Sound Off: I Just Want MY Cop Show

The other night, I walked by a TV that was turned to one of the many CHICAGO shows. I sat for a few minutes watching Chicago P.D. and was completely bored. I was looking for something to draw me in but none of the partner-centric banter or action drew me in. This is when something dawned on me: there is no one size fits all procedural drama.

If you're not interested in the characters from the get-go, you will be asleep faster than the first Law and Order victim is dead. These shows have to be character driven. I love the playful banter of McGarrett and Danno on Hawaii 5-0 and the love between Booth and Bones makes every investigation more enticing.

Welcome to the Family, Eddie! - A Weird Engagement

Image from Gifer

A lot happened on the season finale of Blue Bloods. The only thing I remember and really care about is the storyline that ended up with Jamie and Eddie showing up to family dinner, as an engaged couple!!! I've been waiting for these two crazy kids to get together for almost 7 years. I CANNOT BELIEVE IT!! I'M SO HAPPY!

 After a shootout, Jamie (still a guy) and Eddie (still a girl) confessed their feelings, pledged to continue to be partners, and decided to get married to each other. I'm not the only one that is excited about the surprising news. Last year, I wrote a  lengthy post about the adorable pair. Many people are wishing good thoughts to for the couple. 

Cop Fridays 7: Maggie Q is Literally Saving America on Designated Survivor

     Let's all give a round of applause to poor President Tom Kirkman (Keifer Sutherland). He was about to be kicked out of the presidential cabinet as HUD Secretary and as an afterthought had to sit in a bunker during the State of the Union address as ABC's Designated Survivor. Then a major bombing of Washington's lawmakers left him in charge of running the country. I agree that Kirkman is a pretty chill leader, wanting to hear all theories about the Capitol bombing before weighing in.  Of course, he's a bit gullible. He believed Congressman Peter MacLeish (Ashley Zukerman) was a war hero and a survivor of the attack. Of course that was a facade. In reality,  MacLeish was one of the major players in the attack. He purposely excused himself to a secret bomb shelter, coming out the only survivor of the address. This resulted in MacLeish's confirmation as the new VP, despite questions about his "impeccable" army service. The designated congresswoman, Ms. Hookstratten (Virginia Marsden), smelled a rat, but was forced to approve him through due to lack of evidence. In the end, MacLeish's wife shot him and killed herself to keep their secret. The MacLeishes were so committed to their cause that they were only rattled by the digging of an FBI agent.

      I give Kirkman, his right hand lady Emily Rhodes (Italia Ricci), and new Press Secretary Seth Wright (Kal Penn) a lot of credit for managing the re-creation of the union. Kirkman remarked this week, "I need to to focus on government." They jumped in and ran with it, but they're lacking when it comes to figuring out the true reason for the capitol bombing. A terrorist group claimed responsibility, but the bomb material didn't match up. This important distinction was discovered by the unsung hero of the show, FBI Agent Hannah Wells (Maggie Q). While she is crazily acting like the lone member of the FBI to solve this case, it's justified.  It's amusing to see Ms. Q finally working for the government again, and both sides being good. As the lead of the CW's Nikkita, Ms. Q kicked ass and took names as she brought a government assassin ring to justice. This time, she's still investigating government conspiracies for the government.

     Agent Wells had to clear her name a number of times, but she kept searching for justice. It could be a drinking game how often she is in trouble.* Wells was arrested for shooting at President Kirkman's sniper, which confused the law enforcement into thinking she was involved in the hit. She most notably was suspended from her duties for aiding the arrested FBI Director Atwood. Atwood was blackmailed into murdering the terrorist leader (allegedly responsible for the attack) in custody after his son was kidnapped. The young Atwood boy's body was devastatingly returned to his father in a recent episode, and  Hannah was there to comfort the director. She gently reminded him that committing  murder of a known terrorist was a good thing. This week, Wells questioned new Chief of Staff Aaron about his involvement in leaking confidential Capitol plans to aid in the building of MacLeish's bomb shelter. She chased leads through rural Virginia and shot at the former Chief of Staff (still alive!), which looked bad on her resume. Agent Wells got into a car accident on the way to testify in front of the congressional committee, and  sewed up her own wounds with the assistance of a FBI friend. She is one tough chick, but there's a deeper story. In the pilot, Hannah searched for a survivor of the attack, her unnamed married senator boyfriend. I want to know more about this relationship, but it sounds like it's going to the back burner as the police works heats up.

