05 October 2012 @ 12:48 pm
Why are LJ cuts now EXACTLY THE SAME as spoiler cuts? Ffs lj.

I didn't like this episode as much as the pilot, which is maybe not a great sign. IDK. I liked Mindy herself -- I liked that she was still Mindy-ish but also proved to be the only one professional enough to step up to the plate and fire the crazy nurse, as well as the one who pulled the trigger on that decision by calling the meeting. I also didn't particularly see anything wrong with how she was conducting interviews, so whatever, she seems decent at the professional side of things. Her bookstore interaction with the SNL guy was cute and I liked the narration about "I buy books online for like, fifty percent off and free shipping". Also, her scene with her friend was good -- ostensibly a discussion about a boy, yeah, but it felt real enough and the Joaquin Phoenix gag amused me.

HOWEVER... I am not at this point in time amused by either of her coworkers, be it Danny or British Guy, but at least British Guy hasn't like heinously offended me. On the other hand, I hate Danny. I hate Danny so much, omg. I hate everything Danny represents, I hate Danny's jokes. Apparently Danny is meant to be BJ Novak or whatever, and maybe if BJ Novak were playing him I wouldn't hate him so much. But he isn't, and I hate him. I think what I hate most about him is knowing he can't just be an actual antagonist, he has to be the smug above-it-all dick coworker who Mindy will eventually ~~fall in love with. NO GOD UGH. All he does is belittle her. Two episodes in and I can't remember a scene where he has seemed genuinely nice to her or interested in her life. Isn't that pretty key to the whole ~love/hate~ thing??

I dunno. I hope this show gets better. I appreciate this gif though:

I enjoyed this episode more or less. I liked Tom being not the worst -- lol and shoving that guy in the pool. Leslie becoming a bit disillusioned with government was good, and I appreciated her commitment to keeping that dream alive for kids, but I guess I was expecting some kind of last-minute Leslie Knope-ish twist where she got the bill through without having to give up so much. Oh well.

LOL April and Ben. And Ben's fanfic.

I liked Ron and Xena as well. I think she makes a good counterpart to Ron and I hope we see more of her as that relationship develops. I assume we will. I think they must be setting it up to be a sort of long-term thing, right? I mean, why else woudl you bother? And it's sort of interesting to imagine Ron and his life of simplicity confronted with the complications of dating someone who has two children. Also, Andy and the kids were super cute.

WOW I haven't enjoyed an Office episode that much in a LONG time. It wasn't their most hilarious episode, but it was like... actually enjoyable?? The cold open was hilarious! And there were running gags (Darryl) that even lead to character development! And Dwight wasn't dialled up to 11! The Jim/Pam drama continued to be interesting but not too OTT! The Andy plotline was pretty funny in that awkward-humour way the show is known for but it still wasn't like out of the realm of possibility and poked fun at Andy's ludicrously privileged life! All the storylines tied together in some way!


I cannot express how much this delights me. OKAY yes I can: Pam! Nellie! Being bros! Pam thinks Nellie is kind of fun! Nellie was a bit ridiculous but still had the clever manipulative side we saw earlier (two episodes of character continuity for Nellie is like, a new record, okay). They were pranking the office together be still my heart. We are (presumably) going to see Pam get to actually use her art skills on screen? And like, I read the description about how "Nellie tries to convince Pam Jim is having an afffair" and I was like "lawd", but I liked the way it was actually done -- it wasn't like, Nellie irrationally trying to split them up, it was Nellie reacting the way you'd expect given her history with that magician plus she seemed actually concerned for Pam (lololol @ protective Nellie in the warehouse) and not just gossipy (which I had anticipated based on the synopsis). I spent the whole episode assuming something would go terribly wrong to make them not bros at the end but it didn't. OH MY GOD PLEASE BE BROS FOREVER.

Also, I liked that Pam was supportive of Jim but is still sort of ill at ease with the whole scenario. I'm also glad that by episode three Jim told her what's up -- I mean that's probably a long time to wait, but I was worried it'd be even longer. And Darryl being pulled into it is good I think, because Darryl is one of the few people in the office who likewise deserves better than his awful coworkers.

Anyway here's more gifs LIZ LOOK HOW PRECIOUS THEY ARE

So as usual the actual case was more or less irrelevant to me. I laughed pretty hard at "TWINS" since that was my first guess and it's the worst plot device ever, but I liked how it was subverted by them being fraternal twins who look nothing alike. Ha. The rest of the case -- idk. It seemed pretty ridiculous, but I guess in these types of shows especially you need ridiculous cases because there needs to be some reason to draw a ~consultant~ into it and you need some reason to believe only ~*Sherlock Holmes*~ can solve this case. So, whatever I guess.

I was more interested in the character stuff, and again there seemed to be a fair amount of it. Holmes was again quite childish and irrational at points, but since it was a) balanced with moments of genuine human empathy and b) he's a recovering addict and c) Joan is always wearing her greatest "are you fucking kidding me" face, I'm more willing to cut him a bit of slack. I think especially this is where b) comes in -- in the first episode we had him very cavalierly telling Joan he doesn't need her because he won't do drugs again etc, but I think this episode hinted that's not entirely the case. I like that they seem to be using "recovering addict" as an actual foundation for his character, rather than a simple plot device to transplant him from London to New York. I especially liked the moment where he recommends the rehab clinic to the PI guy.

Joan wasn't given as much to do on the case this week, but I liked the character stuff with her and also Holmes. Also, I guess this episode confirms that she decided to quit being a surgeon out of guilt/losing the patient made her question her own capabilities, rather than her being fired for it. There was a lot of wank about how she MUST BE A TERRIBLE SURGEON if she was FIRED because it must've been a case of GROSS malpractice, so lolllllll finding out she quit of her own volition amused me. I like it -- it gives her more depth, I think. Also the obvious parallels between her trying to atone for losing the patient/Sherlock doing "penance" for... whatever it is + his addiction.

WOW god apparently I have a lot of thoughts. Okay one more thing: another one of the complaints I see a lot is the "she's paid to be there" because it's not ~real Watson~ or whatever -- I guess she should want to be there because she's his friend and she's fascinated by the cases and all that. But, well, two things. a) The first episode established that if she wanted she could fuck off and go on holiday for 6 weeks and still be paid, but had her choosing to stay even after he'd crashed her car, presumably because she was intrigued on some level. That's also where she established that she "wanted in" on the cases, so obviously she's interested in that too.

And b) I like that there's a pretty legitimate reason, at this point in their relationship, why she puts up with this shit? If they had just met and were just beginning a friendship/whatever, I'd probably have expected her to cut her losses by now, or like... around the time he hacked her email... because why would you put up with that from a new "friend". Her being his employee (of sorts) and probably more importantly the specific kind of job she's doing for him makes it more believable to me that she'd sort of roll with these things. Part of her job would be expecting to put up with a lot of difficult stuff as her clients struggle with sobriety. In some sense she's his "babysitter" or whatever, but that being her literal job, one she believes she's good at, is different than her being his just-met friend who is for whatever reason compelled to do these things and put up with all this shit. I mean OBVIOUSLY they'll grow to be actual honest-to-god friends and partners as the show goes on -- you don't spend an entire second episode having the two leads go WE'RE NOT FRIENDS!! if you're not expecting the audience to be like "orly", and I mean it's Holmes and Watson so no shit. But I kind of like that at this point the reason she's putting up with him isn't just because of their ~deep friendship bond after knowing each other ten days or whatever it's been now.

Wow that was a lot. Whatever, I'm bored. I guess most of these are pre-empted next week because of the VP debate? Boourns.
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