The Sundance Channel has imported an 8-part French miniseries which starts tonight. The Returned is about a mountainside community that starts to experience their dead relatives coming back to life, but not exactly in zombie form- just plain old people coming back. It's a mystery that's gotten great reviews and was so acclaimed in France that it's been brought over here. Be sure to check this one out, tonight at 9pm on IFC/Sundance.
Sesame Street Homeland Parody
Check out Sesame Street's great Homeland spoof!
Downton Abbey Cast on Their Characters
The cast of Downton Abbey discusses their character's defining moments over the course of the show:
TRAILER #2: "True Detective"
Another look at the new HBO miniseries about the hunt for a serial killer, with Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. Premieres Sunday, Jan 12th at 9pm.
RECAP: Homeland 3x05 "The Yoga Play"
This was mostly just an okay episode for me, until the last few minutes kicked it up a notch with some great tension fueled suspense scenes. But once again, too much Dana, as always. We start off with Javadi, the Iranian guy that Saul wants captured and that presumably Carrie is set up to start meeting with, as he pulls into D.C. with no trouble from security. Then Quinn shows up at Saul's to ask him what's going on and Saul finally fills him in on the whole plot he and Carrie cooked up, officially bringing him into the operation. Quinn is stunned, and as we find out that this whole thing was planned from the moment Saul outed Carrie in front of Congress, so am I. And I have to call bullshit on that a little bit, because as you'll remember, we SAW Carrie's reaction to Saul throwing her under the bus- she was alone, and she was not being recorded as far as I could tell. So all that "acting" she was doing was for the benefit of whom? The audience only, apparently. That's a major error, and there were some other scenes like that too in the past few episodes, I'm sorry to say. Carrie couldn't be so into the ruse that she feels the need to fool even herself when she's alone, of all things. Sorry Homeland, but that's a pretty big screw-up.
Carrie is planning to be under full time surveillance by the CIA and the Iranians now, and it looks like she throws all her meds away again, which can't be a good idea. Then Javadi gets into a prepared car from his contact people and now, UGH- Dana and Leo on the run. Dana says they can start a new life someplace else, even get jobs, while Leo the possible murdering psychopath says no, they'll eventually catch us, just enjoy it while we can. Boring.
Back to Carrie, who is paid a visit by Jess of all people, begging Carrie to find Dana, saying that the police won't help and the FBI won't either. I'm not sure I buy that Jess would ever go to Carrie for anything, but of course Carrie promises to do what she can even as she's supposed to be prepping for her mission. After Jess leaves, Carrie calls the FBI agent in charge of monitoring the Brody family, who promptly blows her off, so then she calls Max (another returning cast member!) and tells him they're doing "the yoga play," so she can get in touch with the FBI and dodge her own surveillance. As she heads to the garage she runs into Quinn, who hilariously freaks her out as he casually walks into her from behind a pillar, but he's on her side and wants to help her find Dana. He's also impressed with what she put herself through (so am I, the level of commitment was frankly IMPOSSIBLE), but Carrie goes on her own to the so-called yoga class, with Quinn now keeping tabs on her, as per Saul's directions.
Meanwhile Saul's on a hunting retreat with members of the Senate intelligence committee, including Senator Lockhart (the guy who yelled at Carrie in the congressional hearings), and expecting to be nominated for CIA director soon, so he has to rub shoulders. Carrie goes into the yoga class where a colleague, Lisa, is ready to take her place so that she can sneak out the back way and meet up with Max and Virgil (yay!), who are both mad at her for risking their jobs. The three of them take off to "accidentally" bump into the FBI agent who dissed Carrie on the phone.
A quick cut to Javadi still on his day trip, taking a break to eat a burger and spill it on himself while he watches some woman play with her kid in the yard, but then back to Carrie, who confronts the FBI dude about Dana, telling him to find her or she'll make sure the whole world knows he lost the only person Brody would ever reach out to. Back at the yoga class, the Iranians are watching the building as Quinn watches them, and when he sees the guy starting to go in he tries to delay it by blocking his car- luckily Carrie makes it back literally at the last second so that the guy sees her in class for sure, and she knows she's not made.
