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 5: After 8 Seasons, the Sheriff Can't Stop Doppelgangers and their Vampire Diaries*

     Happy 20th Anniversary today to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the grandmommy of all teen vampire dramas! We'll touch on BTVS briefly tonight as it relates to The Vampire Diaries but devote more time to it soon.

"Evacuate the town. Yeah, it's another gas leak." -- Sheriff Matt Donovan

     This is the Mystic Falls town slogan. I would also accept, "Come for the vampires, but stay for the lies that everything is going to be okay," because nothing in Mystic Falls is ever going to be okay. This place has been haunted by vamps since the Civil War! I find it ironic that in the last episode of the series, we're going back to the old classics. Similar to the old Buffy adage, "This crime was committed by a gang on pcp." The Vampire Diaries had their share of police cover-ups. In the beginning, Sheriff Forbes and Mayor Lockwood put the town at ease by straight up lying. Vicki Donovan (sister of Matt) was bit by vampire Damon Salvatore (Ian Somerhalder) during a party in the woods, and everyone believed she was bit by an animal, another Buffy lame excuse. When in doubt, all of the vampires could glamour humans and make them believe whatever they told them in a trance-like state. It worked fine until Stefan became human again. All of his glamours became undone and the town was ready to riot before the gates of hell were being opened. Much like Buffy, TVD also has a gateway to hell lurking around their school. This is more a recent development as the "Hells Bells" came to town with TVD's siren sisters this season.  
     

Image fro GURL.com

     Let's talk more about the concept of a vampire going back to being a human. This concept has been a big part of TVD and I believe the cure was introduced around season four. The cure would only work for one person, and it looked like a large capsule of blood. Apparently, some Internet reading led me to find out the cure came from a brotherhood hunting The Originals witches as early as the year 1100. It was buried in some remote part of the earth and everyone wanted it for their own reasons. The idea was to give it to Elena (Nina Dobarev) because being a vampire was kinda an accident and it made her miserable.

Multiple Dimensions, Bonnie's Deaths and "The Cure"

     When a few witches created alternate dimensions to trap people {1994 for Kai Parker (Chris

Bonnie and the Bennett Witches
Image from Youtube

Wood) and 1903 for Mama Salvatore}, there were multiple cures created in those prison worlds. This brought the number of cures to 3. The first cure went to Katherine Pierce, a big bad doppelganger of Elena, also played by Dobarev. (The total number of doppelgangers she played was three.)The second cure went to Silas, a doppelganger of Damon's more saintly brother Stefan (only two doppelgangers for Paul Wesley). The third cure went into Elena's body before a season 6 wedding. Instead of Elena dying (and Dobarev leaving the show forever), she was put in a coma, her life tied to her best friend, Bonnie Bennett (Kat Grahm). For all her witchy ways, Bonnie could not figure out how to bring Elena back, aside from killing herself. Bonnie died three times over the course of the series and almost a record 4th time in the penultimate episode (Buffy only dies twice). But Bonnie is a fighter and she made it back through a loophole every time, so things were not looking good for Elena in this lifetime. After the big battle (see below) is over, Elena wakes up. Suddenly, Bonnie realized she knew how to break the spell. This was a stretch of convenience for the last few minutes of the episode. We don't know how she did it after barely practicing magic for the last 3-4 years.  I sincerely hope she channeled the power of her ancestor witches, in the image above. Bonnie used their strength to win the big battle (like Willow when she gave slayer hopefuls their powers early from the cool slayer scythe). Bonnie ends the show along, but she keeps seeing the ghost of her dead boyfriend Enzo, and she seems to be cool with it. Bonnie finally got out of that town and was headed off to see Europe. You go, Bonnie Bennett.

