Falling Skies 4.7: Massacre Indeed

Falling Skies 4.7 on Sunday was entitled "Saturday Night Massacre," and it was a massacre indeed, with at least two and maybe three major characters falling in one way or another.

Lourdes, loyal to a fault to Lexi, pays for that with her life, when she asks Lexi to make her life better. The blond hybrid's way of doing that is to kill Lourdes, making Lexi probably not the best person to approach when seeking spiritual guidance and healing.  So Seychelle Gabriel, who played Lourdes, is gone from Falling Skies like a sea shell on a windswept beach.

Next up for disposal is Dr. Kadar, played by Robert Sean Leonard, seen to such good effect on House for so many years.   Unfortunately, Anne's medical skills are not on a par with House's, and not up to the task of saving the cracked Kadar.

And then there's Maggie.  She's been one of my favorite characters on the series (well played by Sarah Carter), always willing to speak her mind, and, even more impressive, to change it with presented with new facts - reminiscent of John Maynard Keynes' quip, "when the facts change, I change my mind, what do you do, Sir?" - and I'd hate to see her go.   And, maybe we won't have to.  No one has pronounced her dead.  She's clearly stretched out in the rubble, injured and unconscious.   But when it comes to television deaths, I've learned over the years never to count someone out unless his or her head has been blown clean off, or a reliable character says the person in question is dead, even then ...  Think about Tony on 24.

So this is what Falling Skies has come to.   No real progress in the story line, and the only real interest now is seeing who dies and who does not.   Ah, if only we could be back in Massachusetts again, where this series began so well.

See also Falling Skies 4.1: Weak Start ... Falling Skies 4.2: Enemy of my Enemy ... Falling Skies 4.3: Still Falling ... Falling Skies 4.5: Cloudy

And see also Falling Skies 3.1-2: It's the Acting ... Falling Skies 3.3: The Smile ... Falling Skies 3.4: Hal vs. Ben ... Falling Skies 3.6: The Masons ...Falling Skies 3.7: The Mole and a Likely Answer ... Falling Skies 3.8: Back Cracked Home ... Falling Skies Season 3 Finale: Dust in Hand

And see also Falling Skies Returns  ... Falling Skies 2.6: Ben's Motives ... Falling Skies Second Season Finale

And see also Falling Skies 1.1-2 ... Falling Skies 1.3 meets Puppet Masters ... Falling Skies 1.4: Drizzle ... Falling Skies 1.5: Ben ... Falling Skies 1.6: Fifth Column ... Falling Skies 1.7: The Fate of Traitors ... Falling Skies 1.8: Weaver's Story ... Falling Skies Concludes First Season

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get Season 4 of Falling Skies on

The Blacklist 1.7: Natural Immunity

One of the best Blacklists on this past Monday, reminiscent of Fringe in its biological theme, which makes sense, given that J. R. Orci wrote it, and he was one of the best writers on Fringe.

I guessed that Barnes was out to get a cure for his son, as soon as it was clear that he was interested in the woman who survived his germ attack in the courtroom.  Spreading an almost instantly deadly illness - a hyped up version of what is afflicting his son - is a bit extreme, but makes good epidemiological sense.

Less understandable is why Lizzie killed him, rather than letting Barnes inject his son with the possible cure.  We saw at the end that she agonized about this decision, but for my money, not quite enough. But ethical quandaries and disagreement over decisions make for good television.   And it was good to see Robert Sean Leonard aka House's Wilson in the lead villainous role, and a nice couplet with the slightly deranged by good scientist he played on Revolution last year.

The show is still dancing around on whether Red is really Liz's father, and the coming attractions promise more  of this.  As I've indicated several times, it will almost be counter-climactic when we find out that he is, which makes me think that he isn't.  But if not, then what exactly is his relationship to Elizabeth?

And husband is still a question mark, which makes Elizabeth's lovey-doveying him disquieting.   All in all, The Blacklist is probably the edgiest show on television right now, with James Spader the perfect persona to carry this forward.

See also The Blacklist Debuts: Alias Meets Jay Z ... The Blacklist 1.2: Mysteries ... The Blacklist 1.3: Construction Site Heights ... The Blacklist 1.6: Truth and Enigma

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Falling Skies 3.1-2: It's the Acting

Falling Skies was back with its two-hour Season 3 premiere on Sunday.   The show continues to be an appealing amalgam of trite parts that somehow add up to something pretty good.

