Dexter - My Bad, S05E01

If you had already recovered from last year's shocking finale, the quick recap did an excellent job of bringing all those horrified emotions. Not a moment has passed in all that time for Dexter (Michael C. Hall), and not a moment has passed for any of us. Still stunned, the passage of time has started again, and we can only hope that we will heal along with the characters on the show. But is that even possible for them?

Rita's death last year is only the beginning of...well...of something. It's still hard to see where we are going. Dexter's utter and complete shock over finding her body rendered him almost non-functional. Naturally, he blames his sociopathic condition for his inability to feel rather than understanding that it is not an unnatural place for his mind to go to protect him from his pain. Everyone deals with grief differently. Dexter can't even acknowledge his until he is suddenly confronted by that jerk as he is trying to run from his past and from everyone who loves him. The surge of emotion he felt as he knocked that man's head in for saying something rude and unfeeling about Rita, and then the screams of pain as he broke down. Michael C. Hall is certainly deserving of every award and nomination he has ever received.

Whether that man truly deserved to have his head bashed in is an argument for another day.

And while, as usual, Dexter moves the story along and is its focus, I really loved what was going on around him in it. Deb (Jennifer Carpenter) also deals with her grief in the most interesting ways. She managed to be strong for Dexter, protecting him as she could, taking care of his child, and arranging everything for Rita's funeral. He was really checked out of reality for a while, and Deb stepped in and took care of it. Eventually, of course, she demanded physical comfort in the form of sex on Dexter's kitchen floor with Quinn (Dexmond Harrington). Now that was HOT and something we've been waiting for for years.

I've always liked Quinn's issue with Dexter. It works better for me than the issues that Doakes had. Plus, the balance of his feelings for Deb, whom he cares about as his partner if not as more than that, compared to his dislike of her brother...it's just such a tentative balance which the writers know how to play with so effectively, and it makes for fantastic television.

The big question for the season is if Dexter is going to be discovered for who he is or not. If he manages to keep it all hidden, how is that going to happen, and if it all comes out, how is he going to manage to shift the blame? He is far more capable of humanity now that when Doakes was supposed to take the fall for him, but has that capability been destroyed by Rita's death? So many questions and only 11 more episodes to get all the answers.

Supernatural - Exile on Main Street, S06E01

It's been a year since the Winchester brothers stopped the apocalypse, sending Sam (Jared Padalecki) to a cage in Hell, and Dean (Jensen Ackles) to live happily ever after with his one true love. That would not have been a bad way of ending the series; in fact, that was the intended end, but now we find ourselves in a world where Sam has not only found himself back on Earth, but Grandpa Samuel (Mitch Pileggi) has come back too. Time for the Winchesters to team up with their Campbell relatives and figure out what is going on.

I'm not nervous anymore. At the end of last season, I was concerned that the decision to continue rather than concluding the show would ruin such a terrific series. But the premiere has me very excited. Why are Sam and Samuel back in the game? What twisted and horrible plan requires both of them? Or is it something that the good guys want?

And what about the Campbells and Samuel kidnapping that djinn? What have they got going on that they clearly feel the Winchester boys can't know about? Are they experimenting? Torturing the monsters for answers? Trying to use their powers against them? And if their methods are resulting in things like a cure for the djinn poison, then why must it be kept hush hush?

And speaking of the djinn, is revenge really enough to change their habits and have them become the aggressors? And what is the deal with the other monsters apparently equally disregarding their past restrictions? It's going to make things very interesting now that the hunters cannot accurately predict their foes' behaviours.

Finally, what happened to Sam? Dean was right about one thing - a year ago, Sam would not have hesitated to help people, regardless of the likelihood of it accomplishing anything. So what has changed? I guess we'll just have to keep watching.

The Mentalist - Red Sky at Night, S03E01

Last season, I praised the season finale for finally showing that Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) was capable of weakness and was not always right. It showed the great contrast between how successful he has been at solving crimes and how clever Red John must be so that Jane cannot catch him. After a season of a little too much Jane and not enough police work, the season finale was perfect, and this season premiere picked up with the same excellent attitude.

Lisbon (Robin Tunney) and the rest of the CBI team have taken the most recent encounter with Red John in stride. Yes, he continues to allude them, and no, they still do not know what happened to Christina, but getting caught up in it is not going to help them solve the case. Jane is not so level headed.

I absolutely loved how Lisbon manipulated him into helping on the case after he indicated that he was not interested. Finally, we are getting to see her have the upper hand. Jane's team mates are now starting to get to know him well enough that they can give him back what he gives them. And, in those final moments of the episode, where Lisbon pointed out that Jane has been pulling away from his friends, and he admitted that he was pretty terrified since everyone he cared about ends up getting hurt by Red John.

