-->

Like it or not, Newsradio became increasingly disconnected from reality as the series went on. Personally, I'm in the "like it? no -- love it!" camp. Why quibble about whether a sitcom, one of the most artificial theatrical conventions this side of Kabuki, is grounded in realism? Like many of the most inventive television shows, Newsradio can soar to its greatest heights when it acknowledges the slender thread tethering it to recognizable human behavior and situations by yanking on it as hard as possible. (There's a kite metaphor in there somewhere, but I'm trying to quit.)

In "The Song Remains The Same" (or as it would have been called if the writers had had any inkling that people might want to, you know, talk about episodes some day, "New Hampshire Primary"), the show turns its surrealism on its head almost before it started being surreal. Bill has to play straight man to Jimmy James' zaniness, pretending not to notice the April-Fools-in-February pranks so that he can impress a Wall Street Journal reporter doing a story on him. The storyline culminates in the sublime scene in which a gorilla with a bunch of balloons runs behind an impervious Bill and the reporter, who continues his monologue even while his chair rises three feet off the floor.

In fact, the setup of two characters talking seriously while mayhem commences behind them was so nice that Tom Cherones used it twice. Dave and Lisa carry on an intense conversation about Matthew's competence to cover the New Hampshire primaries while Matthew, framed between the two, tries in vain to stuff springy fabric snakes back into his joke salted nuts canister. Matthew's eagerness to get in on the prankishness provides the episode's sweetest moments: Joe explaining that Matthew should open up the canister himself because "sometimes they mess up and put a real can of nuts in with the joke ones," and Matthew offering the can to the Wall Street Journal reporter with "how about you, dear sir, salted nut?"

The delightful A-story is Dave's struggle with the New Hampshire primary coverage; he can't send Lisa because the office suspects she's getting all the plum assignment by virtue of their relationship, but Matthew is not only unqualified but unable to travel because of his two cats. The impromptu game show setup in Dave's office (which Matthew wins not only because of superior knowledge but because he, like Dave, is far more interested in game show similitude than in winning) is one of Newsradio's classic set pieces: Matthew leaning in to an imaginary microphone to announce his answers, Dave's delight in correcting Lisa ("Oh, I'm sorry, we were looking for ... Dartmouth. Dartmouth."), and Lisa's slow burn as she's bested ("Why don't you just ask Herb Stempel here?") make for terrific sustained comedy.

But for some reason the B-story concerning Beth's love affair with the guy whose desk she's cleaning out doesn't work as well for me. Maybe it's because Vicki Lewis chooses to slow down her delivery and her whole demeanor. Instead of being manically excited about her detective work, she moons. The rhythm seems off and draggy. But the kicker is tremendous: Beth declares her love to Anonymous Extra when he comes back in to pick up some tax forms, only to find that her Brian is a curmudgeonly dude who still very much works in the office. "Who cleaned out my desk?" he demands angrily as the credits roll.

"Zoso" (aka "Dumb Donald Hat") isn't as peppy. Beth invents a floppy three-quarter tuque with eyeholes, intending to take advantage of the mid-nineties nostalgia for the seventies by tapping into the lucrative Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids novelty hat market. Too much of this story takes place in the relatively cramped confines of the breakroom, and Beth and Jimmy's trip to see George Hamilton as a mobbed-up department store buyer feels forced. But I think the hand of series creator Paul Simms, one of the episode's writers, can be discerned in the linkages that are forged between that story and Lisa asking for a raise. The sequence where Lisa ducks into the breakroom to listen to Mr. James' negotiating tips, then bursts out to try them out on Dave, gives Maura Tierney a chance to do her quick-change emotion trick -- from ebullient, confident, and even smug, to confused and dejected in five seconds flat.

You also can't beat Bill pretending to be British -- not even with a bobby's billy club. He's gotten himself into hot water by affecting a British accent to impress a woman, and since she's coming up to the office he asks the staff to play along. While Bill's accent is minimal -- really confined to British expressions rather than to any change in his enunciation -- Matthew goes whole hog. "Howdy do, guvnah, what's all this then?" he greets the woman jovially. "So how long have you and Lord Mac of Neal been shagging?"

And even though the storylines are thin and there's no flash of inspiration to the writing here, James Burrows makes the most of what he's got. Jimmy pouring cream into the coffeemaker's carafe and drinking right out of it ... Lisa raiding Dave's desk for the stash of blue shirts we saw way back in "Goofy Ball" ... Lisa singing the song that she wants $3200 to help Stuart record ("Come back Lisa ... you little lovekiller ... come back lisalisamiller"). Well-staged, well-timed, well-sold bits. The start value of "Zoso" isn't very high, but those execution scores are coming up 8 across the board.

Let's face it: The main reason why this week's episodes make me happy is that they feature grinning Dave. I love grinning Dave. He's not the boss man ("Dave the boss can be such a jerk, it's always the budget with him!"). He's finding a way to enjoys the cracks in the workplace armor. He's on the side of the eccentrics, and sometimes he can't help but let it show.

Grade: "TSRTS," B+; "Zoso," B

Stray observations:

- Sometimes the best lines aren't the ones that get the laugh track goose. I'm inordinately delighted by Dave's rejoinder to Lisa when she comes into his office to complain about Matthew getting the New Hampshire assignment: "I am not going to be harangued into rescinding this directive."

- Variation on the signature Newsradio shot: WSJ reporter asks for a drink of water, Bill hastily steers him out of frame stage right, water dumps on nobody stage left.

- Check out the turning radius on this little joke. Lisa responds to the news about Matthew's refusal to anger his cats by traveling: "And people say you're whipped!" Dave then confesses, somewhat abashedly, "Yes, they do." First it was about being emasculated -- but then it became about Dave being aware that people are claiming that he's emasculated. Nifty trick, that.

- If Newsradio Characters Had Facebook Pages: Dave's favorite movie: Logan's Run. Lisa's favorite movie: Persona. Beth's favorite book: The Firm.

- Hey, It's 1996! Alert: "OK, now I feel like I'm in a Quentin Tarantino movie ... and I want out."

- Somebody should put together a clip reel of Dave reading things aloud -- it's a real comic gift of his, akin to Bob Newhart's famous talent for conveying telephone conversations from only one side. Here he demonstrates it by reading the note that Beth found in Brian's desk alongside the rose stem: "If I did get the courage to give this to you, please disregard above."

- "This isn't the morning zoo on K-CRAP with Boogerman and the Gang!"

-->

Nancy’s storyline during this season of Weeds has been much more addled than in previous seasons. She’s fumbled her way through a rapid-fire series of developments, any of which could have probably sustained a season had it been drawn out to a logical conclusion rather than veering off on a new tangent. Many of you assert that this ADD-like zigzagging is evidence of the show’s decline, an inability to properly tell a story from start to finish. I’ve found myself agreeing with that assessment frequently this season, though tonight’s episode made me wonder if that haphazardness has perhaps been intentional, a structural reflection of Nancy’s deteriorating emotional state. (Okay, perhaps I’m reaching… but just go with me on this.)

Maybe all these abrupt changes have been mirroring Nancy’s impending breakdown, little metaphorical eye-twitches crescendoing toward some sort of mental/emotional detonation. We saw the first sparks of such an episode during last week’s Oedipal awkwardness, and tonight the fuse was definitely lit as Nancy’s subconscious (or maybe just her conscience) sought to make itself heard via a series of painful jolts: She has one when she sees Guillermo bring his terrified “cousin” out of the tunnel, when she sees Shane with his two “pierced friends,” and when she’s with Esteban. These are obviously meant to be warnings, but the deep-in-denial Nancy resolutely waves them off as a migraine. But after taking Esteban’s “special cure” of peyote tea, she can no longer ignore the cost of her actions—mainly because one of them appears to now be following her in the form of a hallucination. Depending on your assessment of Nancy up until this point, it would seem she’s either lost it or taken the first steps toward getting it back.

Celia’s descent into madness (well, deeper madness) this season has been much more linear, careening toward last week’s low point. Her deliverance seems to be coming in a similarly straightforward manner, a predictably hostile intervention with Dean, Isabelle, and… Pam? Aside from the fact that Pam would probably cause any sane person to turn to conscious-altering substances, doesn’t it seem that there are some other people who should be in that room before her? Namely Nancy, possibly Doug, and to a much lesser extent, her other daughter. (Seeing as she was only seen in the premiere episode, and a valid reason—boarding school—was given for her disappearance, it’s never really bothered me that we’ve never seen Quinn again. Though the overt reference to her during the intervention scene kind of broke that spell.) This half-assed intervention is indicative of the callous way in which Celia’s problems are usually handled. Granted, she’s not a character that inspires a lot of sympathy, but her suffering has been played almost entirely for laughs this season, even though previous plot developments—her breast cancer—have shown that the character is capable of eliciting more than just schadenfreude. Only Isabelle’s speech to her mother during the intervention reached beyond the old “Celia is a bitch” trope, and halfheartedly at that. Perhaps the writers expended all their emotionalism on Nancy’s breakdown and Doug’s ho-hum reunion with Mermex Maria—seriously, does anyone care about that anymore?—leaving them to glaze over what could have been an important moment for Celia and possibly Isabelle as well.

