One of the other posters calls her out for whining about being a stay-at-home mom, and the two of them agree to meet at the park for a rumble. When she gets there, she finds that the angry poster was Criss. He hates working and wishes he could spend more time at home, while she hates spending time at home and wishes she could work.

At the same time, Jack is using six sigma techniques to conquer his emotional life. He learns karate, spends time with his daughter, helps out a homeless guy, finds religion, and talks his girlfriend into a threesome with an imprisoned character played by Salma Hayek.

Conjugal visits are the best kind of visits.

He has everything he could ever want; even the Democrats hate him, but he's still not happy. Liz comes to see him to ask for a job, but he's resigned as CEO of Kabletown because for the first time in his life, he doesn't know what he wants. She's wormed her way into his brain and given him feelings and a need for something more than work, and he's turned her into a corporate shark who defines herself by her job. They've ruined each other. They were nothing more than a boss and an employee, and now they're nothing at all.

Meanwhile, no one's interested in anything Jenna has to say. The show's cancelled, so no one has to pay attention to her, and she's not sure what to do with her life, either. She tries out TV, but can only get work as a corpse on Law&Order. Then she heads to LA to find work in the movies, but all the women there are younger, prettier, and blonder than her, so she decides to head back to New York and try her luck on Broadway.

I'd give my regards to these broads.

Finally, Tracy tries to get a meeting with Kenneth. As President of the network, he doesn't have time to deal with Tracy's shenanigans, so Tracy wants to release him from his promise to always be there for him. Kenneth keeps avoiding the meeting, though, because Tracy's contract has a $30 million buyout clause that comes into effect if TGS ends before producing 150 episodes. They only made it to 149, so in order to avoid the buyout, they're going to need to make one more episode.

Airing one more episode means writing one more episode, so the writers gather one last time to enjoy their studio-provided free lunch. Unfortunately, it's Lutz's turn to pick the restaurant they order from, and to get back at everyone for years of abuse, he chooses Blimpie (he says "Blimpie's", though, which may be to prevent a lawsuit). The writing staff tries everything they can to choose a different restaurant, including locking Lutz in a room and ordering from Nobu, but he escapes into the ceiling and crashes down on the table, destroying their last meal and forcing them to eat Blimpie's.

Well, technically his stunt double crashes through the ceiling.

Since failing to produce the episode will get him a fat wad of cash, Tracy does what he can to stop it. He talks slowly to waste Liz's time, blackmails Al Roker into giving a false weather report so the crew will go home, and even takes off to a strip club.

A strip club's a good place to ride out Snowicane Dorva

That last move would put him in breach of his contract and prevent him from getting the buyout, so Liz tracks him down to see what's up. Tracy's never been good at saying goodbye, and even though he and Liz haven't always gotten along, he doesn't want to end their relationship. She tells him the truth: They're probably not going to hang out after the show ends, but she loves him and she's going to miss him. He agrees to return after The Skank Train finishes on stage.

While that's happening, Jack tries to mend things with Liz. He apologizes for how he acted earlier, but she won't accept it. He goes to Jenna for advice, but all she can tell him is that Liz holds grudges. He breaks down and cries manly tears, then walks out into the studio to say goodbye to everyone and gives away all his stuff. Pete thinks he may be suicidal and, although she doesn't buy it at first, when Jack doesn't show up to watch the final episode, Liz thinks he might be, too. She heads up to his old office to find him, and instead finds a video suicide note. She magically tracks his phone and gets to him just as he's jumping off a bridge.

It's pretty dark, though, so it could be his brother Billy.

But, Jack Donaghy is not a man who would kill himself. He just wanted her to realize that she would miss him so she wouldn't hold a grudge. In reality, he's taking a boat trip so he can find his bliss. He struggles to express his feelings for her, so Liz just tells him she loves him, too, and watches as he sails away. But, Jack Donaghy is not a man who needs months on a boat to find his bliss. Ten seconds after he leaves, he comes up with the idea for clear dishwashers, then turns right back around.

In a nod to a running gag that I'm not aware of, Kenneth tries to get Jenna to show some real emotion because she's been so self-centred over the years. Eventually she realizes that she really will miss the show, and she puts that emotion into song as she ends the final episode of TGS by singing the title song from her musical 'Rural Juror' with enough enunciation to actually make some of the lyrics intelligible.

