The Plopper Reviews COVERT AFFAIRS 4.16: 'Trompe le Monde' & S4

“And the worst part is?  You’ll never be able to look at yourself the same way again.  You’ll know that you killed for malice.  And that changes you.” - Lena Smith, to Annie, at the end of “Let’s Dance”. 

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The Plopper Reviews - COVERT AFFAIRS 4.15: 'There Goes My Gun'

So wait … what is Annie’s new plan now then??  What is she planning on doing now that she’s let herself get captured by Henry ... just sweet talk him into coming back to the U.S. so they can prosecute him?  I suppose we’re not supposed to understand it till next week.

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The Plopper Reviews - COVERT AFFAIRS 4.14: 'River Euphrates'

"COME on, THINK!!!" - Calder, to Auggie.  Truer words have not been spoken, for maybe this entire season of Covert Affairs thus far.  And it applies to essentially every character on the show, save for Barber and Rossabi.

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The Plopper Reviews - COVERT AFFAIRS 4.13: 'No. 13 Baby'

I may have jinxed myself last week when I said I'm still enjoying Covert Affairs more than Homeland.

Never in the entirety of this series did I think I’d ever be yelling at Annie to walk AWAY from Auggie’s door.  But I was tonight.  Emphatically.

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The Plopper Reviews - COVERT AFFAIRS 4.12: 'Something Against You'

You know, this episode was really going pretty damn well until they had to ruin the ending by going out in the very last frame with HELEN.  Current reigning queen of unnecessary and grating TV characters (well, in my world anyway).  I swear I haven't had this visceral a reaction to a TV character's presence on screen since, oh right, well Dana and her stupid boyfriend Baby Dex every Sunday night on Homeland.


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The Plopper Reviews - COVERT AFFAIRS 4.11: 'Dead'

Hey we’re back!!  It’s been exactly a month.  Has everyone had time to take a deep breath?

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The Plopper Reviews - COVERT AFFAIRS 4.10: 'Levitate Me'

Editor's Note: This marks The Plopper's final review on this blog... ever! I'm just kidding, she's been awesome. But seriously, if she ever sends me two completely different versions of the same 20 page article, I'm going to hunt her down and smother her in cake.

Well, here I am, letting out a long, frustrated, conflicted sigh.  Episode 4.10 of Covert Affairs, “Levitate Me,” was – in THEORY – a badass episode.  In theory.

It had all the individual ingredients for a badass episode, after all: Annie stealing cell phones from small children, Annie faking her own death, acknowledgement that Danielle actually still exists rather than having been sucked into a black hole once she got to San Francisco early last season, some A&A sweet talk, a Radiohead song, a surprise Eyal scene, etc.  Even the title of the ep sounds super cool.  Oh, and fiiinnally the focus of the ep was back on our main character, with some good Auggie & Joan scenes as well.  Every single one of these ingredients, taken on its own, is awesome.  If I had seen the Danielle postcard scene or the Eyal scene on their own, out of context, I would be completely engaged by them.  But when all these ingredients were added together to make episode 4.10, the final product still somehow managed to come out of the oven just ... a bit half-baked for me.

Why??  What’s wrong with me??  I mean seriously, is it me??  Am I just expecting too much out of this show?  I should go back and watch these first 10 eps of season 4 in order again during the month hiatus.  Because as I see it now ... everything was humming along quite nicely through 4.06.  I had my quibbles with those eps, as I always do, but overall, the storylines made sense.  The character motivations made sense.  I was WITH these guys.  I was with their plight.  I felt their struggles and their happiness and pain and everything along with them.  I was on the same wavelength with both heart and mind.  And then, ep 4.07 happened.  And 4.08.  And 4.09.  And we started to go down a weird path.  Strange things started happening, and they didn’t stop.

A random guest character who we’d spent almost zero time with previously (Helen), convinced Annie to make major life decisions after only a couple fairly robotic conversations.  Annie and Auggie broke up for no good reason.  A&A decided their breakup was a mistake, but with no explanation.  Teo took over an entire episode (two eps, sorta) and we kind of forgot who the star(s) of the show was (were).  Teo died right after we got to know him, but OFF camera and with almost zero time devoted to it.  Henry continued to be the puppetmaster behind ALL of this, but without ever giving a great explanation as to WHY he blames our characters for his son’s death.  Annie & Auggie acted like star-crossed lovers with insurmountable barriers between them, but I wasn’t quite sure why those barriers were so insurmountable.  Annie risked her entire *life and career* to avenge the death of a guy she was friendly acquaintances with, at best (Teo), and to help out her (ex)boss Arthur.  (A boss who, let’s not forget, was ready to sell her down the river in two seconds when she was in that coma accused of treason last season).  And finally in the end, Annie literally went through with giving up her *entire* life and identity because of the mess she had now gotten herself into with all this crap.

I don’t know what’s happening here.  I don’t feel like I’ve been with these characters in much of what they’ve been doing since ep 4.07.  I feel like I’ve been watching them do a bunch of shit, but none of it makes much sense.  It’s like I’m observing from outside but I don’t entirely speak their language.  It makes it all seem haphazard, and it results in me not being totally invested in it.  It lessens the impact of all of it for me by a huge amount.

Can we step back and take a moment to compare eps 4.07-10 with LAST season’s equivalent eps, 3.07-10?  Why did those eps in S3 have SUCH an impact on me mentally and emotionally, while these ones from S4 did not?  They actually had some major similarities.  Last season, Simon was in the Teo role.  I’ve been complaining that this season, the “Teo Braga Saga” ep(s) leading into Teo’s death felt like an obvious manipulation to me.  But if you think about it, ep 3.07 last year was EXACTLY the same thing, but for Simon instead.  Cuba, a.k.a. “the ep where we really get to know Simon Fischer right before they kill him,” was an extremely similar story structure.  So then why did THAT story work so well for me while these S4 episodes did not??

Here is my diagnosis: Annie’s struggle in those S3 episodes was PERSONAL.  The eps where we got to know Simon were not actually about Simon so much as they were about ANNIE, and her journey into this new weird space where she was trying to work a long con on a target for the first time ever, but she was also kinda falling in love with him.  It was about HER journey in both her career and personal life, with Simon as an integral part.  When Simon was killed, ANNIE was affected by that in every way possible, both mentally because she had fallen in love with him and also physically when she was nearly killed too, not to mention being betrayed/framed by her own boss to boot.  So then by ep 3.10, when Annie was out to get Lena in Russia, we were SO WITH her.  We were with her in every step she took because we got the full impact of all of this on her character, and by proxy we felt it *with* her.  And we felt Auggie and Joan’s struggles as well, as people who care about her.  And then that final showdown scene between Annie and Lena in that cabin in the woods in Russia was AMAZING.  It was completely badass because everything had built to that moment in a very clear and meaningful way.

Now let’s look at S4.  Who has this season actually been *about*??  For the first 6 eps, it seemed like it was about Annie and Auggie and their struggles with everything going on around them, including Henry.  It felt like it was told from their perspective.  They were doing well in their personal lives, but their work life was clearly becoming a huge issue.  Ep 4.07 should have been focused on them as well, but it ended up being more focused on Helen, and the way the story was told there just didn’t accomplish its goal of convincing us that A&A would break up over the events in that ep.  And then suddenly eps 4.08 and 9 just seemed to to focus away from Annie & Auggie entirely.  Suddenly Teo and Arthur were the stars of the show, and A&A and Joan were just supporting characters.  Annie was like an impartial third party, a therapist and go-between for Teo and Arthur in their struggle with Henry.  She was just on the sidelines looking vaguely concerned and trying to help.  The last scene of 4.09 is what really cemented this for me: It ended with Arthur watching Henry kind of speak to him through the television.  It was like the “Henry vs. Arthur” element of the season kind of came out and took center stage and said, “Yes that’s right, I am the star of season 4!!”

How did Annie relate to any of this other than having gotten herself pulled into it by letting Henry manipulate her with that damn folder in scene 1 of the season??  It’s been established that this woman is WAYY too dedicated to her job, so I GET that, don’t get me wrong.  But these last couple eps leading into 4.10 have just been so focused AWAY from her and her motivations that all of this stuff started to feel impersonal to me and I felt myself disconnecting from it.  I know Annie’s relationship with Teo was supposed to have been established as something that would have sent her over the point of no return when Henry framed Teo and then when Teo died, but as usual the writers were trying to shove so many plot points into these episodes that we just didn’t get enough time devoted to that relationship and story, or Annie’s personal investment in it, for it to be convincing.  It was like somehow Arthur and Teo’s family therapist (i.e. Annie) began fighting all their battles FOR them, but I wasn’t ever fully convinced as to why she cared so much about her “patients” that she’d risk her entire LIFE AND CAREER to become their own personal warrior against Henry.

