Republic of Doyle - The One Who Got Away, S01E06

Well, if you thought that Jake Doyle (Allan Hawco)'s problems with women started when anytime recently, The One Who Got Away shows you just how useless he was with them when he was in high school.

When his high school on-again-off-again girlfriend Stacey (Warehouse 13's Joanne Kelly) shows up to town with her new husband, Jake's heart hit a bit of a brick wall despite his new relationship with Constable Leslie (Krystin Pellerin), but things only got worse when she asked him to find out if her husband was "going out on her." You gotta love the Newfie expressions

Doyle made himself an idiot again and again for this girl, but it was totally in keeping with the way he behaves around most of the women in his life, and really showed that, despite what you may think, he has in fact come a far way since high school. I must commend the choice of having a record come to a screeching halt to moment he saw her, with a quick cut to a juke box malfunctioning. Cliches can still be awesome when used correctly.

Then again, Doyle getting into a car chase with the RCMP, and only ending up in jail under suspicion of murder, with no charges being levied for the first offense is a little unbelievable. Of course, since Frank, the bad guy in all of this, accidentally shot himself in the neck and is now not worth rolling on despite his connections with the Montreal Mafia, I suppose it's not such a big deal.

The most memorable part of the episode, though I did enjoy it all very much, was when Rose (Lynda Boyd) confessed to Malachy (Sean McGinley) that she was married and that her husband had just got out of jail. Her difficulty in admitting the fact, and Malachy's short, dismissive, and slightly cruel answer suited the pair perfectly, and I am anxious to see how the whole thing will work out.

Whether or not Jake and Leslie will work out, however, is another story. I would say they are cute, but I don't entirely get the attraction. I mean, I understand how a person could be attracted to either, but...well maybe it's that I don't believe Krystin Pellerin is in love. Which is unfortunate, and gives me more desire for Jake to reconcile with his wife, who is also crazy just like him.

Spartacus: Blood and Sand - Mark of the Brotherhood, S01E08

Although Spartacus has been charged with being exaggerated to the point of ridiculousness in its violence, a point well demonstrated by the opening of Mark of the Brotherhood, every episode does an exceptional job of conveying a theme.

This episode was founded in motivation: what motivates these characters, why does it do so, and what is the result?

Crixus (Manu Bennett) is recovering slowly from his injuries. Though not yet ready for battle, he feels he must prove his worth to his dominus, Batiatus (John Hannah), causing his to take on Spartacus and be embarrassingly defeated because he took on the challenge before he was ready for it. His desire to prove himself capable had the opposite effect, and had it not been for a different motivation more important to Crixus than his own sense - that of protecting a gladiatorial brother from death at the hands of a slave - he would have been sold - the exact opposite of his desire.

Naevia (Lesley-Ann Brandt) also acts against her desires to see greater desires answered. She convinces Crixus to show their domina, Lucretia (Lucy Lawless), his sexual prowess so that she will convince her husband not to see him. Though she would rather her mistress lose interest in their shared lover, she would rather he share both beds than neither.

Segovax (Mike Edward) suffers the worst for giving into a motivation he held higher than others. Although he arrived at the ludus fully prepared to give himself over the gladiatorial training, far more dedicated to learning the ways than Spartacus (Andy Whitfield) was when he arrived, his desire for freedom was no less strong. When promised it by Ilithyia (Viva Bianca), he attacked Spartacus whom he had up till then held in great regard. What a waste of talent and potential, but what could he do. Regardless of the promise of freedom, his domina asked something of him.

I do not, however, understand his motivation for keeping silent despite torture as to what prompted him to attack the champion. It is a strange kind of honour that has a slave protect the master that got him in the scrape in the first place.

Even Varro (Jai Courtney) explored his motivations, as Spartacus finally learnt why his friend had returned to gambling and whores. Pained by his wife's betrayal, although it was brought on by his own, he turned from her and himself, and lost himself in his former vices. Good thing he has a friend like Spartacus, who knows the pain of having lost a wife, to keep him on course.

Only Spartacus has unclear motivations. As Crixus put it, he is playing the part of champion, and doing a good job of it too, but he does not understand or believe in what he is doing. When Crixus saved him from Segovax, he could not understand why his enemy would help him. To Crixus, it is quite simply, a brother should not let a brother be killed by a slave, even if that brother is hated when he is named. Spartacus clearly still has much to learn, but perhaps that is alright, as I'm not sure that we want him to conform.

And so, Spartacus: Blood and Sand continues to deliver more than what first appeared to be the whole of the show. Do you watch it for this depth, or is the sex and violence what brings you back again and again?