The Earth attacked by superior aliens is of course a trope most made famous by H. G. Wells more than a century ago.   The addition of aliens fighting amongst themselves, with some allying with us, is also something we've seen before.  So are the mechs, recently seen to best effect as the toasters in Battlestar Galactica.   A new component in this season's Falling Skies is the star child, a human-alien hybrid who grows more quickly than humans and has superior powers - last seen in the late lamented V on ABC-TV a few years ago.

The child in Falling Skies is Tom and Anne's, which raises the question of where she - the baby girl - is getting her powers.  Possibly this has something to do with the time Tom was on the alien ship, in between seasons 1 and 2.   Meanwhile, Tom's relationship with his three sons also continues to be well depicted, with Ben, the middle son who was freed from alien harness, still of greatest interest, though Hal's relationship with his former girlfriend, now a bad-alien leader, has potential.

The locus of the action has shifted from the road and make-shift headquarters to something more substantial in Charleston, where Tom has been elected President of a fledging United States.  This makes for a refreshing touch with Weaver, now a Colonel, calling Tom "Sir,"  but the move to genteel Southern cities is also something we've seen in other post-apocalyptic dramas, including Revolution and even a bit in The Walking Dead.   And a resurgent United States after the apocalypse also popped up in Revolution's season 1 finale.

So what makes Falling Skies appealing?  It's the acting, most notably Noah Wyle as Tom.  And with Gloria Reuben as Tom's aide and House's Robert Sean Leonard as an eccentric scientist (what else?) this season, I'm definitely in for the run.

See also Falling Skies Returns  ... Falling Skies 2.6: Ben's Motives ... Falling Skies Second Season Finale

And see also Falling Skies 1.1-2 ... Falling Skies 1.3 meets Puppet Masters ... Falling Skies 1.4: Drizzle ... Falling Skies 1.5: Ben ... Falling Skies 1.6: Fifth Column ... Falling Skies 1.7: The Fate of Traitors ... Falling Skies 1.8: Weaver's Story ... Falling Skies Concludes First Season

 

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Bones 8.14: Real Life

A serious Bones 8.14 tonight - serious because it deals with something very important in our real world.

We learn early on that Booth needs to spend some time in a hospital.  Bones knows the reason, but no one else, including the viewers, do.  As the murder investigation in the episode proceeds, our attention is increasingly drawn to what is drawing Booth to the hospital.  Angela's upset that Brennan is not confiding in her, Cam gets drawn in, and we can't help but be concerned.

Bones assures everyone that it's not because Booth is sick.  But, what then is happening in the hospital with Booth, and why doesn't he want anyone other than Bones to know about it?

Bones this year, different from any previous season, has been working real-life issues into its stories.   The Neanderthal / Cro-Magnon episode a few weeks ago could have beeb a continuation of Nova's recent, excellent "Decoding Neanderthals".  The denouement tonight was even more topical, because it focused on something not in history but in the current world, something that affects thousands of people.

Booth is going to the hospital, not for himself or a member of his family, but to spend some time with children suffering from Neurofibromatosis (NF), a genetic disorder in which benign tumors grow wherever there are nerve cells.  This includes the optic nerve, where the result could be blindness.

This could almost have been an episode of House, except there was no brilliant cure discovered by a genius doctor, because there is not yet a cure known for NF.  Just the kindness and attention shown by Booth, and the series for focusing on this ailment.

See also Bones 8.1: Walk Like an Egyptian ... Bones 8.2 of Contention ... Bones 8.3: Not Rotting Behind a Desk  ... Bones 8.4: Slashing Tiger and Donald Trump ... Bones 8.5: Applesauce on Election Eve ... Bones 8.6: Election Day ... Bones 8.7: Dollops in the Sky with Diamonds ...Bones 8.8: The Talking Remains ... Bones 8.9: I Am A Camera ... Bones 8.10-11: Double Bones ...Bones 8.12: Face of Enigmatic Evil ... Bones 8.13: Two for the Price of One