At some point in ep 4.10, Annie makes a statement to Auggie that Henry is also responsible for breaking them up, so that was another way the writers were trying to establish her personal stake in all of this.  But was their break-up *really* Henry’s fault?  Assuming we’re to buy the reason A&A broke up to begin with, wouldn’t Helen have been someone who could have shown up at any point and broken them up in this exact same way on her own??  Henry may have been the catalyst to speed this up, but he was NOT the actual cause of the root problem to begin with.  Their jobs are going to be stressful and challenging to their relationship no matter what after all; if it’s not Henry it’ll just be someone or something else.  I just didn’t buy that as being a valid personal motivator for Annie to *quite* this extreme extent.

So then, all of this somehow culminates in Annie pushing herself into such a corner in eps 4.09 and 4.10 that her career is about to be obliterated unless she can find some sort of permanent way out of the whole mess.  Calder somehow goes from “I’m bringing you in for possible treason” to “O.k. I’ll help you fake your death so you can keep working to bring down Henry” in a SPLIT SECOND with exactly ZERO screentime devoted to how he gets there.  Yes, we had Auggie making progress on convincing Calder of Henry’s evilness leading into it, but at that moment in time in his convo with Annie, he clearly still needed more convincing.  And yet, what Annie says to him in this scene somehow does the trick, magically, but we don’t know exactly how, because apparently the writers (or editors) didn’t have enough time in this ep to devote to that part of the story.

And then, we wind up with a final sequence starting with Annie’s letter to Danielle and ending with that great Eyal scene that SHOULD have been fucking amazing.  It should have been just as amazing and ass-kicking as that final showdown with Lena in 3.10.  That Annie/Eyal scene *was* amazing out of context.  Out of context, I LOVED it.  But IN context, it just didn’t feel properly earned.  I didn’t fully see how we got there.  I didn’t feel like I was with Annie’s struggle, or feeling her feels in every damn thing that led INTO it.  I was left outside of Annie’s head this time, unlike last season.

My cousin put it quite well in a text to me about that scene: “It made me sad and nostalgic for the character connections of yesteryear.”  EXACTLY.  This scene actually depressed me.  I just watched the ep for the 2nd time and it actually seriously got me choked up.  It bums me out like hell because it gives me a flash of how brilliant, and emotionally and mentally impactful this all COULD have been, if anything building UP to it had made sense and resonated with me.  Because like I said, in *theory*, Annie being forced into a position where she has to fake her own death and go dark/rogue IS FUCKING AWESOME.  This sets us up for something that COULD be amazing and ass-kicking in the back 6 episodes.  But my confusion on how the hell we got to this point makes me feel like both my heart and brain have been pushed out of the whole thing.  It’s like I’m looking at a list of ingredients that could blow my mind if they were combined together in a way that made sense and gelled, by some master chef who could turn them into a masterpiece.  But they just ... weren’t this time.  Not this season.  Not in these first 10 eps, at least.  I was teased for the first 6 eps into thinking we were on our way there, but then somehow the train went off the tracks and it never quite got back on.  And I’m fucking BUMMED about it.

Just a few random thoughts before my grade:

• Annie spelling out “LMFAO” in the IMing scene had me LMFAO.
• Another issue I’ve had with CA S4 is that I’ve been able to see nearly every “twist” coming from miles away lately.  It seems like the last major turn we were shocked by was when Annie killed Seth, and that was way back in ep 4.02.  And in that vein, I dunno how effective it was to put in that second flash-forward to the elevator scene in 4.05.  It had us guessing that Annie would fake her death, but I would MUCH rather the writers have spent the eps leading into 4.10 focusing on properly building up to HOW Annie would come to that massively monumental decision about her life to begin with.  Bring us into her head, guys!!  She is the MAIN character, right??  Why does this seem so impossible lately??
• BOTH Katie and Shelby point this out to me and it’s a great point: What the hell was the deal with the scene where Annie steals the clothes in the store to change her outfit??  The new outfit looked almost exactly the same as the old one!!  And she had already miraculously gotten the blood stains out of the original one!!  Did she just want slightly cuter clothes for the rest of her mission??
• Auggie putting Henry in a headlock.  BWAHAHA.
• The CIA putting THAT much trust in Henry at this point, after previously being imprisoned for treason??  Come ON man.

GRADE: O.k. hold up.  Now that I’ve seen all 10 eps of the summer season, these are the grades I’d give each ep:

401: 87
402: 94
403: 89
404: 88
405: 90
406: 91
407: 60
408: 68
409: 71
410: 75

I know I changed some of them, but now that I see where it was all headed, I’m realizing that maybe I was too optimistic on a few of these before seeing the rest of the season.  4.10 as a standalone episode would get a higher grade because it was a very entertaining ep, but taken in context of the whole season leading into it, it’s a lot less effective.

I have a feeling a lot you might disagree with me on this.  A lot of you probably thought 4.10 was super kick-ass and you’re gonna wonder why I have to be such a freakin’ downer.  Well, I dunno why.  But season 3 (the first 11 or 12 eps) set my expectations of this show REALLY high.  Maybe I should have kept them lower??  Sigh.  Tell me in the comments.

The Plopper

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The Plopper Reviews - COVERT AFFAIRS 4.09: 'Hang Wire'

Last week I mentioned that I’d be out of the country for Covert Affairs eps 4.09-10, but that I’d do everything I could to watch them while away.  I managed to do that tonight for 4.09, late of course, so I figured I’d post a short version of my usual review.

Instead what it seems to be though, rather than short, is fairly long, but just shitty instead, with less cohesiveness in my thoughts.  Err ... maybe “shitty” is not the right word.  What I meant to say is “amazing.”  You should definitely read it.  Here are my quick and shitty/life-changing thoughts:

Remember early on in season 4, when Henry met Arthur for lunch and literally spelled out for him, “I am going to kill your son because you killed my son” ?  I’m paraphrasing of course, but that is essentially what he said.  In my review of that episode, my question to his declaration was, “WHY??”  Given the person that Henry has been for this entire series since the beginning of season 1, it makes complete sense that he’d eventually wind up as a “big bad” for our characters.  But have we ever once had it explained to us in any of these episodes, just exactly WHY Henry blames Arthur for Jai’s death??  Other than Arthur being in charge at the time Jai died??  At that time the answer was no, but I heard some good theories on it from fellow fans.  Fast forward to ep 4.09, and I just realized, we STILL don’t know the answer to this question!!  Do we??  Did I miss something?  We shouldn’t have to still be guessing and theorizing on the motives of the bad guy at the root of the *primary* ongoing story arc this season.

And what about Henry’s rundown of his ENTIRE evil plot to get his revenge on Arthur - from beginning to end - to Annie right before he had the helicopter blown up?  Reminded me a bit of the Scooby Doo-esque ending of nearly every ep of ‘Castle’, where the criminal explains every detail of their crime and their motivations for committing it, to Castle and Beckett.  “And I would’ve gotten away with it too if not for you meddling kids!!”  Only with Henry, I'm still confused on his motivations.  And then he purposely lets Annie go to see how she handles it.  I mean of COURSE she was gonna get Teo out of it, she’s the plucky protagonist who can get herself and her buddies out of any pickle!!  (Until they get shot in the leg).

And speaking of Baby Teo – my first reaction to his death was, I have to give points to the writers for bucking the norm on #5 from HGF’s article, “TOP 10 Stupid Things TV and Film Makers Do”:  “Arm and leg bullet wounds are shrugged off even though they can be extremely painful, result in broken bones, and cause severe blood-loss that can kill just as easily as any other wound.”  Good job, Covert Writers.  I think??  That is assuming that Teo doesn’t show up alive again later in a “shocking twist.”  Because if that happens, the points the writers earned here plus every point they’ve ever earned for anything else ever will be taken away.  Because not only is this one of the most cliché things in all of spy TV shows and soap operas, it has now been done on THIS show in THIS season once, and most likely twice as of next week’s ep when Annie fakes her own death.  Probably.  AND it would completely invalidate the impact that Teo’s death was supposed to have on Arthur and the rest of our characters.  Kind of like that time Annie and Auggie broke up for no reason and then made everyone cry, and then 5 seconds later changed their minds and everything was fine again.