     As we head into the last few episodes of the season, Wells's work is only doubling. She recently connected with the President in his hospital room to spill the beans on MacLeish, and they're now best friends. Wells has been granted carte blanche status to get to the bottom of the Capitol conspiracy. A new layer of the problem has been revealed by the former chief of staff. Someone specifically ordered Kirkman to be the designated survivor before the attack. This reason goes beyond trying to fire him from the cabinet. As the newest pawn in this scene, Kirkman granted Agent wells to be a one-woman Hawaii-5-0 police force, reporting only to him. Now Wells can legally participate in CIA-crazy spy techniques and shoot at people to get to the bottom of this. It's the same thing she was doing before, but with a lot less getting arrested.


* If you're playing this drinking game, also drink when President Kirkman adjusts or removes his glasses. I thought in the first few episodes they were some sort of covert listening device because there seemed to be too much focus on them. 

Cop Fridays 3: It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Bones

Image from Pintrest

     It's time for another installment of Cop Fridays! This time we take a look at the rapidly approaching series finale of my most beloved cop show, Bones. Aside from COPS and American Idol, the 12-season running Bones may be one of the longest-running shows FOX has ever had the pleasure of airing.

      I'm going to get sentimental for a moment and explain why the show is so emotionally enmeshed in my viewing past. The show premiered in the Fall of 2005. I was a college freshman looking for new friendships and television shows. All you had to say was that David Boreanez "Angel from BUFFY" was playing a hunky FBI agent, and I was hooked. I invited my close friends over for a viewing party of the first episode. We all cheered when Emily Deschanel's Dr. Temperance Brennan grabbed a gun and shot a suspect in the leg to prevent him from getting away. It was illegal, it was wrong, and it was awesome! Remember, she is the forensic scientist - hence the name Bones- and she should not have done that at all for various ethical and legal reasons.

The show became a bonding experience over subsequent seasons, I had regular Bones dates with a group of friends. We held out hope that one day Brennan and said hunky partner,  FBI agent Seely Booth, would get together. It took years... She was with child before the audience discovered they were fooling around. From that moment in the 6th season finale, Booth and Bones seemed inseparable. With two kids, several kidnappings, and trips to faraway places like Peru and London for cases, it seemed like they could handle everything. They even tried giving up their crime solving at the end of season 10, quitting their jobs in an attempt to give their family a normal life (it didn't last).

     This week, it all stopped making sense. Brennan's ex-convict father Max (the incomparable Ryan O'Neal) died at the end of last Tuesday's episode. In another psychotic revenge plot, Max protected his grandkids from an attack at home. [Sounds like just another day at the F.B.I, right?] He came through surgery for a gunshot wound, passing suddenly as he talked with Bones. After that moment, Bones lost it. The father she spent years not knowing (due to her parents faking their deaths and going on the lam, leaving Bones and her brother to grow up in foster care), was gone and died doing what he could to protect his family.