And see also Bones 7.1: Almost Home Sweet Home ... Bones 7.2: The New Kid and the Fluke ...Bones 7.3: Lance Bond and Prince Charmington ... Bones 7.4: The Tush on the Xerox ... Bones 7.5: Sexy Vehicle ... Bones 7.6: The Reassembler ... Bones 7.7: Baby! ... Bones 7.8: Parents ...Bones 7.9: Tabitha's Salon ... Bones 7.10: Mobile ... Bones 7.11: Truffles and Max ... Bones 7.12: The Corpse is Hanson ... Bones Season 7 Finale: Suspect Bones

And see also Bones 6.1: The Linchpin ... Bones 6.2: Hannah and her Prospects ... Bones 6.3 at the Jersey Shore, Yo, and Plymouth Rock ... Bones 6.4 Sans Hannah ... Bones 6.5: Shot and Pretty ... Bones 6.6: Accidental Relations ... Bones 6.7:  Newman and "Death by Chocolate" ...Bones 6.8: Melted Bones ... Bones 6.9: Adelbert Ames, Jr. ... Bones 6.10: Reflections ... Bones 6.11: The End and the Beginning of a Mystery ... Bones 6.12 Meets Big Love ... Bones 6.13: The Marrying Kind ... Bones 6.14: Bones' Acting Ability ... Bones 6.15: "Lunch for the Palin Family" ...Bones 6.16: Stuck in an Elevator, Stuck in Times ... Bones 6.17: The 8th Pair of Feet ... Bones 6.18: The Wile E. Chupacabra ... Bones 6.19 Test Runs The Finder ... Bones 6.20: This Very Statement is a Lie ... Bones 6.21: Sensitive Bones ... Bones 6.22: Phoenix Love ... Bones Season 6 Finale: Beautiful

And see also Bones: Hilarity and Crime and Bones is Back For Season 5: What Is Love? and 5.2: Anonymous Donors and Pipes and 5.3: Bones in Amish Country and 5.4: Bones Meets Peyton Place and Desperate Housewives and Ancient Bones 5.5 and Bones 5.6: A Chicken in Every Viewer's Pot and Psychological Bones 5.7 and Bones 5.8: Booth's "Pops" and Bones 5.9 Meets Avatar and Videogamers ... Bad Santa, Heart-Warming Bones 5.10 ... Bones 5.11: Of UFOs, Bloggers, and Triangles ... Bones 5.12: A Famous Skeleton and Angela's Baby ... Love with Teeth on Bones 5.13 ... Faith vs. Science vs. Psychology in Bones 5.14 ... Page 187 in Bones 5.15 ...Bones 100: Two Deep Kisses and One Wild Relationship ... Bones 5.17: The Deadly Stars ...Bones Under Water in 5.18 ... Bones 5.19: Ergo Together ...  Bones 5.20: Ergo Together ... Bones 5.21: The Rarity of Happy Endings ... Bones Season 5 Finale: Eye and Evolution

                                                            

House 8.15: Fake Out

I've watched a lot of television, and I'm usually not taken in by deceptive advertising - but I have to admit I was tonight, regarding House 8.15, and I liked it.

All week and longer we've seen ads for the final 8 episodes of House, and tonight's in particular, telling us that House himself would have a life-and-death crisis - that is, a crisis about House's health, and his own life and death.

And, sure enough, we find that House may have a deteriorating liver, the result of his constant vicodin intact.  Of the team, only Chase doubts it - and thinks House may be testing the team, trying to ferret out who would be rat, the most likely to tell Foreman about House's condition.  But tests confirm that House's liver is amiss, and Chase, as well as Wilson, all come to  believe that House is in serious physical peril.

I was thinking - I wish the ads for the show hadn't given this away - would've been nice to really wonder if House was really sick or putting his team to the test.   But, hey, that's the way with show promotions, they often spill the beans.  So House was really sick, and -

Guess what - it turns out he isn't, and not only did House fool his team, but the show's promos fooled me, and made the show much more interesting by lying to us.

I wonder what the next seven episodes have in store us.  Maybe House will get sick for real - vicodin is vicodin.   Or - no, I won't get fooled again.  Or maybe I will, and enjoy it ....  Good to see that House still has some punches.