Back to Teo.  My other thought on this is, assuming he IS really dead, it makes me even more annoyed with LAST week’s episode, 4.08, a.k.a. The Teo Braga Saga.  Because at the time, my cousin pointed out that she felt like the writers were manipulating us into caring as much as possible about Teo so that killing him off later would be more impactful.  And hey look!  It only took them one week to prove her right.  It seems.  Though it happened in an oddly rushed, off-screen manner.  Which is what makes me a bit suspicious.  And just WHAT was the deal with all of Annie and Teo’s conversations in this ep??  Her comments about not wanting to “lose him” on the rooftop struck me as the typical tactic Annie takes when trying to turn a target/asset.  So I didn’t think much of it.  But then later in the car ... I don’t know.  Was that just more bonding to make us more sad when Teo died?

O.k. last thing I want to touch on here: I’m starting to realize that nearly the ENTIRETY of the almost absent character focus or insight we’ve gotten on Annie this season has come from Henry Wilcox’s observations on how she reacts to his “challenges”.  And every single time, Annie has responded by shrugging it off.  Even in this episode, when she finally starts to concede that *maybe* she’s made some mistakes along the way in letting her heart lead over her head, she ends that statement with a sarcastic quip that she should’ve let Teo kill Henry instead of stopping him.  While it did make me laugh, it also somewhat invalidated the ONE time she actually seemed to take two seconds to consider what he was telling her.  Though she did make the same statement to Teo himself later in the ep, in a serious manner.  Maybe it sunk in a little after all?  OH and I genuinely liked Teo’s comments to her about wishing he could go back to the days when he could be carefree, but then per usual, Annie responded with her typical: dead silence and/or change the subject.  Like hey, what does Annie think about this?  Who the hell knows!!  We rarely know the answer to that question these days.

And then this made me think: I have a bad feeling that we may end up getting zero insight at ALL into what leads to Annie’s decision to fake her death next week (4.10), other than the standard plot points: “Must get out of Germany.  I’m a wanted criminal.  Must escape Henry.  Must fake death.  Must dye hair brown.” (robot voice).  A + B = C.  Zzzz.  And that will be … INFUUUURRRRIATING to me.  We’ll see; I can’t judge it before I see it.

Here are a few of my other random thoughts:

• Do you love that the episode where we finally find out Calder is a “good guy” also involves TWO major “Calder drives his Jag in a douchey manner” scenes?
• For her first couple scenes, I felt like the lawyer character was someone who must have been on a previous episode of CA.  Turns out it was Homeland.  I guess the spy shows are running together for me now.
• Who is it that gets to decide in each episode whether Annie gets to wear sensible shoes vs. heels? I can never quite figure out the logic.  Sometimes it depends on her cover, but not always.
• Is it possible in ANY circumstance to survive a jump from a building that high??  That was a little insane.
• "Care to explain where you’ve been for the past FIFTEEN HOURS!?"  Joan’s Calder-smackdown was pretty amazing.
• My cousin Katie’s comments on the method in which Teo was framed for the missile/helicopter bombing: “What was the plan on leaving the missile launcher with him??  The cops were going to find him passed out with it and go, ‘Well, looks like it’s definitely this guy who launched the rocket and then took a nap!’”  Mystery solved.  This made me laugh really, really hard.  I guess the assumption would be that he got knocked out from the blast itself??
• Auggie’s gratuitous shirt scene.  Seriously.  I don’t even know.  Your guess is as good as mine.
• Auggie’s phone convo with Annie about taking time off in the Galapagos islands, where no one can find them – Was that little reminiscent of Simon, Annie and the Maldives in “Glass Spider”?  I know Auggie’s plan was more of a vacation ... I think ... but still.  Was that on purpose?

Anyway I know I mainly just listed complaints here, but overall I thought this ep was better than last week and the week before.  I’m going to write a more cohesive review of 4.10 when I get back from my trip on Weds 9/18 that will probably somewhat cover both of these eps.  This was such a set-up episode that I’m kind of lost on what grade to even assign to it. 

GRADE: 80.  I think. 

Let’s be honest, I should’ve given 4.07 a 60.  And I should’ve given 4.08 a 70 (I know, still a bit better than HGF’s grade).  Right now I’m at about an 80 for 4.09, but at this point I’m mainly just concerned about what 4.10 is gonna bring to the table after all this.  I’ve already got thoughts on what I’ll write in my review for that one, if it goes the way I think it’ll go.  Maybe it won’t.  Maybe they’ll surprise me.  Maybe.

Tell me how shitty my review was in the comments section.

The Plopper

2013 Summer Movies in Review

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The Plopper Reviews - COVERT AFFAIRS 4.08: 'I've Been Waiting for You'

I mean ... look ... Covert Affairs ... here’s the thing.  This episode was better than last week.  By a comfortable margin.  But, was it everything I look for in a great ep of this show?  Eh, we’re not quite back to that place yet.  I’ve still got a few bones to pick.

First off, I love baby Teo.  Anyone who has read any review I’ve written of any episode involving our Sweet Puma Cub knows of my undying love for him.  So when I saw from the previews that this week’s ep seemed to be Teo-heavy, I was happy.  Especially because watching Helen take over last week’s ep was like watching a cat screech its nails across a chalkboard for a full hour, culminating in the equivalent of that Sarah McLachlan SPCA commercial with those horribly sad mistreated animals, i.e. the “A&A break up for no reason” scene.  “I’ve Been Waiting For You” was supposed to be like a palate cleanser for that, if you will.  It was supposed to soothe my aching CA-fan soul.  And it did, somewhat.  But oddly enough ... the Teo-heavy nature of this episode ended up kind of *annoying* me as well.  Partly.  I felt o.k. with it until about halfway through the ep, at which point I realized that this was going to be the entire episode.  This was IT.  I mean, for the most part.

Let me explain.  We spent all of last week’s ep dumping HUGE HORRIBLE stuff on our main characters.  Helen was really alive, Auggie was freaking out, Annie had to go on a whole mission with Helen, Helen convinced Annie her whole life was going the wrong direction, Auggie inexplicably decided the same thing on his own, A&A broke up, everything was suddenly horrible and dark and gloomy.  And then, this week, we spent almost ZERO time actually dealing with ANY fallout from that.  We got a slightly angsty and awkward mission set-up scene from A&A at the beginning, and then boom, at the end ... well ok.  Hold up.  I’ll address the end in a few mins.  Let’s talk about the rest of the episode first. 

It’s not that I don’t care about Teo’s plight - about his mission to avenge his mother’s murder, his mission to stop the ALC, and his relationship with Arthur.  I DO care.  I just don’t care about that AS much as I care about our MAIN freaking characters.  All I ask for is an episode that is a little more balanced to cover BOTH of these bases.  We got some plot movement on the “Henry Wilcox is funding the ALC” plotline, the little prisoner field trip fake-out scheme was fun, and Manolo Cardona even got me a little choked up in his scene with Arthur in the forest.  That was all entertaining enough.  I just wish that Teo and Annie could have talked about SOMETHING else at some point in this ep (the damn hotel room maybe??) other than Teo’s daddy issues.  Yes, we touched a tad on Auggie and Arthur lying to Annie, but barely anything at all.  Once again, we got an episode where all the character focus went to someone OTHER than our main character(s - including Auggie this time).  As happens pretty often on this show, Annie seems to exist for no reason other than to enable OTHER characters to get real deep and confront THEIR own issues with themselves and their cohorts.  Annie just watches from the sideline and gives sympathetic looks and wears cute shoes and runs around crashing trucks and dodging bombs and shit.  Annie, honey, I want more for you.  I’ve seen glimpses in the past that we can get more, but I can’t help but constantly feel like those were just teases for something that’s never going to happen.  Like the elusive backstory on Joan’s pill addiction that we’ll likely never get.

