Random fact: My husband loves “Here Comes Your Man” by the Pixies so much that he was careful to ensure it was played at our wedding reception. The DJ played the song and people on the dance floor kind of halfway froze in a state of awkward confusion as to exactly what to do with it, but we were happy. We and like, the 4 or 5 other people who knew what the hell the song was. I wasn’t entirely sure what this title would mean for tonight’s ep of Covert Affairs, especially since the preview made it clear that our heroes A&A would be purposely separated during this episode.
Turns out, it didn’t refer to our boy Auggie at all, but to my sweet, sweet illegitimate baby puma cub Teo. Puuuurrrrr. Well o.k., to be fair, I guess it referred to both of them since Auggie sent Teo there to begin with. I mean whatever, fine Auggie, I’ll give you a LITTLE credit.
I kid, I kid. I love Auggie as much as the next red-blooded gal of the dude-loving persuasion, but I’ve always been an equal opportunity appreciator of the fine male characters on this show. And this storyline went down pretty much exactly like “Rock ‘n Roll Suicide,” didn’t it? With Eyal? Oh god how I LOVED THAT rescue scene, despite having to flinch and groan my way through Annie’s hair being down, then up in a bun, then down, then up in a bun again. In a Russian prison, where she would have been very worried about the state of her hairdo. Whoops, I digress. Anyway I’ve seen this show take a lot of shit on the internets in the past from people who claim that Annie is a terrible spy because she always has to be saved by Auggie et al. (sidenote: I just had to google “et al.” to make sure I was using it properly here). But I would claim that first off, this is not factually accurate. Auggie HELPS Annie because he’s her handler, but she does just fine on her own in plenty of other instances as well. I’m ok with the fact that she occasionally needs to be saved, because that’s how it would happen in REAL LIFE. IF real life were this amazing, of course. But point being, this mission was way too risky thanks to DPD Head Calder McJerkOff, so it went bad. Was it convenient that Teo swooped in JUST at the right moment to rescue Annie? Well yes, but I’m willing to accept some of the unrealistic stuff if they at least make an effort to make other aspects a bit more real.
OH!! Record scratch sound! Speaking of Calder McJerkWad, can we please go back to the first scene of the ep again for a second here? The flash forward. Can I get a WTF???? We’re in the elevator again, and I just have to ask, is it just going to be a theme on this show now that EVERY season involves Annie getting shot nearly dead by her boss?? Remember on ‘Chuck’ when Casey used to get shot practically more often than we saw Big Mike eating a donut?? I seem to recall him getting shot three separate times & getting thrown off a building once. But at least those were all shots to the leg and foot. Annie apparently is going to be taking KILLshots in every season now, I guess. Of COURSE there are many things we don’t know yet about that scene, so we’re probably just being misled to think that’s what’s happening, when it’s really something else. Still, my reaction to it was to physically pause the TV and yell, “Haha WHAT the F#$%!?” when I saw it (response from my husband from the back room: dead silence). Hell, at least Annie made progress in this one by actually shooting BACK?? Maybe NEXT season she’ll actually win the gunfight. Baby steps.
HAHA sidenote #2: Just now as I was finishing the above paragraph, my cousin Katie texted me, “Oh WTF. Annie gets shot AGAIN AND she’s wearing booties!!??” Then we wasted several minutes trying to recall if she was also wearing booties when she got capped by Lena. I don’t have time to check. Someone’s gotta remember.
Whew ok so ... Lord I can’t touch on even half of what happened in this ep because it was DENSE. Almost more so than last week, AND with more action. My Twitter friend Shelby usually sums up the ep for me in a non-spoilery few words after she sees it on East Coast time. Tonight she was 15 mins late, and as I was ALL CAPS yelling at her on DM to give me her reaction, she *finally* responded with, “Hang on, eating a Payday. Trying to gather my thoughts.” Uhhhh, yeah. I did the same thing for about 15 mins after watching it. I had to pause this ep every 5 seconds to re-listen to lines because SO much information was being dumped on us at once. If there’s one major thing I take issue with in this ep, it’s the back-and-forth between Annie and Stavros. She charms him in the beginning and that’s fun, but then it gets weird. We go from a deal being made for his art collection, to Stavros calling Annie a fraud and coming within an inch of killing her by the river, to him suddenly trusting her enough to find him a buyer for 25 MISSILE LAUNCHERS. I suppose that’s simply because he’s so desperate to find a buyer and get his Paul Klee back that he's willing to try anything at that point? I just watched it again; I guueessss I can buy it because I suppose, what does he have to lose at that point? He might as well give her a day or so to see what she can work up. HAHA the location of those white vans with the missile launchers at the end though, just in the middle of the ... shopping area or something?? With all the people around, pretty ridiculous.