See also House 8.2: Patient Lungs ... House 8.3: Dr. Adams and Thirteen ... House 8.5: The Congenital Liar

And see also House and Cuddy on the Other Side in Season 7 Premiere ... House 7.2: House and Cuddy, Chapter 2 ... House 7.3: The Author and the White Lie ... House 7.9: The Vilda Chaya ... House 7.11: The Patient's Most Important Right ... House 7.14:  House, Death, and Cuddy ... House 7.16: Broken Hearts and their Repair ... House 7.17: Deadly Healthy Diet ... House 7.18: Thirteen Mysterious ... House 7.19: Rules ... House 7.20: Cuddy's Mother as Catalyst ... House Season 7 Finale: In Paradise

And see also House Reborn in Season Six? ... 6.2: The Gang is Back and Fractured ... 6.3: The Saving Hitler Quandary ... 6.4: Diagnosis vs. Karma ... 6.5 Getting Better ... 6.6 House Around the Bases ... Four's a Crowd on House 6.7 ... House 6.8 and the Reverse of Flowers for Algernon ... House 6.9: Wilson ... House 6.10: Back in Business ... House 6.11: Making Amends, Mending Fences, and a Psychopath  ... House 6.12: The Progression to Mensch ... House 6.13: Cuddy's Perspective ... House Meets Blogger in 6.14 ... House 6.15: About Taub ... House 6.16: Revealing Couples ... House 6.17: Socrates on Steroids ... House 6.18: Open Marriage

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The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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House 8.5: The Congenital Liar

Jamie Bamber - of Battestar Galactica and Law and Order: UK fame - put in a fine guest performance on House 8.5 last Monday, as a liar with some serious conditions.

Actually, it turns out that his physical condition - Kawasaki syndrome - is the source of most of his lies, though not his first and last.   Bob Harris (Bamber) gets struck with his first bout during a roll in the hay in a motel room with a blonde who is not his wife.   He proceeds in Princeton Plainsboro to confess to that, and then to defrauding everyone in the town.   When he confesses to Chase - great to see him and Taub back - about being a serial killer, Chase realizes that something else must be going on here.  Correctly diagnosed, Bob is cured, but then lies to his wife when she asks him if he was falsely confessing about the motel room.  He replies that he was indeed lying - which, in that one case, is of course a lie.

I confess to loving this kind of stuff  - I enjoy anything that tips into the paradox of the liar.  "This statement is a lie" - if true, that means it's a lie, but if it's a lie, that means the statement is true about being lie, which means it's a lie - well, you can see how this works.  It's a form of infinite regress, which is the title of this blog, but I assure you everything I write here is true, at least to the best of my knowledge.

As for House, it's good to see lying playing such an upfront role in an episode.  The whole series, certainly House's character, is based on lying whenever necessary.  For House, and often his brilliant assistants, the only thing that counts is correctly diagnosing the patient, and if lying is necessary to do that, well then, that's ok.  And who would really disagree with that?

Is telling the truth more important than saving a life?  I'd say certainly not, if only for the reason that you can correct your lie in you're alive, but can't do anything more, good or bad, if you're not alive.

But the first thing Bob Harris did when recovering from his near-death was lie to wife.   But that's life.  And that's House.  And a part of what still makes this medical show ring so true.

See also House 8.2: Patient Lungs ... House 8.3: Dr. Adams and Thirteen

And see also House and Cuddy on the Other Side in Season 7 Premiere ... House 7.2: House and Cuddy, Chapter 2 ... House 7.3: The Author and the White Lie ... House 7.9: The Vilda Chaya ... House 7.11: The Patient's Most Important Right ... House 7.14:  House, Death, and Cuddy ... House 7.16: Broken Hearts and their Repair ... House 7.17: Deadly Healthy Diet ... House 7.18: Thirteen Mysterious ... House 7.19: Rules ... House 7.20: Cuddy's Mother as Catalyst ... House Season 7 Finale: In Paradise

And see also House Reborn in Season Six? ... 6.2: The Gang is Back and Fractured ... 6.3: The Saving Hitler Quandary ... 6.4: Diagnosis vs. Karma ... 6.5 Getting Better ... 6.6 House Around the Bases ... Four's a Crowd on House 6.7 ... House 6.8 and the Reverse of Flowers for Algernon ... House 6.9: Wilson ... House 6.10: Back in Business ... House 6.11: Making Amends, Mending Fences, and a Psychopath  ... House 6.12: The Progression to Mensch ... House 6.13: Cuddy's Perspective ... House Meets Blogger in 6.14 ... House 6.15: About Taub ... House 6.16: Revealing Couples ... House 6.17: Socrates on Steroids ... House 6.18: Open Marriage

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The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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House 8.3: Dr. Adams and Thirteen

Hey, Dr. Adams - the best thing about House 8.1 in prison, and someone whom I hoped we'd see more of (played by Odette Yustman) - is back on House 8.3, coming to work for nothing in Princeton Plainsboro, in search of a job offer.   She did the right thing in House 8.1, backing House's diagnosis, but of course was sent packing by her narrow-minded, by-the-book superior.

