Somewhere

The Week In TV 16/10/2011

Community, Season 3, Episode 2: Remedial Chaos Theory

This was easily one of the best episodes of Community in some time, and may well join the pantheon of all-time greats like “Advanced Dungeons and Dragons” and “Modern Warfare.”  Troy and Abed are hosting a housewarming party, which allows for the expected gags about their pop culture-heavy lives (complete with Raiders of the Lost Ark diorama) but which also allows for one of the best concept episodes the show has yet produced.  Whilst playing Yahtzee, the group rolls a die to decide who has to go and collect the pizza from downstairs, opening up seven different timelines.  Other than being uproariously funny (seriously, I can’t think of the last time there were this many good jokes packed into twenty minutes of screen time), they also showed the best and worst of each character.  As each gets a chance to be annoying or petulant – Pierce’s gift to Troy, Jeff infantilising Annie again – they also got the chance to be open and kind.  In short, the multiple timelines allowed the study group to be the very best and the very worst that they could be.  So whilst Jeff might shut down Britta’s rendition of “Roxanne” in every timeline but one, we also get the wonderful moment where Troy realises that Britta’s actually pretty cool (and, in a nice touch, showed that she’s seen far too many Jeff-types in her life to be as intimated by him in the same way that the others might be) and, in the final “correct” timeline, it’s Britta’s dorky singing that provides the happiest ending.  It’s notable that this last timeline is also the one free of Jeff who, intriguingly, seems to be occupying the role of villain this year in place of Pierce.  Of course, all the emotional acuity is nothing compared to the “dark” timeline, a snowball effect of comic genius that ended in the best episode cap in the show’s history.  Here’s hoping we see more of Evil Troy and Evil Abed…

Fringe, Season 4, Episode 4: Subject 9

Another case-of-the-week episode, “Subject 9” was a little substandard compared to Season 4’s previous episodes, but it still had some pretty great stuff around the peripheries, and an ending that will leave fans sighing a huge breath of relief.  When Olivia begins to see a small field of magnetic energy that seems in some way connected to her, Walter believes that it might be connected to Cameron James, one of his Cortexiphan children that had magnetic powers and a latent power to astral project.  However, whilst Cameron still holds a grudge against Walter for the drug trials he experience as a child, he’s not responsible for what’s happening to Olivia.  When he agrees to help the Fringe team disperse this magnetic energy, Olivia orders him to stop at the last minute when she sees Peter’s face appear.  Meanwhile, over in Reiden Lake, Peter finally makes his first proper appearance in this reality, only to be reunited with an Olivia who doesn’t know him.  The procedural stuff was all fairly uninteresting, given that it was always fairly obvious that this was going to be somehow connected to Peter, and even if I’m itching to see the next episode, that doesn’t mean that how we’ve got here hasn’t been problematic.  The most pleasing aspects of “Subject 9” were the interactions between Olivia and Walter, since Olivia has been asked to decide whether she believes Walter needs to be recommitted.  This leads to a couple of affecting scenes in which Walter outlines his usefulness to Olivia, stating that they are “not family.”  And whilst Anna Torv sells Olivia’s compassion towards Walter, she also brings an uncertainty to her kindness that complicates proceedings.  Now that Joshua Jackson is finally back on the show, I’m hoping that Fringe can marry its emotional acuity to a more sustainable series plot arc.

Homeland, Season 1, Episode 2: Grace

Another cracking episode of Showtime’s new drama series, one which cleverly fleshes out the world these characters live in.  The episode begins with a nightmare, in which Brody is forced to dig a grave for his comrade before being shot in the head.  It’s Brody’s nightmare, but his terrified shouting also wakes up Carrie, the direction suggesting the shared headspace these two live in now, albeit without one of them knowing.  Now that Carrie has semi-legal backing to carry out her observations, it would appear that she’s finally got an in-road, but even this new-found confidence can’t get her back-up for Lynne, a terrified young woman she has employed as the head of a Saudi prince’s harem where she manages to get footage of him meeting with Abu Nasir.  This seems like a disaster waiting to happen - and we’re treated to a few unbearably tense scenes where we suspect that Lynne’s cover is going to be blown - but fortunately it looks like this is a subplot that’s going to be played out over the course of a few episodes, whilst still providing some shade to the main characters.  Indeed, we get to see much more of both Carrie and Brody’s personal lives this week.  Carrie has a sister, who she doesn’t see that much of, and when she does it’s invariably to pick up drugs so that the CIA won’t find out about her condition.  Not only that, but we also learn that her father has the same “illness.”  Carrie is such an isolated character, that it’s important for the show to set up these connections now, be it with her family (or suggestions thereof) or her relationships with Saul and Virgil.  Meanwhile, Brody’s family are still adjusting to his return, with his son asking him non-too-subtly what it’s like to kill someone.  When Brody’s reaction is to wander into the garden and attack a journalist wandering onto their property before disappearing through the forests out back, it doesn’t look good.  Jessica, meanwhile, clearly has some unresolved feelings towards Mike, but the scenes between her and Brody show something even more complex, and I particularly liked her sitting with him in the den, patiently insistent that one day he will want to talk about what happened to him during his captivity.  It’s these moments of calm that make the louder moments so unbearably tense, and the ending of the episode, in which we discover that Brody has converted to Islam, was a real jaw-dropper of a moment.  Excellent television on pretty much every level.