Anyway.  Let’s get to that ending now, shall we?  The truck blows up, the mysterious bad guy disappears, Teo’s buddy dies, Teo feels sad/pissed, Teo runs.  Annie comes home, finds her apartment totally ransacked, and runs over to Auggie’s to warn him.  Calder shows up before Auggie can even start to do a proper sweep of his place, but before Annie runs to hide from Calder, we get Auggie’s “Wait Annie!!  I decided everything Helen said was wrong!!”  OK GREAT Auggie well I’m glad you finally pulled your head out of your ass on that one, but WHY!!?  HOW did you come to this decision??  WHAT was it that led you to realize that everything Helen said was wrong??  Oh, sorry!!  We didn’t get to see any of that because we spent the ENTIRE EPISODE on Teo.  We had to spend the whole thing focusing on a character that for all we know, could very well end up dead a few eps from now.  Remember, no matter how dreamy he is and no matter how much we love him, he’s not a series regular.  He’s only a guest star.  We can’t get too attached (remember Simon and that hail of bullets?).  That convo between Joan & Teo about him joining the CIA after all this felt a bit foreboding to me for some reason.

I don’t think I would be nearly as annoyed right now if this was, say, ep 4.03 or something.  Early in the season, we’ve got more time for episodes like this.  But this was 4.08 – there are only TWO episodes left of the summer season.  We only have approximately one, maybe 1.5 more episodes until Annie somehow finds herself faking her own death (err, most likely, based on all the obvious clues we’ve been given so far).  I feel much less like we can afford to spend an entire ep focusing solely on a guest star this late in the season.  This ep reminded me a lot of eps 313-15 last year, when 95% of the episode time was spent focusing on friggin' Megan and Khalid instead of giving proper focus to our main characters.  Maybe I should just be happy that at least I LIKE Teo, unlike Megan and Khalid (blech).

Do any of you watch ‘Castle’?  Anyone who watches 'Castle' will understand what it’s like to spend 97% of every single episode suffering through the case-of-the-week, in the desperate hope that they’ll give us like TWO MINUTES of general character development time or Castle/Beckett time before the ep is over.  And that’s if we’re lucky.  CA, thank GOD, is NOT normally like that at all, because the mission-of-the-week is rarely boring and the ongoing plotlines are a *bazillion* times more engaging.  But I swear to god, this week, I felt that exact “COME OOONNN!!” feeling I get from‘Castle’ nearly EVERY week.  Again, I totally get that we can’t get character time in every episode of a given series, but the closer we get to the end of the season with so many unresolved issues, the more frustrated I get.

Here are my general ramblings:

• Teo’s story to Annie about doing deep cover work w/the ALC … I’m not sure if that is yet another clue about Annie faking her own death in 4.10.  It’s not like Annie can pretend to be someone else with Henry after she’s “dead.”  We’ll see.
• Again we have protective Joan in this ep, which I continue to enjoy.
• Annie punching Teo in the hotel room was pretty hilarious.
• Again Manolo Cardona did a really good job with the scene in the woods w/Arthur.  I got a little verklempt.
• Uggh effing Calder in the helicopter.  And smashing apartments.  And everywhere.  I had hoped we’d find out in this ep that maybe he’s actually a good guy, but no dice.  I’m still convinced he’ll eventually wind up on Annie’s side though.  Otherwise that flashforward scene from the elevator just doesn’t work, unless he’s *actually* shooting her.  But there’s no way in hell they’d shoot her nearly dead AGAIN.
• So Henry essentially killed Teo’s mom, eh?  Sucks but I mean ... Henry is responsible for EVERYTHING bad this season, so, duh.  It’s like my friend Shelby said the other day ... I’m paraphrasing but it was something like, “They can’t just make Henry responsible for SOME of the bad things, he has to be responsible for ALL of the effing bad things.”  I’m totally fine with having a “big bad” this season, but I feel like it worked a bit better with Lena last year, because we didn’t KNOW she was bad until 3.08.  But I guess in the end, she was kinda responsible for all the bad things too.
• The prisoner truck-crashing scene was kind of ... awkwardly filmed.  I laughed when it crashed because of the way poor Piper was having to throw herself around in that thing during the “crashing” hahaha.  And the guy shooting at the truck, conveniently a HORRIBLE shot until the second Teo finally got out of harm’s way.
• So the flash drive has been found!!  Uh oh.  This honestly seems like a much bigger bit of plot movement than ANYTHING that happened regarding Teo and Henry.  And it happened in the last damn minute of the episode.  Grrrr.
• Where the hell do A&A go from here?  Well, at the very least, they’re back in a place where they are fully out in the open with each other that they still WANT to be together.  But I have a feeling they will need to stay “broken up” for now in order to take down Henry the way they are planning to.

Bottom line: This episode was better than last week.  But there was still a good deal left to be desired, for me.  If I were Randy Jackson I’d say, “It was just aiight for me, dog.”  It’s like HGF said in a comment last week – This show has shown me that it’s capable of pretty great things.  I just want it to live up to what I know it’s capable of, that’s all.

GRADE: 80/100

[Editor's note: The Plopper's being too generous. We, the executive group at this blog, give the episode a 60 out of 100. Last week's was crap too. We now return you to your scheduled program.]

I know this is only 3 points higher than last week, but if I had last week’s grade to assign all over again, it would be lower.  I probably would have given it like a 73, tops.  Maybe my opinion of 4.08 will change depending on what happens 4.09 & 4.10, but I won’t know till we get there.  What do you guys think, am I just being a dick??  Are my expectations too high??

NOTE: I will NOT BE IN THE U.S. for eps 4.09 and 4.10.  Clearly I should have checked with the PTB at USA channel on CA’s summer schedule before planning my vacay.  I’m going to do *everything* in my power to watch those eps from Europe.  Pray to the sweet puma gods for me; I hope I’m successful.  IF I can make that happen, I *might* do a super quickie short review of 4.09 (tho it’ll be late bc of timezones).  Then, I will be back home the day AFTER 4.10 airs.  Not until the afternoon though.  My plan is to have a FULL review of 4.10 (or maybe both eps together) up by late Wednesday, 9/18.  Wish me luck, I’ll need it.

The Plopper

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The Plopper Reviews - COVERT AFFAIRS 4.07: 'Crackity Jones'

I feel … weird … right now.  And confused.  And cold.  And alone.  Somebody hold me.  Please.  Tightly.

I finished this ep like 15 minutes ago and I think I’ve now set a new record for the longest time I’ve spent sitting on the couch post-ep, staring into space,  trying to get my head around it and to decide whether I enjoyed it or whether I want to drag my TV into the front yard and set it on fire.  I mean obviously, if you read my review of last week’s episode, you know that I was NOT particularly thrilled with the insertion of the “OMGAASH Helen’s really alive!!” storyline.  But still, despite that, I went into this ep with an open mind.  I swear.  I gave the writers the benefit of the doubt that this Helen character could wind up being interesting for the storyline, and that her presence could force our main characters into confronting feelings and situations that they would not have otherwise.  i.e., character development.  I’m a *huge* fan of character development, so if that’s where this gets us, I can be extremely forgiving.

And after watching “Crackity Jones”, I see that this is indeed exactly where the writers were going with it – to push the story, to push our characters, and to give them some insight on themselves, their situation, and each other.  Which is a GOOD thing.  So then why did this ep feel so ODD to me??  So ... kind of ... off?  I’ve been texting back and forth with my cousin while writing this and I think with her help, I’m starting to diagnose the sitch.  Or at least some pieces of the sitch.  Here’s my take: This episode required a LOT of exposition and flashbacks to get us up to speed on who Helen is, how Auggie wound up thinking she was dead when she really wasn’t, what Arthur’s doing with her, and why the hell we should give two shits about ANY of this to begin with.  So as a result, we ended up with an episode of Covert Affairs that starred some random-ass chick who we’ve barely even MET before today.  It was an ensemble effort, yes, but Helen’s screentime had to have been at least equal to both Annie and Auggie here.

So start with that jarring and foreign situation, and then add to it the fact that the amount of time that had to be spent on the flashbacks took away essential story time that was needed to show Annie and Helen’s relationship build and develop on that mission to Lyon.  Crucial time that we did NOT get.  Instead, we got a quicky mission, plus two and a half dialogue scenes.  And this is between two characters who have not only never met before this mission, but have every reason to dislike and distrust the HELL out of each other from the get-go.  Yet somehow it only took a couple chats with Helen to convince Annie that the entire way she’s living her life right now might need a complete overhaul??  Really??  It’s one of those things that ... I would imagine, when you’re mapping out a storyline, makes sense in theory.  In the writer’s room you’re like, “Yeah ok so Helen shows up and she tells Annie her story, and then Annie starts to doubt her sitch,” and then yadda yadda yadda A&A break up.  BUT when the rubber hit the road here, the writers didn’t allow themselves enough screen time to execute this in a convincing way.  The dialogue between Annie and Helen even felt strangely forced to me at many points, like overly on-the-nose.  I’m pretty sure this is because they needed to move these characters from 0 to 60 in their relationship with so few scenes.

