"Well that was ... an episode." - My cousin Katie. Hahaha I mean ... first off can I just ask this question - Who in GOD'S name actually watches Royal Pains?? Anyone? Have you ever met anyone in your life who watches that show? Last year we had to suffer through the ends of L&O SVU eps before CA came on and I never thought I'd find myself being wistful for that time period. At least those endings had crazy people yelling and freaking out. Royal Pains endings are like bland people saying boring stuff, set to drowsy lame music. What am I missing?
Anyway. Here's the thing. At least Annie got a new gun. Praise the Puma Cub come back from the dead and resurrected to save our souls. I remember in last week's ep Annie dropped *a* gun into a pothole but I don't entirely remember which gun it was. Was it her terrible little chunky fat stubby revolver?? Please? Can we never ever have to see that little bastard again? It's so bad.
Sydney is gonna turn out to be a bad guy, right? Like, related to the CIA bombing? I'm not into her. At all. But the reveal that she's actually a prostitute was pretty damn amusing. The whole situation just seems so Calder-ish. It reminds me of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character in Looper (in which coincidentally the prostitute of his over-affections was played by Annie Walker herself). You know, the type of guy who is douchey but fairly well-meaning and you feel a little bad for him sometimes.
This episode overall was ... I mean, some stuff happened. Stories did move forward. Borz is dead. He revealed that his contact in Washington went by "The Postman." Auggie has a cuckoobird friend Roger who seems to have found some info on The Postman. Someone took pics of Cuckoo Roger. McQuaid continued to woo Annie and I continued to thoroughly enjoy McQuaid. Joan and Caitlyn met and argued. Caityn kinda flirted obnoxiously with Arthur late at night with drinks. Actually I should say, she hasn't been too obnoxious yet but I just have a bad feeling she'll be making moves on him soon.
Hayley and Auggie continued their blah relationship and I actually found it much more annoying in this ep than last week. Last week I could see why she caught his attention by standing up to him in the debrief/interview thing. This week it was all just "Oh the sex was so hot baby let's TMI the poor coffee guy, oh sign this paper lemme show up at your house and touch your hand sensually so we can make out" blah blah pfffft. Over it. Especially because we wasted waayy too long on them at the end of the ep, standing in the same sacred place where #ForeheadBandage happened. Shitting all over #ForeheadBandage. Blasphemy.
And meanwhile in Venezuela, Annie showed a complete willingness to pull some pretty cold and calculating tactics on Borz to get him to talk. Convincing him that his actually-dead sister is alive and being tortured for information is a pretty ... prettaayy fucked up move. That was some Jessica Matthews level shiz. Nice job, Annie. McQuaid is impressed and so am I. So when are you two gonna hook up? You already fell asleep on his shoulder. Come on girl, you can't let Auggie and Hayley have all the fun. (O.k. I'm putting on my "responsible adult" hat now and from that perspective I am proud of Annie for not pulling an Auggie and screwing every hot guy she comes across). But still. He's so cute. Let's make this thing happen eventually. Sooner rather than later.
Plot-logic-wise, the ep was o.k. I was confused as hell about how a dude could just pop open someone's trunk from the outside, but I guess he had some sort of magic tool to jimmy it? Is that a thing that even exists? I know nothing about cars. And Team McQuaid ... err ... what should we call Annie+McQuaid? McQuannie? Rannie? McWalker? Team McWalker sure got away from those police quickly and easily. Well, I just rewatched the scene and I guess they did have the head start of already being right next to their car to jump in, but the police certainly did seem to take a slow Sunday stroll in the park to their respective cars. McWalker also had the advantage of Annie's mad skillz behind the wheel (though again I'm no judge of fancy driving so who am I to say ... but I do watch a lot of the O.G. Top Gear thanks to my husband). Oh and I loved the way they just re-opened their driveway gates not half a second after the police sped by the house. Whose house was that even??
And the ruse they pulled on the police to make Annie look like a "junkie whore" didn't seem all that convincing to me. If anything the syringe would just make me more suspicious if I were in their shoes. But then again, I guess that house was just some random house in the neighborhood so the chances that it would be that house vs. any others in the neighborhood was about the same. I do always tend to enjoy the "failed escape/extraction" stories on this show though. "Let's try this! Oh shit. No o.k. how bout this!! Whoops. Plan C! Plan D!" They always make it entertaining.
The location shoots are always fun with this show and I almost found myself taking it for granted here until the bus scene with the dude sitting next to McWalker holding a chicken. Oh and that random shot of a pig just chillin' on the street ... but it was chained up like the monkey was last week so that was a bummer. Here's my other random thoughts:
- OH on second viewing, I just realized that Annie admitted to McQuaid how she got Borz to talk, but she didn't tell Auggie. Yet another sin of omission this week.
- The interactions between the CIA and McQuaid's private contracting firm are kinda fun. No clue how any of this would really go down, but their depiction of it is kind of an interesting new angle on the show.
- Calder is bummin' on his new job. OH and what's her name ... Senator McNasty? Is that what we used to call her? Something like that. Anyway the scene where Calder's being questioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee, I like that they called out the fact that the CIA is not even supposed to conduct operations on US soil. I'm pretty sure the producers of Homeland literally had no clue that was even a thing for the entire first season of their show.
- Annie looked pretty damn impressed at McQuaid's doctor skills. I was kinda glad she took him up on his offer for a swig from the flask too.
- McQuaid's "Can I borrow your towel?" was amusing.
- Did McQuaid's trusty assistants ever even make it out of Venezuela?
- No sign of Lisa Morton this week. She must've gotten some replacement meds from that doc at the end of 5.02.
How will I grade this week's ep ... it wasn't a bad episode by any stretch; it was entertaining enough, though I certainly wasn't blown away by it. It felt mostly like a filler ep to me until we get to what I hope will be a more meaty episode next week.
GRADE: 82/100
Aggh I'm already pissed about next week's ep now before I've even seen it. O.k. let's not get ahead of ourselves. Give me some plops about this week's ep in the comments.
The Plopper
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