The Boob Tube Review: Nov. 30, 2011

Every week, we discuss the television we've been watching. There are usually plenty of spoilers, so beware:


Walking Dead: "Pretty Much Dead Already"
Season 2, Episode 7, AMC 

Guys! Guys. In a half-season of nothing, so much happened this episode, so many pointless things learned! The episode opened real strong like, with a lot of looking and head-shaking and looking and nodding. Emmys for everyone! Daryl and Carol didn't bone but they probably will have sad sex soon (it's one of the Kubler-Ross stages). Maggie must still be on her period because, man, mood-swings! T-Dog (or is it T-Bone?) had a line! Glenn discovered the benefits of washing hair with raw egg (so silky, so shiny). Hershel is a mouth breather when he eats (I bet he breathes really loudly on the phone too. He really is the worst). Dale is maybe omnipresent? No abortion metaphor is too big for the writers (barn=womb, zombies=fetuses, Shane=crazed coat-hanger wielding feminist). Those life-guard thingys that are used to fish poops out of pools are also strong enough to wrangle zombies. Rick's Sheriff hat has magical powers to turn Carl into an annoying mini-Rick who feels empowered enough to lay down the law (pun definitely intended). Shane's forehead vein is this close to getting it's own spin-off show. Oh and they found Sophia. And there was great rejoicing. Yay. 

What really rankles me about the farm folk seeing the walkers as sick people in need of care (aside from the fact that they keep them locked in a barn and feed them live chickens – that may work for livestock, Hershel but if that's how you treat sick people, yeesh...) is that it ignores when Maggie took out the zombie with the bat (when she was on her horse) that was attacking Andrea. And there is the whole Otis going to the high school with Shane thing. They knew he would be killing zombies there, he took a gun, it was infested. He mentioned that he'd done runs like that before. How does that reconcile with their whole Thou Shalt Not Kill the Festering Dead worldview? It could have been a really interesting story-arc if Hershel was some sort of cult leader forcing his peopleto do his bidding. Instead the writers had to go all real talk and push the whole anti-choice thing down our throats first with Lori and then with the Duck Hunt scene at the end. 

I thought the way they handled the Sophia thing was really good. It reminded me of the first episode of the series where Morgan struggled to shoot his wife, who kept coming back to their house out of blood memory. There was a definite poignancy. At that point, there was no way they were going to find her alive but the scene itself was shot to expand on the shock and tragedy. She had been so close the entire time. Like when a raccoon stole my friend's wallet, dropped it almost immediately and for a week it sat on her roof – so painfully close, always in the last place you look! Why it took the entire seven episodes to get there, I will never know (especially since it only needed to take 2 minutes). Why Hershel or the other farm folk didn't think to let her out since they knew the survivors were looking for a young girl and, "hey here's this young zombie girl that we don't know in our zombie barn! Maybe..." I don't know. Why Lori didn't think to get Carl out of there when Shane opened the barn. I can't even begin to guess. Why were all the barn zombies dressed like they were transported from the 19th century... *shrugs*.

Now to wait three whole months for the fallout. Will Hershel kick them out? Or will they just leave out of bad memories? Will Maggie go with them? If not what will happen with the rest of those ten condoms? Are they actually going to have us go through a pregnancy? Or is Lori going to miscarry? How pissed off will I be if there is that cop out? (SO PISSED OFF.) So long enchanted forest, we had some good times! Cue montage of hanging zombie, well zombie, pharmacy zombie, foot-gnawing zombie, Otis, zombie Louise, arrow in the eye zombie, Mrs Fisher zombie and zombie horde to Diana Ross and Lionel Richie's "Endless Love". - Alex Snider 

I've seen a horror movie. I had no doubt Sophia was dead. Anyone else? This is show is a wasted opportunity wrapped in excellent make up work. Last season it felt as if any character could die at any moment. Now I wonder which character will annoy me more. - Cody McGraw 


Dexter: "Get Gellar"

Season 6, Episode 9, Showtime

The bloody writing was on the wall, everyone, Gellar is dead and his appearances are but manifestations of sweet-faced baby Hanks' imagination. Damn! Did not see that one coming what with all the talk about Dex's dark passenger and the professor supposedly leaping from tiny second story windows. I'm a little disappointed that Dexter didn't sort it out on his own. But, well, his genius needs to rest some of the time, I guess. Deb, last week so close to realizing that Dexter is a really shitty brother, just let it go and focused instead on how the writers insist on abusing her with the world's worst story-lines this side of True Blood's Tara. Murderous fiancé, murdered lover, dead mother, neglectful father. She didn't even hit on Antoine, her kidnapped and tortured boyfriend, the several times she's been shot, the murdered sister-in-law, her lack of friends and frakking LaGuerta. She is the writer's punching bag. The weird buddy-cop routine with Quinn and Batista is awful and I hate it. Quinn nailed a waitress at a waffle house. It's funny because she's fat and old! Haha, get it! The Miami cops once again earn their keep by looking for religious fanatics who used some poor guy's wireless, all while ignoring the huge, abandoned church directly next door. And Louis has the same CD mix that I listen to when getting it on. - AS 

American Horror Story: "Rubber Man"

Season 1, Episode 8, AMC

I LOVE it when a show decides to totally forgo character consistency, plot consistency and just takes a story arc in a whole new direction in one freaking episode! I loved it during Battlestar Galatica's AMAZING second season, with their stellar black market and Scar episodes and I'm loving it now with AHS. This week, out of nowhere, the writers have decided that Ben is going to doubt Vivien's sanity, eventually leading to her being institutionalized. Based on what? Based on it works for moving along the plot! I kinda feel like I was being gaslit, too, along with Vivien. And, as any literary-fiend familiar with plot devices knows, like Chekhov's gun, when a Charlotte Gilman Perkins novella is mentioned in the first act it will be acted out by the third. At least there was no intense ableism this episode? - AS

I really wish their daughter would wear make up. Just sayin'. Also, no Jessica Lange, no show. - CM

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