It's just a buffet of shows returning this spring, with Game of Thrones, Mad Men, Veep, Orphan Black and the revival of 24 on May 5th. Jack Bauer returns in this 12-episode run, what FOX is calling a "limited series event," set in London and with new cast additions Jimmy Smits and Tate Donovan. Let's hope it can live up to the hype:
TRAILER: "Orphan Black" Season 2
Publicity's starting to ramp up for the new season of Orphan Black! BBC America has released a trailer for the new batch of episodes, which start April 19th at 9pm. Tatiany Maslany gives one of the best performances on TV, playing seven versions of herself in this sci-fi thriller about clones:
TEASER: "The Normal Heart"
The first teaser for the HBO movie The Normal Heart, based on AIDS activist Larry Kramer's 1985 play. The film is directed by Ryan Murphy (creator of Nip/Tuck and Glee) and he managed to put together a fairly big name cast for this, including Julia Roberts, Mark Ruffalo, Alfred Molina, Jim Parsons and Taylor Kitsch. The movie's about the early reaction to the AIDS crisis that was an autobiographical look at Kramer's own experience in the early 1980's. It airs on HBO May 25th:
RECAP: SNL 3/08 "Lena Dunham"
So, Lena Dunham hosted a pretty mild episode tonight, which, let's just say is better than I was expecting. But the writing is just really, really bad right now, so I think they need to clean house or something in that department. So much premise, so few jokes, as has been the problem for quite a while.
COLD OPEN: Jay's President Obama (feels like we haven't seen him in a while) is trying to explain the situation with Putin and the Ukraine to an unknowing public, and he calls in a special guest to help. It's Liam Neeson, who threatens Putin with his famous Taken monologue and a video of Obama doing "manly" things like the Russian president. It's ok, but not overwhelming.
MONOLOGUE: Lena comes out, clearly very nervous and kind of just stares straight ahead at the camera while delivering a monologue about all the sex/nudity on Girls. Nothing too sensational in this bit- it's very mildly funny, as will be the case all night long (except for a stunningly unfunny Aidy appearance- I've grown to cringe every time she shows up now).
OOH CHILD: A weird pre-recorded bit that has Lena, Cecily, Kenan and Taran singing along in the car to "Ooh, Child," but every time Lena jumps in the GPS interrupts. It's all right I guess and the twist ending joke is strange but I kinda like the random, bizarre end jokes like that.
SCANDAL: A parody of Scandal that they can finally do now that Sasheer is there to play Kerry Washington (and indeed that's her only appearance in this episode). Lena is Kelsey, who can't believe how fast everything goes and is only there to comment on the things we can already see are funny. Seriously, Lena's the worst part of this whole sketch because them making fun of Scandal is easy enough to do without her annoying comments.
WHAT'S POPPIN?: Kenan and Jay host a hip-hop show on MTV2 and have on a group of hipster white singers pretending to be rappers. It's lame.
GIRL: A trailer for a biblical movie about Adam and Eve, but Lena is herself from Girls, and Adam is Adam Driver (Taran, doing his usual spot-on impression). It's ok- I can see that what Lena's been doing is catering these skits to her personality, which is actually smart, especially if you're limited.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?: Nasim and Lena host a teen girl talk show (seriously? Another one? How come no one has any other ideas besides this?), where they giggle at random things that happen on the set. It's actually less annoying than Aidy and Cecily's, but the best part is Jon Hamm's random cameo and it just makes me wish he were hosting. Come back Jon! You make everything funnier!
WEEKEND UPDATE: Colin continues to not impress me at all, while Cecily is now the stronger co-anchor and that's saying very little indeed. As for the guests, Taran comes on as now Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey and does a near perfect impersonation of his rambling acceptance speech last week. Then Vanessa and Fred Armisen come out to resume their bit as Vladimir Putin's best friends from childhood, but why did Fred leave at all if he was going to come back to do crappy bits like this?