I am hoping that this new Jane lasts. I like that he is fallible, that the sheen of perfection which he projected to often last season is gone. I don't want his arrogance and self-promotion to disappear entirely, but balance is key. Let's hope that we see more of Lisbon achieving the same results as Jane through real police work - that was definitely my favourite moment of the episode.

Season 1 of The Mentalist won me easily; Season 2 was still quite good, but got stuck in some patterns that were not as interesting as they ought to have been; I hope and believe that Season 3 will have grown from that and continue to give us just enough of Lisbon, Cho (Tim Kang). Van Pelt (Amanda Righetti), and Rigsby (Owain Yeoman) to balance with Jane. Are you hoping for the same thing?

500 Posts

Wow! 500 posts in just over a year. I started blogging about television at the beginning of September last year, and 13 months later, I have hit this huge landmark. I wonder if I will hit the 1000 mark in another 13 months? Had I not taken such a break this summer, I would have hit it a couple months ago.

I want to thank all of you who keep reading these posts, and who comment on them. I really appreciate your readership. Please remember to keep letting me know where you interests lie so that I can keep trying to accommodate them. I continue to love watching TV and I get great fulfillment out of writing about it so that it is no longer the all-consuming and pointless habit that it once was.

So here is hoping that you will stay with me for another 500 insights, and that you will tell your friends and encourage them to start reading too. :)

Vampire Diaries - Bad Moon Rising, S02E03

What are vampires without werewolves? The two have become so intertwined, I can't think of a major vampire or werewolf horror story, movie, or TV show of late which hasn't incorporated both. Oh, and witches. Those are also pretty common these days. But the idea of a doppelganger as a mythical or legendary creature, now there is something unique and very interesting to think about.

The original concept that Elena (Nina Dobrev) looked exactly like Katherine seemed rather like a cool choice to complicate things rather than a decision based on folklore or research. Last season, her resemblance was strange, but the question asked was how Elena, a Gilbert, would look like Katherine, who was not her relative. The answer was that Katherine was in fact a relative. But that never explained the exactness of the similarities. I do hope that this concept continues to be played with.

The werewolves, of course, had a far more prevalent place in the episode. We now know what they are, and hopefully Tyler (Michael Trevino) will now learn what he is so that he is better able to cope. Of course, him seeing Stefan (Paul Wesley) move the way he did, and his reaction of protectiveness for his friends despite the weirdness of it all was particularly moving. Though poor guy, having a girl come onto him and then reject him for Matt (Zach Roerig). I felt worse, however, for Matt when Caroline (Candice Accola) behaved like such a crazy bitch so that he would break up with her and therefor be safe. Naturally, he has no idea what she's going through, and while she is only trying to protect him, losing him may be Katherine's key to manipulating her into losing her humanity.

Finally, I pity Damon (Ian Somerhalder), and am frankly annoyed at Elena about it. Oh sure, there is a great argument that he is a complete and irredeemable jerk. After all, he is really lucky that he did not kill Jeremy. He meant to, and he tried, but the thing is that he did not succeed. Jeremy is still alive, but Elena refuses to forgive the mistake, refuses to remember that Damon is so fragile, so very capable of going off the edge and being crazy. Her mistake was to forget that when she became his friend. She trusted him as she would trust a normal person, and forgot to be careful that he could at any moment turn back into a murderous psychopath. Did she really think that he had transformed so completely, so solidly that quickly? And now, refusing to allow him to redeem himself, she may well force him to become what she hates all the more since what point is there in him remaining good? Then again, she's only 17. What does she know?

How badly will all this work out? We can only wait and watch!

Bones - The Mastodon in the Room, S06E01

So, not only was the 7 month time jump practically superfluous, but everything has returned to how it was before. Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and Booth (David Boreanaz) still have the same tensions, although perhaps Booth is the one who feels more free in his committed relationship with a journalist while Bones is a little sadder about the development. Really, though, nothing has changed.

So here is my plan. I am not going to watch Bones again until Christmas. The hiatus and the fact that this episode wasn't completely awful have made the hatred I was feeling for it dissipate - I have removed it from the list of forever banned. But, I think that the best possibility for me to ever enjoy it again, as relationships between the characters will forever be more important than true forensics, is to only binge watch. So, when we reach the Christmas hiatus, if I have time, I will catch up on the entire first half of season 6 in about a day.

I am still too frustrated with the distractions of character interaction and dynamics. Sure, most of the characters got to remind us of their strengths as scientists (or whatever), which was nice, and Brennan has certainly recultivated her lack of ability of correctly interacting with others, while adding sweetness with statements such as when she compared Angela (Michaela Conlin) to her sister, or when she told Caroline (Patricia Belcher) "I find I would like to hug you." Those were improvements. But it's not enough.

So for those of you planning to watch, I hope you enjoy. I may or may nor join you again come Christmas.