One year later, Liz has a new job as a writer on Grizz & Herz, Tracy's father returns, and Jack's working at GE with a sexy female second assistant. In the distant future, Liz Lemon's great-granddaughter pitches a show to the immortal President of NBC based on stories Liz told her about her time at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. He loves it.

There can be only one.

What I Liked
-The machine that hugs old people.

It's history's greatest invention.

-"Most of tan penis island was destroyed in Sting's house fire." That's the only line in this show that actually made me laugh out loud.
-Liz is the least-molested person in the strip club. That's funny, but also kinda sad.
-The Skank Train. Never ride it without a condom.

What I Hated
-The time line in the first half is pretty messed up. For some reason, it takes the writers several weeks to clean out their office.
-Really awful green screen work when Conan showed up. They made a CGI elevator. Are there no real elevators where Conan works or something?

It looks like they did it with the same software they used to stick live actors in video games back in the 1990s.

Final Thoughts
It's a little unfair of me to judge this episode(I'm counting it as one because the end credits encompassed both episodes) since it's the finale and therefore it's not really designed with the same purpose as a regular episode. But life isn't fair, so judge it I shall.

It worked fairly well as a finale. The characters got some closure, and everyone in the cast got to have a moment. However, since I wasn't a regular viewer, I had no attachment to any of the characters, and I didn't feel anything when Liz and Jack finally said they loved each other in a totally platonic way. Nor did it make me in any way want to go back and watch the rest of the series. There were a few bits that were somewhat interesting, but not enough to get me to buy the DVDs.

Beyond that, I really didn't find the episode to be particularly funny. The first half was nearly devoid of laughs, while the second ranked about as highly as a poor episode of How I Met Your Mother. The jokes weren't pandering or offensive, though. They just weren't for me, I suppose.

Overall, it wasn't a bad episode. Much like the show itself, it was just sort of there.

I didn't watch 30 Rock, so I shall not miss it. But it was a show that tried to do something a little bit different, and managed to survive to do it for six and a half seasons, and it should at least be applauded for that.

Hawaii Five-0 3x13: Olelo Ho'Opa'I Make

Chin is missing, and unlike Waldo, he's kinda hard to find. So hard in fact that Danny and Steve have to shoot one guy and engage in a little police brutality on Daniel Baldwin. But then it's 14 hours earlier and we know exactly where Chin is. He's handcuffed to his bed while some creepy dude stares at him in the dark.

In order of creepiness, the Baldwins go Daniel, Stephen, Billy, Alec.

Daniel's henchman jams a syringe in Chin's neck, and soon it's sleepytime. Which is good, because he was in bed and they woke him up.

At the Noshimuri house, Adam and Kono are relaxing in the tub. It's taking Adam a while to get his brother up to speed on the family business, so they haven't had a lot of time for romance. Unfortunately, just as things are about to turn interesting, Adam gets an upsetting call that he has to take in another room. Afterwards, he has to run off, so Kono, being both a cop and his girlfriend, has to check the number while he's putting on pants.

"555? Damn, that must be fake."

The next morning, everyone heads over to Kamekona's truck for breakfast. Everyone except Chin. It seems he texted McGarrett late at night and told him he needed a few days off. Kono recognizes that it's the eighth anniversary of Chin's first date with Malia and she figures he needs some time to himself.

He's not going to get it, though, because when he comes to he's in the Halawa Correctional Facility, and prisoners don't get a lot of 'me' time. He manages to beat down a couple inmates who recognize him and get in touch with a guard, but he predictably turns out to be in on the whole thing and delivers Chin to an old friend: Former dirty cop and current prisoner, Kaleo.

He seems really happy to see him.

Now, Chin's a big tough guy, but Kaleo was Bruce Lee for a while in the early 1990s, so the fight's a little unfair. Fortunately, just as Chin's about to get his face mashed flat with a laundry press, a saviour appears.

Show Sang some love, Lieutenant.

Sang busts Kaleo in the back of the head with a sledgehammer, which I guess is standard prison issue, and saves Chin's sorry butt. Since the Five-0 squad got him moved back to O'ahu so he could be closer to his kid, Sang figures he owes them, and he's going to pay them back by keeping Chin alive. They steal the guard's keys, but they won't get them to the outside. Instead, they gather as many books and sheets as they can find and start a fire so Chin can tell the HFD who he really is and get a message out to McGarrett.