Lockhart and Saul are out hunting geese, when Lockhart breaks the news to Saul that he's not going to be nominated CIA director after all, that the president is going to nominate him instead, and that will mean more military action in place of espionage activity. He tells him this is due to Saul's failure to catch Brody, while Saul is angry and disappointed at this turn of events. Understandably. Javadi finally shows up at his destination, where his first act is to change out of the shirt he mussed up, but all this Javadi stuff is still kind of a mystery at this point.
Dana meanwhile, walks into a gas station where she hears on the news that Leo may have killed his brother and royally freaks out, screaming at him to tell her the truth after everything she confessed to him. Leo denies it, only admitting that it happened in front of him, but Dana doesn't accept it and after nearly crashing their car, she says she can't have lies in her life and turns herself in to the police. Whatever.
Carrie's back at home now, while Quinn keeps watch outside, and Saul calls her to berate her for risking their operation by doing the favor for Jess. The Iranian watch seems to have been lifted and Saul's pissed that their efforts were all for nothing, but Carrie's confused and sure that she hadn't been made at the yoga class. Saul hangs up on her and goes to a reception with the politicians, where Lockhart is announced as the nominee in front of everyone and Saul remains upset. He makes his own announcement that he has to go back to work while he still has two weeks left with the agency in his charge and then hightails it out of there.
The FBI brings Dana back home, where she sullenly walks past Jess and Chris to go into her room while they stare at her (seriously, how many times have we seen this exact scene on this show?), and when she sits down on her bed Morgan Saylor reveals that she might possess the funniest cryface since Claire Danes herself. Yeah, it was bad.
Now for the best part of the episode. Quinn's still keeping watch as Carrie gets ready for bed, but he decides to call her and listen to her confess that even though this whole thing was a long shot, she still doesn't think she was made (which of course means she wasn't- we know by now if Carrie believes something, then it has to be true). But there's still no Iranian surveillance on her as she hangs up and goes to bed. Saul finally gets home to find Mira having dinner with a man she worked with in Mumbai, but he brushes right past her and walks upstairs, depressed as usual.
As Carrie's in bed, she suddenly hears people breaking in and rushes to her wall vault, but it's too late, as two of the Iranians catch her and hold her still, ordering her to strip off her clothes. Carrie's terrified and crying, but does it anyway as Quinn suspects something might be happening from outside. He calls Saul, who tells him not to move, but Quinn's unsure. Back inside, Carrie is ordered to put on the clothes they give her as they break her phone and prepare to haul her away. Quinn sees a guy outside the house now and ignores Saul's desist orders, getting out of the car to help Carrie, but he's too late, as they've already put a bag over her head and taken her. Quinn surveys the damage in the house and dejectedly tells Saul they've lost her, but Saul is convinced everything's good as long as they know who's got her. After all, he says, Carrie's been on her own before. The last scene is the two guys dragging Carrie to an unknown location and when they take the bag off her head, of course she's face to face with Javadi in an anonymous room.
That last segment was pretty heart-pounding, but all the Dana stuff in this episode was superfluous at best. Still, next week looks like it might be another bottle episode, with just Carrie and Javadi the whole time? Can't be sure, but we may just get lucky with a possible Dana-free hour, as her little Bonnie and Clyde storyline seems to have wrapped up. Until next time!
RECAP: SNL 10/26 "Edward Norton"
Well, bad writing failed another game host tonight, as Ed Norton gave it his all and more, but there just weren't a lot of genuine laughs. Oh well.
COLD OPEN: Kate McKinnon is Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, who starts off explaining and riffing on the screwed up website that is Healthcare.gov. Some jokes are good, some are lame. Just a so-so opening.
MONOLOGUE: First time host Edward Norton comes out, explaining why he hasn't hosted since Lorne first asked him to back in 2000. He's joined by SNL fave Alec Baldwin, who gives him advice on impressions (Ed's Woody Allen is his best), and then Miley Cyrus (ugh) crashes, telling him to be sure and stick out his tongue. And she's there...why? Does she live under the stage?
AUTUMN'S EVE: Ad for pumpkin scented tampons for fall. Sadly, this short commercial will turn out to be one of the highlights of the night.
SCHOOL VISIT: First sketch has Ed as Officer Rosen, explaining to grade schoolers not to talk to strangers, and Nasim is the annoying class leader who just wants candy from people in vans. I don't know, I found this one long and unfunny.