JEWELRY PARTY: A women's group is meeting and Cecily is a Venezuelan woman who brings her boyfriend (Mike), a men's activist, to the meeting. It doesn't go well for him but this skit isn't funny at all. I don't like Cecily's Latina impressions either, they sort of border on offensive, actually.
PIMPIN, PIMPIN, PIMPIN: Jay is Katt Williams hosting an Oscar special on TV One, where we get impressions of Jared Leto (Kyle, who's bland), Liza Minelli (Lena, also bland), and Harrison Ford (Taran, who's funny as usual). There are no real jokes in this sketch other than the impressions, so the whole thing feels pointless.
EMAILS: Boy, they are just not going to let these go, are they? Another one of Beck's pre-recorded bits that never even make me smile, let alone laugh. Ugh. This time he and his pal harass a friend with emails about a Will Smith concert at work, but it's just SO bad.
Well, this one was pretty lame aside from the Jon Hamm cameo and Taran's impressions. I can see that Lena was trying and I give her credit for that but the writing just sucks. These guys need to step it up a notch. I give tonight a C. SNL comes back on the 29th with Louis C.K., who was pretty good the last time he hosted so maybe he'll bring some fresh material with him. Here's hoping anyway. Until then!
PROMO: "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver"
Yay! My favorite Daily Show correspondent's new show is premiering April 27th on HBO, and it's officially called Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. It's going to be a weekly one hour format and I cannot wait to see how he does:
POSTER + TEASER: "Mad Men" Season 7
Mad Men's coming back! AMC has revealed the trippy new poster for the upcoming 7th season, along with a new 15-second teaser of Don getting off a plane in slow motion. Feel free to speculate away as we try to figure out where he might be going (or coming back from). The first half of the new season (remember, they're splitting up the final year into two batches of seven episodes) starts April 13th. I can hardly wait. Check out the teaser below:
RECAP: Justified 5x08 "Whistle Past the Graveyard"
Unfortunately this was another lackluster, basically filler episode tonight, the second in a row. Continuous set-up on the Boyd/Ava front and another "case of the week" plot for Raylan, albeit involving Wendy and Kendall. We pick up where we left off, with Boyd waiting around for Yoon's guys to decide what to do with the boatload of bodies the Crowes left him last week. He wants to end their business relationship but Boyd promises to make the bodies disappear across the border, which Yoon agrees to. But now they need another way to smuggle the drugs over, so Danny and Darryl conveniently name drop Darryl's associate in Texas, who they have a past connection with (having double-teamed his sister once). Darryl pretends to hesitate, but Boyd tells him to go for it, since it's his mess to clean up in the first place.
Kendall is walking down the street when he's approached by a guy in a car play acting at giving him candy but it turns out to be his Uncle Jack, who he called last week. He gets in the car with him and they pick up Wendy for lunch. She seems skeptical of Jack's being there and questions whether he needs money, but he claims he's in the fracking business now and just there to visit Kendall. She then goes to the bathroom and when Kendall tells Jack he hates it there, they take off, leaving Wendy to find an empty table when she gets back. She calls Jack on her way back to Audrey's and hears that he's taking him to an amusement park in Ohio, but runs into a scary looking old dude in the bar named Michael. He looks like an assassin and intimidates her, saying he's looking for Jack, which freaks her out as she dodges him to run out the back door and shoot his tires full of buckshot before driving off.
Raylan is at Alison's, giving her a bikini he bought and telling her he wants to take her to Florida with him on the money he won in the radio contest last week. Alison thinks it's weird for him to take his new girlfriend along to visit his ex-wife and kid (it is) but agrees to go when Raylan insists he's trying. Just then though, Wendy calls him and asks for his help getting Kendall back from Jack. Raylan doesn't want to get involved but Wendy offers to give him info on her brothers and get Alison her job back if he does, so he reluctantly agrees. Boyd and Darryl are now driving back in the truck from Mexico, having hidden the bodies under the heroin in the back, while Darryl suspiciously tries to wriggle up to Boyd, promising that he can trust the Crowes and soon they'll all be like family. Boyd reminds him he just executed his last remaining family member, and then they pull the truck over when the guys in the back start going stir crazy with the smell of the corpses. They fight each other while Darryl comes up with the idea of separate cars.