On the outside, Chin's grief counsellor drops by Five-0 headquarters to tell them that she's worried about him because he missed his appointment. That's a bit fishy, so Kono pings his cell phone, and when she discovers that it's at his house, they move out. They discover that his back door's open and his alarm's been cut. McGarrett figures that it's a kidnapping, but he doesn't know why.

Back on the inside, Sang's plan is going perfectly. The fire is too big for the guards to handle, so they have to start evacuating the prisoners. But when Kaleo sees that Chin's not coming out, he starts a riot so he can get back in. In a matter of minutes, the guards are incapacitated, and he's got everyone hunting for Chin and Sang.

Maybe they should've spent less on monitors and a little more on guards. Maybe.

Fong gets some DNA off Chin's phone and links it to the older brother of the guy who killed Chin's wife. Which is an odd coincidence, since the older brother of the guy who played that character is in this episode. I wonder if they knew they were related when they cast him. McGarrett has Catherine misuse government resources to try to track him down.

In the meantime, the riot's in full swing, and Chin and Sang have to get to a phone so they can call for help. The only one they can get to is in the main holding area, and that's swarming with guys, so it looks like they're screwed. Luckily, Chin's a hero, so when they spot some guys attacking a nurse in the prison infirmary, he kicks their asses and saves her. And, it just so happens that she has a master key and can get them out.

I smell a prison romance.

Catherine tracks down Daniel Baldwin relatively quickly, and we're back at the beginning. Steve and Danny smack him around a bit, and then use his phone to figure out where Chin is. It's not good news. It's even worse when the dirty guard grabs the nurse and her keys before they can escape and then Sang turns on Chin to save his own hide. It's all a ruse, though, and he does his best to convince Kaleo to call the Five-0 guys and trade Chin for their freedom. Ex-Bruce isn't buying it, though, so he stabs Chin with a screwdriver and has Sang locked up so he can deal with him later.

When the cavalry finally arrives, the warden won't let them go through the front door, so they commandeer Kamekona's helicopter and go over the wall. Then the shooting begins. Only they don't actually want to kill anyone, so they use flash grenades and bean bags. The distraction is enough to give Chin a chance to fight back, and he manages to slap Kaleo in an armlock and choke him out with his legs. The team picks him up and wants to head for the door, but he makes them go back for the nurse and Sang... who seems to have disappeared.

Oh wait, there he is.

While he's convalescing in the hospital, Chin gets to taste test Kamekona's new breakfast burrito, and the pretty nurse brings him a nail file as a thank you for saving her life. His wife died less than six months ago, which probably means she'll pursue him, but he won't be able to reciprocate because he feels like it's betraying Malia's memory. I've seen it a hundred times.

The episode ends with Kono cloning Adam's cell phone so she can more easily spy on him in the future.

What I Liked
-Kamekona uses spam in his breakfast burritos because it goes down smooth. I've never tried it, but I'm in favour of anything that goes down smooth.
-They brought back everyone's second favourite guest star. It's too bad Larisa Oleynik and her butt died.

What I Hated
-The flashback at the beginning was unnecessary. Chin gets kidnapped before the opening credits, so we know the stakes are high without Steve and Danny killing a guy.

Final Thoughts
Kono's actions seemed a little out of place. She knows Adam is technically the head of the local Yakuza and that his business is sometimes a little shady. She shouldn't be prying quite so much. I realize it's more Five-0 and less crazy jealous girlfriend, but she's still coming off as a little stalkerish.

I'm glad they found a way to get Sang into another episode and to get him out of prison so he can reappear in the future. He's a fun character and they do fun things when he's around. This show takes itself far too seriously sometimes, and they need a crew of guest stars who can lighten the mood every now and then.

Nevertheless, the story they told in this episode has been told many times before. But, they did a decent job of it, so I can't really complain too much. Danno didn't get to book anyone, though, so I can't give it a really high rating.

Fringe 5x13: An Enemy of Fate

And so, we reach the end. Will Walter and Donald save the past by changing the future? Will Peter and Olivia get Etta back? Will anyone tell me what the heck was up with those ball bearings? The answers may surprise you.