And Thirteen's back, too.   Together with Dr. Park, the two manage to help House find a cure for a patient suffering from crazy altruism (that's his most salient symptom).  Foreman is of course against a lot of this, realizing he's been played, and it turns out Park and House are playing Adams, too.  With House and his assistants, it's never unlikely to find a round of mutual scamming.

But Thirteen's reappearance may be only temporary, as was Cameron's last year, though I hope that's not the case in this case, for Thirteen.  And Taub and Chase are in the wings.  Both were mentioned as being ready to rejoin or reconstitute the team, if only House can get the money.  Which we know he likely will, sooner or later, even if he didn't quite get the nut tonight out of the cured irrational altruist.

But House did a get good haircut, and he's looking good, as is the prognosis for a fine Season 8.

See also House 8.2: Patient Lungs

And see also House and Cuddy on the Other Side in Season 7 Premiere ... House 7.2: House and Cuddy, Chapter 2 ... House 7.3: The Author and the White Lie ... House 7.9: The Vilda Chaya ... House 7.11: The Patient's Most Important Right ... House 7.14:  House, Death, and Cuddy ... House 7.16: Broken Hearts and their Repair ... House 7.17: Deadly Healthy Diet ... House 7.18: Thirteen Mysterious ... House 7.19: Rules ... House 7.20: Cuddy's Mother as Catalyst ... House Season 7 Finale: In Paradise

And see also House Reborn in Season Six? ... 6.2: The Gang is Back and Fractured ... 6.3: The Saving Hitler Quandary ... 6.4: Diagnosis vs. Karma ... 6.5 Getting Better ... 6.6 House Around the Bases ... Four's a Crowd on House 6.7 ... House 6.8 and the Reverse of Flowers for Algernon ... House 6.9: Wilson ... House 6.10: Back in Business ... House 6.11: Making Amends, Mending Fences, and a Psychopath  ... House 6.12: The Progression to Mensch ... House 6.13: Cuddy's Perspective ... House Meets Blogger in 6.14 ... House 6.15: About Taub ... House 6.16: Revealing Couples ... House 6.17: Socrates on Steroids ... House 6.18: Open Marriage

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The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

---

Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

House 8.2: Patient Lungs

Well, House is back in the hospital in House 8.2, in the most refreshing episode in a year, more or less.

Cuddy's gone - as we know (she's on The Good Wife, or Lisa Edelstein is) - and the only two major players that we know who are on the job in Princeton Plainsboro are Wilson, in his exact same job, and Foreman, who has replaced Cuddy as House's boss.  Nice, wise touch.

House's team consists of Dr. Chi Park, an intern who is about to leave for Chicago (ER or Chicago Hope?), because her former supervisor at Plainsboro grabbed her tush (House's word - she said "behind"), and she doesn't want the aggravation of bringing charges.   She's bright, and contributes as much to House's solution of the problem as most of his other assistants over the years.

The problem at hand is a sick pair of lungs that need to be cured so they can be transplanted into Wilson's patient who will shortly die without them.   Wilson unsurprisingly resists any overtures of friendship from House, and unsurprisingly reaches an accommodation with him by the end of the episode. (I've long considered the Wilson thread the weakest part of the series.)

But it's great to see House back - I missed the hospital and the total lack of familiar people in last week's prison debut - and his starting out anew, though of course done before on House, has almost an innocence in this show that was very appealing.

I'll be back next week for more.