Meanwhile, Kendall's sitting in the car when Jack gets the call that someone's after him, and Kendall demands the truth from him. Jack then makes up a story about having stopped a rape by beating up a guy at a bar, who's now after him because he woke up from his coma. Kendall doesn't buy it but appears to go along with it for now, not wanting to go back home. At the prison, Ava and Penny go into the bathroom so that Penny can dislocate Ava's arm (ouch) to get her into the infirmary (something to do with getting the drugs in, I'm guessing). Raylan meets up with Wendy, having tracked Jack and Kendall to a point, but he has no information on the Michael guy. He wants Wendy to give up her family but she just banters with him, stalling over getting Kendall back first, while Raylan questions her giving him back to her brothers in the first place. At a parking lot, Jack now tries to get Kendall to help him steal a car, but Kendall's had enough, telling Jack he knows he's a liar, and also that Wendy and Jack are his parents. Ok, so that's kind of a surprising revelation but honestly I don't care enough about Kendall yet to be totally invested in this. Jack now admits to Kendall that he owes a guy money for skimming off a poker game and was on his way out of the country but came back for him when he called. Suddenly Michael shows up and the cowardly Jack just takes off, leaving Kendall behind. Michael shakes his head as he comes up to the kid, agreeing with me that Jack's kind of a pussy.
At the infirmary, Ava tries to tell the nurse she wants to get drugs in (apparently she's the connection Penny mentioned), but the nurse blows her off, scoffing at her for dislocating her own shoulder just for that. Back in Raylan's car, he and Wendy are still bickering over her telling him about the Crowes, but she blurts out that Kendall's her kid and Jack's his dad. Raylan doesn't really care and says so, but then Jack calls Wendy, telling her he needs her help because Michael has Kendall. Wendy is panicked about how he got to them before Raylan did, but Raylan calms her down, telling her the focus is getting the kid back safe so she can spill the beans on Darryl. Ava is approached by the weird preacher lady (whose name is Judith, we find out in this episode), who pretty much calls Ava's life story, saying practically every woman in there is there because of a man. She also says she prays to God for strength because there's no men in there to help any of them, and that includes Ava, who needs to get those drugs herself. She is impressed though, when Ava says she didn't divorce her husband, but shot him instead.
Raylan, Jack and Wendy meet up and set up a meeting with Michael to hand over his money in exchange for Kendall. Jack and Wendy fight and trade barbs over who's a worse parent but Raylan's fed up with both of them, telling them it'll be easy to handle just one guy, even if Jack doesn't have all the money he's asking for. I'm totally bored by this story though- the only mildly interesting revelation was the Wendy/Kendall thing but now that it's out there, I really, really don't care about Jack and Wendy's past relationship. Back in the desert, Boyd is pulled over by the Mexican police, who demand that Boyd pay them for leaving them alone. Boyd and Darryl try claiming to be Bible salesmen, but the cops aren't having it, knowing they've got drugs. Boyd ends up forking over the cash, and eventually the truck too, as the cops drive off in it, leaving the guys alone. And If you called that they put the heroin in the other car and left the cops the bodies, congratulations, that's exactly what happened. Slightly predictable there.
Michael pulls up to the meeting spot with Kendall and hands him over. He would rather beat up Jack then take the money though, which he tries to do as Raylan breaks it up, saying he's changed his mind and is arresting them both. Turns out Jack put Michael's son in a coma after cheating him out of his money, but whatever, I'm over this Jack thing already. The cops get there and take the crooks away while Wendy comforts Kendall, admitting she's his mom and that she knows he probably suspected it. Kendall is mopey and keeps sulking, while Wendy tells him at least he only has half Crowe DNA. In the showers at the prison, Ava is cornered by the nurse, who yells at her for coming to her in the infirmary, but says she will help her, as long as her man on the outside (Boyd) is willing to do something in return. She won't say what it is, but Ava promises that he will, setting herself up for all kinds of shit if Boyd can't deliver. She sure is taking a risk on this- has she even talked to Boyd since she's been in here?