Pan Am, Season 1, Episode 3: Ich Bin Ein Berliner

The best episode yet, and one that balances the fun, frothy side of the jet set with a more sober, touching subplot.  This week we’re flying to West Berlin, where Kennedy is giving a speech that inspires a range of feelings in our characters.  In the most throwaway storyline, Maggie obsesses about shaking hands with the great man himself, wheedling herself a press pass from an admiring journalist that allows her access to a party Kennedy is attending.  This mostly serves as a way to cap off Kate’s storyline, who is given another courier mission that puts her into contact with her German equivalent, doing much the same job under much more difficult conditions.  Told by her superiors that they are unable to help this woman, Kate manages to smuggle her into the Kennedy party, where she’s able to get the help she needs to leave the country.  Again, it’s nice to see that this Cold War thread can be treated with just a dash of seriousness without overwhelming the rest of the show, or doing a disservice to the more exciting aspects of the storyline.  By far the most successful storyline of the episode, however, was Collette’s, whose mixed feelings for Berlin and America’s union with Germany stem from the Nazi occupation of France, in which her parents were killed.  Both Karine Vanesse’s performance, and a nuanced script, help shade in Collette’s feelings of outrage, not only at people’s abilities to forget the atrocities her family suffered through, but at herself for being unable to let go of her own anger.  It also keys in nicely with both Kate’s story (Collette interrogates the German spy as to her family’s involvement with the Nazi regime) and Maggie’s attempts to crash the Kennedy party, at which – in a captivating scene – she sings the German national anthem, filling it with anger, regret and irony.  The writers wisely choose not to provide Collette with an emotional resolution to her trip to Berlin, and instead we have her confessing the ambiguity of her feelings to Kate, who is unable to offer anything in return to assuage her feelings.  As much as I’ve enjoyed the lightness of Pan Am in its first two weeks, this showed a glimmer of something weightier underneath all that, and if the show can balance the two, it could prove to be really quite something.

Revenge, Season 1, Episode 4: Duplicity

Several shows pulled out their best episodes so far this week, with Revenge especially managing to pull all of its narrative threads together into a satisfying whole.  This week’s target is Dr. Banks, the psychiatrist that institutionalised Emily as a child and stopped her from seeing her father, something she did at Victoria’s request in order to land herself a plush private practice.  As always, there’s no real doubt that she deserved what was coming to her.  What’s pleasing is the way in which this draws on other storylines that have been simmering along for awhile, in particular Victoria’s strained relationship with Charlotte, which in turn informed her growing affection towards Declan.  Like last week’s episode, “Duplicity” reached its head at a swanky private function designed to promote the bond between mother and daughter, only for Emily to replace an introductory DVD with footage from Dr. Banks’ sessions (which she has been secretly taping) as the brilliantly-named “Hamptons Exposed.”  There were also a few pleasingly dark twists thrown in, especially Emily’s willingness not only to ruin Banks’ reputation, but to knock her over the head and hold her in a storage locker, and Daniel’s college buddy who seems awfully intent on keeping him apart from his new girlfriend.  Even though I’m not sure as to Daniel’s friend’s intentions, I imagine it won’t be long before he makes an additional notch on Emily’s “roadmap of revenge,” since she really is a take-no-prisoners-type.  I’d be happy if they dropped the drippy romance with Jack and the dog that seems to follow Emily wherever she goes, but otherwise this is the kind of episode that puts even early Gossip Girl to shame in its perfectly-engineered trashiness.

Ringer, Season 1, Episode 5: A Whole New Kind of Bitch

Perhaps the most surprising episode of the week, in that it approached basic competency, was Ringer’s “A Whole New Kind of Bitch.”  Following last week’s revelation, the show decided to go for broke rather than shuffle it under the carpet.  Gemma, on discovering that her best friend is dead and has been replaced by her twin sister, blackmails Bridget into sleeping with her husband so that she’s able to trigger the infidelity clause in her pre-nup.  Someone who knows Bridget’s secret and isn’t particularly inclined to hide it could make for some pretty good television, so it’s even more surprising when we discover that Henry has apparently killed her.  I say “apparently,” because I wouldn’t be surprised if this were all some big double bluff on the show’s part and Gemma is alive and kicking in a few episode’s time.  The other ongoing storyline is that of Bridget trying to “fix” the wrongs in Siobhan’s life, which doesn’t merely extend to her feelings towards Andrew (which sort of make sense), but also to his renegade teenage daughter (which makes less sense).  I’m actually quite a fan of these scenes, if only because they ground the wackier stuff going on and, up to this point, have been both better realised (if clichéd) and well-acted.  Now that Ringer has been officially picked up for a full season, I suspect that these backburner-type plots will either get a chance to really shine, or feel this is an excuse to drag them on interminably.  Let’s hope for the former.

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