I’m going to sum up my overall take on this ep after my random thoughts:
- So Senator Pierson is in cahoots with Henry, eh? I guess that explains all the mustache-twirling in ep 403.
- “Amy Jacobs is an LD on the Intelligence Committee for Senator Pierson.” What the heck is an LD? Lame Duck? Lady Doctor? Living Dead? Legal District?
- HAHA Barber. “I’m angry. And SAD!! And you know what?? I’m slightly annoyed, too ...”
- Seriously though, Calder Michaels is THE WORST, right!!?? He can’t even manage to charm Auggie properly with the promise of approving Project Hummingbird, which should have been SO EASY. He has to completely f*ck it up 5 seconds later with his threat about Auggie’s call to Annie!! He just oozes “dickhead” from every pore.
- Is it bad that I’m attributing a good 10 points of my score for this ep to the look and feel of the Vienna scenes alone?? I love the music they used on those too. On point.
- In my ep 401 review, I made a crack about Annie being CA’s version of Claire Bennet, due to her uncanny ability to get shot twice in the chest & have no physical aftereffects or even scars from that. I later watched 401 in HD (rather than the shitty low-def hotel TV I first watched it on) and realized I was wrong about the scars. They were much more clear in the hotel scene here too, so I have to give the CA peeps their due credit for attention to detail and continuity. Still no surgery scar though. ;-)
- My my, Annie managed to take her habit of disregarding Auggie’s advice to new levels in this ep, didn’t she? That Tarel Birkin conversation was intense. Glad Auggie really gave it to Crapper McDoucheFace after that.
- “What I don’t understand, is how you got to Vienna so fast!?” Hahah yeah, good question. Spy shows are constantly guilty of these crazy globetrotting feats; it’s kinda funny that the writers called themselves out on this one. It doesn’t necessarily forgive the contrivance of it, but at least they’re admitting it.
- “Welcome to my home, Annie.” “Hello, Dion.” Bwahaha oh Annie, you are becoming quite the lil’ sassafras these days, and I approve wholeheartedly.
- You don’t bring the Bionic Woman onto this show as a guest star simply to waste her on what we’ve seen so far. That had to have been her trailing Henry at the end, right? She’d BETTER NOT BE HELEN back from the dead!! Grr.
So, If I’m looking at the big picture right now, the Powerful Big Bad Henry storyline needs to fully play out before I can really form a valid opinion on it. And the Calder stuff in this ep was obviously contrived to create hurdles for our characters, especially his mandate that Annie cut off ALL contact with Auggie. But, I’m willing to buy it for now to see where it all leads. I’ll tell you what I appreciated about this ep though – It’s one of the things I’ve always liked about this show – When things go wrong on missions, they’re not always things you expect to go wrong, and the REASONS they go wrong tend to be quite logical. You’re not always going to be able to make the deal with your target without hitting some major bumps. You have to bring in another agent at the last second to deal with those bumps, you might get someone who’s green. You get someone who’s green, you might run into issues with them not being 100% on their cover. You trust someone like Puma Cub to save your ass, and shit may go sideways later when he suddenly decides he’s going to kill your assets & smash your only method of communication with him. You kill someone and dump their body in the Potomac, that shit is going to wash up somewhere eventually. And thank GOD they made Seth really for real dead. Having him turn up alive would’ve been too hokey for this show.
I’d say I liked this ep better than the last couple. None of them have been a total knock out of the park for me like 402 yet, but I liked this one.
GRADE: 90
Depending on what happens later with Calder and Henry I may decide I graded this one too high, but based on what I know now, I enjoyed it overall. What do you guys think? Am I being too hard on Calder? Did I grade this too high or low? Tell me I suck in the comments.
The Plopper