Donald sits in December's apartment, trying to convince him to bring him a piece of tech he needs to complete the device. The old man's not having it, though. He doesn't want to cease to exist, and he believes that it's humanity's fate to be conquered and wiped out by the Observers. However, his time amongst the humans has softened him, and Donald's passion manages to convince him that he can change fate if he's willing to try.

Elsewhere, the rest of the team has preparations to make. Walter directs Anil over the phone as he and the resistance set up the giant electromagnet, and Peter talks with Broyles. Which is unfortunate, because Broyles has been compromised and Windmark uses his fancy future tech to read their conversation of the windshield of his car. Then he heads up to Phillip's office to have a chat... and he does not look happy.

But then, he never really looks happy.

Broyles shields his thoughts from Windmark, but as he drives to meet with the team at Harvard, he notices he's picked up a tail. Olivia implores him to tell her where he is so they can come and save him, but Phillip knows the plan is more important than any one man, and he tells her to "Just get it done" while he leads the Observers on a wild goose chase for as long as he can.

Walter rallies the troops. While Astrid and Olivia retrieve the piece of tech they need, Peter lasers some final components out of the amber. As well as a few other things he didn't expect to find: A weird syringe and a tape addressed directly to him.

Using futuristic mining lasers to retrieve 1970s technology seems like a terrible waste.

The syringe is an inoculation that will allow someone to travel through time without ill effects, and the tape is Walter's goodbye note to Peter. When he takes Michael into the future, it will create a paradox, and the universe will resolve that paradox by deleting Walter in 2015. Peter is understandably upset, but his father tells him that it's the only way. Doing this will give Peter his life and his family back, and what father wouldn't do that for his son?

When Astrid and Olivia arrive at December's apartment, they find the door ajar and two Loyalists searching the place.

Also, December is dead and hanging from a pipe.

Olivia kills one Loyalist and captures the other. She asks what happened to the piece of tech they need. It's not good news. Windmark has it, and he knows what it's for. His goons also catch up with Broyles. Now, Phillip's still relatively spry, but he's an old man, and he doesn't put up much of a fight.

Now they're in trouble. They can't open a wormhole, and they know they've been compromised. No one has any idea what to do, so Olivia asks Michael. He tells her to shut up. With everyone quiet, Astrid comes up with the idea of converting one of the Observers' shipping lanes into a wormhole they can use. Donald thinks it can work, and he can read the Observers' shipping schedule, so he knows exactly when and where the next shipment is coming through.

To prepare, they dig out every last bit of fringe tech that Walter has: face-sealing gas, face-melting gas, and anything else they can carry. Astrid even digs out one last surprise for Walter.

He thanks her by telling her how 'Astrid' is a lovely name.

At Observer HQ, Broyles is about to get the once over with a metaphorical lead pipe. But first, Windmark tells him about the first twelve Observers and how spending so much time amongst normal humans infected them with emotions. He's been feeling something too: Hate. Phillip assures him that the feeling is mutual, and the psychic torture begins.

Back at the lab, Donald and Walter are preparing to clear out. Donald has given himself the time-travel inoculation. Seeing Walter with Peter has finally explained what he and the boy mean to each other. He can't communicate with Michael in any normal way, but when he takes him into the future, at last his son will understand that he loves him.

It took him 20 years, but he finally figured out emotions.

Meanwhile, Broyles is starting to bleed out of his face holes. He's not alone, though, because Olivia and Peter dump everything they can into the building's ventilation system and soon everyone is bleeding out of their face holes. Except of course for the people whose face holes get sealed shut. Chinese medical parasites burst out of guts, giant viruses pour out of mouths, heads explode, and one Observer even fights off the imaginary, razor-sharp butterflies. It's unpleasant for all concerned. With minimal searching, they retrieve the cube they need to stabilize the shipping lane, and they even find time to pick up Phillip.

Fortunately, torture rooms aren't known for their ventilation.

Out on the street, the Observers are setting up, but Astrid gets a call from Olivia, and it's time for the shooting to start. Anil and the resistance drive in with the electromagnet and lay down covering fire while Donald recalibrates the wormhole. Everything goes according to plan until Windmark shows up and kidnaps Michael. Peter manages to grab on to him as he teleports away, so he doesn't get far, but without the thing in his head, Peter's no match for a fully armed and operational Observer. He stays standing just long enough for Astrid and Olivia to come running. Astrid manages to shoot Windmark's backup, but Olivia gets the same beating her husband took. Except she's not like her husband. She just had her brain shot full of cortexiphan.