Raylan goes up to Kendall and tries to give him some advice, telling him that things can get better and he came from a bad family too but got himself out of it. Snarky Kendall is not optimistic and Raylan decides to give him his radio prize money, telling him it's for the future. He then approaches Wendy for the info she promised him, but it turns out that Wendy's got nothing except that her brothers are in Mexico, doing god knows what. Raylan is annoyed (me too) and takes off, while Ava goes up to Judith in the prison to tell her the dope's coming, but not where it's coming from. She still doesn't trust her or her God story.
The Crowes and Boyd are now having shots while they celebrate having fooled the cops (told ya) and are now waiting for Darryl's man to show. He does and while Boyd and Darryl talk to him, Boyd drops the sister story Darryl told him to see what the dude's reaction is. It's oddly subdued and Boyd is suspicious. While Darryl gets in the car, excited about going home, the Spanish-speaking Jimmy overhears the guy tell his pal that Darryl called him a few days back. Boyd and Jimmy subtly discuss this and see that Darryl had this whole thing planned out, but for now Boyd just says they'll go home first. Finally, Raylan shows up at Alison's, telling her Kendall's safe and he's still ready to go to Florida, even if they'd have to accommodate since he gave his prize money away, but Alison gently shoots him down, telling him she's breaking up with him. Raylan looks bummed, and then the credits roll. So that was it guys- a bummer episode ends on a suitably bummer note. I don't know even know what to say about this one, except that I hope next week's better, as the action will finally start picking up again. I'm kind of glad Alison's gone (she was fairly lame, as all Raylan's girlfriends are), but I am really annoyed that Ava's prison stint is apparently going to last this entire season. Let's hope it starts to go somewhere and soon. See you next week
RECAP: SNL 3/01 "Jim Parsons"
SNL returned tonight with Jim Parsons as the host, and it was a very blah episode, notable only for the debut of head writer Colin Jost as the new Update co-host, and we'll see how he did when we get to that segment. But there was really nothing memorable on tonight's first show back in a month.
COLD OPEN: It's an episode of Ellen, with Kate doing her funny impersonation as Ellen is excited about hosting the Oscars on Sunday. Jim makes an appearance early on as Johnny Weir in several crazy outfits, but this skit is pretty much just mediocre. It's a signal for what's coming the rest of the night.
MONOLOGUE: Jim comes out and sings about the differences between himself and Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory, while other famous TV characters make fake cameos to chime in (Jay as Urkel, Taran as Fonzie, Bobby as Bill Cosby), but the whole thing is kind of boring.
PETER PAN: A pretty bad Peter Pan skit has Jim as Peter, but this is an Aidy sketch where she plays "Tonker Bell," Tinker Bell's rude sister. It's a variation on the same character Aidy always plays, and I am really, really getting sick of her. Nothing she has ever done has made me laugh in almost two years now. Her appeal is inexplicable.
BIRD BIBLE: Ad for parents teaching their kid a new version of the bible where everything is acted out by birds. Weird and random, unfortunately again, not funny.
THE KILLER FILE: Beck Bennett hosts a Dateline type show where they look at the "Dance Floor Killer," played by Jim, who stalked people on dance floors in the 70's and 80's. I guess this one's mildly amusing, but only because the bar has been set really low tonight.
12 YEARS A SLAVE AUDITIONS: Kenan does a good Steve McQueen impression as the crew of 12 Years a Slave auditions white people for the parts of slaveowners. The entire joke of this skit is that white people are uncomfortable acting like that until they find a genuine trailer park racist guy. This has been the joke for almost all of their racial humor lately, so it feels like we've seen it before, because...we have.
