Issue #22, 30 November – 6 December 2008

Posted by AJ in Entertainment and Pop Culture TV Rewind.

This week: Nora pretends to be a construction foreman on Brothers & Sisters; Paris Hilton finally finds her new BFF; men walk through walls on Fringe; McCoy lays the smackdown while a Loops and Cutter bromance blossoms on Law & Order; and Shane is chauvinistic and domineering on Lipstick Jungle.

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Show: Brothers & Sisters
Episode: “Unfinished Business” (3×09)
You Can Watch It: Sundays at 10pm on ABC

Nora was determined to start working on the house for the center, but equally as determined to save money.  Therefore, she enlisted the help of her beloved sons and brother rather than getting a real contractor.  Needless to say, that did not go well, but Scotty—surprisingly—was the only one with actual construction experience and he was able to at least steer the other guys in the right direction.  Holly tried to win back even more of Rebecca’s love by offering her a big title and an office at Ojai Foods without asking Tommy first.  This sent Tommy into a vengeful rage, and he approached Saul in the dead of night to help him take Holly down once and for all.  Rebecca got testy with Justin over the fact that he was honest when he told her he was surprised by her sudden promotion seeing as how she has no business experience or training.  They made up, of course, and it involved being cute and kissing and Justin’s big brown eyes being all glassy.  Meanwhile, Robert tried to convince Kitty to consider surrogacy, but Trish showed back up claiming to have decided that she really wants her child to be adopted by the McCallisters.  Also, Sarah had a business meeting with Graham that went a little too well for her and not well for her partners, so she gave up job security because of her loyalty to the two dudes that she now allows to use her living room as an office.

Conclusions:
Rebecca has just as many drama issues as the rest of the Walkers, so she should probably sit down and STFU.

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Show: Paris Hilton’s My New BFF
Episode: “Best Friends Forever” (1×10)
You Can Watch It: On reruns.  This was the season finale.

With the group whittled down to the final two, Paris took Brittany and Vanessa to New York City to party East Coast style and see the Big Apple Paris-style.  Brittany and Paris shared their one-on-one time first, leaving Vanessa to her own devices back in the hotel room.  Brittany and Paris took a helicopter tour of the city, went shopping at a store owned by Patricia Fields (designer for Sex & the City), and ate a thousand dollar sundae at Serendipity.  The next day, Vanessa got to ride in a helicopter with Paris to the Hamptons, dine at the Estate, and get a spa treatment with her idol.  The constant stream of creepy and overzealous compliments did not waver once during their alone time.  Paris had Brittany meet them at a club once the day was done, and she told them they would have one last chance at elimination to tell her why they thought they should be her BFF.  Benji Madden did not look amused.  For eliminations, the girls were required to wear ridiculous Marie-Antoinette-meets-Molly-Ringwald-in-Sixteen-Candles outfits.  Both of them read letters to Paris and attempted to throw the other girl under the bus.  Paris, stressed by the decision she had to make, fled the scene.  Each girl was then taken in a black SUV to a different location.  Vanessa was taken to an empty hotel room where she read a letter informing her that she was not Paris’s BFF, while Brittany was taken to a party at a club where Paris was waiting to celebrate that Brittany had been chosen as her new BFF.

Conclusions:
Oh, thank goodness because Vanessa was creepier than Erika Christensen in Swimfan.

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Show: Fringe
Episode: “Safe” (1×10)
You Can Watch It: Tuesdays at 9pm on Fox

The dude who ripped the apple out of the safe without opening it last week, Mitchell Loeb, was back with a gang of henchmen this time walking through walls of bank vaults and stealing safety deposit boxes.  Unfortunately for one of the henchmen, things didn’t quite work out the way he planned and he got stuck in the middle of a wall while leaving the vault and Loeb shot the guy in the head.  Broyles got Olivia, Peter, Walter and Astrid on the case as per usual, but things quickly got weird.  Like weirder than usual.  Olivia realized she knew the victim and had served with him the Marines.  She went to his home in New Jersey to notify his estranged wife before realizing that she had never served in the Marines and she was actually tapping into John’s memories again without realizing it.  Peter discovered that the safety deposit boxes were all part of the Fibonocci Code, which led to Walter remembering that they were actually his boxes.  Olivia and Charlie almost caught the henchmen while they were leaving the scene of the last bank robbery, but were only able to get their hands on one.  Peter milked him for all the information he could in interrogation, and Olivia was kidnapped on her way to the location they believed the others were heading towards.  As it turned out, Loeb is working directly for David Robert Jones, the biochemist being help in a German prison.  Using the technology they assembled from all of the safety deposit boxes, Loeb was able to teleport Jones to Little Hill field and deliver Olivia to him.

Conclusions:
So, the Pattern still isn’t making so much sense, but at least the action is getting more frequent.  Additionally, I am relieved they finally touched back to that whole Nina Sharp is trying to revive John Scott thing.

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Show: Law & Order
Episode: “Knock Off” (19×05)
You Can Watch It: Wednesdays at 10pm on NBC

I will preface this short synopsis by saying that if you are a dedicated Law & Order fan and you just happened to miss this week’s episode, please find some way to watch it.  It was that good.  Lots of Lupo character development and McCoy camera-time.  It doesn’t really get better than that.  Okay, so that being said, this week’s episode had the detectives and even Connie and Cutter heading upstate to investigate the murder of a tour bus passenger who happened to be a confidential informant to the sheriff’s office in his small hometown.  After suspecting a woman who the victim had previously raped, the case turned towards the sheriff’s department.  Small town justice was served while Lupo and Connie attempted to carryout a material witness order to force a deputy to testify, and Lupo was arrested.  Out on bail, he and Cutter carried on the investigation while Bernard and Connie returned to New York to call on Jack for assistance.  When traffic footage that would have nailed the sheriff for the homicide was mysteriously erased, the investigation led to Governor Shalvoy, who threatened Jack with the promise of hurting his campaign should he choose to run for District Attorney.  And, since nobody threatens McCoy and gets away with it, Jack found a loophole in the law to get Shalvoy off of his case, successfully convicting the sheriff of the murder, and officially kicking off the process to campaign for the DA seat.

Conclusions:
Lupo as both lawyer and police officer was awesome, but there sure was a lot of manhandling in this episode.  Leave Connie alone!

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Show: Lipstick Jungle
Episode: “Chapter Seventeen: Bye, Bye Baby” (2×10)
You Can Watch It: Fridays at 9pm on NBC

Little baby Charlie, still abandoned and still tugging at Nico’s heartstrings, continued to strain Nico and Kirby’s relationship.  When it became clear to Kirby that Nico was indeed serious about having children, he revealed to her on an invisible ink art installation that he was no longer happy in their relationship causing them to split up for good this time (I know, I know, I don’t want to think about it either).  Unfortunately, Megan’s parents showed up and took Charlie back to Indiana with them.  Wendy helped Victory get in with some hotel big wigs who were looking for new designers to get involved with, and, of course, she landed the deal without breaking too much of a sweat.  Wendy kicked off her new movie project with Cassidy’s script and found herself teaming up with an insane yet determined fellow producer.  Meanwhile, Shane started a campaign of underhanded jabs and insults about Wendy going back to work and whined about it being his turn to be the star.  Luckily, Wendy is too awesome to back down.  Additionally, Maddie made out with Victory’s food delivery guy and somehow it turned into an exercise in self-esteem that brought both Wendy and Maddie and Wendy and Victory closer together.

Conclusions:
There should have been a warning that chocolate and tissues were mandatory for this episode.

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