STEVE HARVEY SHOW: Kenan is the clueless Steve Harvey and Ed is a costume designer, whose creative Halloween costumes Steve can't figure out. It's ok, it's the first of a number of sketches that were just "there," for me, not particularly bad but not any great laughs either. Ed sure is trying though, he's been front and center in everything so far.
WES ANDERSON TRAILER: The best thing in the episode. A horror movie parody of a Wes Anderson movie, that has all the director's precious tics nailed, with Ed doing a spot on Owen Wilson impersonation.
CRITTER CONTROL: Ugh, a genuinely painful one, with Ed and one of the new guys as pest control people interrupting a business meeting to look for possums in the vent. It's really, really bad.
DRUG DEAL: Another miss, with a bunch of the guys in a hotel room, handing over $1 million dollars in drug money, but Ed's brought in to count it and also apparently so he can do his Rain Man impersonation. Not exactly a topical reference, but he must have really wanted to do it. It's ok as an impression, but again, nothing funny in this one.
WEEKEND UPDATE: A really short Update this week, as Seth and Cecily toss off a few jokes about the healthcare website and then Bobby comes out as Anthony Crispino, the only guest, which is rare. He's pretty funny, but that character seems to be descending into more and more shrieking every time we see him.
12 DAYS NOT A SLAVE: Post-Civil War sketch with Jay as a newly freed slave who walks into a bar, upsetting all the racists in it. This is one of those skits with a point to make, in this case, that racism didn't end with emancipation, but there are a couple of laughs near the end about white people trying to dance like black people (sadly, Miley makes another appearance, which just annoys me now).
RUTH'S CHRIS: Another painful one, with a bunch of virgin waiters bragging about sex, which they know less than nothing about. Eh. Goes on too long.
HALLOWEEN CANDY: Ed's a psycho who wants to give out weird Halloween treats instead of regular candy, while his crazy son DIego (Bobby) and a random lady named "Adult Ruth" (Aidy) lurk in the background. They did this same sketch at Christmas with Steve Buscemi a couple of years ago, and it was SO much funnier. I don't know, maybe it's Ed's delivery? Either that or Steve Buscemi doing anything weird is just inherently funny to me.
A pretty middling episode for the Halloween show, but Janelle Monae was good, and I guess overall it deserves a C. Next week should be interesting, as Kerry Washington's hosting (which many see as a direct response to all the criticism SNL's gotten lately over the lack of diversity among its cast), and Eminem's back as the musical guest. See you then!
"Blackfish" on CNN Tonight
The highly acclaimed documentary Blackfish will air on CNN tonight at 9pm ET/PT, so be sure to check it out. This is the controversial film from director Gabriela Cowperthwaite that exposes the cruelty of the SeaWorld parks in the ways they confine orcas to captivity and force them to suffer in environments for which they are unnaturally suited. The film received outstanding reviews and is one of the expected frontrunners for the Best Documentary award at this year's Oscars. CNN segment on the film here:
RECAP: Homeland 3x04 "Game On"
Well, we're back with another Homeland episode, and sadly, after the nice break last week when we caught up with Brody, it's another day, another unbearable and irrelevant Dana subplot. Thankfully, the Carrie stuff tonight is pretty good and comes with a great twist ending that I didn't see coming at all.
So we start off with Carrie waking up in the middle of the night at the psych ward after hearing screams and she sees the staff subduing another patient down the hall. She freaks out and runs back into the safety of her bed, obviously sick of being cooped up for so long (it's been a month, apparently).
Saul comes into CIA headquarters to meet up with Fala, who tells him she's been following the money as he instructed, and it's led her to the identity of the Iranian who ordered the attack on Langley. Saul plays teacher and tells her to keep at it, while waving a peeping Dar Adal out of the room, seemingly giving him the brush off.
Back at the hospital, Carrie's lawyer comes in to prep her for the hearing that's supposed to send her home, where her dad and sister are promised to show up and testify for her. In the boardroom, the nurses and staff testify as to her improved condition in front of the judge, while Carrie zones out and thanks everyone for their support, but she's disturbed by the fact that her dad and Maggie never showed. The judge says he's going to review the case as Carrie leaves in frustration and helplessness.
