Uh ddaaaayyyyuuuummmmnn look how hot my man Eyal looks here. Mmm, MM mm. Is it just me, or does he get hotter with every new appearance on this show? Anywho. Hey y’alls. It’s been over 2 months since we last talked.
I dunno about you, but it’s been a weeirrd couple months in my neck of the woods. And incidentally, it has also been a damn frustrating couple months to be a Covert Affairs fan. First, they told us the show would be back for its fall season 5 in late September. Then, we got radio silence for weeks. Then they came back and told us it wouldn’t be back till November 6th. Which was obnoxious. Meantime, throughout this entire process, USA Network still has not said word one about a season 6 renewal. Last year they renewed it in early October, but this year, they are renewing everything under the damn sun EXCEPT Covert. It’s eerily reminiscent of what happened with White Collar a year ago, which eventually ended in that show only getting renewed for a very short final season. We’ll see which way this all goes for Covert. Insert disapproving Marge Simpson groan here. Mmmmmm grr.
But for now, we must focus on the task at hand, which is the back six eps of season 5. Season 5 seems to have left the fanbase all over the map so far. Walkerson fans are increasingly disgruntled, Auggie fans have endured quite a rollercoaster of romantic woes, Eyal fans continue to be thrown juuuust enough of an occasional bone to keep them satisfied, Calder fans are understandably furious, Baby Mack fans are googoo-gaga-ing to their hearts’ content, and Annie fans and McWalker fans alike have been thrilled and captivated. I have found most of season 5 to be a significant improvement over season 4, but I do think they kinda botched the summer finale on several levels. Caitlyn as the mole was far too obvious, and the cheesy tone of that reveal was just ... so weird. I’m not sure what they were smoking when they wrote that. Per usual, they completely wussed out on just letting Auggie be properly pissed at Annie when the ep ended. They devoted the final frame of the entire summer season to a brand new bad guy character who we’d just barely met (i.e. who G.A.F.). And finally, their decision to put McQuaid into a coma right as his storyline kicked into full gear was obnoxious and very been-there-done-that (hello Ben, season 1 finale).
But I’m not considering those finale issues to be showstoppers just yet, because the majority of summer S5 was actually quite delightful for me. Covert was firing on most cylinders (at least many more than usual) when it comes to their main character, and that alone was enough to make me happy. Our gal Annie Walker was back as an actual three-dimensional human person, and I can only hope and pray to the Puma that they continue on this path.
So now that we're officially chasing this annoying brand new baddie from 5.10, Belenko, how did we do with ep 5.11? Well ... Annie didn't really accomplish much, at least not on the spy front, other than jumping up and down in front of Belenko waving her hands in the air going, "I SEE YOUR GAME BITCH!! HERE I AM! But I'm not going to actually DO anything to successfully prove this today!!" Which leaves me at this moment trying to gather my thoughts on what the overall point of the ep was. Hmm let's work through this by tallying up what Annie & Team did accomplish, shall we?
Right off the bat, we were thrown into a "Suffragette City"-like dream sequence that wasted no time at all in showing us where Annie's head was at. Because this is TV, and because Covert Affairs will not allow Annie Walker to be happy in the love department for more than 5 seconds, our unlucky Miss Walker was thrown into quite a dire situation with her new lover-slash-maybe-boyfriend the same goddamn day they finally officially hooked up. Or maybe the next day or something, I dunno, all I know is that she was still wearing the same sheer-to-the-point-of-being-completely-transparent top from the end of 5.10 that essentially translated to her wearing just a black (navy?) bra and jacket. It was an odd fashion choice for any event, let alone this one (the whole saving the world and getting bitched out by Auggie and then sitting in a hospital worrying thing). But there she was in her hospital dream state, Mizz Walker, weak in the knees, lovestruck, grinning ear-to-ear, and navy bra blazing loud and proud while McDreamQuaid asked her what she was doing for the rest of her life.
But alas!! Just as Annie was about to say "I'mdoingYOUfortherestofmylifeMcQuaidSQUEEEE!!", DreamAuggie ... Dreamgie? Dreamgie had to distract her with his flippant remark of cock-blockery. "You're not gonna leave the man hangin' are ya??" Clearly, Annie is currently head over heels gaga over McQuaid while still subconsciously fretting the eventual shitshow that was the Walkerson relationship. She seems to be beyond ready to push full steam ahead with McQuaid while still feeling a tad bit conflicted about that whole Auggie thing. And do you love how many different times various characters referred to McQuaid as her "boyfriend" here?? There was some blatantly overt messaging to the audience, eh? By ep's end, Annie was ready to run in and jump on McQuaid's hospital bed and declare her undying love to him while he limply laid there like a useless lump on a log, barely able to even stay awake for this climactic moment. Get your SHIT together, McQuaid!! Can you stop just spending the whole ep dying and shit!? Uggh. I kid. Mostly. Maybe I'm being a tad demanding.
