The Best Episodes of the Month: April 2012

As you may know by now, our opinions (about television) here at The Blogulator are valid. And as such as is true, we'd like to start helping you keep track of when the shows we love churn out particularly spellbinding and/or hilarious episodes. Below you will find five different opinions from five different Blogulator contributors as to what were the most successful episodes that aired (or were seen) in April of 2012. If there's one you've missed, get to Hulu, iTunes, Amazon, or your local cable On Demand menu stat!

Mad Men - "Mystery Date" (buy on iTunes or Amazon)

For as many gripes as I've had about the new season of Mad Men, I realize after every episode that my gripes don't really make a whole lotta sense, because this show is still one of the best shows on TV. And, specifically, outside of the somewhat bloated two-hour premiere, this season is knocking every episode out of the park in its own subtle way. Although, "Mystery Date" is perhaps one of Mad Men's least subtle episodes ever. Joan tells Greg to get the eff out of her house, poor little Sally learns about the nightmarish things going on in society, and Don has a literal fever dream nightmare where he freakin' strangles Madchen Amick to death and pushes her under her bed. It's an episode shrouded in darkness, so much so that this fake horror movie trailer made out of the episode actually isn't so far off from the overall tone. It certainly seems to be a harbinger of things to come as the season progresses. [Qualler]

Justified - "Slaughterhouse" (buy on iTunes or Amazon)

A lot rested on the third season finale of Justified. This season was more serialized than the two that preceded it. And with two new adversaries competing with Boyd Crowder for Marshal Raylan Givens' scornful looks, some have said this season tried to do too much in a short amount of time and paled in comparison to Season 2. While it did take a few episodes for Robert Quarles to gain some depth beyond being a wacky, volatile villain, once he did give us a peak into his disturbing past, steely-eyed Neal McDonough's performance jumped into Emmy-worthy status. And every episode subtly layered Mykelti Williamson's performance as Limehouse, a sort of down-home Wizard of Oz, smart enough to know when to strike, be even wiser to know when to just sit back and watch everything play out. And, for the most part, as exceptionally entertaining as this season was, the audience was also forced to sit back and watch how everything played out as well. Luckily, "Slaughterhouse" more than rewarded viewer patience a brutal final confrontation between Quarles, Limehouse and Givens. We were also given the extra payoff of Raylan realizing that, over the course of events spanning the entire series, his father had developed a deeper relationship with Boyd Crowder than he ever did with his own flesh and blood. So deep that to keep Boyd out of jail, Arlo took the fall for killing a man that betrayed Boyd in addition to confessing to shooting a State Trooper. Even just thinking about Raylan saying that Arlo "saw a man in a hat pointing a gun at Boyd" still gives me chills. What a way to cap off a ridiculously enjoyable season while adding one more thing to boil under that hat of our favorite US Marshal. [Sarc]

Revenge - "Scandal" (watch for free on Hulu)

God, this show. I started watching it at the beginning of the season with eyes narrowed in suspicion. The ubiquitous ad campaign and huge hype made me think that, like most things that networks (and studios and publishers) push heavily, it was expensive, but absolutely no good. I didn't think the sweet girl from Everwood could pull off being a cold-hearted vengeance machine, and figured that even if she could, she wouldn't be compelling because she was too inhuman and unlikeable. I didn't like the guy who plays Daniel when he was Max on Make It or Break It (yeah, that's a thing that happened), and don't even get me started on how much I dislike Madeleine Stowe. Nevertheless, I started watching--AND COULDN'T STOP. "Revenge" is probably one of the best shows on television, and for the most part lives up to its hype. Every time you think that the story is about to devolve, that Emily can't possibly lie her way out of this one, the show turns everything around, just to show you how wrong you are. "Revenge" is an intricate dance, a complex perpetual motion machine that defies prediction, and multiple satisfying surprises and twists give the impression that the show has so much more up its sleeve. I picked "Scandal" as my favorite ep of the month, but they're all good; "Scandal" does contain a couple of nice reveals, however--what really happened between Daniel and Tyler on the beach, Emily's emerging, genuine feelings for her ersatz fiance, the unsettlingly obtuse machinations of Emily's revenge master, Takeda (how awesome is it that she has a revenge master?), and heretofore uninteresting Ashley's attempt to leverage the Grayson family tragedy for her own gain by releasing bloody pictures of Daniel at the crime scene to the tabloids. I'm glad the show has another bit of scandal to chew on besides the David Clarke/terrorist/plane crash thing, which has always felt like a wrong note in the show, both because of its "too soon" element (anything that smacks of using a 9/11-ish event as a subplot in what is basically a really good soap opera is, I think, kind of cheap) and its general weird unbelievability. Not that I think it's going away--it's integral to the premise of the show--but the fact that other fucked up things are happening keeps it from turning into a stale old chestnut. Now if someone would just actually straight up kill Amanda, that would be super. [Anna]