Oh boy, here we go. Dana's boyfriend Leo pulls a fire alarm and breaks out of the rehab facility to hop in Jess's car with a runaway Dana at the wheel. I can't tell you how NOT excited I am for the adventures of Dana and Leo tonight. Meanwhile, Carrie sees Dar Adal walking out of the hospital and the next thing she knows, the judge has called her back into the boardroom and is telling her she's been deemed a threat to national security and he's been ordered by the Justice Department to keep her there. Carrie is distressed, but manages to call her dad on her lawyer's phone to find out that he and Maggie were told the hearing was canceled. Carrie tells him to get a hold of Saul to tell him that she's giving up and she'll do anything he wants in order to get out of there. Then she slowly walks back to her room in distress, taking her pills and surrendering to her fate (once again) on her bed.
Dana and Leo are on the run, and getting high in the car (smart!), but when Jess calls, Leo throws the phone out the window so they won't get caught. Jess and Mike (hey, where's he been this whole time?) are called to the rehab to meet with Leo's parents and the police to track the kids down. Leo's parents are supposed to be rude to Jess in this scene, calling Dana a bad influence and telling Jess to just report the car stolen so they can track it, but they seemed to be the ones making the most sense to me here. I mean, isn't that the obvious thing to do? Dana and Leo trade Jess's car in for another one (boy is that a shitty thing to do to her mom- Dana's such a brat) and take off before the dudes they sell it to recognize her.
Carrie is lying defeated on her bed, when suddenly the nurse informs her she's been sprung by an emergency court order. Carrie is thrilled and arrives back home to find that lawyer guy from last week sitting in her living room. Turns out the firm he's part of are the ones who got her out and in return he wants her to meet with his client. Carrie reluctantly agrees, since the furlough is only good for 24 hours if she doesn't, but the minute he walks out the door she bolts, packing up all her stuff and planning to flee the country. But, she can't do that either, because her car's been confiscated from the garage (presumably by the CIA).
Saul is in his office, trying to figure out who got Carrie out of the hospital when Adal comes in, telling him in really corny dialogue ("the agency could be killed by a common cold, she's a contagion") that Carrie's still a threat. Saul agrees to let him go after her. In the mean time, Carrie's trying to access her bank account, only to find out it's been frozen and all her credit cards canceled. She tries calling Virgil (hey, another returning cast member!) in a desperate move to borrow his van, but Virgil's under surveillance as well, which he at least manages to warn her of in coded language that lets her know his line is tapped.
Ugh, Dana and Leo are at a cemetery, mourning over his dead brother who apparently committed suicide. Dana tells him not to blame himself, blah, blah, blah. Moving on. Jess and Mike are talking about Jess's failure as a mother (by the way, the Jess stuff is only mildly more tolerable than Dana and that's because Jess isn't such a horrid little brat and Morena Baccarin is a much less irritable presence than Morgan Saylor), but we find out that she wouldn't let Mike move in and that if she saw Brody again she could kill him. Now, back to Dana and Leo again. Dana takes him to visit the air field where Brody deployed to Iraq when she was eight, and it was, in her mind, the last time he said anything true to her- goodbye.
Finally, we get back to Carrie, who knocks on the door of the Brody lookalike she slept with a couple episodes ago, begging him to let her stay with him for just one night. He's pretty happy to let her in, but he won't be the next morning when Carrie robs his wallet before sneaking out early. Just seconds after she gets out on the sidewalk though, the lawyer from the terrorist abedding firm pulls up next to her and she has no choice but to get in the car with him.
Saul and Fala are talking about the guy they've now identified as the second in command of the Iranian terror group, with Saul telling her he wants this guy brought in somehow so he can interrogate him. Carrie's meeting up in a gigantic mansion with another lawyer for this firm, a Mr. Bennett, who explains to her exactly who he works for (Iran) and what it is that his client wants from her. They of course want her to meet with their client and give him information about how the six terrorists killed in the recent CIA operation were discovered, tracked, etc. Carrie says no way, but the guy attempts to convince her by telling her she's been abandoned by her own agency, who would only lock her back up in the mental institution and probably even kill her when the time is right, seeing as they've already sought to blame her for all their screw-ups recently by throwing her under the bus in public.