The Big Battle- "I was Feeling Epic"

     A few episodes ago, Bonnie injected some of  the cure out of Elena's sleeping body so she could give it to her boyfriend, Enzo. Then sweet Stefan went evil (just like Angel lost his soul and became Angelus) because he turned off his humanity to serve the devil for a few years. Also known as "Cade", the devil made the Salvatore brother work for him collecting bad souls in exchange for not taking Caroline and Ric's twin witch toddlers, which is like a magical full house. Bonnie punished Stefan by stabbing him with the cure, and turning him human for the first time in 150 years. At this point, the cure rules become unclear. Stefan got the cure, but it's still in Elena's sleeping body. It does, however, becomes clear that doppelganger Katherine is pulling the strings in hell. Surprise! She's had Cade torturing the gang since she died a few years ago.  Through Stefan and Caroline's wedding, they lure Katherine back to town. Here's the plan, trap her in the underground tunnels, and hope Bonnie can channel hellfire through the tunnels (like when an earthquake swallowed Sunnydale into the Hellmouth) to swallow Katherine back to hell and destroy the whole construct, once and for all. Stefan volunteers, he has a family to protect now. Damon volunteers, because he's done some bad stuff and has spent the last season pondering if he would ever be worthy of Elena when she wakes up. As Heath Ledger said in 10 Things I Hate About You, "Does this chick have beer flavored nipples?" The blind love and devotion for Elena is at times, completely revolting. So  now Damon is going to trap Katherine in the tunnels. Psych! Stefan comes at the last minute and stabs his brother with (you guessed it) the cure, so he can also be human, and live out a human life with Elena. Stefan goes down in hellfire with Katherine as a hero. He is officially, dead. Everyone was pretty upset about it, especially his brother (after 150+ years on earth, you get attached). I was near tears when they had a  "woods funeral" for Stefan, playing The Fray's Look After You. This song was significant for two reasons, it was callback to Stefan and Elena in the pilot, and Candace Accola (Caroline) actually married one of the band members. We saw Stefan pass over as he jumped into a car with his old (dead) pal, Lexie, where he proclaimed, "I was feeling epic!"

What exactly is hellfire? 

      Now we come back to Sheriff Matt Donovan and what he did for the town. First of all, Matt is the only character on the show that (a) did not die and (b) remained human the entire time.  Secondly, he only became the Sheriff because enough people died, moved away, or quit that he was the only one dumb enough to stick around in a town that was at one time, preventing non-vampires from entering at the "welcome" sign.  Does that make him a good cop? I can't say. I can say that Matt was the Mystic Falls equivalent of a Xander Harris. He had a pure heart, and he needed to do just one thing to prove he was worthy of being part of this extraordinary group. 

     Matt finally got parents this season, and they revealed he was from one of the founding families (he could have been Miss Mystic Falls). This means Matt wasn't the white trash he always believed he came from. The Maxwell family designed the founders' town bell, and the Bennett witches put a spell on it to drive away sirens. But a different number of rings would open the gates of hell, located just under the town square (just like the high school library). Before the grand plan to eradicate Katherine was developed, Matt agreed to ring the bell.  Then his 20-years absent dad jumped in to ring it, but hey changed their minds after hearing the town would be eradicated. Then Matt's mom came back from the dead (don't feel bad, Matt didn't even know she died) and got his (also dead) sister Vicki to ring the bell, bringing hellfire. Matt and Damon tried to kill Vicki, but remember, she's been dead since about episode 5. At least by this point, the crack team had a plan in place to take down Katherine and preserve the town. The town later presented Matt with a bench (for still having a town to come back to) while the ghosts of his sister and friend Tyler watched.  

Caroline/Rick/Stefan- One Happy Family?

     Caroline and Stefan got married in the penultimate episode. I know they've been engaged all season, but something about their relationship has never won me over. Maybe I am a sucker for the chemistry Stefan first had with Elena, and that fact that they're doppelgangers, souls reborn into identical bodies over and over again. That means something! Does it mean something that Caroline was hard core hitting on Stefan in the first episode? I choose to believe it was just a way to show her personality at that time, she was a boy-crazy friend of Elena, light and airy until she (within the first half of the season) became a vampire. That being said, a more grown up Caroline was forced into this family with Ric because she was gifted with carrying his wife's mystical twins. We all remember Jo's devastating murder at the hand of her twin brother (Kai) during her wedding. She is the only mom these kids will ever know, and Ric is the dad to all of the kids in mystic falls, because they have terrible family situations. Ric almost married Elena's aunt at one point (before she died), and it turned out his first wife was Elena's biological mother. Talk about an awkward family reunion... So Caroline and Ric called off their wedding a few years ago because she was really in love with Stefan. But, I always believed Ric had fallen in love with Caroline and I wanted to see them end up together. With Stefan gone a day after he got married, I am hoping Caroline and Ric come together again, this time with love and gratitude fro what they've faced with these twin terrors (siren nannies and the like). Their last scene is opening a magic school (just like Charmed) with Elena's brother Jeremy, much like the Derek Zoolander center, except books catch on fire and there may be Harry Potter robes. I guess the idea of the school is to prevent kids from spinning out and becoming magical super villains, like Kai. Despite their generous endowment to begin the school from creepy vampire Klaus, I choose to believe Caroline and Ric are together. 