Community - "Basic Lupine Urology" (watch for free on Hulu)

It's no secret how much I and 90% of the rest of the nerd contingent of the internet adores the Greendale gang, but upon returning after the dark nightmare that was its third season hiatus, every episode of this show just kept punching me in the groin more than the last - in a good way. And in particular, it took me a few minutes to realize why I loved "Basic Lupine Urology" (AKA the Law & Order ep) even more than the two other perfect episodes the show did this month (the Dr. Who/dreamatorium ep and the Ken Burns/pillow fort ep): because while I maybe wish I had a much deeper understanding of Dr. Who and/or Ken Burns documentaries, I am far more familiar with the tropes and minutiae of Dick Wolf's franchise. Just like great homage/parody Community eps of yore, such as the chicken fingers/GoodFellas one or the Charlie Kaufman/Abed is the Messiah one, every beat is played pitch-perfectly, a couple of my favorite details being the abundance of Greek NYC coffee cups suddenly on campus and Britta's role as the photograph analyzer (which in this case just means she can Instagram it to make it look old-timey). The biggest complaint that many have already hobbled at this twelve-jokes-a-second romp is that it lacks that tender center that deepens our love for the characters like so many forays into the study group's world has before, but I say they just had their cake and ate it too. The episode ends with yet another classic L&O bit, where the climax of solving the case is undercut with an out-of-left-field development that one of the case's primary constituents has died in the most horrifically tragic way possible, and here we got the off-screen death of one of the show's longest-running minor characters: Starburns. It's not huge, but it's a joke and a morbidly hefty moment at once, as we'll now always remember that the weird guy with the top hat and the cosmic facial hair died at the end of the Law & Order episode of Community. [Chris]

30 Rock - "Live From Studio 6H" (watch for free on Hulu)

"...because they thought two black people on the same show would make people nervous. A rule that NBC still follows today!"

Now, I wasn't the biggest fan of the initial foray of 30 Rock into a live episode.  Don't get me wrong- I LOVE a good gimmick.  Can't. Get. Enough. Gimmicks.  This is why I'm one of the only Blogulator crew that unabashedly watches competitive reality television (and not the high-rated shows either).  However, the previous live episode of 30 Rock just fell flat; it was live for the kitsch of being live without any, what do you call those?  Oh yeah, jokes.  Flash forward to the 2012 episode and it's genius.  All the gimmick, plus hilarious jokes and guest stars.  The live episode actually seemed like watching TGS. There were sketches, and funny ones at that.  I love the "flashbacks" to television past narrated by Kenneth, inserted for the purpose of "saving" TGS as a live show.  I watched several television parodies repeatedly, including the sketch of news reporters befuddled by Tina Fey's sex, and the Amos n' Andy spoof Alfie and Abner. Dr. Spaceman got some much needed play, Jon Hamm was in my two favorite sketches, and Paul proposed to Jenna after singing "Zou Bisou Bisou" from Mad Men - "A Little Kiss."  Perfection? Maybe not.  But consider my funny bone satisfied. [Jerksica]

Watching Television with a Newborn

As Qualler pointed out last week, and as you are likely not an idiot and can read this post's title and absorb its implications, Jerksica and I recently had a baby. Life changes drastically for anyone when they welcome a crying, boob-sucking, pooping, sleepy tiny human into the world, but I'd imagine when your primary hobby isn't watching television, it changes more. Just thinking about those poor spelunkers and parkour-ers that have babies and have to cut down on their "me time" saddens me. Luckily, before we had a baby, Jerksica mostly just watched television. And now that we have a baby, we mostly just watch television (and get peed on while changing diapers, etc.). I guess you could say we're living the dream. So while I'm so sleep deprived that I can do little more than make facile obscene jokes not dissimilar from your local world-weary stand-up comedian with kids and some "funny" observations about changing diapers, I'd like to at least guide you through the past week or so of watching TV with a newborn.

Mad Men: Airing on our second day home from the hospital, the Tarantino-esque orange sherbert episode of everyone's favorite AMC period drama was the first show we actually watched in full post-baby, actually understanding and following what was going on on-screen. Four days prior to this we had taken in upwards of four episodes of Wife Swap before going to the hospital, and while in the hospital, apart from having the NBC Thursday shows on hazily in the background, we only watched The Food Network and the oddly ironic Best Yo! MTV Raps Moments on VH1, so actually taking in something with sustenance was refreshing and satisfying. Our son slept through the whole dang thing too (so unfortunately he missed out on seeing Peggy give that stranger an HJ in the movie theater), likely because he was exhausted from a weekend with a family and, you know, being born, so on the watching-with-a-newborn scale, I award Mad Men the coveted LETHARGIC DAD GRIN rating*.