See also House and Cuddy on the Other Side in Season 7 Premiere ... House 7.2: House and Cuddy, Chapter 2 ... House 7.3: The Author and the White Lie ... House 7.9: The Vilda Chaya ... House 7.11: The Patient's Most Important Right ... House 7.14:  House, Death, and Cuddy ... House 7.16: Broken Hearts and their Repair ... House 7.17: Deadly Healthy Diet ... House 7.18: Thirteen Mysterious ... House 7.19: Rules ... House 7.20: Cuddy's Mother as Catalyst ... House Season 7 Finale: In Paradise

And see also House Reborn in Season Six? ... 6.2: The Gang is Back and Fractured ... 6.3: The Saving Hitler Quandary ... 6.4: Diagnosis vs. Karma ... 6.5 Getting Better ... 6.6 House Around the Bases ... Four's a Crowd on House 6.7 ... House 6.8 and the Reverse of Flowers for Algernon ... House 6.9: Wilson ... House 6.10: Back in Business ... House 6.11: Making Amends, Mending Fences, and a Psychopath  ... House 6.12: The Progression to Mensch ... House 6.13: Cuddy's Perspective ... House Meets Blogger in 6.14 ... House 6.15: About Taub ... House 6.16: Revealing Couples ... House 6.17: Socrates on Steroids ... House 6.18: Open Marriage

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The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

---

Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

Breaking Bad Season 4 Finale: Deceptive Flowers

Well, the Season 4 finale of Breaking Bad was stunning, though I called the very last scene about a minute or two before the end of the ending.

The episode early on gives us one of the best lines of the season as Jesse, questioned by cops about how he knew his girlfriend's son was poisoned by ricin, responds that he "saw it on House".  The nature of the poison - it turns out not to be ricin - and the poisoner proves to be the biggest twist in the finale.

But, first, Walter masterminds a daring plot to blow up Gus, in the aftermath of Gus having walked away at the last minute from his car rigged with a bomb by Water.  Where can Walter get another chance to blow Gus up?   Walter enlists Tio - who hates Gus more than he hates Walter, as Walter ingenuously puts to Tio - and there ensues one of the darkly funniest and breath-taking sequences in the series, as Walter gets his man.   The last we see of Gus is his face falling off, like a scene from The Walking Dead, except, barring a cross-over over between the two series, Gus is really dead dead.  (The Walking Dead does start its second season next week ... nah, only joking about the cross-over.)

Meanwhile, Jesse's released by the cops, because it turns out his girlfriend's little boy was poisoned by a chemical found in lilies of the valley, in berries that little kids sometimes eat.   It was touch and go in the hospital, but the boy will survive.

Walter and Jesse go on to blow up the lab under the laundry,  Walter tells Skyler he's won, and Walter, noting with satisfaction Gus's car, still in the hospital parking lot, drives home.

That was the point where I realized what we would see back at Walter's premises.  Gus had insisted last week that he had no connection to the boy's poisoning.  Walter had convinced Jesse otherwise, getting Jesse to believe that Gus poisoned the boy to turn him against Walter.  It was a clever piece of reasoning, and it convinced us in the audience (or, at very least, me) as well as Jesse.

But in the twist of twists we find that Walter poisoned the boy after all, in order to enlist Jesse in Walter's plan to kill Gus.  We see a pot of lilies of the valley by Walter's pool.

Should we be stunned that Walter would do such a thing - endanger a child's life like that?  No.  And not because we know Walter is so ruthless.  Rather, Walter was willing to play the apparently good odds that the boy could be saved if brought to the hospital, soon enough.   (Maybe he even called in the correct diagnosis, once Gus was safely dead.)

I guess that does make Walter pretty damn ruthless.   But it's been clear since almost the beginning of the series that Walter is not your typical high school chem teacher, that he'd do almost anything necessary for his family to survive, and maybe all we learned tonight is that Walter is willing to go a little further than we thought.  That, and confirmation that Breaking Bad is one of the most remarkable stories ever to be told on television.

See also My Prediction about Breaking Bad ... Breaking Bad Season 4 Debuts ... Breaking Bad 4.2: Gun and Question ... Breaking Bad 4.11: Tightening Vice ... Breaking Bad 4.12: King vs. King

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The Plot to Save Socrates


"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

Criminal Minds 7.3 Meets House and The Unit

Good to see Mack back from The Unit (Max Martini) on Criminal Minds 7.3 last night, in episode that almost smacked of House.

Martini plays Luke, a Navy Seal, who massacres an Internet-service office, and then kills his parents.  He soon is threatening his beloved wife and daughter.  Spencer figures out that Luke has a rare condition which makes him think people he knows are impostors - due to having in car accident recently - and though Luke isn't cured, Spencer is able to use his diagnosis to get Luke to put down his weapon.

