Boardwalk Empire 1x02

We’re in Chicago, at a funeral. A large crowd has gathered in front of the church. There are even reporters on the scene. Big Jim Colosimo was murdered upon his return from New Jersey. Al Capone is walking behind the coffin bearers brushing off the journalists. Back in Atlantic City, County Treasurer Nucky Thompson gets a visit by Probation Agent Nelson Van Alden investigating the death of Hans Schroeder, who got pinned for Jimmy Darmody’s shooting of Arnold Rothstein’s men. After some back and forth, Nucky delicately points out that as a Probation Agent he should be raiding stills, rather than investigating a case of homicide. Nucky’s brother Sheriff Eli Thompson soon pays Margaret Schroeder (an angelic Kelly Macdonald) a visit in the hospital. She just had a miscarriage after Hans physically abused her. Eli implies she didn’t really know her husband, what he was up to at night, or who he associated with, and so he could well have been involved in the shootings – and she wouldn’t want her children ending up in custody, would she. He also hands her an envelope stashed with cash from his brother. The moment she gets home from the hospital Van Alden is at her door asking questions about her husband and Nucky Thompson. The uptight evangelist even steals her ribbon, which he’ll later clutch and sniff. Margaret decides to return the money to Nucky, offering to work for him rather than demean herself to his charity.

Over in New York, big time gangsters Arnold Rothberg and Lucky Luciano send for Frankie Yale, demanding to know who ordered the hit on Colosimo. Rothstein calls Nucky to complain about the missing cargo that ended up in Chicago and demands $100,000 for damages. Nucky warns Rothstein not to show his face in Atlantic City and hangs up. When Jimmy clocks in for work, but Nucky tells him he can go and be a gangster, but will owe him the privilege if it’s in his town. And he still owes Nucky $3,000, too, for the hijacked booze. That night he brings the money, but Nucky teaches him a lesson by placing it on the crabs table and lose it in one game. So, the stage has been set, and the various subplots are slowly introduced. There are quite a few characters, which make it a little difficult to keep up with. The tone is decidedly different from the Martin Scorsese’s pilot – not as grandiosely operatic, without onscreen violence, and a greater focus on the characters and their relations. The story remains engaging, though I am keeping a wait-and-see attitude, as this episode has the feel of something of filler. Still, a good show, with cinematic aspirations. No doubt it will take awhile for the plots and subplots to unravel. I’ll keep you posted.

Modern Family 1x12

Really, there was only one bit in this episode that gave me a chuckle – and that was when Gloria caught Jay holding hands with his dog-headed butler doll Barkley before a priest. The rest was either just a trifle too annoying or uncomfortably awkward, or just plain boring.

In Treatment 3x07

Messed up kid Jesse (that incredible Dane DeHaan) continues evading Paul’s questions at sixty miles an hour, trying to provoke him with his crude jokes, prodding him for information about his family, testing his patience by threatening to throw things through the window. Paul wants Jesse to talk about his birth mother, his relationship with his adoptive mother Marisa, or why he is avoiding talking to Nate, a class mate he had a secretive fling with, but now considers an obsessed stalker merely because he tried calling Jesse on their landline. It must be difficult breaking through the layers of deceit Jesse has wrapped around himself in an attempt to protect himself from hurt. He clearly yearns for intimacy and emotional connection, but makes that well nigh impossible with the lies and abrasiveness. He thought Paul had taken him on pro bono and breaks down when he learns from Paul that Marisa is paying for his therapy. He knows she cannot afford it – just as he knew she couldn’t afford paying for his summer arts program to which he applied as an excuse for contacting his birth mother in Westchester without consulting his adoptive parents. When Paul doubts that she will just fork up the money if he calls her out of the blue, Jesse gets so angry he wants to leave. At the end of the session, Jesse tells Paul to warn his son for the world of pain ahead of him.