And she is very unhappy.

Olivia sucks all of the energy out of the surrounding area and uses it to smash Windmark between two parked cars. He manages to teleport away, but a good chunk of his face still winds up mashed into a window. He may not be dead, but he's not in good shape.

Donald retrieves his son and heads for the wormhole, but before he can get there he takes a stray bullet in the back. With no other choice, Walter grabs Michael, says one last goodbye to Peter and heads to the future. Then everything is as it was.

Back in 2015, Peter and Olivia take Etta home from the park. The Observers do not invade, and the world does not go to hell. Instead, at home Peter finds a letter from Walter.

Inside, all he found was hope.

What I Liked
-Walter would trade his comm unit for an old-fashioned, tumour-inducing cell phone. The future is a dark place indeed if you can get good phone reception.
-When they dig out all of Walter's hidden fringe stuff, Peter gets a set of anti-gravity osmium bullets so when he shoots Observers they'll just float away.

"Because it's cool."

-Michael Kopsa was really good as the antagonist this season. He started off completely emotionless, but at the end, I really believed that all he could feel was hatred for humanity. It was a subtle hate, but it was there.

What I Hated
-As neat as it was to bring back all the old fringe stuff, some of it didn't work quite right. In fact, the osmium bullets only worked originally because the laws of the universe were breaking down, so they shouldn't have worked at all.

It was still cool, though.

-Ultimately, Walter and Donald's plan was not terribly well thought out. No one other than the two of them would have been able to execute it, and Donald made certain of that by pulling Michael out of the pocket universe. It doesn't seem like the writers had everything set out before the start of the season, which is strange because they knew exactly how many episodes they had left. It was more or less a completely new story, so they couldn't really go off on a Lost-like tangent, but overall, it's still disappointing to find that even when they know the show is going to end, TV writers can't properly plan things out in advance.
-If the Observers never exist, then September can't go back in time to accidentally distract Walternate and prevent him from finding a cure for Peter, so Walter wouldn't have shattered the universe, and nothing in the show would have happened. Time travel stories cause a lot of problems. Not the least of which is messing with tenses.

Final Thoughts
Fringe's ratings declined every season to the point where it was bringing in fewer than three million viewers per episode. Yet its fan base was loyal and its cast and crew believed in what they were doing enough to keep the show going for 100 episodes. That's more than Firefly, more than Farscape, more than the new Battlestar Galactica and Caprica combined. It's even more than Enterprise, and Fringe didn't have the benefit of the Star Trek licence to prop it up. Sure, it would've been nice to see it do more than barely cling to life for the last three years, but all things considered, it did really well for a sci-fi show.

The word of the day was CLOSE, and at least one meaning is fairly evident. There may be others, but it's a little self-indulgent to argue about them now.

The ending was a bit more action heavy than Fringe has generally been, but I think it's important to go out with a bang, and it gave them an excuse to get everyone together in one place, so it doesn't bother me. Besides, in the very end, the show finished the same way it started: With a happy family spending a day at the park.

This was by no means a perfect episode, nor was it even a perfect finale, however, as series enders go, I think I'm comfortable with it. They didn't answer every question, but after last season most of those questions were trapped in another timeline, so I've had time to make my peace with that, and they did manage to dole out a few answers over the course of season five. I'm not happy to see Fringe go, but I find that I'm not sad either.

HIMYM 8x13: Band or DJ?

Against all odds and logic, Barney and Robin are engaged. This presents two problems.

Problem the first: Robin is apparently some kind of old-fashioned lady, and she needs Barney to ask her father's permission to marry her. Robin's father started off as a distant millionaire who wished Robin had been a boy, but now he's a scary lunatic played by Ray Wise.

Except he met a younger woman, discovered Facebook, and now he's "fun"

Nevertheless, Barney still has trouble getting his permission. Partly because he's blond, and also because Mr. Scherbatsky's still a deranged lunatic. He tells Barney a story about how he murdered a family of bears as tribute for Robin's grandfather before he proposed to her mom, and he gives Barney a gun and tries to get him to kill a rabbit in his apartment.

Instead of shooting him, Barney names him and gives him a back story.