Cougar Town: Soon after this, Jerksica's sister came to town and we took it upon ourselves to introduce her to the great yet ill-titled Courtney Cox sitcom. Remember kids, if your show is in danger of not getting renewed, tell a friend about it (and hope they have a Nielsen box)! It wasn't the best episode (the one where Grayson starts selling Laurie's cupcakes and Ellie's mom comes to town), but per usual, it was at least fun to hang out with the cul-de-sac crew again. And since the baby had just eaten brunch (as had we), he was awake but not finnicky throughout the whole thing. I can only hope he heard either Grayson or Andy (can't remember which) yell "black guys!" when impersonating Laurie. I'll give Cougar Town the MILDLY SUCCESSFUL BURPING rating.

Game of Thrones: Rare is the opportunity, especially now that both Jerksica and I are home together all the time, when I can watch the HBO kinda-fantasy series, seeing as how she has less than zero interest in watching it with me. But I found myself able to recently when she was catching a nap and I couldn't fall asleep because I had a rush of adrenaline surging through my veins from freaking out about whether or not the baby monitor was working and whether or not Dignan (that's my son's name by the by, if you weren't already in the know) was okay sleeping in his crib in the other room. So I brought him into the living room and pressed play on the second episode of season two. I found it to be even more table-setting than the season premiere, which was a tad disappointing, but it allowed me the chance to savor this new found alertness from my spazz attack and realize just how good this show is at crackling dialogue, even when it's largely expository. I especially dug Carcetti's (or whatever his name is in this show) speech to the prostitute about why it's so important that she make him the cash monies. Unfortunately I had to watch the rest of the ep at a later date because Dignan cried himself awake, which prompted Jerksy to rub her eyes, hear Theon say something about being king in a British accent, which was enough for her to say to her our son, "I know, baby, G-o-T is dumb, isn't it?" Apart from that last bit, I still think GoT deserves a BABY TOES ARE SOOOO SMALL! rating.

Justified: And then came an even bigger opportunity. I knew I could get away with watching Game of Thrones because it was likely going to be just a lot of talking with a sprinkling of sex noises, but even I was nervous about watching the season three finale of Raylan Givens threatening to shoot people with a newborn in the room. But Jerksica and her sister went to get well-deserved pedicures (is there any other kind?) and I had an hour to kill with a sleeping baby and she hates Justified too and I had been waiting almost three weeks now to watch what happened to Robert Quarles and the rest of Harlan County! So I skedaddled downstairs with the Moses basket and baby in tow, tempered my excitement to the best of my ability, and tried to adjust the volume the best I could while Jere Burns screamed (he's good at that; she should do it more!) over and over again in the show's opening scene. At this point and several others throughout Dignan got startled and almost woke up, and I worried his dreams of breast milk might be interrupted by the sounds of hysterical hookers and backwoods gangsters, but I won't lie - it was totally worth it. Check Sarc's blurb in our Best Episodes of the Month feature tomorrow about it for more reasons why! Ultimately, Justified gets top honors, otherwise known as the ADORABLE KITTY-BABY ENCOUNTER rating.

*Credit where credit's due: I'll admit my watching-TV-with-a-newborn rating scale is basically a modified version of my fellow blogger Brigitte's creative rating scale, in which top honors is "Cast of Frasier." 

Brigitte's TV Teaser

A rare moment of grace in the ugly, ugly world of pre-teen dance competitions and the moms who support them.

Hello Blogosphere! It’s good to be back in print. I’ve been busy lately, but still had time to get in some quality television viewing. Some things I’ve been watching lately and that you can look forward to hearing about:

Dance Moms, or, the more easily digestible Toddlers and Tiaras

I cannot help myself. I LOVE this show. It pretty much combines all things I love in a reality television show: dance, pointless drama, questionable parenting, and normal situations that become super high stakes for no reason than to feed into the pointless drama. And unlike Toddlers and Tiaras, the kids on this show are talented. Crazy talented. And they seem to enjoy what they’re doing, for the most part. I could watch this show for hours. Maddie is so awesome, but I think she’s starting to get a little too comfortable at the top of that pyramid. Chloe is, and always has been, my favorite, and I think that she’s finally starting to outshine Maddie. When she won the Joffrey Ballet School scholarship, I almost cried. I was so proud of her! And now, with Dance Moms: Miami, I can. Thank you, Lifetime! If you like pointless reality shows like Toddlers and Tiaras but you feel a little too icky watching 5 year olds parade around in makeup, give Dance Moms a try. There’s still lots of makeup, but also they’re athletes. And they’re more like nine instead of five so it’s way more age appropriate. Kind of.