Speaking of important moments, Shane faced a ridiculously out-of-character decision tonight—should he have a threesome with the two hos-in-training he picked up at school? After some hand-wringing—which I was so glad to see, considering the kid’s what, 14, maybe?—he decided to… well, it’s not clear, really. The final shot of him and his skanks in bed would seem to indicate the deed was done, but I can’t imagine Shane—despite all his weird proclivities—going through with that. Then again, when his MILF-boinking older brother—whose only advice is to wear a condom and “don’t bring shame on the family"—is the closest he has to a role model these days, who knows what direction the kid’s headed in? The oscillations in Shane’s character development seem to have spiked since the family moved to Ren Mar, and I’m curious to see as we head into the final two episodes if he’s headed toward some sort of salvation, or just careening off the deep end.

Grade: B-

Stray observations:

--Is it necessary to touch on every single character every single episode? Andy and Silas’ storylines edged along a bit tonight too, but neither was very compelling: Coyote Andy and his wards got caught by Lee Majors, but nothing really came of it, and Silas got stuck babysitting Rad and had another heart-to-heart with Lisa. It seems both of these could have been excised or explored in another episode that didn’t have so many “big moments” to distract from them.

--Tonight’s episode was a little more… shall we say “cerebral” than what we’re used to seeing from Weeds, attempting to illustrate the chaos in Nancy’s head via a cliched spinning-room drug freakout and a head-buzzing that seem to have been borrowed from Lost’s stable of sound effects. I wouldn’t say either was particularly effective or well done, but it was definitely jarring—which was maybe the point.

--Was Ignacio’s calling Sanjay’s baby (Jimmy Jam) “El Diablo” some sort of foreshadowing, or just a joke that fell extremely flat? I can’t see how Sanjay’s baby can possibly figure in to this unfolding storyline, but it seems too random to not mean something.

**Prolonged angst is a terrible (though delicious) state of being. So to shorten theMSCL-induced agony/ecstasy, I'm going to be writing up multiple episodes each week from here on in. To kick things off, this week we'll be looking at both "Other People's Mothers," and "Life Of Brian."

-->

"Other People's Mothers"

"Walking into another person's house for the first time is like walking into another country—not that I've ever been to another country." --Angela, on her first glimpse past the beaded curtain and into Rayanne and Amber's apartment.

The 10th episode of MSCL, "Other People's Mothers," parallels three mother-daughter relationships (Patty-Angela, Vivian-Patty, and Amber-Rayanne), as well as two fundamentally different house parties: Angela's grandparents' anniversary cocktail party, which features tasteful blue and white streamers, and trays of meticulously-prepared hors d' ouvers, and Rayanne's birthday blowout, featuring multicolored streamers, and plentiful "pharmaceuticals." Naturally, all of the daughters clash with their respective mothers, in various ways: Patty can't stand her mother's passive aggressive attempts to control everything, including the placement of Patty's candlesticks; Angela wishes that Patty could be more like the very low-key Amber, and resents Patty's hatred of Rayanne; and Rayanne wants her distracted, sometimes drunk mother to pay more attention to her.

"Other People's Mothers" is actually the first episode to really delve into the life of Rayanne Graff, Angela's new best friend, and basically the catalyst for her new crimson-glowed, flannel-wearing, exciting new life. Previously, Rayanne only dropped hints of her home life (In the first episode, Angela discovers that "at Rayanne's house, no one was home," and in last week's episode, Rayanne told Brian, after making up a story of childhood abuse that lead to a fear of the dark, "My dad never came home, so that had nothing to do with it.") while she ran around swigging from flasks, adjusting her patchwork hair, looking for Tino, dragging her flannel bathrobe on the ground, starting rumors, and in general providing comic relief. In "Other People's Mothers," we see the flipside to all of Rayanne's giddy, bubbly euphoria: a mother (Amber) who, while loving, is either very tipsy around her daughter, or on her way out the door, spritzing on perfume cause she's "got 10 minutes before she's supposed to meet Rusty," and an absent father whose only presence in Rayanne's life is a birthday card stuffed with $270 cash and inscribed with the message, "Happy birthday, and maybe more."

In one scene in Amber & Rayanne's apartment early on, we catch a glimpse of what it's really like for Rayanne: She's sitting on the counter in their bathroom, as Amber thumbs through the small bookshelf, looking for a tarot book for Angela, and she says, cautiously, "I think I'm gonna send that money back...I don't want it." She looks very small and scared as she watches her mother intently, waiting for a response. Rayanne doesn't get one though, because Amber wasn't listening: She simply says, "Where did I put that book?" and leaves the room. Rayanne is left sad and alone in the bathroom. No wonder she carries a flask.

In short, "Other People's Mothers" is the tragedy side to Rayanne's usual comedy--complete with downward spiral/party planning montage set to Toad The Wet Sprocket. In the end, Rayanne's sadness and drinking and need for attention catch up with her—aided, of course, by "two hits-or whatever they're called" of ecstasy. She gets Amber's attention, but only after being rescued by Patty and having her stomach pumped. Likewise, Patty only accepts Angela's friendship with Rayanne after Angela calls Patty for help, and she realizes she can trust Angela to do the right thing.

Grade: B+

Stray Observations::

--Angela's idolization of Amber in this episode was very funny:

"You know, the karma in this house is ridiculous. It's like really low. Or dark. Or whatever it is that happens to karma."

--Rayanne's overdose is foreshadowed three times: twice by the Death tarot card, and once by her father's birthday card.

--"Sometimes I think that if my mother wasn't so good at pretending to be happy, she'd be better at actually being happy." Patty's ability to mask her feelings and smile for her guests seems to be a lesson she learned from the elegant, sociable Vivian. It's also a lesson Angela clearly picked up on: when she gets back to the anniversary party from taking Rayanne to the hospital, she smiles at everyone and brushes off her dad's "What's going on?" with, "We're having a party."

--Angela's party outfit was basically every trend from 1994 worn at once: Giant tie-dye shirt under black crochet vest over a long plaid flannel skirt, with Doc Martens and a braid in her hair.

"Life Of Brian"

-->

"My life is so ridiculous. I have to ask Delia Fisher to the dance. I have to. SPEAK!"--the inner monologue of a mute Brian trying to work up to ask out the girl who is the runner-up to the girl of his dreams.

"Life Of Brian" is such a good MSCL episode I'm tempted to just put up a graphic of the World Happiness Dance logo (a globe with a big smile) and list a bunch of the better quotes from Brian's voiceover. Honestly, I've seen this episode so many times, I could probably do it from memory.

Why is "Life Of Brian" so good? It boils down to three reasons: 1. Ricky furiously dancing the dance of the outcasts with Delia to "What Is Love?" at the World Happiness Dance 2. Jordan Catalano pinning Angela up against the chain link fence only to ask her, "Why are you like this?" "Like what?" she responds. "Like how you are." (Pay attention: this exchange will pop up again later) 3. Brian's "wallpaper" discussion with Graham 4. Brian.

That last reason is, of course, the biggest. In this episode, MSCL changed the game, allowing us within the walls of Krakow's overly analytical, self-hating, neurotic mind. Here, we saw that the story didn't always have to be told from Angela's POV, and that it could be completely different depending on the teller. And with Brian's thoughts punctuating the action (or lack thereof), the story wasn't as thoughtful or dreamily romantic, but more angry and self-deprecating and neurotic. Brian never allows himself a moment of romanticism. "Her hair smelled like this orange grove we passed when I was eight on the way to my grandmother's," he thinks as Angela leans in to apologize to him at the dance, "But I guess that's just her shampoo, or whatever." If Angela is a teenage philosopher, then Brian is a teenage realist.

Or a teenage Woody Allen. Because of Brian's loudly self-deprecating voiceover, "Life Of Brian" is easily one of the funniest episodes of the series. Many of Brian's inner thoughts work very well as set-ups to punchlines: "Ok. This is the simplest thing in the world. People do it every day. Just start a conversation," he thinks while nervously looking at Angela. "Wow," he says, as an opener. And it's amazing how a voiceover like, "Finally. An erection from actual physical contact." can make an otherwise sweet scene of Delia and Brian looking at slides of paramecia through a microscope very funny. Yes, Brian is an angry dork who is pining away for the literal girl next door. In short, he is kind of sad, and more than a little pathetic. But more often than not on MSCL, that pathetic-ness is played for humor. Awkward and stiff and easily startled, not to mention angry, Brian is a funny character. Hearing his inner thoughts only makes him more so.