Dexter 5x06

Midway through the season and the plotlines are starting to converge in unforeseeable ways. Miami Homicide is following Deb’s lead on the Santa Muerte machete murders. They’ve organized a stake out at the club frequented by the Fuentes brothers. This despite the Captain’s warning he isn’t pleased with their lack of progress. Batista is teasing Deb how many girls approach Quinn at the bar. She’s doing her best to hide her jealousy. For his part, Dex is trying to bring back some normalcy into his life – and prepares his next kill: another perverted serial killer (of which there seems ample supply in his neck of the woods). When he is leaving his condo, his Irish superwoman nanny tells Harrison to say “bye-bye, daddy,” and the little kid says “dye-dye.” “He said ‘die, die!’” Dex responds shocked. “Don’t be silly,” she retorts, “He said ‘bye-bye.’ Harrison’s first words!” Just when he is about to start his ritual kill, Lumen calls repeatedly. She never left Miami – and now she’s shot one of the men who raped her (or so she claims). She doesn’t know what to do. He hurries to Lumen at some bayside warehouse, with a victim of his own in his car. When he arrives, she’s anxious and confused. She cannot really tell this is the man who raped her, she just knows, even though she was blindfolded the whole time she was abused, but she feels she’s right, he smells the same. But now the man is gone!

They have to follow the trail of his blood, revealing how much Dex knows about blood and what kind of gadgets he carries with him in his bag. The man is losing so much blood he can’t be far. They soon enough find him and he denies ever seeing Lumen before. Then Dex gets a message on his cell of a reported homicide – at the very same warehouse. Someone must have heard the gun shots. Dexter and Lumen keep arguing. He doesn’t trust her instinct. Then they overhear him talking on Lumen’s cell phone: “She shot me! That last fucking bitch is alive!” Lumen was right all along, and now the others are warned. With one guy wrapped in plastic foil coming to in his car and another body at the warehouse, Dexter has to take care of both situations at once, while Deb and Masuka are already following the trail of blood. And if that isn’t enough, Dex needs to argue with Lumen to make sure she leaves – and then the first guy breaks out of Dex’ SUV. Only in the nick of time is he able to catch the guy, run back to the dead body, dump the other body on the scene with Lumen’s gun, and pretend he found them before his sister did. Amazing! “Two words,” Masuka intones, “auto-erotic mummification.” “What a night!” Deb exclaims. This was sure one heck of an exciting episode. What a terrific plot development! I’m a little more reticent about Deb’s continuing dalliance with Quinn, or the marital troubles between Batista and LaGuerta, not to mention Quinn’s persistence to investigate Dexter with the help of his suspended colleague Stan Liddy.

Burn Notice 4x16

Michael Westen finally has his hands on the list that contains information about all the names of the people behind his burn notice. He has decided to hand it over to the government and trust that they will reconsider the black-listing, so that he and Jesse can be reinstated in their respective counter-intelligence jobs. Michael also chose Jesse’s former handler, Marv, to arrange the hand-over. Marv doesn’t trust Michael, and resents him for causing Jesse’ burn notice. So he straps him on the polygraph to verify he’s talking the truth. “State your name and occupation,” Marv asks. “My name is Michael Westen. I used to be a spy.”

Meanwhile, an old cop friend of Sam has gone missing, allegedly after nicking a lot of cocaine off some dealers. So Sam feels obliged to help the guy’s wife clear his name. Top brass has already closed the case. But Sam thinks it stinks. They learn from some scumbag dealer that Sam’s friend Kevin was set up by his partner Pete, and then killed. Now they have to set up Pete to trap him into selling the stash. They bring on the heat by pretending they killed the scumbag dealer and – even better – that Kevin is still alive and talking to Internal Affairs. Pete wants to make a deal fast, but instead of bringing drugs, he sets off an explosion of his own. With nothing else left, Michael threatens to kill him if he won’t give him the coke. Pete offers to drop it off at Kevin’s house, since it’s too hot to deal on the street, blame it on his ex-partner all over again. When he does, Sam is waiting with a Police Lieutenant’s crew. He finally got busted.

