The Week In TV 27/11/2011
The Good Wife, Season 3, Episode 9: Whisky Tango Foxtrot
One of the many impressive things about The Good Wife is that it’s always known how to re-use its guest stars without it seeming like the show has a paucity of ideas. And so we saw a return to military court, which proved so amusingly infuriating back in Season 1. This time, a young woman has been accused of ignoring orders from on high before firing on a target in Afghanistan, killing several civilians. In the show’s long-standing tradition of never painting anything in black or white, we’re left in doubt as to how guilty this woman is. Will and Alicia’s case falls back - somewhat flimsily - on sexism within the military, although concerns about her use of caffeine pills and the stress of the job are also brought into question. But as Judge Kuhn points out to Alicia at episode end when she’s convicted this homely-seeming young woman to a severe jail sentence, civilians were killed (two of them minors); “this was a just verdict.” It’s a nice turnabout to the momentum the episode has built up based on our assumption of the client’s vulnerability and how this influences our assumption of her innocence. Of course, “Whisky Tango Foxtrot” was perhaps more memorable for the moments of fierce assertion it grants to Diane - who this week tells Will to end things with Alicia in order to make Peter’s investigation go away - and Alicia, again standing up to Jackie when she discovers that she’s been snooping through her laptop. The return of Wendy Scott-Carr surely doesn’t bode well for the investigation into Will, which is sure to take a nasty turn sometime. Top notch.
Gossip Girl, Season 5, Episode 8: All The Pretty Sources
A particularly thin episode, based as it is around Nate, Charlie and a low-level misunderstanding between Blair and Serena. What’s frustrating is that the elements should read success – Gossip Girl’s sources revealed! Charlie’s identity finally unmasked! Blair and Louis finally/maybe breaking things of! – but the execution is so poor as to merit most of this useless. Charlie, now sacked by Diana, has little purpose on this show, and the writers are still trying to push her as a sympathetic character, with her ex-boyfriend showing up this week to rumble her and demand money to start up his own restaurant. As revenge schemes go, it’s hardly monumental. Meanwhile, we’re teased with the suggestion that there’s more to Diana’s shady relationship with Nate’s grandfather than meets the eye, but the whole scene where she falsely admits to posting Gossip Girl’s sources on the Spectator website felt hollow. Are we really supposed to believe she cares about Nate? And why? Because he’s a “decent man?” The only vaguely entertaining aspect to the episode was Blair’s Tiffany party, which was cute and fluffy, and even gave Blake Lively an opportunity to put on a smile rather than continually running her fingers through her hair in frustration at her current work/love life dilemma. It’s unfortunate then that what should have been the episode’s emotional peak – Blair realising that Louis is a self-involved ass – was so muted. It’s been obvious since last season that this relationship was never going to last, and whilst Season 4 played with the idea of Blair having to accept reality rather than fairytale, Season 5 has fully embraced her relationship with Louis to the point of tiresomeness.
Homeland, Season 1, Episode 8: Achilles Heel
When an episode of TV contains such a big twist as that which came at the end of “Achilles Heel,” it’s difficult to judge the entirety of the episode on its own merits. And aside from that one big twist, this was another low-key look at these characters’ lives, not just the jobs they perform, but also their personal lives or lack thereof. Following last week’s breakdown, Brody spends most of the episode trying to make amends with his family, in particular rekindling his romance with Jessica when they’re invited to a swanky social event that seems engineered to steer him towards politics. The warmth of these scenes, particularly that last scene of the family together watching Ice Age, were perfectly judged and hugely touching. Lending a stark contrast to the Brody family’s domestic bliss is Saul’s unravelling marriage, as his wife leaves him in a heartfelt goodbye scene made all the more bittersweet by the fact that his plans to cook her breakfast and take her to the airport are curtailed by an emergency at work. As Carrie succinctly puts it later: “I’m going to be alone my whole life, aren’t I?” Frustratingly, given how astute Homeland is at nailing the personal lives of its principal characters, Carrie’s scenes Tom’s wife are disappointingly predictable, especially since the writing plays up her sense of longing for the man she assumed was dead eight years ago, only to be told that he’s alive and has been turned by Al-Qaida. That said, even predictability can yield results, and if the show needed to manoeuvre Tom into a position where he was aware that the CIA were onto him, then it worked, in a stunning chase sequence that left two innocent civilians taking early morning prayers at a downtown mosque dead. The one potentially worrying aspect of “Achilles Heel” was the end, in which the gentlemen seen giving Tom a key to locker containing a sniper rifle returns home only to find Brody sat in his living room. It’s a shocking scene, and Damien Lewis is wonderful and conveying coiled anger, but it does raise the question of what kind of show Homeland wants to be. Does this point to a new direction, where twist follows twist and the status quo is constantly being reset? It’s hard to say at this point, but I’m holding onto the fact that the show hasn’t cheated us. Right now, it feels like “Achilles Heel” robbed some of the meaning of “The Weekend,” but bear in mind that it was Brody rather than the show asking us to take his admissions at face value, and that whilst his contact with what seems like a terrorist outfit may seem damning, I’m willing to bet it’s not as black and white as all that.
Revenge, Season 1, Episode 9: Suspicion
All the table setting last week sure paid off this week, with a whole tangle of plotlines coming to a head, and a thankfully small amount of screen time granted to Declan and Charlotte. The real Emily Thorne is, as seen in last week’s cliffhanger, sticking around for good, even going so far as to tell Jack that she is the real Amanda, thus making her even more difficult for Emily to get rid off, since it’s clear that a cheque and a few kind words just aren’t going to cut it. And this isn’t even the least of Emily’s problems, as Tyler recovers Lydia’s original benefit speech from Nolan’s computer. Cleverly, Nolan recovers it whilst also outing Tyler to Ashley, but this only counts as a momentary speedbump in their relationship, their pact to step on anybody else on their way to the top holding things steady. It was a beautifully pieced together episode of TV, with yet more repercussions of Emily’s actions unravelling, a promising flashback to her time in Japan learning the act of vengeance from mysterious new character Satoshi, and a few great character moments.