Still, hearing Brian's inner thoughts also makes him that much more of a sympathetic character. When Angela tells him that she needs a ride to the dance, you can hear the genuine surprise and excitement in his voice when he says, "When you stripped away all the blathering, Angela Chase was asking me to the dance." And when he tells Delia Fisher that he'd rather go with Angela instead of her to the dance, Brian's "Of all the stupid things I've said, which are like countless, I've never wanted to take something back more than that one," truly hammers home his regret at causing this nice girl who genuinely liked him pain. Later on, when Angela deduces that Brian cancelled his date with Delia to go on a "date" with her, and calls him heartless, Brian's inner tirade ("She called me heartless? That's great. That's excellent. How ironic can you get without, like, puking.") only betrays how hurt he is by the entire situation.

Because this is My So-Called Life throughout the episode there is also a lot of paralleling between Angela and Brian. For two people who think in fundamentally different ways, they handle their crushes in remarkably similar fashions. Like Brian, Angela also has trouble starting conversations with her love, as evidenced by her opener to Jordan when she sees him in the parking lot, "So did you hear about that thing they're going to exterminate 4th period lunch?" And when rejected by Jordan outside the dance, Angela runs back to Brian--much in the same way that Brian runs back to Delia (who won't listen to him, for obvious reasons). Brian listens to Angela, but rebuffs her "So, I don't know. You wanna dance or something?" with "Not with you. Well, I just. I don't care about dancing. That much." It's a sentiment that in his mind he was probably kicking himself for saying.

Grade: A

Stray Observations:

--Later on, the creators also do an episode from Danielle's POV, which makes me wonder which other characters would have received the voiceover treatment had the show continued. I would have loved to see a "Life Of Ricky."

--Speaking of Ricky, his failed "date" with art-nerd Corey was heartbreaking. But it made his "What Is Love?" Dance of the Outcasts all the more triumphant.

--Patty signs Graham up for the fateful Stephan Deiter cooking class this episode. If only she knew.

-->

So here we are—part one of the two part climax that ends the third season of Venture Bros. Feels a little weird, doesn't it? We only started a few months ago; seems too soon to be saying goodbye.

Which, really, is my biggest criticism for this season as a whole. Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer are clearly in love with the world they've created, and as viewers, we benefit form the care and attention they put into the small details; making sure each character has a back story, connecting those back stories in often surprising ways, and, of course, the references to off-hand remarks in earlier episodes that's been a show hallmark from the very beginning. There's craft at work here, basically, and nerds at play.

That's not an inherently bad thing. But as we run headlong into the finale, there are a few niggling doubts that stay with me. While all the meticulous attention rewards close viewing, it also means that there's precious little time to stop and relax. There have been some brilliantly funny bits in this batch of episodes, but you can't help wishing the writers would let a few chunks of mythology pass by the wayside in order to give us more time to simply enjoy the characters and their interactions. It's an easy enough problem to overlook when there are still more shows left in the season, but knowing now that time is nearly up, I find myself wondering about all those disparate threads, and how so many moments of potential were left hanging just so we could move on to something shiny and new.

For instance, remember Rusty's apparent change of heart back in "The Doctor Is Sin"? Maybe "change of heart" is stretching the point, but there was a clear indication of a character shift, that maybe, just maybe, he might grow up a little. There's a nod to this in "ORB," but that's about it Every other appearance he's had, he's been just as grasping and selfish as ever, and given the way part one of "The Family That Slays Together Stays Together" plays out, he doesn't seem to be changing any time soon.

That's not to say "Family" isn't bitchin'. Turns out the death car ("Adrian") attack last week wasn't a fluke. Brock gets the bad news from Molotov Cocktease that OSI has issued termination orders, and they've hired three crack assassins to do the deed: Herr Trigger, a German psychopath who really loves his work, Go Fish, specializing in sea-based kills (and there's always a canal, or an inlet, or a fjord), and the too-cool for a codename Le Tueur, who collects Silver Age comics and has an elephant chestpiece. Brock determines the best thing to do is to get the Ventures to Spider Skull Island to keep them safe and give him elbow room to protect himself. But since Dean, Hank, and Rusty all have the survival instincts of a horny Crystal Lake pothead, things probably aren't going to work out as planned.

"Family" has some terrific action sequences, with Brock having to kick three asses in a row in a variety of gruesome and/or comic ways. Not all the jokes land—Herr Trigger's fetishism got old quick, as did the second trip in as many weeks to Hunter Gathers' strip club—but the ultra-violence was great. Having Brock back in fighting form is always a good thing, and the way he interacts with Hank and Dean throughout "Family" was sweet without ever getting overly sentimental. (The whole "I don't love you, boys!" moment works because it wasn't overplayed; in most shows, there'd be a beat with Brock looking all sad after the jet left, but that didn't happen here because it simply isn't necessary.)

Plus, some of the jokes were great. The subplot with the Monarch finally making an assault on the Venture compound, only to find the whole place deserted apart from a distraught (and half-naked) Sgt. Hatred, had the Moppets in their usual form (pity their stuffed animals), and Monarch, as always, struggling in vain against the incompetencies of his staff and reality itself. And for once, it was nice to get to the end, think, "Oh man, there's no way they can tie all this together" and actually be right.

Still, my problem with this season isn't that Rusty's spiritual awakening (or whatever) got shortchanged, it's that in giving over so much time to mythology and plot, some of the connection between the audience and the Venture family was lost. With some shows, a thirteen episode season would be a blessing, but here, I wish we could have a few more shows; because there's a potential here, that potential I first mentioned way back at the premiere, for Venture Bros to be something more than just an extended series of in-jokes and dark parody. There's a depth to the cast that the creators haven't completely engaged with yet. It's a good show that could be a great one; it just needs that one last push.

Who knows? There's always part 2. Maybe we'll get some orb-time, and maybe Rusty'll be less of a dick. We'll just have to wait and see.

Looks like Fat Guy Stuck In Internet is bidding us farewell, at least for now. That'd make a perfect segue into some sort of "Please god, may it be forever!" type comment, but I'll give 'em this much: the show went out on a high note. "Gemberling's Requiem" has the closest thing to visual excitement that the series has yet produced, and it even flirts (in a few brief moments) with actual pathos. It's quickly undermined pathos, and the episode's ending is as much a buzzkill as anything else the show's done, but for a couple minutes, I actually found myself engaged.

Gemberling and Chains have finally (after a journey in which no actual progression was ever indicated) made it to the CEO's Dark Tower fortress. After passing through the Field of Delights—Gemberling and Chains' buffalo chicken induced dreaming, with the fat guy longing for home and the bounty hunter finally finding a cure for "ass cancer," was a hoot—Gemberling confronts the Big Bad on his home turf. The CEO sends the evil Byte to do his dirty work, and the fight here isn't half bad, ending in a not-entirely-lame Fellowship of the Ring nod. The climactic battle between Gemberling and the CEO is pretty good too, with lots of swooping camera angles and even some tension, a definite rarity for the show. And the climax to the climax, with the candle gag that opened the ep finally getting a pay-off, wasn't too shabby either.

But then it gets all dumb again, cutting through the weak suspense with a Back To The Future nod that's not all that amusing. I dunno. My prejudices as a reviewer have always been a problem for me when it comes to Fat Guy, since I'll always be pulling for story to take precedence if one ever shows itself; but given the fairly successful attempts to be funny and halfway-plotted in the minutes leading up to that final, limp punchline, I don't feel like I'm entirely to blame for getting annoyed.

Outside from the nominal framing sketches that follow the two title characters each episode, Tim & Eric Awesome Show Great Job! isn't about "plot" at all, and more power to it. While I wasn't a huge fan of the rascal-based sketching of, um, "Rascal" last week, "Spagett" managed to hit some traditional beats without settling into a rut. Calling back to an earlier sketch about a freakish balding man with a penchant for pasta and spooking people, the ep finds Tim in high spirits; as he tells Eric, Steven Spielberg wants to make a Spagett movie, which is the first step to fame, fortune, humiliation of your best friend, etc. There's even a pre-made poster: Spagett and the Golden Treasure. (Tag-line: "Spagett about it.") Things get more embarrassing when Eric visits Tim on set, disrupting the shoot and getting the cold shoulder from Brian Posehn (actually Brian Posehn) and Spielberg himself (not actually Steven Spielberg). There's some karmic justice when the movie tanks, and Tim undergoes plastic surgery to make himself look like Spagett permanently without knowing the franchise is doomed; but the kids still love him, and Eric is still the guy on the sidelines who gets photoshopped into a fern.

In between all this, we get a brief moment with Steve Brule ("Take your sister to the prom!"), an ad from Steve Schirripa for a product that makes eggs grow in your large intestine, a quick bit with Video Match ("When I lend you a diaper, make sure you return it"), and a biology class on the nature of penises that leads to the music video, "I Got Chubs For You."