Robin friends her dad on Facebook and discovers that he's married. So, when she goes to see how Barney's doing, she gets rightfully ticked off and tells him that she and Barney are already engaged, and since she wasn't invited to his wedding, he's not invited to hers.

Because he's awesome, Barney manages to convince her dad to apologize. He goes a bit overboard and says he'll get a divorce and drive his ex-wife to suicide. Her counter offer is for a bit of normalcy and for him to smile and dance with her at her wedding. He agrees, but only if his wife gets to sing "Cheeseburger in Paradise."

"Not too particular, not too precise."

Problem the second: Lily and Ted are having an argument about who should help plan the wedding and whether Barney and Robin should have a band or a DJ. Hence the title. Ted thinks they should get a DJ and he does what he can to ensure that's what happens, even going so far as to pre-book the band Lily wants to get so they're unavailable on the day of the wedding.

When Lily confronts him about it, he goes off on a tangent about how bands are unreliable and they cheat and they've slept with half of New York, and Robin really be married to the idea of having one. It's not really about bands. Lily takes him up to the roof to sort him out. Finding out that Robin and Barney got engaged hurt him more than all the beatings and nut-punchings he's taken in his life, but he's not willing to say anything other than that he's happy for them, because saying how he really felt would make him a bad person. Of course, he's already Grand High Supreme Douche of the Land of Douchetania, so I don't see what it's such a big deal. At any rate, Lily spills her guts about how sometimes she wishes she weren't a mother so Ted won't feel so terrible about saying Robin should be with him instead of Barney. But, he realizes he has to give her up and let her get a band for her wedding.

Unfortunately, the band winds up cancelling a week before the big event. However, as luck should have it, Ted bumps into TV's Rachel Bilson and her wife on the subway.

Apparently, Hayden Christensen has changed up his look a bit.

As it turns out, her ex-roommate is the bass player in the best wedding band in the city. Also, she's the mother. How conveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeenient.

In a side plot, Marvin is constipated. Until he sprays crap all over Marshall.

Confetti is to Poop as Sandwich is to Marijuana. It's true, I took the SATs.

What I Liked
-"I'm a cut you, bitch!" Lily's at her best when she's angry at one of the guys.
-Mr. Scherbatsky kinda wanted to kill the bear. If you're going to be crazy, you should definitely go all the way.
-Fluffernutter peed all over Barney's pants. It's terrible when things like that happen. It's because animals can sense fear and they want to seem sympathetic.

What I Hated
-Cobie Smulders was sick. That's fine. Actresses get sick, and real life people get sick too, so it makes sense for Robin to be sick at some point. The problem is that at some point, Cobie got better, so Robin goes from sounding like her larynx is made of sandpaper to a perfectly normal voice in the middle of a scene. She could've acted sick for that one little bit.
-Robin wants Barney to ask for her father's permission to marry her. It's not 1820 anymore, that's silly.
-Ray Wise. I liked Robin's old father better.
-They made a joke about The Departed. That movie came out in 2006. Sure, it was good, but nobody should be making jokes about it in 2013.
-They make jokes about their parents being on Facebook. It's like the whole episode went through some kind of time warp.

Final Thoughts
So, at last we have a date for when Ted meets the mother: May 25, 2013. That's a Saturday, so the actual episode will probably air on May 20. Unless they screw around and have Barney and Robin delay their wedding, which honestly wouldn't surprise me. Or, it could turn into some non-linear storytelling thing where Future Ted decides he glossed over a few points and goes back to tell his kids more about that Thanksgiving he spent at a strip club. Because that's an appropriate story to tell your children.

In any case, I'm glad it's going to happen this season. Especially since the show was renewed, and I'm not sure I can watch another year of this crap. Robin's so estranged from her father that she didn't know he was married or that he lived in New York, yet it's important for Barney to get his permission to marry her. Barney and Robin haven't dated in three years and yet their engagement is only going to last five months. Incidentally, that five month engagement is actually a month less than their original relationship lasted. This time will be different, though. Not for any logical reasons, but because the plot demands it.

Lily's whole "Being a mom is rough" thing kinda came out of nowhere. However, it also went nowhere, so I guess that's okay.

Overall, this was yet another in this season's long line of "Man, what?" episodes. Barney must go to extremes to get Robin's father's permission to marry her. Man, what?