I like this kind of Criminal Minds, where the solution to a medical mystery - why the unsub is a serial killer - provides a non-lethal resolution to the problem.  It's a good change of pace from killers so depraved that even understanding their twisted motive provides no option other than taking them out.

Meanwhile, Prentiss continues to need to patch up good relations with the team, understandably non-plussed about having been lied to about Prentiss's death, and therefore having grieved in effect for nothing for months and months.   This time it's Morgan who makes his peace with Prentiss.  But I still have a feeling we haven't seen the last of this, especially regarding Hotch and his part in the deception.

See also Criminal Minds 7.1: "The Is Calm and It's Doctor"

And see also Criminal Minds in Sixth Season Premiere ... Criminal Minds 6.2: The Meaning of J. J. Leaving ... Criminal Minds 6.3: Proust, Twain, Travanti ... Tyra on Criminal Minds 6.13 ... Criminal Minds 6. 17: Prentiss Farewell Part I ... Criminal Minds 6.18: Farewell Emily ... Criminal Minds 6.19: Fight Club Redux Plus ... Criminal Minds 6.20: Emily's Ghost ... Criminal Minds 6.21: The Tweeting Killer ... Criminal Minds 6.22: Psycho and a Half ... Criminal Minds 6.23: The Good Lie ... Criminal Minds Season 6 Finale

And Criminal Minds 5.22 and the Dark Side of New New Media

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The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

House Season 7 Finale - In Paradise

Well, as you know if you saw it, the House Season Seven finale ends with ... House on a paradisical island or shoreline somewhere ... confounding Wilson's expectation that House would likely be found in the darkest bar in New Jersey.

How and why House got to the island is the meat of the story - and the set-up for next season.  House drives his car into Cuddy's house, after he sees her with her date and another couple inside, through the window.   Cuddy vows to have him arrested if he ever comes near her again, presumably including at work anywhere in the hospital.

I know there are many opinions on House and Cuddy, but here's mine: she knew what she was getting into when she finally took him in her arms and initiated a relationship at the end of last season.  She knew House was unreliable, to say the least - an asocial drug addict genius with a supreme ego and a positive zest about doing anything he pleased and lying about it.   Cuddy knew all this, and proceeded to take House in her arms and open her heart to him anyway.

She had to know that this would have a profound effect on House, and at the same time not totally change him.   I therefore found her fury about his using again and lying about it earlier this season not all that sympathetic -  I thought she was wrong to break up with him.   Although she's certainly not wrong now to be livid at someone, anyone, driving a car into her house - a depraved act -  House's driving the car was something she was in some sense in part responsible for creating.

The good news for House is that the act may have finally gotten Cuddy out his system, and, very luckily for him and human decency,  he didn't hurt anyone with the car.   We see him in the last scene leaving a bar on the shore of his own volition well before inebriation.   House may be more in control of his life than ever before.

Will be interesting to see how all of this picks up next season.  Lisa Edelstein has been reported to have left the series - which should make for a very interesting final season, with no Cuddy - but you never know with a television series.  Cuddy could be back, and the next season may not be the final season.  

See also House and Cuddy on the Other Side in Season 7 Premiere ... House 7.2: House and Cuddy, Chapter 2 ... House 7.3: The Author and the White Lie ... House 7.9: The Vilda Chaya ... House 7.11: The Patient's Most Important Right ... House 7.14:  House, Death, and Cuddy ... House 7.16: Broken Hearts and their Repair ... House 7.17: Deadly Healthy Diet ... House 7.18: Thirteen Mysterious ... House 7.19: Rules ... House 7.20: Cuddy's Mother as Catalyst

And see also House Reborn in Season Six? ... 6.2: The Gang is Back and Fractured ... 6.3: The Saving Hitler Quandary ... 6.4: Diagnosis vs. Karma ... 6.5 Getting Better ... 6.6 House Around the Bases ... Four's a Crowd on House 6.7 ... House 6.8 and the Reverse of Flowers for Algernon ... House 6.9: Wilson ... House 6.10: Back in Business ... House 6.11: Making Amends, Mending Fences, and a Psychopath  ... House 6.12: The Progression to Mensch ... House 6.13: Cuddy's Perspective ... House Meets Blogger in 6.14 ... House 6.15: About Taub ... House 6.16: Revealing Couples ... House 6.17: Socrates on Steroids ... House 6.18: Open Marriage

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The Plot to Save Socrates



"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

---

Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...