"Spagett" felt pretty solid to me. While the green-screen jokes in the main sketches were a little old, the outfit Tim wore made it work; and just the fact that Spagett is a hideous, hideous frigging thing gave the Hollywood-doesn't-get-it stuff more of an edge. And all the other bits were fine too—the eggs ad started off as standard (and gross) Mr. Show style comedy, but the brief flurry of edits near the end changed the tone, and the "Chubs" video was just all kinds of wrong.

Tim & Eric is the kind of show you enjoy without ever being able to tell anyone else you like it; the more indefensible it becomes, the more it sticks with you. This one was only about a 7 on the Off-Putting Meter, but while there was nothing like the "Not Jackie Chan" boardgame buzzer moment (the chicken-hatching bit came close, due largely to the grainy video), there wasn't anything as dull as "Swingtown." All hail the middle of the road. (Or, in this case, that part near the side where all the dead squirrels end up.)

Grades:

Venture Bros, "The Family That Slays Together Stays Together, Part 1": A-

Fat Guy Stuck In Internet, "Gemberling's Requiem": B+

Tim & Eric Awesome Show Great Job!, "Spagett": A-

Stray Observations:

--There's an extra two minute scene with the Monarch and crew if you watch "Family" at Adult Swim.com. It doesn't add much to the plot, but it's funny.

--Loved Brock's howls of pain after dismantling his car. Also, H.E.L.P.E.R.'s response.

--Hank's really coming into his own this season, isn't he?

--I caught James Urbaniak (voice of Doctor Venture and others) on an old Law & Order: Criminal Intent. It's very weird hearing Rusty's voice come out of a non-cartoon.

--"I can barely hear you because I'm not listening."

-->

One of my favorite Season One Mad Men episodes was “Marriage Of Figaro,” the bulk of which took place in and around a Saturday afternoon birthday party at the Draper home, as Don got bombed on beer to deal with the soul-crushing nothingness of another inane weekend in the ‘burbs. There was a strong note of “Figaro” to the sublime opening 20 minutes of “Three Sundays,” which splits its attention between how three of our regulars spend their last day of rest before another work-week rolls around. Don and Betty, getting back into the groove after last week’s collaboration on saving the Utz account, spend the day fooling around, drinking cocktails, attempting some lackadaisical parenting and listening to Bing Crosby on the hi-fi. (“He makes everything sound like Christmas,” Don notes, not entirely approvingly.) Peggy sweats her way through mass, then chats up the charming young priest when he comes over to her folks’ place for Sunday dinner. And Roger has a meal with his wife, his grown daughter, and her fiancé, whom Roger is trying to convince to have a traditional wedding.

The episode takes its time explaining how all these pieces fit together into the larger story. For the most part, they’re just presented as little slices of life, in which the small gestures—Roger pining for the old ways, Peggy taking pride in the way her career aspirations impress an unattainable man, Betty getting cranky over her son’s bumbling—resonate based on what we already know about the characters, while also deepening our understanding of them. It’s all so masterfully restrained. It’s the kind of storytelling that made me fall in love with Mad Men in the first place: prepared, and confident in what it’s selling.

The “Three Sundays” of the title doesn’t just refer to the three employees of Sterling-Cooper, but to three actual consecutive Sundays. On the second Sunday—Palm Sunday, as it happens—Don and Peggy are back at the office, working on an accelerated pitch to American Airlines, while Roger dallies with a prostitute. And then the third Sunday, Easter…well, that’s what gives this episode its beautiful button, so I’ll get back to it a minute.

So what’s going on here? In terms of the overall narrative arc of this season, this episode is all about American Airlines. The pitch meeting gets pushed up, the whole of Sterling-Cooper comes in on a weekend to get their ducks (and their Duck) in a row, and then, on Good Friday, they get the worst news the world has seen since the first Good Friday: their liaison at American has been fired, and now their pitch is being heard largely out of courtesy. Even worse, for we the home viewers: We don’t get to hear Don’s pitch. (And based on the teaser he gives us while standing in his leisure clothes in the middle of the bullpen, it was going to be a pitch for the ages.)

In terms of the themes of this season though, “Three Sundays” picks back up on the concept of what it means to grow up and take responsibility. For Don, it’s all about how he’ll answer Betty’s persistent charge that he discipline their lying, accident-prone son. Don’s reluctance drives Betty nuts, until she flat-out asks him, “Do you think you’d be the man you are today if your father didn’t hit you?” And of course the answer is, “No.” But since Don isn’t always that comfortable with the man he is today—aside from the web of lies he’s woven, which he apparently thinks is a tradition it’s okay for his son to carry on—he doesn’t necessarily want to be the monster his father was.

(In further Draper progeny news, Don’s daughter is still mixing drinks for the adults; and after a long Sunday of watching her pop take charge down at the office, she serves herself a cocktail and sacks out on the couch. More bulletins coming on this as events warrant.)

For Roger, the notion of being a responsible adult male has to with taking chances and taking charge. “I want everything I want,” he says to his paid escort—which is an easy thing to say when you’ve got the money to back it up. And after the American Airlines pitch goes pear-shaped, Roger gives Don a little speech about how failure matters less than the attempt, because it’s daring great things that makes us feel alive. “Don’t you love the chase?” he smirks at Don. Again though—an easy thing for him to say when he can get “everything I want” with a wad of cash. How much thrill is there in that chase?

But the most complicated tale of parenthood and responsibility this week involves Peggy, who is resented by the Sterling-Cooper secretaries because she gets paid more than they do, and gets to pig out at the buffet while they have to wait their turn. And Peggy is resented even more by her sister, because their mother seems to respect Peggy’s achievements more, and has apparently forgiven her for having a baby out of wedlock. (Peggy’s sister must’ve skipped Sunday school the week they told the story of the prodigal son.) Which leaves Father Gil (well-played by Colin Hanks), who learns about Peggy’s past and responds by handing her an Easter egg and whispering, “For the little one.” Cut to black. Roll credits.

I’ll leave it to you all to speculate in the comments about the meaning of that enigmatic final line. Me, I’ve been kicking around ideas about Easter as a time of rebirth and forgiveness, and thinking that the egg might symbolize a second chance, or perhaps a token of understanding regarding how deeply wounded people can be, and how they can pass the wounds on to their children (whether they mean to or not). And since I spent much of “Three Sundays” fretting about the children of Mad Men and sweating out the various parenting choices, the gift of the egg really got to me. I started thinking about the ghosts of the past, and how fathering and mothering lingers. It's a lot like how Father Gil describes the presence of The Pope in Rome. You don’t get to spend time with the big guy, but, “You know when he’s in the building.”

Grade: A

Stray observations:

-Everyone loves Lutèce.

-What a time it was when rebranding an airline included redesigning the menus and picking out new China patterns!

-So, Bobbie Garrett is back for the second week, and her husband Jimmy is apparently returning next week. Looks like they’re going to be regulars this season, and since they make me uncomfortable, I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. (Probably a good thing…a little squirming is good for the soul.)

-Great dry Roger line, to the dude from Gorton’s: “Love that frozen scrod.” I have to wonder, though: Do the people at Gorton’s folks mind being portrayed—even fictionally—as whoremongers? (I also have to wonder: Does Ken’s knowledge of the escort industry explain why he pulls down such a big salary?)

-I like how Peggy’s mom endured Father Gil’s casual grace, then asked for a proper one (which was a variation on the pre-dinner prayer I’ve heard nearly every night I’ve spent under my parents’ roof). I also liked Peggy’s comment about the impenetrability of the pre-V2 Catholic mass: “The sermon is the only part that’s in English, and it’s hard to tell sometimes.”

-Don Draper does not go to church.

-->

One of the drawbacks of covering a mini-series like Generation Kill on a week-to-week basis is that it’s not episodic like a regular show, but an ongoing story with running themes that are supported over time. (Imagine reviewing, say, the third quarter of The Godfather, Part II, and you get the idea.) So in an effort to avoid repeating myself—and to save some rhetorical firepower for the big finale next Sunday—I’m going to cover tonight’s stellar episode, “Stay Frosty,” in bullet points:

• If it wasn’t obvious enough before, Captain America’s batshit insanity was certainly clear as a bell this episode. Not once but twice he attacked prisoners who had surrender peacefully. And in the first case, he of course gets commended later for taking prisoners in the same breath that Fick and the gang gets scolded for shooting civilians at roadblocks. At one point, his men openly discuss unfucking the platoon by putting a bullet in the back of his head. Captain America acts like he’s a character in a Vietnam War movie—specifically Apocalypse Now!.  One line, “You have to become insane to survive in combat,” pretty much paraphrases Brando’s philosophy in that film.

• The story of General Mattis relieving a colonel from duty (and taking his sidearm ammo to boot) has deep resonance within the battalion. Basically, the people in command use the opportunity to abuse the officer one step below them. That means Encino Man has to take care of the Fick situation (“There’ll be no more questioning of my orders”) and Encino’s toadie of a gunnery sergeant is now emboldened to circumvent Fick by ordering sick men on a questionable mission to check out an enemy tank. Fick’s reply, in full view of his men, is priceless: When asked what he’d do if the tank was operational, he says, “Well, I’ll tell you what it looks like right now. It resembles an incompetent moron climbing up the asshole of his company commander by inventing a bullshit mission.” Nice.