WEEKEND UPDATE: So this is what we've all been waiting for, as Colin Jost steps in for Seth Meyers and he and Cecily take over the Update desk. I'm sorry to say that he seems like kind of a drip. I know I sound grumpy tonight, but I see nothing special about his delivery, and Cecily herself hasn't been that great, so I maintain that by next season, Lorne Michaels should give Beck Bennett a shot at this. With his deadpan delivery I can see him being a throwback to somebody like Kevin Nealon. I just don't see this panning out. The guests are Kenan and Jay as Charles Barkley and Shaq again, but Taran's critic Jebediah saves Update with a funny return to critique the Oscar nominees. The one bright spot of the night.
MURDER MYSTERY DINNER: This is a spoof on those weird outings where people solve fake murders, and Jim is the perplexed, confused one, but there are just no jokes in this sketch. Nothing works and it's too long. Ugh, getting fed up with this episode.
SPOTLIGHTZ ACTING CAMP: Vanessa and her acting kids are back to act out scenes from the Oscar nominees. It's ok- but seriously, I thought this skit was funny the first time I saw it, but every time after that it's just gotten weaker. It needs to be retired, the joke is old by now.
ELEVATOR RIDE: A mild skit about a boss (Jim) who shits his pants and stinks up the elevator as employees keep getting in. This has the same problem every skit tonight has suffered from- they have a premise and then they have no other jokes to pad out the sketch.
OLD WEST: The last skit of the night is unusually long, and not that funny but not too bad either, as a bunch of cowboys try to decide what to get the leader for his birthday. Jim wants to pop out of the ground naked to surprise him and they tell him it's a bad idea. He doesn't listen. It's mildly amusing at best.
And that's it for tonight. Colin debuts with a whimper and Jim doesn't really bring much to the hosting position (sometimes that's really what elevates the horribly weak writing on SNL- just watch Drake's episode for proof). Disappointing. I give tonight a D+. Next week, It's Lena Dunham (GAH- I may have to take something to myself through that one) and the musical guest is The National. Hopefully it's better than tonight, but I do not have a lot of hope given the host. See you then!
RECAP: Justified 5x07 "Raw Deal"
Welcome back everybody! Justified returned tonight with a surprisingly routine episode, mostly filler even, aside from an important character's death in the very last scene. This served mostly as set-up for several storylines and a procedural throwaway plot for Raylan, and was even shorter than usual, clocking in at 43 minutes rather than the usual 47 or 48.
But we start off with the Crowes, Darryl and Danny, packing up to take off for their mystery job with Boyd, leaving Kendall to tend bar, even though Darryl questions him for looking a little nervous, still a result of the murder he witnessed. Danny gives him a look of warning as they walk out. At the prison with a short-haired Ava (whose new hairdo is conveniently stylish given that she had to chop it off herself with a razor blade), she's waiting around at visiting hours for Boyd to show up while Penny taunts her that all the men stop coming to visit eventually. Ava looks wary as she realizes Boyd isn't coming. Boyd and the Crowes bust into Johnny and Hot Rod's place to find it abandoned, Johnny having already made the trip to Mexico. Boyd threatens to go anyway while Jimmy asks him what to do with the Crowes and Boyd stares at them in silence.
At the marshal's office, Raylan is dismayed to find out he's been put on walk-in duty, and not from Art, when he's accosted by a guy named Larry who claims his gambling money's been seized by the marshals, after they shut down the website he won it on. Raylan is mildly disinterested, but perks up when he sees that the site was only faked to look like it'd been shut down by them, and that it was being run by a guy who worked for Charles Munroe. Larry takes off and Raylan complains to Tim and Rachel about being put on walk-in duty, while they find out that a guy named TC runs the site. It looks like he scammed the money out of Larry, but it belongs to the marshals, so Raylan volunteers to go after him.