So THEN, we get back home from the mission, and Annie goes to Auggie’s apartment for their H2H.  And while Chris and Piper played the HELL out of this scene – major kudos to both of them for that - and it gave me plenty of angsty feels ... it still somehow didn’t seem ... right.  It didn’t feel natural or organic to how I imagine *I* would be acting in that situation, or decisions I would be making.  The events of this episode were plenty to plant seeds of doubt for both Annie and Auggie, sure.  Even plenty for Annie to decide she needs time to herself to process all these crazy developments.  But to call it quits for good??  If you put yourself in their shoes, is this situation even close to enough to make you decide, “Aiight.  That’s it.  Fuck it.  I’m outtie.”  (mic drop)  ?  After ALL that they’ve been through over all these years and that bond they share and everything??  Not even close, for me.  Granted, I do get that in break-up type conversations, the way one person says a little something and then the other party kind of agrees with it, and once that little snowflake starts, you keep pushing each other until it becomes a huge snowball avalanche and you can’t get yourself out of it.  Because neither of you has the balls to be the one to be like “OK JK JKaaaayyyy I didn’t mean it I don’t really wanna break up!!”  I get that, and I think that’s part of what was at play here.  But still, it just wasn’t enough to convince me that they’d go anywhere near this far.  And I’m being 100% honest when I say that I don’t have an issue with A&A breaking up IF it feels organic to the progression of the story, and IF it’s something I can absolutely believe the characters would and should be doing, based on their circumstances.  My issue with this episode is that this was not the case.  It felt much more manipulated and manufactured than it did organic.

There’s another thing I noticed about that final scene too.  It’s of very minor importance to the scene itself, but it reminded me of something I’ve been observing and irked by for quite a while now.  And please forgive my comparisons to other spy shows again, but it’s how my though process works - One thing I always found interesting about ‘Alias’ was that Sydney Bristow was written as a tough character, but she was also allowed to be very “girly” in many ways.  And that was nice, but she was almost TOO girly, in the sense that the woman bawled like a baby every damn time you blinked an eye.  Going back and watching old eps now, the amount of crying Sydney does drives me INSANE.  And that’s the main reason I loved Annie’s long-lost cousin Sarah Walker so much on ‘Chuck’ – She was tough as nails, and rarely showed her emotions, UNTIL the series progressed and the character developed *naturally* from a pretty cold and ruthless spy, to basically kinda opening her heart as a result of Chuck’s influence and impact on her.  It felt right, it progressed naturally, and it was fun to watch.  And she never came even CLOSE to being the weepy baby Sydney was.  She was well-balanced in that sense.

And like Sarah Walker, one thing I’ve always appreciated about Annie Walker is her LACK of weepiness.  Not only that, but she has a cocky swagger about her, that type of cockiness that’s actually even a level or two above what she probably deserves to give herself credit for, that I don’t recall seeing in female characters all that often.  Maybe I’m crazy, but this seems like a traditionally very male quality to me, like Jeff Winger on ‘Community’.  Or every guy on ‘Gigolos’.  Point being, it feels like an interesting change of pace to me, and I like this about Annie as a character.  And her tough-ness is a good thing, but sometimes she can seem like the exact inverse of Sydney Bristow to a fault.  i.e. In the interest of the writers making her “tough,” she can almost border on beyond human sometimes.  Like she’s some sort of robot who can get through anything with barely a quick brush of a little dust off her shoulders.  Like that time she returned home from the Russian prison after the Simon/Lena/nearly-dying debacle and she was just like, “Ok well that was lame.  Next?  No prob.  Back in action and better than ever.”  She never had any sort of emotional breakdown, she never hit any rock bottom, she never had PTSD, nothing.  She just kept on going.  It’s always seemed very odd to me, and it’s hard for me as a human audience member to relate to someone with such super-human cyborg-like powers.

And then, in the break-up scene with Auggie, we saw Annie break down FAR more than she ever has before, that I can remember.  And it was nice to see her finally having some real normal human emotions, BUT even this was quite interesting in terms of the way the scene was filmed.  She started to break down but then she stood up and walked behind the couch, and we could tell that she was crying, but we couldn’t see her face.  The point is that she was trying to hide it from Auggie, but at the same time it almost seems like the writers/director/etc. didn’t want the *audience* to see it either.  And then when she left the apartment, the focus at the end was on Auggie.  I think that was to show him breaking down after she left, but it still struck me as kind of interesting.  Like the writers themselves are afraid to let Annie act like a normal human being with real emotions, every once in a damn while.  I dunno, I could just be in a bad mood at this point and being too nitpicky.  But it’s one more thing adding to my constant nagging feeling that CA’s lead character is the LEAST fleshed-out character on the entire show.

UGGH holy shit this review is so long already.  Let me just do a few other quick random observations before my summary/grade:

• Watching Auggie look people in the eyes in flashback scenes is always weird, isn’t it?  And in this ep we got him running too.  Without tripping and stuff.  Kinda fun.
• The transition from the Auggie->Arthur punch to the flash of the title screen thing made me LOL.
• The way Annie approached Sabino also made me LMAO – “I’m the owner of the missile launchers you stole??  I want them back.”
• Ha, I love that Myers-Briggs got a shout-out in this ep.  I took one of those many years ago, but at my company they’ve run through several other assessment methodologies since then.  We’re currently using one called LinkUp.
• Convenient that Helen’s cover for this ep’s mission gave an excuse to let Michelle Ryan use her real accent.
• Ok that was the best Barber scene EVER, right??  He even came within an inch of going full-on Abed.  “Cool.  Cool cool cool.”  Frankly, he was probably the only bright point of this entire depressing episode!!  Thank you, Barber.  And Auggie took his words to heart, too.
• The fight scene underwater was kinda cool.  With the bullets going through the water.
• Ok so it was already obvious to pretty much all of us that the flashforward they keep giving us from ep 10 is Annie faking her own death.  This episode just punches us in the face with it 50 times in case we hadn’t already figured it out.

Ok.  Now for the grade.  I re-watched this ep while writing my review, thinking it might change my feelings on it.  It didn’t.  As a matter of fact, I was even more annoyed on second viewing. 

GRADE: 77 out of 100

I’m so freakin’ tired right now I almost reverted back to my letter grading system on accident.  Is 77 super harsh??  My network just went down so now I’m in a SUPER bad mood, right at the time I’m assigning the grade.  That doesn’t help.  What did you guys think of the ep?  Will I need to fake my death to hide from you after this??  Will my network ever come back up so we can POST this review??

The Plopper

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The Plopper Reviews - COVERT AFFAIRS 4.06: 'Space (I Believe In)'

Oh god.

Look ... I mean ... I had a feeling I was going to come out of this episode feeling extremely uncomfortable.  Let me first start by asking – Do you watch 'It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’?  If not, and if you enjoy demented humor, you’re missing out.  I spent 99.9% of this Covert Affairs episode, “Space (I Believe In),” in a pretty decent frame of mind, and then the last 30 seconds suddenly sent me into feeling exactly like the YouTube supercut of every single utterance of the phrase “GODDAMNIT!!” in the entire ‘It’s Always Sunny’ series.  Google “always sunny goddamnit supercut” and you’ll find it.  That is me, right now.

If you’ve read my previous reviews, you’ll know that I’ve been dead set against this “Helen is really alive!!” twist since the second we found out Helen ever existed to begin with.  And that is all while knowing it was 99% likely to happen, due to Bionic Woman constantly lurking in the background the entire season.  Why do I feel so uncomfy with this?  It’s two reasons, really.  First, it gives me horrible flashbacks to ‘Alias’.  There’s GOTTA be some ex 'Alias' superfans who watch CA, right??  Well, if you live in my head, which is not at *all* something I’d recommend, you’ll know (remember, this is pure fact because you’re hypothetically living in my brain), that the first two seasons of 'Alias' were amazing and seasons 3 through 5 were an ever-increasing pile of steaming shite.  Maybe I’m exaggerating, but it was a STEEP slope into season 5.  :shudder:  Anyway.  The turning point was the last scene of the season 2 finale, when Sydney wakes up confused and disoriented in Hong Kong, meets up with Vaughn, and Vaughn tells her, “Syd, you’ve been missing for 2 years, we thought you were dead.”  Syd then looks at Vaughn's left ring finger and is like, WTF dude, is that a WEDDING RING!?  Then we got to spend the ENTIRE 3rd season with some random blonde being MARRIED to Sydney’s new boyfriend.  What a nightmare.  In all fairness, JJ Abrams leaving the show to focus on ‘Lost’ was really the larger issue at hand; the overall quality of the show took a major dive at the same time.