Republic of Doyle - Hit and Rum, S01E05

Well it had to happen: this episode of Republic of Doyle was decidedly weaker than any of the others before it. Of course, there have been 3 since, and the show has already been renewed for a second season, so it doesn't really matter...unless the 3 averaged about the same level of quality.

The case that Jake (Allan Hawco) and Malachy (Sean McGinley) took on was commissioned by a woman whom Jake described as "so hot, especially for a taxi driver. She suspected her husband was up to something, but had no idea what. It turned out that he was smuggling Rum from St. Pierre et Miquelon. Now, if you didn't know where that is, the show did a good job letting us know. Des (Mark O'Brien) didn't either, and Jake explained that it's the French island off the coast of Newfoundland. He also exclaimed "Didn't you do to school!" but unless you grew up in Newfoundland, the comment doesn't really apply to you.

Eventually, Jake and Malachy ended up on that island, in what was simply a long and boring scene where the Rum-Runner who's eluded the Canadian police for so long annoyed with speeches on Al Capone. Finally his niece drugged him, and he was dragged back to Canada for the cops to find.

The stuff going on in their personal lives was not much better. Jake and Malachy had a bet that Jake couldn't go 3 days without getting punched in the face. At the end, when Jake had all but succeeded, Malachy punched him. It might have been amusing if it hadn't been so predictable, and I'd rather see Jake get hit in the face by someone else.

Nikki (Rachel Wilson) continued to date her new doctor, and although Jake kept showing up to interfere, it looked as though things were going well. But just at the end of the episode, as Jake went to start a relationship with Leslie (Krystin Pellerin), Nikki clearly had a facial expression that indicated doubt in the new course she had chosen.

So adding those things to the mysterious postcard Rose (Lynda Boyd) got, and things will likely get good again next episode, but this one just didn't bring the joy and happiness of the others. Or was that just my opinion of it?

Parenthood - Pilot, S01E01

I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting when I started to watch the premiere of Parenthood. I guess it was surfaces. I didn't really expect the problems to reach deep into my emotional make up, to hit the viscera. I thought there would be touching moments, and funny moments, and even sad moments, but that they would be observed moments, instead of true pictures with the full range of helplessness.

Parenthood, in its first episode, has perfectly illuminated the difficulties of being a parent, as well as being a child to a parent or a parent to a parent.

Through great acting by a terrific cast, including a host of household names - Monica Potter, Lauren Graham, Craig T. Nelson, etc - we are confronted with the most difficult part of relating to our own family: selfishness. Somehow, with friends and acquaintances we can dismiss many disagreements that we cannot do with our own family members. Perhaps because it is more important to us that our parents agree with our methods of child rearing than our friends, or perhaps because we feel that our family should listen to our differing opinion and love us anyway, though we won't take that risk with someone outside the family circle.

The give and take between parent and child is not possible to balance. Children need to be given so much - they don't understand a parent's need to have personal space or time, they don't realize how much they can hurt by withholding their affections, they don't know what selfishness is. But adults need things to. They can't give every part of themselves to their child. Should they, and could they, live for themselves until they have children, and from that days forth, give every part of themselves to that child? And if they could, without going insane, who would pay for it all?

The same goes for the relationships between husbands and wives. Adam (Peter Krause) and Kristina (Monica Potter) demonstrated this perfectly when Kristina tried to tell her husband that something was seriously, medically wrong with their son. He refused to hear it. He continued talking about other solutions, other possibilities, without listening to what she had to say because he did not want to hear it. He did not want to know.

He neglected to think about the fact that she did not want to know either. That if she could, she would ignore it all as well. And since she did know, she needed him to know so that he could offer her his support.

We have to make choices for ourselves, and be a little selfish, because no one else is going to put us first, but we also have to make the effort again and again to give as much to other people. But there is a limit to how much one can give. I am quite excited to see how Parenthood develops when it already has such a clear and potent theme.

This Week on Television - March 10-16

http://www.couchcampus.com/television/tv-talk/this-week-on-television-march-10-16/

Caprica - The Imperfections of Memory, S01E07

The Imperfections of Memory...nice title. I often with that the imperfections of my memory could transform Caprica into the show I want it to be.

I can't even say for sure why I continue to watch the show - perhaps in the hopes that Peter Wingfield will have another cameo? It certainly lacks the qualities which bring one back again and again. I seem to realize that Caprica's been on, so I watch it, and then I think that it did not meet the expectations I had for it.

I still think that part of the reason it is not meeting my expectations is that it is not giving me any. I have no idea where the plot is going. I am not sure what religious beliefs I am supposed to be questioning or considering, and I am equally unsure about what sort of social commentary is being made, or how it is relevant to me.