We now find the TC guy playing games online while his girlfriend Candice looks on, and Larry bursts into his apartment with a henchman of his own, demanding his money. TC denies having it and denigrates Candice's computer skills while he's at it, but when the muscle man (whose name is Kemp) threatens Candice, she rats him out. Larry secretly records the confession with his phone and threatens TC with the police, but when Kemp finds out it was $250,000 at stake, he blows Larry away and demands the money for himself. At the prisonyard Ava watches Penny and the group of religious prisoners listening to the "heavenly mother," and later meets up with the leader and Penny about getting herself protection by joining the group. This leader (who may be recognizable as the meth whore on Breaking Bad) tells Ava the real reason they're not messed with is because they bring in the drugs for the prisoners. They offer Ava the job of bringing them in, with Penny showing her the ropes.
In Mexico, Johnny has shown up with his new crew, and they meet up with the guys who work for Yuen, telling them he's willing to outbid Boyd if they'll hear his proposition. Johnny gets in the car to go meet Yuen personally and is taken there with a bag over his head. Wendy Crowe runs into Alison at her office, taunting her about Raylan, saying she's going to seduce him, and that she came in to see her boss, presumably to get her fired. We're back in Mexico now, as Boyd is also brought to the Yuen mansion with the bag on his head, but when he's taken inside he sees that Johnny beat him to the punch. Boyd is upset by this and he and Johnny banter back and forth until Yuen shows up to hear the both of them out. Johnny claims he can pay $1 million for the heroin but Boyd tries to sell him short, not believing he can really get the cash. Yuen puts them both in handcuffs and simply says that if Johnny can follow through they'll go with the highest bidder.
Back at TC's place, he's wiping the blood off the floor when Raylan shows up outside, and Kemp takes Candice with him at gunpoint, telling TC he's got a day to get the money to him before she's toast. Raylan passes the two on the way up the stairs, catching on as usual that something's up, but only knowing for sure when he makes his way into TC's wrecked and bloody apartment. TC attempts to stall for a second but then makes a run for it, throwing himself and what turns out to be his prosthetic leg out the window with the money while Raylan watches him take off from upstairs, flipping him the bird on the way. Raylan is fairly impressed at the guy's agility, and relays it to the marshal's office later, which is kind of funny. He begs to be the one to bring the guy in, or at least help, but Tim and Rachel say no (chief's orders again) while Raylan sulks. Later at his desk he replies to TC's blog post, where he had taunted Raylan about ditching him, when Alison calls to tell him Wendy got her suspended.
Back in Mexico, Boyd and Johnny sit outside in their cuffs, reminiscing about their high school days- apparently Boyd set Johnny up with his crush only to sleep with her later himself. They seem to recall that things weren't always bad between them, but Johnny's not looking to make up when the car pulls up with the money he promised Yuen. As promised, Yuen goes with the highest bidder and Johnny's uncuffed while Boyd is handed over to him to do with what he wants, as long as he's not killed on this side of the border. If you're thinking Boyd's been suspiciously laid back and calm about this whole thing, you'd be right, as we'll soon see.
Raylan and Alison are on a date at the bar, drinking as she tells him all about what Wendy said to her, seeming a little concerned about Raylan succumbing to her feminine wiles, but Raylan laughs it off in his flirtatious way. The bartender suddenly comes over to tell him his card's been declined, and when Alison takes off he gets a phone call from TC, who informs him he's emptied all his bank accounts and again taunts Raylan to come after him. Raylan jumps at the chance as the two exchange mildly amusing insults, but to be honest, this little hacker plot is pretty weak tonight. At the office Tim has their own computer guy trace the call, where they find out it's coming from a hotel and plan to raid the place.
Wendy is all dressed up and on her way out of the bar, ignoring Kendall, who tries to talk to her but backs off, deciding to call his "Uncle Jack" instead, asking him if he's located anywhere near Kentucky lately. At the prison, Penny takes Ava to go see the guard and janitor, who smuggle the drugs in to them in exchange for, as it turns out, sexual favors, which Penny goes off to perform for the guard in the bathroom. Ava balks at this, and when the janitor's back is turned, places the heroin back in his mop kit. At the hotel, Kemp is sitting around with Candice when the marshals raid the room, Raylan at the helm, but bummed to find out TC is nowhere to be found. It's not a big deal though, as it turns out Candice is willing to sell him out because of his earlier denigration of her own hacking abilities. The marshals then find TC in the basement of his grandma's house and take him in, making this particular case of the week one of the easiest in the history of Justified, I'm pretty sure. As Raylan takes TC to jail in the car, he warms to the guy, who tries to butter him up by offering to return his money and admitting he only uses his skills to fix radio shows and win free TV's.