Marv checks up on some of Michael’s stories without raising any flags, and they check out. He decides to help Michael and Jesse hand over the list. But when they meet, Marv is sweating and nervous. He is escorted by three guys wearing Homeland Security uniforms. They also have silencers on their pistols. Something is wrong. They already have the flash drive. Marv is dead. The list is gone. Tyler Brennan, a former spy and arms dealer (who appeared before in seasons two and three), just stole Michael’s precious information! No end in sight. Fun!

Gossip Girl 4x11

Oh, my freakin’ Gossip Girl, the plot is spinning out of control! Paraphrasing Blair, the Juliet Express went off the rails and headed straight to Crazy Town. How much longer can this Cricket bear this drivel? Dan and Blair are trying to figure out what kind of sick retribution motivates that stalking Flatchester. But who to turn to for help in bringing her down? What about Gossip Girl herself? Juliet is merely an outsider to the Upper Eastside elite. Plus she posted that fake photo posing as Serena snorting up. Does GG even know it’s fake? Will she reply? Well, she does point them to Cornwall, Connecticut, where Serena went to boarding school after her previous bender. There they meet Damien (Jenny’s one time dope-pushing fling), who admits he sold a big batch of various drugs to Juliet recently. She’s a townie. And right when they walk out of the sorority house, she’s driving by and spots Dan and Blair talking to Damien. Anyway, Damien brings Dan and Blair to Juliet’s mother, who tells them about Juliet’s brother, Ben Donovan (her first husband’s last name), who taught at S’s boarding school. Oooohhh! Now we get it. She fell in love with him and he got into the slammer for misdemeanors with a minor! So, jealous Juliet is upset that S first had an affair with her brother Ben and then she was about to start another with her cousin Collin. The irony! There you have your retribution.

Meanwhile, Serena is still committed into the Rostroff Center. Lily and Eric are proud how strong she is. Jeez, wake up and smell the coffee: that dumb blonde got set up! She opens up to her therapist, providing us with some background information about her time in boarding school, how she fell in love with her teacher, while playing party hardy with the sorority girls. For his part, Damien fills us in with his recollections about his time there. Lovely how his flashbacks slide into those of Serena and back in the same over-saturated purple and golden hues. S never slept with her teacher, because Mr. Donovan was an honorable man who understood it wasn’t right – or at least understood the repercussions if he did. Try paying attention now, because your mind may wonder off to better and brighter places: Juliet decides to confront Serena with the truth; Ben warns Nate, who happens to be visiting his father in prison, that Serena is in danger; Juliet is able to sneak into the Rostroff Center, even though S is supposed not to have any visitors for three days; she tells S that Ben was accused of statutory rape and transporting a minor across state lines; an affidavit was signed in Serena’s name (that she has no knowledge of) detailing the crime; so brother Ben is serving time for a crime he did not commit; it was Lily who was behind it; but don’t try to understand how Lily thought it was all in their best interest to put an innocent man behind bars... It comes as no surprise that everything comes to blows again at another party. S walks into a Christmas cocktail at the van der Woodsen’s, with Juliet in tow. Dan and Blair are there, with Damien in tow. Nate, Eric and Rufus, too. Serena just blurts out in front of everyone that her mother is a selfish liar, who will destroy anyone who stands in her way – and then runs off. Who’s the dumb blonde now, Lily?

Modern Family 1x11

Jay doesn’t like Manny’s father, Javier, Gloria’s ex. “I don’t like the guy,” he explains. “Do I have reasons? Yeah. Good reasons? Yeah! How many reasons do I need? None. I don’t like the guy!” Jay’s funny! He doesn’t understand how Gloria could fall for his suave moves, and he resents the fact that Javier lets his son down so often. But late at night, the guys bond, talking about pool, motor bikes, and baseball. Before you know it, Javier has charmed Jay. Of course, gorgeous Gloria is furious! When swanky no-show stood up Jay, he’s learned his lesson. The story of Phil suffering from a kidney stone, with Claire jumping into a sexy outfit when they call 911, is the kind of awkward stuff I can’t appreciate. For their part Mitchell and Cameron are up all night, not so much because baby Lily is crying, but because they are arguing whether to ferberize her or not (i.e., letting her cry until she falls asleep rather than comforting her every minute of the night). Also not funny.