I do enjoy Polly Walker as Sister Clarice, though how anyone who does not know her can recognize her as a member of the cloth, I cannot tell - her clothes and hair have nothing singular about them. And Paula Malcomson's Amanda Greystone is becoming more interesting, as she risks going insane for a second time due to grief. But what is the point of her being crazy? What will that achieve?

I need motivation, I need a goal. I need to want something to happen in the next episode, and I don't even care if Joseph Adama (Esai Morales) finds his daughter in V-world. If you watch, please tell me why!

Vampire Diaries - Fool Me Once, S01E14

This was a much better place to go on hiatus for over a month than the episode dating from before the Christmas break. How utterly heartbreaking...and what fear for the future it has given me.

I adore Ian Somerhalder. His portrayal of Damon ranges from pure evil, to cheeky bastard, to lost little lamb, and throughout all three, determination and pain prevail. He has been on a quest to recover his lost love for more than 140 years, and the pain of losing her because of his own brother's foolishness has grown with every passing moment. Katherine motivates everything he has ever done since even before he turned, so the discovery that she is not in the tomb, that, worse, she has always known where to find him, but has not, not only forces him to reevaluate all those choices over all that time, but will likely change him entirely. I am very excited to see Somerhalder have even more ammunition to work with.

And if Somerhalder's violent near-temper-tantrum was heart-wrenching, it was nothing compared to Katerina Graham's portrayed grief as Bonnie. Her entire body shook with sobs when she realized that her beloved grandmother had passed. Her desperation was no less than Damon's as she pawed through the grimoire in search of a spell that would bring her back.

But for all the grief and pain present, Caroline (Candice Accola) made up for it with such amusing speeches, giving Matt (Zach Roerig) an escape clause from their relationship, and then apologizing for being lame because she acted bizarrely in front of Damon and Elena (Nina Dobrev).

I can't wait for the show to resume on March 25. What will become of Damon? And are Anna and her mother gone for good? What about all the Vampires under the church - are they going to awaken and walk the earth once more?

The Mentalist - Code Red, S02E16

"I've been murdered."

Not the kind of call you ever expect to get, regardless of what part you play in police work. Yet, Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) received such a call and set off an episode which explored death, and the acceptance of it.

At a lab, a scientist was purposely exposed to a virus which would kill her in a matter of hours. There was no cure, and so, though she remained alive for half the episode, her death was already certain. Neither she nor her husband panicked, however, although her daughter, reached via webcam, was more distraught and angry.

Jane intervened on the daughter's behalf after the death, sending her to seek comfort from a friend through hypnotic suggestion. She had refused to leave the computer, to cut the link that attached her to the lab where her mother's body lay dead. I was sorry that we did not get to see more grief from the husband after his wife was dead - before, as he stated, it would not have helped her - but there was so much going on that distraction is no wonder.

The virus was released a second time, making victims of the entire compound, including Jane and Lisbon (Robin Tunney). Though Lisbon begged Jane to tel her it was one of his tricks, he assured her it was not. But, no surprise, he was lying. He did it so that the murderer, who would be the only person to survive the attack, would try to escape before the place was firebombed to prevent the spread of disease.

He let Lisbon accept her fate, though as gracefully as most other's in the building, before revealing to her that it was, indeed a hoax. She was so angry that she threatened to punch him in the nose. And when it seemed that his trick had not paid off, she did punch him. It was beautiful. Finally there was some sort of consequence for Jane's ridiculous behaviour. Though, he still succeeded in both his goals - the murderer was apprehended and Lisbon felt a little more invigorated and grateful to be alive than before.

The most tragic part of the entire episode was the motive for murder: money. But not the usual way. The death of the scientist did not bring the murderer any money, but was designed merely to disguise theft of the drug. A fellow scientist exposed her so that an inspector would not be able to notice that some of the drug had been stolen, since an entire vile had been accidentally opened.

He had no malice towards her, her death was only a mask for his other crimes, and yet he did not care that she had died. Then again, he was selling a deadly virus on the black market - what is the murder of one innocent compared to that.

Chuck - Chuck vs the Tic Tac, S03E10

I've been requesting, even demanding, a Casey (Adam Baldwin)-centric episode for the entirety of the third season, and when they finally give it to me, it ends like this? Argh!

Don't get me wrong, I loved the Casey-centricness. He did what he had to to save a woman he once loved, he disguised himself and coerced/convinced Morgan (Joshua Gomez) to do his bidding, and he kicked serious butt and killed the man who had not only corrupted his former master, but was also threatening his former fiancee. Plus we finally got to find out about his past - not only did he have a fiancee, but she was pregnant (and he didn't know), so he has a daughter! And I bet she's awesome and wants to be just like her dad.