Elena and Damon- Happily Ever After, or Are They Dead? 

     Elena and Damon are living happily as humans. I'm not happy with it, but I'm accepting it based on the circumstances. Elena writes in her journal, with a big rock on her finger, back in the graveyard again. In the first episode, she went to the cemetery to feel close to her recently deceased parents. Now, I think it's mostly for Stefan's benefit. I assumed she was writing ho him in her journal. As a typical back from the dead over-achiever, Elena completed college, med school, and actually became a doctor. I guess she handles blood well. She finished journaling and Damon met her to walk somewhere. There's a crow in the graveyard. It's another callback to the first episode. I also think Stefan's soul may be in that crow. Yes, it's a stretch, but it makes me happy.

     Here's where TVD lost me: the last scene. I'm going out on a LOST limb here, so bear with me. From all the interviews and pieces I have read, we are flashing forward to the end of Damon and Elena's lives. Otherwise, all of this was for nothing because it seems like we're following them into the not too distant afterlife. Elena and Damon were strolling down the street. Elena stopped at her home, (which she burned down upon becoming a vampire) and her dead parents were out on the porch. She ran up the steps, hugging them and her dead aunt, Jenna. Then her dead biological father (Uncle John) came out with a bottle of wine and hugged her. To me, one reunites with dead people when they have also crossed over. The last shot was Damon ringing the bell at the old Salvatore house, which a second ago was being converted into a magic school by Caroline and Ric. Stefan opened the door and greeted his brother home with a hug. The last words are another callback to the pilot, when Damon breezed into town to murder people. He said to Stefan, "Hello brother." If Damon was worried he would never see Stefan again, and here they are together in their home, they must be dead. If they really did destroy hell with it's own fire, they must be in heaven. So it seems like both brothers found redemption for being such vicious killers.

     While that's a great note to end on, I want to believe Stefan got another shot with Elena in the afterlife. They had such a beautiful (but too short) moment saying goodbye while Elena was in her sleeping beauty coma that I can't be completely satisfied with this ending.

 NOTE: A "woods funeral" is a memorial held for someone who is dead on TVD. I coined this term because it's happened multiple times, and at least a few of them were for Bonnie.  I guess this group needs to say their goodbyes in private, so a real funeral may also be held. They meet in the woods near the graveyard, possibly by the Lockwood family crypt. They say some nice things and often leave tokens for the dead. 

     *My original intent was to call this "Twins, Doppelgangers and Time Jumps", but there was only one jump, three sets of twins and a gaggle of vampires, diaries and doppelgangers to discuss., so we paired it down. 

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.

Good Wife, Great Lawyer, Terrible Friend

     Alicia Florrick's story came to an end Sunday night, but the ending was less of an ending than legendary "meta" show endings like The Sopranos.  Alicia (Juliana Margulies) has often been referred to as "Saint Alicia", the First Lady of Illinois, Peter's wife, and  Grace and Zach's mom. Yes, she is no doubt The Good Wife. When her State's Attorney husband Peter (Chris Noth, a.k.a. Carrie Bradshaw's Mr. Big) went to jail for corruption (and using government money for hookers), Alicia stood by him, sold the house, and got the kids set up in a stable home and public schools. She the got a job at the only firm that would hire her, ran by an old college pal, Will Gardner.