      What would someone do after suffering a tragic loss? She would be the subject of this week's episode "The Grief in the Girl." Bones flipped out, becoming distant from her husband, telling him that he should go to Canada to work a case, and it's really not important if he makes it to the memorial. She catches up with an ex-boyfriend (sorry, I forgot you existed, FBI Agent Sully). She works the case from D.C. She writes a eulogy. She is at best, her pre-Booth robotic self. She is at best, completely falling apart in her own Bones way. I really can't understand why she is/was so into Sully. By the time she reaches the memorial, Bones is finally ready to open up to Booth like most normal people do when they lose a parent. Bones justifies her time with Sully, saying that relationship prepared her for a relationship with Booth. That's cool, but I thought his coming to town just for her dad's funeral and putting in a several-day hang was odd and inappropriate. It seemed bizarre that he left the FBI, skipped town and ghosted Bones, and then wanted to be there in her hour of need. He has a girlfriend he might want to marry back at home. For the record, their relationship was not a Buffy/Angel after Joyce's death situation. It was also odd that Bones would abandon her evolved emotional arc and become so distant from her husband. I have not been this upset over and episode since  Dr. Hodgins got confined to a wheelchair, and before that, when Dr. Sweets unexpectedly died.  While I'm willing to give this episode a pass, I hope this is a justified  plot device that will help the characters move on as we go to the last episode.

I was okay with Bones through this weekend. Then, I got upset again. David Boreanez appeared on The Huffington Post's Build Series this Monday. It was a delightful interview, until he teased there might be several  more deaths in the last few episodes. I went right back into a glass case of emotion. and I cannot keep doing this again. Usually Bones is known for keeping death to the corpses in the lab. Do we as an audience need the schadenfreude of the writers killing multiple characters to help ua walk away from a show? Absolutely not, no bones about it.

*Updated 2/28
See the amazing Forbes recap of the episode here.
See the first COP Fridays post here.
See the second COP Fridays post here.

Cop Fridays 2: When Partners Fall in Like

     Welcome to February. It's time for COP FRIDAYS, a little holiday this month I will celebrate every Friday night, saluting my favorite cop shows. This week's entry is about CBS's family police drama, Blue Bloods. The next paragraph highlights a powerful episode from January.

     "I don't want to get you jammed up," said Jamie Reagan (Will Estes) to his partner Edit Marie 'Eddie' Janko (Vanessa Ray). The two had a conversation after witnessing another male/female set of partners fighting in the street. One half of the other couple requested a transfer after the female partner was held at knife point by a suspect. Their parting words to Jamie and Eddie were that the whole precinct believes they are sleeping together. Eddie fluffed her blonde hair and suggested to Jamie that they should just got for it, pulling a Bonnie Raitt and giving them something to talk about. Jamie, whose father is the city police commissioner, shook his head and said it should never happen. But I have to ask why? Even CBS thinks this couple should be together.

Jamie: "We're paying for something we didn't get any benefits of..."

Eddie: "If you tap this (points to her bum), there's going back."

Image from Pinrest.

     This is why I watch Blue Bloods. Well, not for the dialogue, I definitely don't the in for the dialogue. That particular November episode was rife with terrible dialogue that sounded like it was from a 20's gangster and gun moll movie. Jamie makes a comment about the relationship between the two, likening it to trying to out toothpaste back in a tube if it didn't work out. Really, I would like to meet with their writing staff. I could see this type of talk coming from Jamie's widowed father and grandfather, which I refer to as the senior members of "the bachelor club," a nickname I used when Jamie and the two older generations lived under one roof together. But this is not the way a hot, single 30-something year old Harvard-educated lawyer (that became a police officer to serve a higher purpose). But I digress...

     There is a real reason I watch Blue Bloods. There are tons of procedural shows and cop dramas out there, but Blue Bloods is different.  It's a family drama and the family just happens to be filled with cops and lawyers with a strong (read too strong) sense of ethics. At first, season 1 brought us a murder mystery. We had to explore the conspiracy in the police department that led to Jamie's brother Joe's death.  The action on the murder cases can move fast, but this couple has been slow burning for years and that's what makes me come back (aside from Donny Wahlberg's Danny kicking ass and taking names). Jamie and Eddie have been buddies since season four, trading bad date stories and grabbing beers after patrol. They were partnered at the beginning of that season after Jamie's partner Vinny was killed in the line of duty.