• Fantastic scene with Colbert unveiling Chef Boyardee ravioli and Juggs magazine as a reward to his beleaguered men: We get Ray eating like a six-month-old (and poor, fucked-up Walt coming out of his shell to tease him), a scary line from Trombley followed by a great Ray rejoinder (“Eat, fuck, kill. All the same, right?” “All the same if you’re a fucking psycho.”), and the answer for why people keep calling Trombley “Whopper Jr.” (Whopper=Burger King= B.K.= Baby Killer.)

• Another fine observation from Ray (and I paraphrase): “Iraqis don’t seem very good at fighting, but then they never stop anyway.” In an episode where the soldiers are starting to adjust to the reality of becoming an occupying force—with the conflict itself ending imminently—that line seems awfully prophetic.

• More fascinating material when the soldiers are forced to deal with refugees fleeing from Baghdad. It was touching to see them so anxious to lend a hand: Whether helping unburden women of their bags, offering up water and MREs to the beleaguered travelers, or turning a truck into a crowded “hayride,” many of them seem are happy to be doing charitable services. But then, of course, there’s an ugly flipside: Fick warns that doing humanitarian work will reduce combat readiness; a well-educated, English-speaking refugee cynically thanks the men for letting her pass on her road in her country; and yet another attempt to repel a car via blue smoke backfires horrifically.

• Colbert and Fick are both seen as men of integrity and competence—the heroes of the show, without question—but recent episodes have done a lot to draw out the differences between them. Fick seems genuine when he says that their “running and gunning” through Iraq has been a crucial part of the war plan and that they should be proud of their accomplishments; Colbert bitterly regrets seeing his recon unit being misused and abused. Their only common ground is mutual relief that they’ve somehow gotten through it without losing their men.

• And oh sweet lord, the reservists. You really get an idea about the skills and professionalism of the Marines we’ve been following when they meet up with the loose cannons of Delta Company. It doesn’t take long before they’re dodging friendly fire and watching the reservists level a village full of innocent civilians. Can’t wait to see what madness next week brings.

Until then…

Grade: A

-->

I used to be a huge "Scooby Doo" fan. The jokes were terrible and the characters about as complex as a hula hoop schematic, but it had a sort-of talking dog, a dude in an ascot, and an endless supply of pratfalls. Plus, there were monsters—and in such colorful flavors! The Diving Helmet Guy, the Glowing Thing, Evil Pirate Man, and on, and on.

Of course, none of them were really monsters. As I got older, I stopped watching the show; part of it was the Scrappy Doo factor, but mostly it was the fact that at the end of every mystery, somebody was always wearing a rubber mask. There was never any supernatural force at work, just a park owner or a miserly landlady or any in a long line of interchangeable, thoroughly explicable creeps. You could say that it's important for kids to learn that the shadows really do vanish when you turn on the lights (or catch them in a complicated, highly implausible attempt at insurance fraud), but when you grow up, you find yourself wishing it wasn't quite so simple.

More than any other genre show before or since, The X-Files exploited a simple truth: we all want to believe. We might be afraid of what's lurking in the dark, but isn't there always a bit of wishing inside that fear? A hope that what we think we know isn't everything there is to know. That just once it might be nice to reach for a zipper and instead find nothing but cool scales.

In "Little Green Men," Mulder is having a crisis of faith. Stuck on the receiving end of the world's dullest wire-tap, he's still reeling from the events of last season, and with no mentor to guide him and no X-Files to focus his ambitions on, he's lost; and he's starting to wonder if his entire life has been spent chasing phantoms. Not even Scully's encouragement helps. She now spends her time teaching at Quantico, and at Mulder's insistence, the two only meet in the shadows. Maybe, he tells her, it's time to move on. Maybe They have finally accomplished what all of Scully's skepticism and basic common sense failed to do: turn Mulder into an unbeliever.

Luckily for him (and us), a supposedly deactivated satellite in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, just got a message from Out There. It's Mulder's last chance to get back on his game. All he has to do is stay alive long enough to bring back the proof.

We've talked a lot about the mythology of season one, so I'll try not belabor it here; but one of the things that surprised me the most about the first three episodes of the second season (and, if I'm remembering correctly, the ones beyond that) was how well they flow together. I'd always considered The X-Files a stand-alone show that occasionally tried for greater connectivity, but "Men," "The Host," and "Blood" are all closely involved with each other. (A bit less so with "Blood," but we'll get to that.) It makes sense, given the events of "Flask," but it's impressive in how it changes your investment in the characters. Mulder takes center stage for all three eps, and there's a much stronger sense of his main objective. Even better, there's a sense that objective might actually be obtainable. Logically, you know it's not possible—the castaways never fixed the boat no matter how many coconuts they had because if you made the S.S. Minnow sea-worthy again, there's no show. But the intensity here, both in Duchovny's performance and the storytelling, make you think maybe this time, things could really could change.

Two out of the three of this week's episodes deal heavily in paranoia, but while "Blood" gives us the dark vision of a world that's specifically designed to bring out the worst in you, "Little Green Men" is all about the groups within groups that Deep Throat once spoke so highly of. Scully chafes at Mulder's precautions for meeting together, but Mulder isn't the only one on his guard; we finally meet Fox's super important "friend at the hill," Senator Matheson (tip of the hat, must be), and even he assumes his office has been bugged. It's Matheson who tells Mulder about the Arecibo transmission, and Mulder leaves immediately without even bothering to let his supervisors know. A pissed off Skinner (I guess that's sort of redundant) calls Scully in on the carpet the next morning, demanding the whereabouts of her former partner, but she's just in the dark as they are; but not to worry, the Cigarette Smoking Man says after Scully leaves the room. She'll find him.

Of course she does, but thankfully, all her time that time with Mulder has let a little suspicion rub off. While she's dodging government agents at the airport, Mulder arrives at the research station. The time he spends there—probably no more than a day or two—forms the heart of "Men," giving us full justification for Mulder's obsessions without ignoring their inherent dangers. Early in the show, Mulder remembers the night his sister was abducted; the sequence is low tech but unsettling, with Samantha floating out a window while a spindly figure watches from the doorway. When the aliens return to Arecibo, Mulder initially dismisses it as a storm; Jorge, his scared ethnic sidekick, makes a run for it, only to die of fright outside. Which is bad enough, but things get really freaky when the light show starts up outside--the exact same light show that Mulder saw during his sister's abduction—and then the door flies open and the same gray figure comes slowly into view.

It's not surprising that Mulder reaches for his gun, as useless as it proves to be, but raises an important issue. For all his aspirations, Mulder has no clear concept of the secrets he's striving to uncover, and, apart from one lost sister, no real idea of the dangers those secrets may represent. It's a blind spot that will come to haunt him (and those closest to him) later in the season, but here, it connects back to the double-edged nature of belief. Boring as all those crusty old janitors were, they were pretty easy to take down in the end; just a couple of Shaggy pratfalls and a Scooby Snack or two would do the trick. A real live monster is something else entirely.

"Men" ends with Mulder back at his surveillance job, listening to the tape he took from station—a tape that should have a whole lot of weirdness on it, but is now just a couple hours worth of static. But he listens anyway. As he tells Scully (who arrived on site earlier in time to save his ass form a group of Blue Berets), his faith is restored, and when Mulder has faith, he has all the patience in the world.

Well, maybe not all the patience. "The Host" has Mulder reassigned to Newark, New Jersey, investigating the origins and cause of death on a corpse found rotting and rancid in the sewers. It seems like a waste of time (or it would to anyone who hadn't seen what killed the corpse in the cold open), and Mulder doesn't hesitate to tell Assistant Director Skinner just that in no uncertain terms. Fox comes off as a bit of a dick here, especially considering that Skinner went to bat for him at the end of "Men," but his frustration is more directed at the system than the AD himself; Mulder later confesses to Scully that he's thinking of quitting. But that's before he gets a call from an anonymous stranger—a "friend in the FBI"—and before the dull body in the sewer turns out to have a nasty bit of something inside it.

Is "Host" the first really, really icky X-Files? Given its frequent proximity to raw sewage, the whole giant flatworm in the gut thing, and the design of the monster itself, it's definitely in the running. Although the Flukeman is beyond "icky," honestly. A mutant giant fluke in the shape of a man, it doesn't have a single line of dialogue, or even a lot of visible attack time (most of its kills are made underwater or off camera), but it just looks wrong. The episode's greatest twist is that the creature is, initially at least, fairly easy to capture; but once it's taken into custody, no one knows what to do with the damn thing. The usual process is applied—Flukey is put in a psychiatric hospital for evaluation, he's being charged with murder, they even have him in his own cell—but every attempt to normalize the situation just throws its inherent other-ness into sharper contrast. Flukeman is never that much of a physical threat; given the thing's preferred habitat, it lacks the nervy intimacy of something like Eugene Tooms. But the plain fact of its existence is horrifying enough that it doesn't need to do more. At the end of the ep, Scully explains it with radiation poisoning from Chernobyl, but one look at the Flukeman, with its sucker mouth and half-intelligent eyes, makes her explanations meaningless.