But point being, one of the major suckage points was the fact that the writers purposely threw in this love triangle so as to *manufacture* drama and put a wedge between Syd and Vaughn.  It FELT contrived, and caused nothing but lameness the entire season.  I don’t know what the angle of the CA writers is with this Helen thing, but if it’s to set up a manufactured love triangle, then no.  No thank you.  It’s been done on many other shows, and it has always been lame.  If, on the other hand, it’s to INFORM our lead characters and give them insights on next steps to deal with Henry, or to help them to grow as characters even, then maybe it’s something that can be of value.  We shall see.  There’s another reason I feel uncomfy with this though, as well - The whole “OMGWHUUT she’s still alive!!” thing is a liiiittle on the wacky side for this show.  It would feel right at home on many other spy shows, but one thing I’ve always liked about CA is that it usually tries to keep its head a little closer to reality and away from soapy town.  Now, to be fair, the Lena storyline also veered a bit close to soapy town, but I loved that storyline so much that I was able to get past that.  Likewise, IF this “Helesa” (the Twitter fans came up with this nickname: a Helen/Theresa hybrid) thing is done well, I’ll be forgiving.  We just won’t know what this is about until we get there.  Fingers crossed.  BIG time.

Have I seriously just spent THREE paragraphs on the LAST 30 SECONDS of this damn episode!?  Lord.  Writing the rest of this is going to be a rough ride.  Let’s get to *everything* else now, shall we?  Outside of my uncomfortable feelings about Helesa, I actually enjoyed this ep.  I’ve gotten a big kick out of the whole “Annie killed Seth” storyline this season in general, and I’ve had to really sit and think about why that is.  I’m a HUGE sucker for spy shows.  A running theme on these shows is that bodies tend to pile up at the hands of the lead characters pretty regularly, and as far as I can think of, it’s pretty damn rare for the characters to ever face REAL consequences for that.  Think about ‘Homeland’ - Brody has killed several people, from Tom Walker to that tailor who made the suicide bomb vest, to the damn VICE PRESIDENT of the United States, and has he really had to face consequences for ANY of these??  I don’t think so, not yet anyway.  He dumped that tailor’s body in the woods and I don’t think we ever heard another peep about it.  Did we, or is my memory failing me?  OH my cousin Katie just reminded me – “Well he WAS a no-show at his wife’s fundraiser event that night, which was NOT COOL.”  True.  Maj consequences.

Now take ‘The Americans’ ... the bodies piled up all season, including the damn PARTNER of the FBI dude/neighbor investigating the KGB.  There’s constantly the threat on that show of any one of these killings coming to light, but that hasn’t happened ... yet.  Granted, it’s only been one season, so there’s plenty of time.  But you see where I’m going with this.  On CA, again keeping itself somewhat in the realm of the “real world,” when Annie accidentally kills someone, she has to face REAL consequences for it.  She has to sit in the hot seat for an entire in-depth murder investigation.  Yes, Henry saved her ass in the end, but her going against him now means she’s in even hotter water now than she was to begin with.  She doesn’t just get to wipe her brow in relief and go on her merry way.  She’s now even more screwed than she was when this ep started.  Like I said, the effort to stay within the realm of logic and reality is one of the things I’ve always loved about this show.  And the tense and suspenseful way they played out each bit of Seth’s murder investigation in this ep was great.  I’ve always loved Rossabi as a character, and Noam Jenkins was awesome in that final scene with Annie, after he had been “broken” and turned by Henry.  You could really feel his pain.  Poor Rossabi has been the CIA’s punching bag throughout this entire series, so I’m glad Annie defended him against Henry in the end.  The poor guy deserves someone on his side.  Marlon, on the other hand, is f*cked.

Here’s my random thoughts before I get to my summary and grade:

• The exposition spent re-introducing Rossabi to the audience every single time he shows up again on CA drives me insane.  Wouldn’t a new viewer be able to figure it out from less obvious comments here and there??
• Hahaha poor Tim Griffin – how would you like to be killed off of a TV show, only to be forced to return for one more episode to play your own dead body?  Oh well, part of the job of an actor I suppose.  ;-)
• I recall recently saying, either in one of these reviews or to my friend Shelby, “Joan’s goddamn abandoned pill addiction storyline will haunt me to my grave.”  FINALLY it reared its hazy drugged-out head again tonight!!  We still have zero background on it, but at least it’s something I guess.  Oh and Annie jumping in to stop Rossabi’s line of questioning in defense of Joan gave me the warm fuzzies.
• Calder, seriously, continues to be ... THE WORST.  It’s frankly kind of annoying me, because he really didn’t seem THAT terrible in eps 401 or 403.  I could at least identify with where he was coming from in those eps.  But in 405 and 406 he’s just been downright insufferable.  I hope they put a little humanity back into his character soon.
• “Now Rossabi thinks there’s a conspiracy to cover up Seth’s murder.”  Auggie: “Well there kinda is!!”
• Bwahaa when Annie secretly calls the FBI chick in the evidence room to distract her – I love that she keeps the sound on her damn cell phone turned ON.  Great spycraft there – “Swipe click click dial!!”  Very inconspicuous.  Hahhaa I do like that her trick didn’t work here though.  Rossabi caught her.  That woulda been way too easy.
• They can’t possibly have much of a budget on this show for fancy stunts, I’m assuming, but they still managed to make Rossabi and Marlon’s fall from that balcony look pretty cool.  Didn’t feel fake at all – props to the director and stunt coordinators for that one.
• Annie/Auggie HAD to realize that Annie’s number would be all over Henry’s call history.  But Rossabi’s initial investigation was focused on Seth’s call history, not Henry’s.  I suppose they simply had no better option at that point than to put Rossabi on that goose chase, to buy themselves some time to get Henry’s GPS data.
• I already called out Noam Jenkins for his awesome performance this ep, and holy SHIT Gregory Itzin in that final scene with Annie?!  The recurring guest actors they have on this show really are top notch.  What a great scene.  I liked his line too: “You haven’t lost nearly enough yet.”  YET.  And we’ve never seen him that out of control.

This was one of those transitional episodes that I always find extremely difficult to assign a grade to.  The main purpose of it is to set up the next few eps, and depending on how those go, my opinion of this one could change significantly.  But if I’m taking this solely on its own, and mostly ignoring Helesa since it only took up 30 seconds here, I actually quite liked this one.  I thought it was smartly written, it kept me on my toes at every turn, surprised me in several places (e.g. whoops Auggie couldn’t hack into the FBI database after all, amongst many other moments), and all the actors gave great performances.  It wasn’t snazzy like last week with Vienna, and it wasn’t action-packed, but it was very solid, clever and entertaining.  It also set up the rest of the summer season, it seems, with Henry now on the complete warpath against Annie (along with the rest of Team Campbell).  I guess I’d give this a grade of …

GRADE: 91 out of 100

Dang, I feel like a zork giving so many eps B+ and A- grades other than 4.02, which I thought was a solid A.  But that’s just how these have been for me.  And believe me, if you were to read my old reviews of eps 3.13 and 3.14 you’d see that I have NO problem giving episodes “eh, not awesome” reviews just after watching them in real time.  I just luckily have not run across any of those in season 4 YET (knock on wood).  Am I lame??  Tell me in the comments.

The Plopper

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The Plopper Reviews - COVERT AFFAIRS 4.05: 'Here Comes Your Man'

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

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The Plopper Reviews - COVERT AFFAIRS 4.04: 'Rock A My Soul'

Wow, should I be flattered that we viewers of ‘Covert Affairs’ are so “high class” that the main product placement being used this season is for the Jaguar F-Type?? 