Real Housewives: Doesn’t Matter Which City

I don’t have much to report, except that the newest season of New Jersey starts soon and I CANNOT WAIT. Lately I’ve been watching Atlanta and The OC, and while I enjoy having it on in the background and casually glancing up from my work to see why Kim and Nene are fighting or who of the OC crew is having something reduced, none of these ladies can hold my attention like the crazy bitches from Jersey. I hope Theresa and her family get along better this season…or do I? I always feel so conflicted while watching this show, because on the one hand, I actually sort of care about these women and I want them to stop acting like children and just get along with each other, but on the other hand, that’s no fun, is it? During last season’s reunion episode, we learned that something really awful goes down this season between Theresa and Jacqueline because Jacqueline wouldn’t even appear on the reunion since filming for the new season had gotten so tense; so I do look forward to finding out what that’s all about. And for those of you who don’t want to waste a precious hour of your week, you can watch it vicariously through me! You’re welcome.

Justified, season one: aka the show to make me shout “what!?” most frequently as I’m watching it.

I just finished watching season one with Qualler and it was awesome. Raylan Givens is one of the most amazing characters on TV, ever. I want to have his gun-toting, smooth-talking, angsty babies. I cannot wait to watch season two, and I’m not sure how it took me so long to get into watching this show. The end of season one SHOCKED me. I actually gasped out loud, and I almost never do that (OK, I do it all the time, but never as often as when watching this show). Look forward to more in-depth reviews from me as I attempt to figure out and articulate just why this show is so amazing.

Game of Thrones: Not Just for Nerds!

I don’t make time for many things these days, but I will ALWAYS make time to watch Game of Thrones. After the second episode of the new season I’m as hooked as I was last season. I watched season one in about three days with Chris and Qualler, and that will always go down as one of the best weekends in my life (sorry, wedding weekend.) My favorite character is still Daenerys, and while I’m disappointed that she hasn’t had much to do but wander through the desert, I’m sure that her character’s just being set up to do something awesome…right, Qualler?? (Editor's note: You'll see!) Her dragons have also hardly gotten any screen time, but I look forward to seeing more of them. I also really enjoy what’s happening to Arya so far, and I hope she isn’t caught before she makes it home! I’ve found that, although there is a lot of soft dialogue and a lot of characters to keep straight, this show is best enjoyed with others. Here are some notes I took, as well as some standout quotes I noted, as I watched episode two with some friends.

Daenerys is a total badass.

Littlefinger is MEAN!

Tyrion is good!

“I’ll not have my honor questioned by an imp!”

“I’m not questioning your honor…I’m denying its existence.”

“There’s so much positioning in this show, I love it!”

@TimothyOleksiak

“I’m watching.”

@rhetoricqueline

When asked whether she likes it she said “I feel cooler” and after a pause “I’m about two episodes away from being hooked.”

“They’re gonna get married! I want them to do it so I can see him without his shirt on. Okay, in season four then.”

@TimothyOleksiak, on Arya and Gendry.

“She’s wearing pants! Like a man!”

Weird molestation scene on horseback…

So much incest! Hard to keep track.

First black person in the series alert!

“Mother gone because of you. There’s no bigger joke in the world than that”

--uproarious laughter from @rhetoricqueline

“it could be an hour long episode of them shitting in chamber pots and I’d be like ‘omg, this is the shitting episode, this is so good!”

--@timothyoleksiak

Look forward to my musings on these and other shows this…season?...on the Blogulator!

Blogulator Radio 47: We're Not Horsing Around (And Other Horrible Puns)

Hey neighhhhh-bor, listen to our newest episode of Blogulator Radio here!

In this week’s episode of Blogulator Radio, Qualler and Brigitte bring back the “What’s New……..s” segment to discuss in detail the surprising and unusual announcement made last week by HBO that its new David Milch-penned horse-racing drama Luck would shut down production permanently due to the death of three horses in the production of the show. This leads Qualler and Brigitte to ponder a number of different scenarios that could have saved the show from its horse deaths, brainstorming different scenarios of other television shows that stopped production due to death. and so much borderline inappropriate discussion of the entire situation that we’re lucky that the ASPCA and PETA do not sponsor our show. (And after this week, probably never will. Sorry, Evan.) They also preview the upcoming HBO comedy Girls, written and starring Lena Dunham, writer/director of the movie they watched this weekend, Tiny Furniture. In said discussion, Qualler makes a few statements that are just begging to be edited out and used against him when he runs for public office. Finally, the dynamic duo wrap up with a He Said She Said discussion of DVD catch-up shows that have been forced upon by each spouse: Justified, which Brigitte is catching up on, and Dawson’s Creek, which Qualler is catching up on / weeping on a nightly basis because, gosh-darn it, those kids are gonna make it in this big old world that we live in, aren’t they?