     The couple kissed late in season four, but it's taken three years for them to pick up some steam as most of their talks have ended with a hug, like when Jamie comforted Eddie after her inconsequential boyfriend took a swing at her. A few months ago, they kissed after a double date and said they "had feelings," but chalked up the kiss to too much alcohol. (Read more from EW.com about the kiss.) Eddie came with Jamie to a wedding and Jamie punched a guy who was hitting on Eddie or making lewd comments. Then they slow danced. In last week's episode, Eddie reveals a deep secret to Jamie. She shares that she is a Philadelphia Flyers fan. Jamie, who comes from generations of Rangers fans (as well as cops),  is disgusted but forgives Eddie. This is surely not normal behavior for people that are "just friends."

      I also have to reflect on a pivotal episode from 3 weeks ago. Eddie complains to Jamie about her new boyfriend ghosting after she shot a would be robber on a date. It's a typical complaint, right? Eddie laments that she isn't comfortable being a damsel and she's frustrated she hasn't found a guy who appreciates her four her tough exterior. But there may be someone who sees her tender side, and is not threatened by her pulling out a gun and doing her job, even off-duty. It's JAMIE!! It's HIM!! He basically says as much while comforting Jamie. Eddie says they can't be each other's consolation prize. WHY??? It can't be because they're partners. Danny and his many female partners have always had an appropriate work/personal life balance in the detective squad. Whether it was party girl Jackie (Jennifer Esposito: 2+years), Kate (Megan Ketch: a few episodes), Mac (Megan Boone: a few episodes) and his current partner Maria Baez (Marisa Ramirez: since 2013). It's time to man up Jamie Reagan, take a chance with Eddie!
I would ship that!

See the first COP Fridays here. 

Cop Fridays 1: Live PD

     I may have expressed an interest in cop shows in the past. I would say I'm a fan of some. I, however, have never been a fan of the live-action FOX show COPS, which has run for 29 seasons. I'm here to talk about Live: PD, an A&E show that takes COPS one step further, because it's Live. The program is hosted by ABC's Chief Legal Correspondent  Dan Abrams (catch him on Good Morning America) and he guides viewers through live Friday night feeds and pre-recorded ride-alongs in locations like Mission, TX, Calvert County, MD, Columbia, SC, and Tulsa, Oklahoma each week. Some weeks, the show is on The show is also on Saturday nights most weeks, which means 3-6 hours a weekend of live PD. The show's clear star is Officer Sticks, a member of he Tulsa PD Gang Unit. I had no idea until a few weeks ago that there are gangs in Oklahoma, it just didn't seem like that kind of place. But it absolutely is, and Officer Sticks is right in the think of it.

     At best case, the night is filled with traffic stops (DWI) and calls for domestic disturbances (Uncle Billy) and crazy neighbors fighting. At worst case, it's police chases (I have to admit there was a pretty interesting one in Columbia) and  officers putting their lives in danger in some form or another. When the show turns off at midnight, there is always a case still brewing that we don't get resolved.

The Blindspot

     Time Square is full of lights and people. An empty bag is found.  It's a big, black bag, and if you see something,  you should say something. The area is cleared and the bomb squad goes in to  investigate. When they poke a bag, a woman covered in tattoos emerges, stark naked. No, this is not Tilda Swinton's latest art project, it's NBC's The Blindspot.

     The woman, Jane Doe (played by Jaimie Alexander), has no memories at all. Her full body tattoo art includes intricate patterns of numbers, addresses and symbols. Her back reads: Kurt Weller, FBI. Agent Weller (Aussie Sullivan Stapleton)  is a top cop at the New York FBI bureau. He and his team take Jane in under their watch to see if she can jog her memory. Jane appears to be drugged in away to wipe her personality and memories out, but her basic motor skills are still there, and she can kick ass. Weller and his crew take Jane on missions, using her tattoos to prevent terrorism, end bank holdups, and generally save New York from imminent destruction. Do they ever request backup? That would be a no, and an issue I take to heart. Seriously, who died and make Weller, Zepeta, Reid, Jane and Patterson think they can single-handedly save New York City every time? But I digress...