Back at the office, Rachel informs Raylan that Wendy fixed the Miami judge so that Darryl Crowe does not have to leave the state and when Raylan realizes this is the third piece of information not directly relayed to him by Art, he storms in to confront his boss. Art is still pissed at him but Raylan demands he quit the silent treatment and either treat him like a deputy again or transfer him to another state because he's not quitting. Art is unsure, but Raylan says he's taking two weeks off to go see Winona and the baby, and when he comes back he better have made up his mind. Ava's at her bunk now, awaiting the confrontation from the preacher woman and Penny, who tell her that the janitor was busted with the drugs earlier, thus cutting off their supply. Ava offers to get the heroin herself and is taken up on this by the older woman, who shows off her battle scars and hopes out loud Ava didn't put them all at risk to avoid screwing the guard. Penny then mentions to Ava that if she can really get the drugs she can help her get them inside. Ava looks worried as the two leave her on her own.
Raylan's drinking now with Wendy, who's doing her best to win him over, but he's not falling for it, telling her he's researched her and he knows she never finished law school because she's always stuck at the hip to Darryl and the family. He also spills the beans about Darryl killing their brother in the first episode of the season, which she's shocked by and refuses to believe. Raylan tells her to help him get Darryl so she can cut ties and save herself, and then he leaves her with the tab as she appears to consider it. Finally, we come to the last scene of the episode, as Johnny and his guys load Boyd out of the car and in front of a truck that should be filled with the drugs, but as it turns out- yeah, Boyd's guys are all in there and they jump out and surround Johnny and his posse, who give up, realizing Yuen was in on it all along. Johnny wants to know why he doesn't just kill him, and Boyd says he'll die but not in that desert, and tells his crew that they'll go back to working for Hot Rod as soon as they get the heroin across the border. The guys agree to that but something about that arrangement strikes the Crowes the wrong way, as they exchange looks, and Danny pretends that he suddenly has no choice but to open fire on all of Dunham's guys, under the pretense of shouting first that he was responding to the first shot. Chaos ensues and now all the crew is dead, while Johnny looks on and laughs at Boyd, who's lost control of his own people. Boyd responds by shooting Johnny dead (bye Johnny) and proceeding to call Yuen, telling him they have a problem.
So that ends what for me was the weakest episode of the season. The hacker guy was kind of lame and Ava now feels like she's on another show, one that looks to continue for the rest of the season, much to my annoyance, although needing to get heroin into the prison at least looks like it will tie back into Boyd's story somehow. The war with Johnny ended far sooner than I would have liked, so it looks like the Crowes will end up being the main villains of this year, but with so much blood shed already this season I hope what ultimately happens with them won't feel anticlimactic. Tune in next week as the season goes on and hopefully Raylan gets a far more compelling storyline (he is our hero after all) than the one he had tonight. Until then!
2014 Satellite Awards- TV Winners
Here's what the International Press Academy liked in TV last year. Lots of love for Breaking Bad and Orange is the New Black:
- Drama Series: Breaking Bad
- Genre Series: Game of Thrones
- Drama Actor: Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad
- Drama Actress: Robin Wright, House of Cards
- Comedy/Musical Series: Orange is the New Black
- Comedy Actor: John Goodman, Alpha House
- Comedy Actress: Taylor Schilling, Orange is the New Black
- Supporting Actor: Aaron Paul, Breaking Bad
- Supporting Actress: Laura Prepon, Orange is the New Black
- Miniseries/TV Movie: Dancing on the Edge
- Actor in a Miniseries/TV Movie: Michael Douglas, Behind the Candelabra
- Actress in a Miniseries/TV Movie: Elisabeth Moss, Top of the Lake