Getting to see and learn all that made it worth it, despite Casey having suddenly begun trimming his bonsai again, which I don't remember him doing since he allowed his inner anger out, and Casey having called a woman he referred to as his mother and calling himself John-boy in the Christmas episode of Season 2. What was that all about??

But now, Casey is no longer in the army? He's a civilian? That gives me very little confidence that the lack of Casey I was feeling before this episode is going to go away. If Casey no longer goes on missions, how often will we get to see him?

So what did you think? Did you love it, or was your affection for the episode compromised, as mine was, by the seeming result that we will get even less Casey from here on out?

The Good Wife - Fleas, S01E16

As Lockhart and Stern continues to suffer financial concerns, they take up a cause that is more than a little morally dubious. A drug dealer's lawyer is accused of allowing his client to see a witness list, resulting in the murder of one of those witnesses.

Though I far prefer Will (Josh Charles) to Diane (Christine Baranski), the latter has been gaining my affections of late. She is not pleased with the idea of working for people whom they suspect strongly t0 be guilty, regardless of the fact that the guilty have equal right to representation. She wants to stay above board, whereas Will just wants to keep the firm afloat.

By the end of the episode, though, they are both in agreement that a better solution than having multiple drug-dealing clients would be to get a new third partner who would bring new clients into the firm, and therefore increase the revenue.

Diane's treatment of Alicia (Julianna Margulies) has also settled. And this at the same time as Will has become more skittish. He has no real idea of how to behave towards Alicia now that Peter (Chris Noth) has been released from prison, so thank God Diane is no longer against our heroine, or she'd be in real trouble.

And, if we weren't already well aware of the strain of Peter and Alicia's relationship, this episode highlighted it brilliantly. We don't really know why Alicia had condoms in her bedside table. Though we know that Zach (Graham Phillips) searched for them at the end of the episode, we don't know that he put them there in the first place. But Peter's reaction to the condoms was so full of jealous pain that we know he could not really blame Alicia if she was sleeping with someone else.

Alicia stayed with Peter when most women would have left, but that does not mean she has forgiven him, or that he has forgiven himself. He wants his wife back. He wants her to want him. But she is still to mad. And he can't trust her because he cannot blame her if she did want someone else, and he knows, as we all do, that Will would be more than willing to help her out there.

Alicia's reaction, though, was perfect. So angry and defiant! She let Peter know that she is not the one who has to earn his trust, and that she is going to do what she wants.

Finally, though, I want to again commend Alan Cumming's character, Eli Gold. When they discovered that Zach's horrid girlfriend, Becca (Dreama Walker) was spreading rumours on Twitter, he shut her down so fast! As he confronted her, she screamed to a passing police officer, but he did nothing as he recognized Gold. Whether Gold hired a police officer he knew to pass at that moment, or whether he knows so many of the police officers in the city is actually hard to guess, considering the type of man he is. But his comment to her was even better than any other part of his plan. "Have you seen Drag me to Hell? It will be just like that."

Mad Men may just have to look out; there's another drama that is hitting the mark every time.

Castle - The Mistress Always Spanks Twice, S02E16

This show just seems to get better and better every week! And the audience ratings are going up along with it. If you aren't watching Castle yet, don't worry, you will be soon. And you really should soon because it is so funny and clever.

Castle (Nathan Fillion) and Beckett (Stana Katic) have such great chemistry and play off each other so well that it is quite impressive for me to state that this episode contained the best interaction between the two yet. Though, perhaps, in an episode where S+M is a huge part of the plot, it is not so surprising. "What aren't you telling me?" asks Castle. "So much, Castle. So very very much," replies Beckett.

In the pursuit of the killer, Kate played the dominating woman multiple times: to tease Castle, to make "Ricky" an appointment with Mistress Venom, and to confront a suspect. While Beckett is usually the most in control of the characters in the show, the difference between her usual competence and when she turned on the domination easily demonstrates the difference between a strong woman and a controlling and manipulative one.

The plot of The Mistress Always Spanks Twice also addressed the issues of codependent relationships. Though the obvious first suspect was the boyfriend who had been completely ignorant of the victim's other life as Mistress Venom, the real murderer was far more original, as well as equally based in the power structure of the relationship. The victim's roommate murdered her because she was leaving her to live with her boyfriend, and because she was hurt that the victim felt that she was controlling. It doesn't matter whether the relationship is sexual or platonic, violence can erupt whenever a perceived weaker party makes a stand.

The lesson is to be strong, but to be cautious. Always be cautious!