     Jane assists Weller's unit in their daily activities, and it gets real. . Weller's computer genius, Agent Patterson (Ashley Johnson from Growing Pains) analyzes Jane's tattoos for fun, looking for more clues. The art represents hidden puzzles and clues to upcoming crimes and exposure of governmental wrongdoings. At first the team doesn't  have a clue what's going on. They know a group called Sandstorm is behind things, but they're not sure why.  Patterson's boyfriend gets murdered trying to help her out with the puzzles, and she gets in major trouble with Director Mayfair (Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who reminds me of  Viola Davis in HTGAM) because her boyfriend really shouldn't be looking at classified FBI files in the first place. Then Director Mayfair gets framed for murder, and she gets murdered. The body count gets a bit ridiculous, although most of the bad guys are brought in for justice. This becomes  part of the overall theme in the show: where are we drawing the line? Should the FBI go out looking for trouble? Should the CIA kidnap and torture Jane to get their own answers? Should Weller make allowances for Jane and let her run with the team?

     Weller discovers Jane was brought to him because her DNA test shows she is Taylor Shaw. Shaw was a little girl who lived on his street that was supposedly murdered when he was 10 years old. Weller is so relived to see Taylor because his father was put in jail for allegedly murdering  the 5-year old neighbor girl. It was pretty weird to think that Weller cared so much about this little kid, but I'm willing to buy into it because it seems like she was really his younger sister Sarah's (Jordana Spiro) friend. As the season progresses, Jane's memories begin coming back, and she is clearly not Taylor Shaw. Her tooth shows isotopes native to Africa and her memories about about assassin-like training. She is an ex-Marine and she came to Weller for a different reason. Is she part of Sandstorm? Of course she is! One thing is clear, Jane is bad news.

Hawaii 5-0: A Carte Blance Police Force

     TV cops have a long standing reputation of closing cases in 45 minutes (except for the O.J. case). How they go about it can sometimes be a stretch, and you know they have to cut some corners to do it. If today's media attention toward police screw-ups in any indication  If the judge is on the golf course, someone better contact his caddy to get that warrant, right? After a while I believe there's a fine line between defending justice and infringing on the rights of others. Maybe there's something powerful that draws the audience to situations like that. We love the thrill of the cat-and-mouse game, and nothing is more satisfying than capturing someone who really did something bad. But what if that person is supposed to be preserving the law?

     Some of my favorite moments in cop dramas have been about breaking the law. There's a memorable part of the Blue Bloods pilot where Det. Danny Reagan (Donnie Wahlberg) flushes a perp's face in a toilet to get information, which definitely falls under police brutality. Blue Bloods has long addressed issues of police conduct (and misconduct) and Police Commissioner Reagan (Tom Selleck) always supports his officers and policies until given reason to believe they are harmful to the public. There was at least one episode of Bones where Dr. Brennan (Emily Deschanel) an anthropologist partnered to an FBI agent, shot a perp. This happened in the pilot episode for chrissake! Her husband Booth (David Boranez) has shot multiple people over the years, and he shot a clown on top of an ice cream truck, which landed him in therapy. The first episode of Jennifer Lopez's Shades of Blue has J-Lo's Harley covering up her partner's shooting of an unarmed man that was playing single-shooter video games. Clearly, TV cops need some more regulation.

Image from Pintrest

    There is a much more corrupt group of cops on TV! What happens when you have a free-for-all police task force that is presided over by the Governor of the state? Then you have the Hawaii 5-0 and all hell breaks loose. These people are cops, but they have the worst luck when it comes to dating and getting people kidnapped. This police squad of misfits operates on their own with no oversight, and they have broken numerous laws to close cases. I also wonder how legal their desktop comoputer is. It's a computer screen the size of a desk that can search databases and find licenses in a matter of seconds.