I know TV advertising and viewing habits are a much different beast these days than they used to be ... with my TiVo, I hardly see commercials anymore.  So I’ve gotten used to, and can even forgive, obnoxiously overt product placement in my shows.  Hell, ‘Chuck’ fans even supported Subway enough to come up with the “Finale & Footlong” campaign; eventually those sandwiches practically became their own characters on the show.  Oh and how bout all that Bud Light Annie & Auggie are always drinking at Allen’s??  Do people REALLY drink Bud Light??  No matter.  Point is, we fans are completely willing to put up with a certain level of cheesy product placement in order to keep our shows on the air.  But with that said - seriously, CA, did you really have END the entire episode with the ridiculous Jag commercial??  Because now, despite it being an otherwise pretty good episode, I’m left right at the end suddenly feeling annoyed.  And now I’m starting my review this way.  Grr.

O.k. sorry, rant over.  Let’s get to the ep now, shall we?  Let me start by asking this: Am I the only person who is feeling kind of relieved that Auggie’s gig as head of the DPD didn’t last long?  There's a line in the ep during a tense conversation between A&A where Annie says, “I don’t want to do this if we’re going to wind up like Joan and Arthur.”  THANK YOU Annie, I don’t want you to either!!  I’ll be honest, I love Joan & Arthur as characters, but I never found their relationship to be particularly romantic or even all that compelling, up through season 3 (though I will say, it has gotten much more interesting in season 4, which I definitely appreciate).  But through S3, it seemed like it was simply all tension all the time, with them constantly bickering back and forth about the conflict between Arthur as Joan’s boss vs. her husband.  Having A&A wind up like this is the absolute LAST thing I want for this show.  I’d rather the show focus on Seth’s zombie corpse rising up from the Potomac for revenge (like Jason Voorhees?) than to see a version of this show where the romance is completely sucked out of A&A’s relationship, and all that’s left is constant bickering.  :shudder:  Nightmare.

So not surprisingly, I spent much of the ep feeling very nervous about this.  Now that the ep is over, however, I feel fairly relieved that A&A do not seem to be headed this direction.  I don’t THINK.  Auggie’s demotion helps.  Is that horrible of me?  Sorry, Auggie.  A&A is way more important to me than your career.  There.  I said it.  It’s out there.  Sue me.  And on a similar note, most CA fans spent the entire week leading up to this ep freaking out and speculating on just WHAT the hell Auggie’s secret could be.  I heard theories ranging from Auggie & Teo being brothers (which would have been my own personal soapy hell), to Auggie moonlighting as Daredevil at night, to Auggie having bad credit (in the “mundane Auggie secrets” category).  After all this speculation, I’m downright relieved at what the secret ended up being.  I went into this episode with a horrible fear that it would be something shark-jumpingly horrible (Anyone else still scarred by Luke’s long-lost daughter April on ‘Gilmore Girls’?), and it ended up being something I was pretty fine with.  Teo caused the death of someone Auggie was in love with ("Helen").  And Auggie believes that his fully open “no secrets” relationship with Helen is partly responsible for her death.  Hence, we have an explanation for his attempts at keeping Annie in the dark on certain information.  O.k., I can deal with that.  Just so long as Helen doesn’t turn out to be secretly still alive or some ridiculous shit.  THEN we’d be in the shark-jumping zone.  Bionic Woman - I’m looking at you.  You’d BETTER be someone other than Helen using the alias of Teresa.

The reveal of Auggie’s secret is a great example of one of the things I’ve always loved about CA – it has a very “down-to-earth,” true to life quality that wasn’t there with many of the wacky spy shows I’ve loved in the past.  It’s a lot more relatable.  It’s not 'Covert’s way to make Auggie’s secret something total out-there and overly melodramatic.  And that’s why I found HENRY’s storyline in this episode to be a bit irksome.  Clearly he is the “big bad” this season, at least so far.  And that completely makes sense, given that he’s been lurking around as this angry vindictive and powerful character since the beginning of season 1.  CA is not taking this in an unexpected direction at all.  What irks me about it is that Henry’s “a son for a son” campaign against Arthur is not only a bit “operatic,” to use an analogy that Henry actually used in this ep, but it doesn’t even necessarily make sense!  We know that Henry blames Arthur for Jai’s death, but we’ve never been given a reason as to WHY.  Have we??  Did I miss that at some point??  Are we simply to assume that Henry thinks Arthur’s bad management of the DCS led indirectly to Jai’s death?  That doesn’t seem nearly damning enough for him to want THAT level of revenge on Arthur.

In any event, despite my concerns about Henry and my nervousness about A&A, I did find this to be an entertaining episode.  In the past, I’ve found that my fave shows tend to be at their best when the core characters are really banding together to fight against a common enemy.  At the end of season 3, I was really concerned that Joan and Arthur would be turned into villains this season due to the contents of Henry’s file.  Thank GOD they didn’t take this in that direction, as it wouldn’t have been true to what we’ve seen from these characters so far.  No one is perfect and they’ve made plenty of mistakes, but they’re not bad people, especially Joan.  So Joan’s line at the end, “From now on we trust NO ONE but ourselves.  No one,” gave me a very warm fuzzy feeling.  I want our main characters to grow closer, not further apart, and to work together.  And that seems to be the direction they’re going.  Joan even gave Annie some relationship advice in this ep!!  She gave Auggie some too for that matter.  Aww.

Oh, I also like that Henry called Annie out on Auggie’s involvement in this situation being the entire reason that she let Henry court her in the first place.  I suppose it’s obvious that this was her motivation, but it’s nice to see it clarified.  There’s no way in hell anyone would go through all this trouble just to help out and/or dig up dirt on their bosses.  Here’s the rest of my thoughts on the ep in random order:

• Annnnd Annie’s red VW Golf is suddenly in perfect shape again.  I guess it really is like Walter White’s indestructible Aztek.
• Eric Barber is back!  And trying out Auggie’s office for a bit.  I love any excuse for scenes with him.
• Auggie makes two blind jokes within the span of like 20 seconds in this ep.  Is this a record?
• So Annie couldn’t get the calendar with the bug in the Chens’ room, but I guess the audio device Auggie already had set up was good enough?  Also, Auggie specifically says the Chens have no cell phones in their names, and are likely using burners.  And yet, Annie is alerted when a call comes into Xu’s cell, and can hear at least his side of the convo.  How?  Is that just from the same audio sensors through the wall?  Do they have Lester Freamon working for them or something?  (High-five for anyone who gets that reference).  OH he was in two eps of this show too!!
• Wow, Wendy Chen had quite the ‘tude going on there, eh?  To be fair, Annie WAS a bit annoying in that first convo.  For a “neighbor.”
• What the hell is up with Eric Braithwaite??  He’s been in 4 eps of this show in seasons 1-3 according to IMDB.  Can anyone with a better memory than me remind me of his backstory?
• “Don’t worry Olivia, my former husband seems to have a way with women!”  Nice one, Joan.
• “I thought you said I was the type that didn’t need luck!”  Annie remembered Auggie telling her this when they first met.  Aww.
• “My feelings haven’t changed, just my job.”  Again, aww.  Also, it’s good to see that Annie’s not listening to what Auggie tells her to do any more now than she did before they started dating haha.
• Henry: “Just keep yourself covered, the sun can be very dangerous, if you’re not protected.”  This was an odd line.  What was up with all the “sun” references here?  My cousin Katie thinks it’s a sun/son analogy.
• Teo: “[Arthur] didn’t raise a son, he raised a spy.”  Looks like Arthur’s got a little of the Jack Bristow thing going on in his past.
• Annie’s call from the safe house after finding everyone dead: “Umbra 10-79.”  Is this a real term or was it made up for the show?  I did a quick Google search and came up empty-handed.

So what’s my grade for this ep?  I’m having trouble deciding if I liked last week’s ep better, or this one.  Last week was more exciting and action-packed, but this week was stronger on plot movement and character development.  And despite my concerns about A&A and the Joan/Arthur parallels, their scenes here were all pretty damn great.

GRADE: 88/100

I changed my grading system since we’ve had 3 B+ eps (IMO) so far.  Whaddya think?  Too low?  Too high?  Yell at me in the comments.

The Plopper

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The Plopper Reviews - COVERT AFFAIRS 4.02: 'Dig for Fire'

Umm … holy SHIT, Covert Affairs. If you haven’t seen episode 402 "Dig for Fire" yet, turn back immediately, because I’m going to just jump right to the point here.