     Despite her occasional bad moments this season (calling in sick to work to spend the day in bed with her bad boy investigator Jason), and giving into her long-brewing affair with Will (Josh Charles) in season 4, Alicia is almost too nice. The most bold things she has done (running for State's Attorney, leaving Lockhart/Gardner to start a firm with Carey) were both things she had to be talked into. Time and circumstances have made Alicia more "bad", (relatively of course) because drinking too much wine and disrespecting her mother-in-law Jackie (Mary Beth Peil) are usually her worst crimes. Mrs. Florrick defended known mob boss Lemond Bishop (Mike Colter) and suspected wife-murderer Colin Sweeney (Dylan Baker) but never got involved in anything against the law. At the forefront of Alicia's moral code, the law is there and emotion is a close second.

     But "Saint Alicia" tossed off her halo in the series finale last week, giving into passion (not of the carnal variety), but in the "save my family" variety. With Zach running off to Paris to marry a grad student and Grace threatening to postpone college for a year, Alicia needed to get her ducks in a row. Her highness threw her partner and now ex-friend Diane Lockhart's (Christine Baranski) marriage under the bus to win a case, using associate Lucca to get the job done. Alicia insinuated Diane's ballistics expert husband could not be objective in his testing report because he had an affair with his protegee, a second ballistics expert called in on the case. Alicia won her case, which helped prevent her husband Peter from going to jail (again over a corruption charges). Alicia saved her family, walked away from Peter to chase Jason the investigator (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), lost both men, and got b****-slapped by Diane.

     This brings me to the point of this post. Alicia built herself a new life in Chicago. She left behind the cushy life of PTA meetings and dinners to jump into corporate law to save her family. Peter was mostly gone (in jail, at the Governor's mansion, sleeping with women). Alicia stayed with Peter to save her family. Alicia even went on the campaign trail for the presidential election to save her family. But when it comes to making friends, ALICIA IS TERRIBLE. The show should be called "The All-Alone Wife" because that's how she ended up. There was no Peter, no Jason, (no Will because he is long dead), no salvageable job at Diane's new female-led firm, and her kids are leaving the nest.

     Alicia doesn't have girlfriends like other female T.V. characters. She merely has co-workers, clients, and family. Sometimes these people overlap. Eventually, her mother-in-law and co-worker got married. Alicia's only true friend, former P.I. Kalinda (Archie Punjabi) left town a year ago after Lemond Bishop threatened her. It is important to make clear here, Alicia was mostly drinking buddies with Kalinda. When K.S. revealed she had also slept with Peter when she worked in his office. At this point, it's harder to find a woman that hasn't slept with Peter. Alicia began this season pretty despondent until she created a drinking buddy in Lucca Quinn (Cush Jumbo). The two women were working in bond court and eventually created a practice, and got hried back by Alicia's old firm. Other female friendships have not gone smoothly. ER alum Maura Tierney played potential donor Maddie Hayward several seasons ago. She invited Alicia out for a drink and Alicia deflected, saying she was married. Maddie countered, she just wanted to make a friend and she was not into Alicia in that way. Cold and calculating boss/co-worker Diane also had a tenuous relationship with Alicia. Diane grew frustrated when Alicia let her down more than once:  when Alicia left Diane's firm to anew and when Diane was promised an appointed  judgeship by Peter, only to be swapped in for a male candidate at the last minute. It seems the only constant in Alicia's life has been her daughter Grace (Mackenzie Vega), who pulled her weight this season as Alicia's legal secretary after school.

     The men in Alicia's life have also given her more heartache than friendship. Alicia/Peter's campaign manager Eli Gold (Alan Cumming) betrayed Alicia, lying for years about deleting a voicemail from Will just hours before he died. After a lot of time and wine, Alicia moved past it, but she seemed more betrayed by Eli than she ever did by Peter. As for Peter, he and Alicia became more like friends (and sometimes friends with benefits) over the last few year as their political aspirations eclipsed the family they tried so hard to save. Of course, Will let Alicia down by dying. They teased their possible relationship for so long, taking one step forward and back until it was finally too late and Will was violently killed  in open court. After Will's passing, Alicia became close with ADA Finn Polmar, who was with Will right before he died. Eventually their relationship crumbled and a close friend was gone. Of course, P.I. Jason was gone in the last scene, as he made it clear to Alicia he was truly a bad boy and couldn't stick around waiting for her to make up her mind, and he was a free bird and everything else that goes with those speeches.