Carrie seems to fall for this and sadly agrees to do it, as long as her conditions will be met- she must meet the guy face to face, be paid, and she won't name names and betray her fellow field agents. She's fairly convincing, but I didn't believe for one second that she was really going to do this, and assumed she would go straight to Saul as soon as these guys drop her off, which she indeed does.
In the final Dana development of the night, Mike finds out that Leo wasn't really in rehab for drug addiction, it was only a deal his parents got to keep him out of prison for homicide. Yep, that's right, he killed his teenage brother. We see Dana waking up with him in the car, and frankly, I know this is mean, but is it too much to hope for that Leo kills her too before anyone can find her? Yeah, It does seem too much to hope for. And this entire plotline has nothing to do with Homeland and belongs on a CW show.
Back to Carrie, who finally shows up at Saul's, confronting him on the porch after dodging the Iranian followers, but instead of offering up her services as a double agent, like I thought would happen, it turns out this was her and Saul's plan all along, as she tells him exhaustedly, "it worked." Wow. Didn't see that coming. So yeah, that's a pretty cool twist. As Carrie and Saul embrace, she cries and tells him he shouldn't have left her in the hospital so long (so I guess this plan formed just this episode, when she told her dad to get a hold of him?), and Saul tells her she's amazing and that she just has to keep going for a little bit longer.
So, Saul's kinda the master manipulator this season, huh? I'm already into the new terror foiling plot, but there continues to be no justifiable excuse for this much Dana screen time, unless Leo's going to kill her, which I refuse to get my hopes up for, knowing how much the writers love this character. Still, everything else is getting pretty good, so aside from the Dana stuff, I'm not hating this season as much as it seems a lot of other people are. Until next week!
REVIEW: "Toy Story of Terror"
If Pixar's going to keep making shorts and holiday specials from now on with the Toy Story gang in lieu of another movie, then they're off to a pretty good start with this Jessie-focused Halloween special that aims to become a perennial, ala It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.
The toys are back with all their original voices, and this time on vacation with their new owner Bonnie, when they wander out of their backpack at a motel and get lost in the halls, guided by the horror-movie loving Pricklypants (voiced by Timothy Dalton), who narrates the story with several Scream-like references to horror tropes of what should happen next. The toys are as pop-culture savvy as ever and never slow to drop a reference, but in classic Toy Story fashion, they turn out not to be in a scary movie situation, but at the mercy of another unfortunate real-world danger for the average lost toy: being snatched up and sold on Ebay. Woody and Buzz are shortchanged for once in this outing, as Jessie takes center stage and must overcome her pathological fear of being sealed up in a box (remember her plight from Toy Story 2) to rescue Woody and save the toys from getting lost yet again.
It's a fun, funny Toy Story adventure, with as many jokes packed into a half hour special as they can muster. Particular delights are all the little nods to details from past adventures (this franchise does love its fans) and the hilarious new Combat Carl toy (Carl Weathers, who else?) and his tiny buddy, Combat Carl, Jr. My love of Toy Story knows no bounds, so I'll happily watch these guys star in shorts and specials until the end of my days, my only minor complaint being that in a mini-length format, the characters must necessarily be watered down to a basic one note personality trait, while the best parts of the movies are often how deeply we come to feel for these characters, based on how well we know them (as crazy as that sounds, fellow Toy Story fanatics will understand completely). Maybe the best way to go for these kinds of specials is to narrow down the gang a bit, and focus on just three of four of them at a time? I know we want to see all of them, but it may help enrich the short for storytelling purposes. Otherwise, Toy Story of Terror is a warm and tasty Halloween treat.
Grade: A-
TRAILER: "The Spoils of Babylon"
An epic six-part miniseries from Will Ferrell, produced by Funny or Die for the IFC channel. Looks kinda bizarre, but Will Ferrell will be introducing each new episode as "best-selling author Eric Jonrosh," fictional writer of the fictional book on which The Spoils of Babylon is based. With an all star cast including Kristen Wiig, Tobey Maguire, Tim Robbins, Jessica Alba, Carey Mulligan, Michael Sheen, Val Kilmer, and see if you can spot the now grown up Haley Joel Osment in this trailer. The show starts Thursday, January 9th at 10pm on IFC.