     In this current season, Chi McBride's Lt.Grover, desperate to prove his old partner's guilt in murdering his wife, kidnaps his friend and holds him at gunpoint and threatens the guy's new girlfriend until he confesses. Don't sweat the small stuff, right? Grace Park's Kono married a reformed Japanese mob (Yakuza) kingpin at the end of last season, and by their honeymoon he is kidnapped, murdered innocent people in his escape, and is now in prison.  Last month, her cousin Chin Ho (Daniel Dae Kim) has a shootout with his deceased wife's brother. Chin gets a little wild and shoots the guy through a window of an abandoned building and he falls a few stories and lands on a car. Important to note, he is missing when the come to check on the body, so it's only an attempted murder. Was this a concerning turn of events for anyone else? Not so much. They were much more worried about Danno and Commander Steve McGarrett (Alex O'Loughlin) going to some partner training. When they arrived at the training session, they found out it was a couples' retreat and their witty banter really shown through as Danno suffered through a broken ankle in a three-legged race exercise. I'm not going to blame her, but even McGarrett's girlfriend Catherine saw 5-0 was a toxic environment. Catherine returned for Kono's wedding and just as McGarrett was about to propose, she packed her bags and left for a humanitarian mission (or maybe not, as we discovered last week that she is on a  classified mission in Nepal).
   
     Elsewhere, the FBI took aside Danno (Scott Caan) to investigate what happened to a half-million dollars his brother had in his possession before he was murdered. Somehow his mother got access to the money and the FBI thinks Danny knowingly helped his brother hide the stolen money as an accessory. If this is the FBI's in-road, they need to think again about their priorities. People near to the 5-0 are getting murdered left and right. Plus the group makes their own rules of what constitutes torture for their perps in the windowless interrogation room.  If anyone remembers, the first Governor of Hawaii who created the 5-0 (Jean Smart) got murdered and 5-0 leader McGarrett was framed for it, because who wouldn't believe the leader of a no-rules task force would eliminate the one person standing in his way. Now McGarrett is a pretty decent guy, but let's not forget his mother, renowned criminal Doris (and long thought to be dead) got away with tons of bad stuff because Steve failed to bring her to jail,  and she is still out there and is a hired assassin.

     Now with the FBI on their heels, the 5-0 is going to need to accept responsibility for their errors in judgment and reckless behavior. Inspector Abby Dunn,  (Julie Benz) a recent visitor to 5-0 from San Francisco has come to observe how the group works so she can start her own task force. So naturally with more eyes watching, the group should be making a good impression. But since she has been here, several bad things have happened (See Chin-Ho and the brother-in-law shooting). So imagine my surprise when Abby lied about a trip to San Francisco a few weeks ago, and then she turned up on the other side of Danno's police interrogation. Now, we found out she is an FBI plant to help disband 5-0. No why would anyone want to disband the 5-0 (aside from the above mentioned misconduct)? Of course, the lead investigator's brother was murdered and he has investigated 5-0 last season, so that's all we need in terms of a motive for this show. The reason I find this plot so amusing is that on the beloved 90's alien drama Roswell, Benz also played an FBI agent. Pretending to be the school guidance counselor, agent Topolsky got a little to close to the aliens and she died in a mysterious fire. Hopefully the same fate does not await her in Hawaii.

Forever Series Finally Comes to DVD

    I have a soft spot for vampire shows (Vampire Diaries), and at that vampires solving crime is my jam (Angel, Moonlight). I just discovered ABC's sleeper hit, (my opinion, but maybe not the critics' feeling) Forever, is coming to DVD. The show's protagonist  Dr. Henry Morgan (Ioan Guffudd) is old (approximately 150-ish and looking good for his age).  All 22 episodes of doctor/detective tension (Bones, X-Files, and Castle as inspiration) and a the delightful Irish accent of the guy who rescued Rose from the freezing water in Titanic (and battled Sarah Michelle Gellar as twins on the CW show Ringer). My last happy thought on this is I get to see Judd Hirsch again, as he plays Henry's adopted son in a decidedly friendlier-than-that-guy-Taxi way.