     Last but not least, there's the unresolved issue of Alicia and Cary Agos (Matt Czurchy). Alicia's relationship with Cary has "carried" thorough the show since episode 1 and it was dropped like it was hot (one evidence tip in a case does not repair a friendship) in this last episode. This is literally THE FRIENDSHIP of the entire series. Both AF and CA were hired as junior associates in the first episode with promise of one being able to stay at the firm. We didn't want to like Cary from the start because he was fresh out of law school, a preppy blonde guy, and he walked in like he owned the place. He was entitled and privileged, a real villain type.  This is the guy in the 80's movie that Andrew McCarthy or James Spader would play.

     Will was always on Alicia's aside for obvious reasons, and as Diane took a shine to Alicia, she rose up the ranks at the firm and Cary got shafted. He left to go to the SA's office for a while to work off his bitterness. Later, Cary came back to Lockhart/Gardner and stayed there until he and the other associates got fed up, and he started a firm with Alicia. The guy became humbled and went on trial for a trumped-up charge of instructing clients how to bring in drugs into the country, and was almost jailed. Finally, Cary folded back into Lock/whatever the firm eventually became. Then what did Cary do a few weeks before the finale? He quit as Diane "locked in" her all-female led firm idea. He left without a fight. There was never any true resolution to the constant tension and competition between Cary and Alicia. In the end, I don't think Cary could stomach the life he built for himself. Alicia had something to fight for (however misguided her notion of family was) and Cary had nothing (especially after Kalinda left town). As for Cary's relationship with Kalinda, he loved her a lot. Maybe loved him, but she also loved several women. Often. It was just never meant to be. But Cary sincerely respected Alicia. Maybe Cary realized that he didn't want to end up like Alicia, at the top of her game and very abruptly, alone and back where she started? We see Cary in the finale, a guest lecturer at a law school, putting his valuable knowledge of both sides to good use. I can only hope we get some sort of Cary spin-off, maybe Cary could get a job on  a cruise ship or something totally out of character.

5.23.16  UPDATED See more unresolved plot points from The Good Wife finale.

Cosby Show: Revisited

     It appears that I am not the only person who recently re-discovered The Cosby Show. I spent my new year's weekend watching bits and pieces of 80's America's  favorite family on Hulu to re-capture some of the magic the show brought me as a youngster, learning valuable life lessons with a hug and funky dance number at the end.

     Two highlights of this binge included  season 3's Cliff's 50th Birthday, where the children provide a presentation titled: Things that are older than dad. I also watched the last episode, And So We Commence, Part 2, where the family (minus Denise) come together for Theo's graduation from NYU. While the jokes were still the same, and the family love was bountiful, there was somethign creepy about Cliff Huxtable begging his son to take a visiting friend's daughter to the roller rink. It was almost as if he would take this girl and drug her if she didn't get out of the house.

     Maybe I'm just a little too into the Bill Cosby scandal, but I am having a bit of a tough time separating him from Cliff Huxtable, like in this Inside Amy Schumer sketch. I watched the A&E special Cosby: The Women Speak and heard over 10 accounts that started out, I was invited for acting lessons .... or I went to dinner..... and ended up with :I have no idea what happened, but I was violated. After checking out the great and intriguing new season of ABC's American Crime this week, I totally am very creeped out by Cosby. American Crime details a plot line about a teen boy who was drugged at a party and violated by someone on the basketball team.

A Note About Vampire Shows: Season 1 Finales

I FINALLY finished watching the first seasons of TRUE BLOOD and The Vampire Diaries!

The Vampire Diaries reaction:

• Katherine posing as Elena was genius.
• Jeremy trying to become a vampire was sad.
• I was actually sad when Anna died.
• I wasn't surprised at all that John is Elena's dad.
• Why does Elena keep talking to Damon when she knows he likes her?

True Blood reaction:

• After all Bill has survived, Sookie really thought Bill was dead? Have a little faith.
• Sam is still in love with Sookie.
• Of course Jason wasn't the killer.
• Tara and Sookie are finally good. Too bad Tara joined some kind of creepy cult.
• Jason found Jesus? That's just hysterical.
• But Renee as the waitress killer? I suspected earlier in the episode, but what I was really shocked about was the fake accent. Fake accents always devastate my view of a character.