The anonymous voice that urges Mulder on through the episode tells him that "Success is imperative" because the X-Files themselves must be reinstated. Mulder himself tells Skinner that the case should've been with him and Scully from the beginning; their department wasn't merely an outlet for his quixotic goals, but also a valuable tool for handling scenarios that the rest of the system isn't equipped to deal with. The dark comedy of an obvious late-show monstrosity tied down to a gurney bed like it was some junkie on a bad trip, just serves to underline Mulder's point.

"Host" has some clumsy moments—the circular structure, which has the creature getting caught at a sewage plant, then escaping from the authorities, then making its way back to the plant, is a little redundant, and the kicker ending seems more an expected twist than a justified one—but it holds up because of the Flukeman's irreconcilable ugliness, and because it continues down the path that "Little Green Men" started on. The X-Files will be back, there's no doubt, but at least the series is making its heroes (and, in a way, us) work for the reinstatement. It's a satisfying thing when a television series takes the time to make sense.

"Blood" doesn't directly continue this line, and it would be possible, without too many changes, to put the episode into any point of the series early chronology. While Mulder and Scully are still not officially paired together, when Mulder gets called in to work up a behavioral profile on a series of seemingly random spree killings, it's Scully he looks to when he needs some science-ing done. There are no tortured confrontations with higher ups, no late night conversations about choice and expectations. It's just solid, straightforward show—or at least as straightforward as the series got in its best moments.

Pity Ed Funsch. Not only does he have the dullest job in the world—inputting zip codes off of junk mail—he manages to get a paper cut right before his friendly but impotent boss downsizes him. Worse, he's played by William Sanderson, the young old man from Blade Runner (and a ton of other stuff). Sanderson's the ideal when it comes to sympathetic losers, an actor who you automatically like when you see him but can't help feeling uneasy around. "Blood" makes the most of this quality; the episode splits its time between following Mulder around while he investigates the surprising number of murders in Ed's home of Franklin, PA, and showing Ed's gradual disintegration into a potential killer himself. Sanderson's built in pathos gives his story a lot of tension, while also making him reminiscent of Roland from the first season, another innocent driven to violence by forces beyond his control. And like Roland, Ed's disintegration doesn't happen without a bizarre push: the digital displays on everyday appliances keep telling him to do things. Horrible things. The messages would be easy to write-off as hallucinations, if it weren’t for the fact that other people have seen them too, right before they go kill crazy.

While "Blood" may not explicitly tie into the plots of "Men" and "Host," it's a memorable episode, due in no small part to its humor. As X-Files went on, it became far more willing to poke fun at itself, often with mixed results; but here it manages to deliver a story that's simultaneously absurd and frightening. There's the much welcome presence of the Lone Gunman team, for one; while Scully is present off and on, her interactions with Mulder are minimized till the end of the ep, and its nice to have at least one scene with him playing off of people who understand him. But there's also the nature of danger itself. A businessman slaughters an elevator full of people with his bare hands. A stack of TVs shows Ed a montage of violent images and then tells him to buy a gun. (Funny that the O.J. Simpson slow-speed car chase was in the mix.) A middle-aged woman visits a mechanic to pick up her car, and a diagnostic display plays on her worst fears—"HE'LL RAPE YOU." None of this is ha-ha funny, but the pulpy intensity of each sequence—of nearly the entire episode—makes you snicker even as you shudder. Someone's sending those messages and laughing while they do it.

And here's where "Blood" comes back to the show's main concerns. The conspiracy behind the spree killings, involving the testing of a new pesticide that heightens the fear response in insects and humans and an apparently limitless ability to tap into the read-outs of every piece of electronic equipment in the county, is grotesquely absurd. The cover-up of alien landings is bad enough, but here we have a cabal capable of the manipulation of an entire township. It's the punchline at the end of Mulder's deepest fears, a group so secret that you never be sure they exist at all. It's easy to get so caught up in his search for the truth that you forget just how important that truth really is. We want to believe because it would make life more interesting, but also because when the worst really is reality, hiding under the covers—or looking for a mask—is exactly what They want us to do.

Good, Bad, The Rest:

"Little Green Men": Essential

"The Host": Good

"Blood": Good

Stray Observations:

--Mitch Pileggi is always angry. He's like a gym coach whose favorite team loses the Super Bowl before every class.

--Was Anderson already pregnant when they started filming season two? It seems like they've got her in the baggiest clothes possible. (And they keep shooting her from unflattering angles.)

--The "ALL DONE NOW BYE BYE" message Mulder gets at the end of "Blood" haunted me for years.

--So what are you scared of?

-->

Welcome back, Buffyphiles! Sorry again for the week off, though I confess I appreciated the brief respite from feverishly tapping out notes on Buffy and sorting through them for deeper meanings (or at least examples of awesomeness). Then again, I also missed watching the show, and hearing all of your thoughts. You have to give to get, I guess.

Which means I have to apologize anew for what is going to be a shorter-than-usual post this week. After the richness of “Passion,” this week's three episodes are comparatively conventional—well, two of them anyway—and offer less to unpack. I don’t mean that as a knock, necessarily. All three are entertaining in their way—and one in particular is top-drawer—but for the most part, they get their juice from positioning, being both in the wake of “Passion” and part of the lead-up to the Season Two finale. They’re object lessons in how a good master-plot can make even a routine installment of an episodic drama into something memorable.

Take “Killed By Death.” The A-story of the episode—which sees Buffy coming down with a severe case of the flu and landing in the hospital, where she fights a child-murdering apparition named Der Kinderstod—is a reasonably effective creepfest that gets a few demerits for recalling Season One’s “Nightmares” too often, and a few credits for recalling some of the best Lee-Ditko Spider-Man stories. (Nothing adds drama to a superhero story like a sickly superhero.) The emotional undertones for this episode are supposed to be provided by Buffy’s memories of seeing her cousin die in a hospital when she was 8 years old—an incident that that she later realizes can be attributed to the Freddie Krueger-esque Der Kindestod—but that all felt shoehorned-in to me. The real drama has to do with Buffy’s persistent guilt feelings over the deaths that her dalliance with Angel has caused. In the past, I think Buffy has held a baseline understanding of her responsibilities as The Chosen One, but since Angel went rogue, the burden seems exponentially heavier. Now she's all the more driven to save the children—all the children.

The two best scenes in “Killed By Death” are Angel-related. Early in the episode, Angel and a weakened Buffy tussle in the cemetery and as he was knocking her around, I was thinking how in any other context, seeing a man stalk and beat up his ex-girlfriend would have a different meaning. Here, we still see Buffy as strong, even when she’s getting slammed against headstones. Still, the connotation of “bullying ex” isn’t completely gone. The other great scene in this episode has Angel strolling into the hospital to visit Buffy and getting turned away by Xander, and in that scene, Angel’s cruelty in trying to kick an opponent while she’s down very much reads as a stalker-ex-boyfriend-who-doesn’t-want-his-woman-to-be-happy scenario. In less than five minutes of screentime, Angel raises the stakes of “Killed By Death,” giving Buffy an extra level of drive to complete her otherwise routine mission.

“Go Fish,” meanwhile, barely touches on Season Two’s meta-narrative, and suffers mightily for it. I can’t fully hate any episode as Xander-riffic as this one, and I like the idea of Xander joining the swim team in order to find out why Sunnydale High's heroes are all shedding their skins and turning into aquatic beasts. But is it me, or does this episode seem awfully Afterschool Special-y? It turns out that the swim coach has been dosing his team with an inhaled performance-enhancer derived partly from fish, which leads to several clunky conversations about how “winning is great, but steroids are bad.” Which wouldn’t be so crippling to the drama, except that action-wise, Go Fish takes a dive in its second half. Most of the amusing bits come early, with Buffy fending off the advances of one of the swim jerks—leading me to wonder whether she’ll ever get to love again—but aside from the iconic pulp-novel image of a wet, cleavage-y Buffy being surrounded by fish-men, the end of this episode is undone by ridiculous explanations, improbably slow-moving MOWs, and a final image that’s more goofy than haunting.

Even worse, “Go Fish” only has one Angel scene, during which he takes a bite out of one of the swim guys and is repulsed by the taste. (Really kids, if vampires don’t want your blood, steroids must be bad. Stay clean, okay?) Coming so close to the finale—and given the sublime revelations of the episode that precedes “Go Fish”—the lack of forward motion in this installment is a bit of a bummer.