The very LAST thing I expected when this episode began was that we would finish it with our two main characters attempting to cover up a dead body that Annie left in the Potomac. And not just any dead body, but none other than Joan’s “Pills Anonymous” buddy and carrier of massive pining Joan-crush from last season, Seth Newman!! And of course that is only after finding out that he was the mole leaking intel to Henry and Solstar. I suppose that last part was not exactly a major shock, but until now I really hadn’t even thought much about Seth since last season. And I spent the first half of the ep busy focusing on the question of whether Joan’s baby was Seth’s instead of Arthur’s. So I will admit, I was a little distracted, until that moment when Seth walked past A&A and Auggie grabbed Annie’s arm with a gasp. At which point I said, “D'OH!! Uhh DUH!!”

Whew ... o.k. let’s take a few steps back, shall we? I spent the first 30 minutes of this episode on the edge of my seat, but also wondering if this would wind up being one of those episodes like “Man in the Middle” that is literally ALL tension and dialogue on a medium simmer with some occasional moments of intense flare-ups/arguments between characters. Those eps are nice to do every now and then, but I’ll admit that I was wanting more than that from the second ep of season 4. Still, the first half of the episode gave us great tense scenes between Annie and Arthur, Annie/Henry, Joan/Auggie, and quite a nicely heated argument between Arthur and Auggie in Arthur’s hotel room while Annie pretended to have to take a wizz. (“Sack up,” Auggie!!) The sequence where Annie tails Henry through the DC Metrorail was really cool too; nicely filmed. I’ve only ridden the DC Metro once ever and it was way back in 2004, but I think that was really the DC Metrorail in this ep, right? Or am I an idiot for thinking that? It’s got those domed ceilings, right, with the big “M”s on the trains?

We also got some very nice plot progression during this first 30 mins with the Teo/Colombia stuff, and I was frankly kind of shocked at how many of the secret bombshells from the premiere were fully let out of the bag to all the characters here, so early on in the season. In a sense I’m extremely happy about this though, because I can tell you from other shows I’ve watched that there are few things more frustrating to the audience than to spend an ENTIRE season knowing a secret that one or more of our major characters don’t, and to be forced to sit through ridiculously contrived storylines and idiotic behaviors from the characters in order to keep the secret(s) hidden from each other until end of the season. Any Sons of Anarchy or Castle fans will know exactly what I mean. Uggh. So I’m quite glad Covert has laid a lot of this stuff out on the table right upfront, so we can now sit and watch as it hopefully causes very interesting situations for our characters to deal with and work through as the season plays out.

So, all in all, the first half of the episode chugged along pretty decently, but THEN, BAM, we got the first scene in Auggie's apartment. This was where "Dig for Fire" really started to come together for me, and to break away from that "Man in the Middle" feel. First off, CHRIST, how sexxxy was that scene, visually?? This ep was directed by Félix Alcalá, the same guy who directed “Suffragette City," with that dreamy ethereal quality. So it’s really no surprise that he directed this ep as well, with scenes like this one on Auggie’s bed with the jazz music in the background. Whew!! (fanning face) ... And of course, as I mentioned and discussed with several of my fellow fans last week, we got some actual real dialogue between A&A here! Per usual, Auggie did most of the talking, but at least we got some important character interaction here, albeit with Auggie clearly still hiding some major stuff from Annie. Annie’s never been great at expressing herself; I and several of my fellow fans have wanted to shake her by the shoulders for quite a while now (season 3 included), and tell her, “Annie, USE YOUR WORDS, HONEY!! Use your WORDS.” At least we got a little of that in this scene! A teeny tiny bit. I really hope we get more eventually.

And then shortly after this, we got the scene of Annie and Joan in the bathroom! I didn’t mention this last week, but one of the things that greatly pained me about the last third of S3 was how horribly strained Annie & Joan’s relationship was, and how neither of them ever properly talked anything out. We kept getting hints that Joan had gone through a similar past traumatic situation that Annie had been through with Simon and Lena, but we got zero exploration of what that was or whether Joan could give Annie advice in that area. Instead, these two just fought like an exhausted mom and teenage daughter and never got to the root of any of their issues. So I really appreciated this scene in the bathroom, even if they still talked about essentially nothing other than the preggers bombshell. Annie looked like she was about to choke up when she said, “Joan, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something ...” before Joan interrupted her. Was the “something” simply the Arthur/Teo/non-cheating secrets? Or was there anything more to that?

And of course, last but not least, we have Annie breaking into Seth’s apartment. I had read a spoiler that made me expect a physical fight to ensue there, but I did NOT expect anything like what actually went down. It totally shocked me not only how involved and stunt-laden the fight was, but the fact that Seth DIED as a result. I mean o.k. first off, maybe this is stupid of me, but I’m not convinced that a fall from the height of that bridge would really kill someone. But maybe it’s way higher than I think. In any event, holy shit. And then, seriously, the scene in Auggie’s apartment afterward, with the bandage tape on the forehead!? I will admit I am a HUGE sucker for shit like this, but that was seriously one of the best things I’ve seen on my TV in a while. Well o.k., in the cute/funny department, anyway. This is another perfect example of the type of character interaction that we’ve gotten almost none of since mid-season 3!! MORE, please. MORE!!

And then of course at the end, we have Henry setting Annie up to carry out more of his agenda, via a trip back to Colombia. With this development plus Seth Newman now mysteriously “missing,” we’ve got a lot for our characters to deal with in ep 403. (Insert Seinfeld voice: "Newman!!!") I can’t wait to see how it all plays out.

A few last random thoughts:

*The first scene in the episode, with Annie and Arthur – This is the first scene inside Danielle’s kitchen since Lena shot Annie and Simon in there, right? I had been wondering if and when Annie would enter that room/house again. This scene was different than how I thought that would go down, but we did get a callback to that trauma with Annie mentioning “the last time someone broke into my kitchen.”

*I cannot emphasize enough how much I HATE that weird stubby fat creepy little silver revolver Annie always insists on carrying. Does the flash-forward scene at the beginning of 401 indicate that she’ll finally get a normal gun later in the season!? God, I hope so.

*Have you ever heard of the Showtime documentary called “That Guy … Who was in That Thing?” It’s about exactly that – those actors you’ve seen in countless movies and TV shows, and you know their face SO well, but you don’t know their name. You just know that they were “the guy from that one movie, and a few eps of that TV show.” I caught a decent chunk of this doc last year, shortly after getting into CA, and was pleasantly surprised to see Gregory Itzin featured pretty prominently in it. Well guess what? We know his name now.

*Should we discuss the flats Annie wears during the Henry-tailing sequence? I mean Jesus, I’m just glad the poor girl is finally wearing some sensible shoes for an outing like this. Maybe they should let her do that more often.

*So we were right about Arthur’s “affair,” just a cover for the Teo-related secrets he’s trying to hide. No shock there. Nice to see him protecting Joan from the shitstorm, at least.

*Have you ever heard a more polite and dainty puke than Joan in that bathroom with Annie?? Hahaha that was amazing. I wish I could barf like such a lady.

*Seth’s “Buenos tardes” that causes A&A to recognize his voice was kinda hilarious for two reasons: 1) that he would conveniently say that exact phrase in the office, and 2) his voice is so weird and loud there; sounds like it was definitely put in during ADR.

*Annie’s little red VW has taken a lot of shit-talk from picky fans over the seasons, who have wondered why she never got a better car. I’ve never had any issue with it, but I do find it interesting that they beat that thing up pretty bad in this episode. Is that the end of Annie’s little red Golf?? Well maybe not, I just watched the scene again and I guess it’s not THAT bad. It just initially had me picturing that ep of South Park where they kill off Chef by slowly tearing him to shreds via bear/cougar-mauling. There was major venom involved in South Park’s case … was there any similar venom in this case about that little red Golf? Hehe. But after watching the scene again I’m thinking it’s actually more like Walter White’s Aztek, indestructible.

So now for the ep 402 "Dig for Fire" grade ... I’m going to give this episode an:

A

Holy shit, is that too high?? Am I being too generous? I kinda loved this one. I just have not felt nearly this satisfied by a CA ep since the “Let’s Dance”/”Rock ‘n Roll Suicide” timeframe. Maybe that’s not saying much given my huge frustrations with the last third of season 3, but still. I really liked it, what can I say? Am I crazy? Tell me in the comments section.


Rachael (The Plopper)

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