And then there's my sweet sexy Eyal. The somehow hotter than ever and yet annoying mumbly in this ep Eyal. Is it just me or was it nearly impossible to understand anything he said in his first few scenes?? My TiVo was driving me insane with this new goddamn bug it keeps encountering, which didn't help - Its new favorite thing to do is to STOP playing sound altogether if I have the nerve to actually try to rewind or fast forward at any point. So as I was rewinding 50 times to try to understand Eyal's lines, my TiVo would decide that sound was overrated as a concept. Which left me terrified of pushing any more buttons for the rest of the ep, lest I have to watch it all on mute. But in a nutshell, what I gathered is that Eyal played his usual role here, which was Mr. Voice of Reason. Hot, tall, comforting shoulder to cry on. Long-lost bestie. Helper. Catalyst for Annie to realize she needs to do stuff. Which, in the end, was to run back to McQuaid to tell him her true feelings. Which McQuaid was too goddamn lazy to listen to. And by "lazy" I mean nearly dead and fighting for his life. And by "nearly dead and fighting for his life," I mean lazy.
Let's talk about Auggie. Oh, dear Auggie. He has not had a good time this season. I mean he did spend about 6 or so eps screwing everything that moved, which was probably fun for a little while, but it didn't last long. Per usual, his peen got him into a pickle, pun intended, but it sounds like there's now a much much larger monster pickle looming over him that's starting to peck our Auggie back in a very hard and uncomfortable manner. A tragic manner, by the end of this ep. Let's be honest, we all knew the second Tony called Auggie back mid-ep in self-blame mode that this wasn't gonna end well for him. Suicide was then what I immediately flashed forward to by the time of that final drunk call, but not necessarily to the "suicide by homicide" situation that seemed to be what actually ended up happening. In a sense this can also be put on the list of Annie's "accomplishments" in this ep, since her harassment of Belenko got Tony fired, but I can only imagine that he would've been killed no matter what. Belenko is obviously targeting certain people and we'll have to wait to find out who and why.
The interaction between A&A in that final scene was interesting too, wasn't it? Tony's dead, Auggie's freaking out, Annie feels terrible, Annie is helpless to do anything to fix it, and then finally, Annie has to let Auggie go try to deal with it on his own, quite literally, as the nurse awkwardly tries to show him the way without knowing how to properly lead him. Annie tries to direct the nurse on the sighted lead sitch but quickly realizes that she can't control that either; she has to just let Auggie go and let him deal. Symbolic of where their whole relationship is at the moment.
So let's get back to that question then, what was the point of this ep? At least Calder got something done for frak's sake. That was a frequent theme in late season 4 - Annie & Auggie and the others stumble and fumble while Calder seems to be the only one who's able to get some shit done. But Calder then proceeded to stumble his way through most of summer season 5, so it was refreshing to see him get his shit back together here. So all in all, the gist of the ep seems to be: Calder & Syd get their mission going which will hopefully pay off soon-ish, Annie luurrves McQuaid and wants to go steady and buy promise rings, Annie and Auggie move further away from each other, Istanbul and Eyal continue to be beautiful, Annie shows Belenko her cards, McQuaid survives, and Tony's death kicks off a probable new direction in the Belenko storyline. It's not a monumental amount of progress, but I suppose it's enough for this ep.
Final thoughts before I grade this:
- Sydney has managed to be reasonably likable to me in every scene she's been in for these past few eps that do NOT involve her having sex. The obnoxious sex scenes then erase all the good will, and we have to rebuild from scratch.
- That final Sydney scene with the money was funny though ... she's really trying to give Julia Roberts a run for her money on that "hooker with a heart of gold" thing.
- Auggie shut Annie the hell DOWN on that phone call, eh? Ouch.
- The Myocarditis made a very minor appearance here. At the end of 5.10, I started to wonder what the end game of that whole storyline is, or will be, beyond acting as the catalyst to get Annie kicked out of the CIA. After this ep, I'm still not sure.
- Belenko's shaky hand ... what's the deal?
- Eyal is back with his ex. That makes me a little sad despite Annie & Eyal being very firmly in the friend zone for several seasons now.
- This show is a big fan of Chinese proverbs.
- Two random bulletpoints from my ep notes:
- Man massage
- Tony is so tall
I feel reasonably o.k. with this ep, though nothing super major happened. We just sort of slowly transitioned into the Belenko arc for the back 6. From what I've read, next week is where shit really goes down and kicks into gear. The preview made that pretty obvious too.
GRADE: 85/100
Peck me with a pickled pepper in the comments.
The Plopper
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