A Note About Blue Bloods: All Class, All Sass

Blue Bloods may be just another cop show, but here's what makes it different. The deep family values and the sassy one-liners really change things for the better. Here's a sample of tonight's winners:

"Where do I put this?"
- Danny's partner Jackie (holds her gun in the air while going undercover as a hooker)
"Baker, how have you come to ruin my day now?"
- Frank to his assistant
"The roast looks good."
- Frank when asked to weigh in about his granddaughter joining the police force
"Maybe I should become goth."
- Bridget's daughter at the museum
"Grandad if you have a job, will you still make us dinner?"
- Danny's kids to their greant grandpa at family dinner night
"Hey. Eyes up!"
- Linda to her husband as he goes off to an undercover sting with his sluttily dressed partner
"You'll do."
- A potential John to undercover cop Jackie
"Don't kid a kidder."
- Frank's head PR guy
"Another night of sleaze and desperation."
- Danny on a stakeout
"Its nice to share a meal with someone who's not talking about the murder rate in Bensonhurst or weighing the merits of a 98 glock vs. a 32 special."
- Bridget to her date

Jamie: "You know Jackie, this undercover stuff scares me too."
Jackie: "But you don't have a bad past like me kid."

An Updated Note About Hawaii 5-0 Bingo

I got 5-0 BINGO!

After 4 weeks of playing, I succeeded during Monday night's Christmas episode of Hawaii 5-0.

The bingo spaces included:

5. Alex O'Loughlin runs really fast.

4. Car chase

3. Alex O'Loughlin breaks several police brutality laws.

2. The bad guys turn out to be terrorists.

1. Alex O'Loughlin and Scott Caan flirt shamelessly.

Note: There were 12 spaces covered during this week's game board.

Sidenote: Rules about the free space (I count this alternately as a Ford product placement or every time they show the gold Hawaiian warrior statue^).

Observation: If this was a drinking bingo game, and we counted each time they showed the Hawaiian warrior state outside of 5-0 headquarters, people would be very drunk by the end of an episode.

A Note About Predictability and Games

Last night I played one of the most engaging tv-centered games I've seen in a long time. Courtesy of Entertainment Weekly, I played Hawaii 5-0 Bingo. Filled with predictable and time-honored plot twists, I think I hit bingo about ten minutes into the show. Thanks CR for the great find!

Last night included these bingo scores:
1. Apple product placement
2. Book em danno
3. Grace Park undercover in a skimpy outfit
4. Scott Caan hates his demonic ex-wife
5. Morally ambiguous overweight Hawaiian fella
6. Scott Cann proclaiming love for his angelic daughter
7. Bad guys are part of terrorist cell - this is a pretty common plot twist
8. Daniel Dae Kim lurks in shadowy surveillance van
9. Alex O'Loughlin breaks police brutality laws
10. Alex and Scott flirt shamelessly

sadly there were no boat chases, helicopter rides, car crashes, or Danno saying "Back in Jersey." But surely, next week will cover those.

I really do love 5-0. But I have to ask, why is there no spot on the board for shameless chevy promotions?

A Note About Seeing the Footage on TV

This past Friday night, I saw the episode of Blue Bloods I watched being filmed! -Refer to my September 16th entry about seeing Blue Bloods filmed.

The episode was about an off-duty officer who is shot in a diamond heist. During her family's grief, the NYPD and the Reagan family's quick time frame to catch the criminals and bring them to justice. Commissioner Dad, officer Jamie, Detective Danny, prosecutor Erin, and even retired commissioner grandpa worked on the case.

Here is my horrible cell phone photo from the set.