But let’s not dwell on that. Instead, let’s talk about “I Only Have Eyes For You,” a really beautiful episode that raises the subtext of the season to the surface in a surprising and emotionally powerful way. Ostensibly, “I Only Have Eyes For You” is about a ghost named James who haunts the halls of Sunnydale High and possesses those who dwell there, forcing them to re-enact his 1955 murder of a teacher with whom he had an affair. In actuality, this is a story about obsession and repetition. It begins with the gang back at The Bronze, with Buffy in a familiar pose, listening to music and mooning over Angel. Meanwhile, Willow has apparently stepped easily into the shoes of Jenny Calendar, teaching her class and continuing her research; and Giles is still so wracked with grief over Jenny’s death that when he hears there’s a ghost hanging around, he’s sure it must be her. (I hate to keep tying everything back to comic books, but Giles’ single-mindedness reminds me of the classic Frank Miller Daredevil issue in which the hero is so convinced that his slain true love Elektra is alive that he digs up her corpse. And come to think of it, Buffy and Angel have kind of a Daredevil/Elektra relationship, with the gender roles reversed.)

When Giles eventually realizes the ghost isn’t Jenny—answering with a soft, frank “I know” after Willow says, “Jenny could never be this mean”—the moment is heartbreaking. But not as heartbreaking as what Buffy goes through. Fed up with undead men making life miserable for young people, Buffy is determined to destroy the James The Unfriendly Ghost in as brutal a way as she can imagine, even as her colleagues tell her that the only way to dispatch James may be to forgive him for what he’s done. When Buffy snaps that Frank should have to live with his crimes, Xander reminds her, “He can’t live with it…he’s dead,” and the look on Buffy’s face reveals that she’s probably not ready yet to confront what Xander's point implies about the now-irredeemable, inhuman Angel.

Speaking of Angel, he’s setting up house with Drusilla and Spike in a new HQ with a spooky garden, but just when we think we’re seeing yet another iteration of an all-too-familiar scene—Angel flirting with Dru and belittling Spike—the Buffy team throws a curve. After Angel and Dru leave to go hunting, Spike rises from his wheelchair, ready to wrest back control of the Sunnydale underworld. (And about time; I missed the badass version of Spike.) Similarly, when Buffy and Angel are alone in Sunnydale High and seemingly about the reenact Frank’s murder scene as so many others have done, there' a twist: Buffy takes the Frank role, and Angel becomes the scared teacher, trying to cut him/her off. We hear the Frank-and-the-teacher dialogue several times in “I Only Have Eyes For You,” but hearing Buffy suddenly say to Angel, “Don’t walk away from me, bitch!” isn’t just funny, it’s revelatory. As the exes go through the motions of someone else’s break-up—complete with a goodbye kiss, and a little trail of spittle that connects their lips after they pull apart—there are multiple meanings to what they’re saying and how they’re saying it, and though both Buffy and Angel are possessed, they also seem to understand what they’re expressing.

Any show that can achieve this kind of catharsis shouldn’t have to settle for the not-quite of “Killed By Death” or the what-the-hell of “Go Fish.” So this week, I only have eyes for “I Only Have Eyes For You.”

Stray observations:

-Last season I felt like the Buffy writers misused Willow; this season I feel like they’ve been letting down Cordelia. Making her a permanent part of the team and hooking her up with Xander? Good ideas. Having her be the same shallow, status-obsessed brat week after week? That’s just lazy writing. I hope they can find a way to let Cordelia be Cordelia without making her so annoying that there’s no way the Buffy gang would let her keep hanging around.

-Funny Xander lines…From “Killed By Death,” babbling to the doctors at the hospital: “She fell!…The flu felled…She’s sick, make it better.” From “I Only Have Eyes For You,” responding to Buffy’s suspicions that trouble may be ahead: “Something weird is going on? Isn’t that our school motto?”

-Has there ever been an emergency room scene, post-ER, in which a doctor didn’t yell, “Get me a CBC and a Chem 7!”?

-I like that Buffy has to sicken herself further in order to see Der Kindestod in “Killed By Death,” which strikes me as a nice metaphor for the situation she finds herself in this season, having to worsen her own lot in order to help others.

-At the end of “Killed By Death,” Xander is drinking a Surge, a soda which no longer exists. I’m going to go pour a Vault on the ground, in memory of Surge.

-Worst line in “Killed By Death:” Buffy saying to Der Kindestod, “You make me sick!” (Another problem with “Killed By Death:” I can’t say the title without singing it, Mötörhead-style.)

-A lot of Principal Snyder this week! I know he figures into next season’s arc more than this one but it’s still nice to be reminded that he’s lurking, malevolently.

-Nice exchange between Xander and Giles…Xander: “I was just accosted by some kind of locker monster.” Giles: “Loch Ness Monster?”

-Nice special effect in “I Only Have Eyes For You:” the cloud of wasps parting as Buffy enters Sunnydale High.

-I know I can be dense sometimes, but is it ever explained why Frank starts haunting Sunnydale High at this particular time, as opposed to 40 years earlier?

-Two “Hey, it’s that dude!” casting moments this week: Deadwood’s John Hawkes as the janitor in “I Only Have Eyes For You,” and Prison Break’s Wentworth Miller as the swimmer Angel can’t stomach in “Go Fish.”

-Funny Willow line, in response to Cordelia’s comment that Sunnydale High doesn’t excel at anything: “You’re forgetting our high mortality rate!”

-Next week: Big Finish!

-->

Tonight's challenge was something every designer dreams of: getting one of their designs on a hit TV show, to be seen by millions of fashion-starved eyes. Of course, you could argue that the contestants on Project Runway achieve that dream literally every week as the season unfolds, but whatever. This means more! Because they're designing for Lipstick Jungle! The Sex & The City-esque show about high-powered businesswomen (who you know are high-powered businesswomen, because they never stop saying things like, "I'm the head of this studio." Or, "I have a magazine, I know what I'm doing.") that was watched by roughly the same amount of people as Project Runway!

The contestants' enthusiasm for this task could be best summed up by the look of exhausted confusion on Stella's face, and the very polite round of applause that the group gave Brooke Shields when she walked into the studio. When Tim announced, "It's Brooke Shields!" the workroom suddenly turned into a small version of the PGA tour: golf claps all around. Contrast that polite, restrained welcome with the prolonged burst of excitement that nearly knocked over Sarah Jessica Parker when she walked into Parsons last season, and you have a perfect measure of just how much this current season has fallen off. Poor, sweet Brooke Shields. She's the second-tier SJP on the wannabe Sex & The City, and this challenge just hammered that point home.

Still, some designers seemed excited about the challenge. When Terri found out that her designs could be on NBC instead of an NBC-owned cable channel, she flipped out. "That's what everybody wants!" she said. Of course, that sentiment was not nearly the most memorable thing Terri said this episode. That would be her curt assessment of Suede's particular Suede-osity: "I don't know if he got balls or a vajayjay." Followed by this summation of her managerial style: "I ain't got no babies. Ain't nobody sucking on my titties. So man up." That's right, Suede. Stop acting like a infant, and make that paisley flowy tent blouse like Terri told you. Suede does not want to see what will happen to Suede if Terri gets truly crazypants on Suede.

Despite their colorful disagreements, though, it was obvious that neither Terri nor Suede were either winning or going home. Why? Because we didn't learn anything about their families. Instead, Kelli, Daniel, and Blayne were each given the oh-so-subtle, "Here's a background detail about me or a family photograph" winner/loser edit. We found out that Daniel is from a Moroccan/Israeli background, so he can understand women of many cultures. How that relates to the Lipstick Jungle costume department is anyone's guess. We discovered that Blayne hasn't quite fleshed out the details of his character "Blayne"'s family life: "My family's crazy...But I love them!" Generic, Blayne. Are you sure you want to go that licious-free route? And we learned that Kelli's grandmother is handicapped, and that Kelli wanted to win the Lipstick Jungle challenge because she thought it would make her grandma proud to turn on the TV and see one of her designs.

I really hoped that Kelli would be on the winner side of the winner/loser edit, but as it turns out all three were losers, but for good reasons: Blayne (and Leanne)'s skin-tight unflattering bermuda shorts and icky blue tank looked more appropriate for a trashy camp counselor than a character who's supposed to be a businesswoman. And Kelli and Daniel's tight black bustier and pencil skirt combo with questionable animal print trim easily could have come out of a cheap costume-in-a-bag labeled "Retro Girl." In the end, the judges decided they could forgive Blayne his "brattiness" and propensity to live in "The Blayne Show"—after all, this is a reality competition. And even though Blayne has never put forth anything even halfway decent on the runway, they couldn't get behind Kelli's "slutty slutty slutty" look, so she was sent home. Still, Kelli can take comfort in the fact that talented, white-blonde girls (Allison, Kit Pistol) historically don't last long on Project Runway, while tiny troll dolls with severe hair (Christian, Jeffery) often do.

Grade: C+

Stray Observations:

--As for the winners: Jerrell finally found a challenge that fit his particular over-accessorized, mish-mosh aesthetic. His silky, flowy skirt and slim top cinched by giant yellow leather belt was somehow not that terrible. Although, I agree with Brooke, and disagree with Heidi: that extra zebra-skin belt was not "coooool." As for Keith/Kenley's watercolor blouse and scalloped chiffon skirt, it was the clear winner.

--Speaking of Kenley, on a scale of one to five—one being a slight though not unpleasant ringing in the ears, and five being a full-size, contstantly shrieking Macaw sitting on your shoulder, its claws digging into your skin and its beak firmly lodged in your ear canal—how annoyng is Kenley? For me right now she's about a 3. But I constantly want to rip that flower out of her hair.

--Chris March designed a Saturn-inspired outfit too! And he's leading the drag queen parade next episode.

--Daniel's only 25? I thought it took at least 30-35 years to build up that level of greasy scruffiness.

--Does it seem to anyone else that these designers don't really have their own, unique, interesting design points of view? With the exceptions of Leanne and Korto, the work of this crop of designers can pretty much be divided into two camps: Ugly or Tired.

--There seems to be some confusion about my calling Terri "crazypants." When I say Terri's aesthetic is "crazypants," I mean that it looks off-kilter, like something an insane person would wear. It doesn't necessarily mean that the literal pants she's made are crazy—although I do find it a little insane that she keeps making the same sad pair of black "clubwear" pants.

-->

Attention Classic Clubbers: Your Newsradio schedule will soon accelerate in order to complete Season 2 by September 2. Supersized posts (three episodes!) are coming for the final two weeks.

And that means I've got to practice leaner, meaner posting habits. No time like the present! So I'm counting on the Jimmy James Robot Army to mention all the great lines I left out, analyze the blocking, and critique Maura's wardrobe.

Because I've got to take care of poor, maligned Dave Nelson after he is put through the wringer in "Bitch Session," and that's a full-time job, people. Reportedly inspired by creator Paul Simms finding out about his staff's own bitch sessions, the storyline has Dave accidentally overhearing his staff ridiculing him. Adding insult to injury, Lisa, the woman who supposedly loves him, joins in. Mr. James has the job of restoring Dave's confidence and reestablishing trust between the staff and their boss.

The mockery is bad enough: Matthew imitating Dave's propensity to carry around a coffee cup and almost-but-never-quite drink from it ("I can't actually put my mug down or I'll lose my magic powers"), Joe and Beth speculating that he buys his suits in the boy's department, Lisa imagining him in a Norman Rockwell painting: "First Day At Bible College." Beth and a Dorf-On-Golfing Bill McNeal put on a play spoofing Dave's shortness and Wisconsin accent. "I want to know how you guys manage to come up with a new play every day!" enthuses Matthew as they leave Dave's office. But the end of the scene is heartbreaking: From under the desk where he was trapped during the whole humiliating affair, Dave snags the phone and dials. "Hello, mom?"

I've made no secret of the fact that boyish, slightly confused Dave brings out the mother instinct in me. So this episode has me locked up from that moment on. And yet Dave and Jimmy pile it on with the whole "pumpkin" bit. ("What did she say?" Jimmy asks about the phone call home. "Come home, pumpkin," Dave confesses.) As Dave feels ever sorrier for himself, Mr. James gets ever sloppier. "There's nothing wrong with two drunk men loving each other!" he declares, before trying to prove a point about having thick skin by singeing his fingers on the table's candle. Dave looks terribly hurt, but also defensive and embarrassed about the pettiness of the staff's complaints. "They said I make ridiculous gesture with my coffee cup," he complains, and Jimmy responds testily, "That's something that really pierces a man's soul."

And in one of the sweetest endings the show has yet pulled off, Jimmy arranges for Dave to hide behind a curtain and hear the staff defend him against Jimmy's plan to fire him. Even Bill stands up and unironically calls him the best news director he's ever worked for. (Catherine: "Compassion and sincerity from Bill McNeal!" Bill: "Those dimensions are there; they're just unexplored.") Followed by the double switcheroo, in which Lisa is hiding behind yet another curtain in order to hear Dave forgive her for participating! Although that one doesn't work as a reunion tactic, it does set up the strained relationship Lisa and Dave will have for the rest of the season.

And now we begin the Led Zeppelin series at the end of Season Two, complete with annoyingly uninformative titles such as "In Through The Out Door." The A-story here is Dave finding out that he has to introduce Bill at a broadcaster's convention, and confessing to a fear of public speaking. Meanwhile, Matthew has asked Joe to teach him how to gamble so he can join in the water-cooler conversations about sports betting. (Joe: "I'm thinking of a number between one and five." Matthew: "Four?" Joe: "No, three, good try though.")

This is a slight episode whose main plotline is enhanced by some beautiful editing and absolutely stellar work by the comedy duo of Foley and Hartman. Bill offers to teach Dave the finer points of speechifying (as enumerated in his Learning Annex course on the subject), but eventually cops to a crippling fear that Dave's terrible introduction will leave his own presentation high and dry: "Nobody cares how beautiful the souffle is if the appetizer is turds in a blanket!" He pounds on the desk with his umbrella and screams in Dave's face, "No, no, NO! 'Pa PAA pa, pa-pa-pa-PAA-pa-pa! Good EVE-ning, ladies-and-GEN-tlemen!" And then in a brilliant cut, Dave is shown concluding his introduction at the event, relaxed and in command at the podium, as the crowd protests the end of his talk ... followed by Bill apologizing for straining his voice. "Speak up!" yells someone at the back of the room, echoing Bill's first rule of speechmaking.

Two other lovely edits stand out: Dave standing at his door looking wistfully out at the office after we've just seen Matthew and Joe agree emphatically that "Wichita Lineman" sucks. "God, I love that song," he muses. And Dave getting angry at the bettors throwing paper balls into his trashcan while he's working on his speech, followed by the revelation that it's Lisa chucking the wads his way. These are cuts that work because they allow characters to be juxtaposed, not just action and dialogue. It's a subtle mark of professionalism in the writing and directing. (The same cannot be said for Joe Rogan failing to keep his composure while Andy Dick carefully examines his hands to figure out which one the pencil is in, but because I tend to crack up at actors cracking up, I'll forgive him.)

Grade: "Bitch Session," A-; "In Through The Out Door," B+

Stray observations:

- The B-story in "Bitch Session" is paper-thin -- Joe insists on "rigging up" a voice modulator for Bill rather than buying one. But it's nicely connected to the A-story (Dave's under the desk jiggling the phone jack when the session starts), and it makes possible a funny callback to the cold open when Bill mentions Joe's propensity for using old clocks for spare parts. "Just these two hands, a soldering iron, and some parts from an old clock," he boasts to Dave regarding the hard drive he fixed. "Is that why my old clock doesn't work anymore?" Dave responds.

- We must also thank the B-story for giving us Bill's line: "Thomas Edison wasn't trying to invent something that was readily available at a variety of stores near his home."

- James Burrows, the veteran sitcom director, was at the helm for "Bitch Session," and you can see his signature touches everywhere -- not only in the masterful cutting, but also in the use of mime. Jimmy cooling off his burned fingers in his martini, then pulling them out and sucking the alcohol off of them, all the while continuing to comfort Dave -- that's pure Burrows. Update:The rest of this bullet point refers to James L. Brooks, not James Burrows. Your addled correspondent regrets the error. Those of you who watch a lot of sitcoms probably can recognize his braying laughter which frequently stands out from the gentler hum of the studio audience. And of course, we Albert Brooks fans always share a secret smile remembering his cameo in Modern Romance as the director of the George Kennedy sci-fi movie that Brooks is editing, talking about the little "mysterioso" in the "I know the code, sir!" "You know nothing!" scene.

- Hey, It's 1996 Now! Alert: Rush Limbaugh and Robin Quivers references were bracingly au courant.

- We're completely engulfed in Matthew's pratfalls in the cold opens now, but they still amuse me -- and I suspect will continue to do so. I myself have accidentally dumped a drink on myself while checking my watch (although not goaded to do so as a practical joke -- just out of plain stupidity). And the unmotivated pulling-over of the snack table at the beginning of "In Through The Out Door" is so well timed that I couldn't care less that it's kind of random.

- Joe and Matthew are wrong about "Wichita Lineman." Dave is right about "Wichita Lineman."

- I'm impressed by how consistent the show has been about Mr. James' wife list. Every week it's been mentioned, the original number has held steady at 36. In "In Through The Out Door" he claims to have eliminated 13 candidates, leaving 23 still in play. Perhaps this admirable devotion to continuity can lead to one of those Holmesian cults where we all figure out on what actual date and time events in the series took place.

- Important Commercial Message: On October 28, Newsradio: The Complete Series goes on sale. To quote a great man: "12 discs for 60 bucks list price = buy this set!"

- "Do I hear the plaintive cry of the crested North American quitter?