Covert Affairs: "Lady Stardust" and Season 3

Lordy.  You know, with most t.v. shows, I'm able to love them at a totally healthy level.  Breaking Bad, Homeland, pretty much all comedies like Parks & Rec, 30 Rock, Community, New Girl, Louie, It's Always Sunny, etc.  And by "healthy level," I mean: I watch them, I enjoy them, I delete each ep from the DVR after watching.  However, there have been exactly three shows in history that have brought me into "obsessed mode."  Symptoms of obsessed mode: following Twitter feeds, reading (some) spoilers, checking ratings (uggh), and my husband's favorite symptom - keeping episodes on the DVR to comfort me like warm blankets until the DVD/BluRays come out (my husband: "Are you ever gonna delete these!?").  The entire list of shows that have ever fallen into this category is short: Alias, Chuck, and Castle for about one season.  Now that I think about it, I'm probably halfway there with Girls too.  Anyway now, I can officially add another show to that list, because Covert Affairs pulled me in hardcore this season.  And this is a show I totally blew off for the first two seasons because it looked way lame.  But then BAM, out of nowhere, in the middle of season 3 it sucker punched me, and before I had a chance to claw my way out of it, I was fully sucked in.  Sigh.

So now here I am, doing what seems to be the newest symptom of "obsessed mode": blogging a review of the season finale (ep 316 "Lady Stardust") and season 3 as a whole.  Let's get right to this, shall we?  Lemme start off by giving my bottom line, now that the entire season is complete: I loovved the first 11 eps of the season (everything up through Annie escaping Russia).  I mean, I am IN LOVE with them.  I want to marry them and live with them blissfully, happily ever after.  And then, I found the last 5 eps to be an exercise in frustration that eventually did have some payoffs in the last couple episodes, especially the finale - which I thought for the most part was a very good ep.  But, there's only so much that can be addressed in like 43 minutes.  Interestingly, the finale managed to bring some much-needed clarity to both the plot trajectory and Annie's character trajectory, but it also clarified and solidified for me one key thing I have felt was missing in these last 5 eps.  Let's start with the good stuff first, and then I'll get to that second part:

Covert Affairs "Quicksand": Moving the Puzzle Pieces

I might as well just turn this blog into an official Covert Affairs episode review site at this point; this has been the subject of 5 of my past 6 blog entries, after all.  Then again, the show will be off the air again soon and I'll have like 7 months to write about other stuff, heheh.  Anyway like I mentioned before, I didn't plan to review each of the last 3 eps of the season; I meant to come back and review them only after the season was over.  But I found last week's episode (314 - "Scary Monsters") to be so frustrating that I needed to vent about it.  So now I'm doing a check-in after this week's ep, 315 "Quicksand", to give an update on whether any of my frustrations have been resolved.

After seeing 315 "Quicksand", I'm thinking of the 3 eps leading into it (312-14) be like taking a big intricate puzzle from a box, and dumping all the puzzle pieces onto a table.  Each of these three episodes move the pieces around a lot, but very few of the pieces actually start to connect properly.  And there's some that you try to fit together but they don't fit and you have to start over again.  The low quantity of connections made between puzzle pieces in those eps were what made them so damn frustrating.  But in 315 "Quicksand" ... it feels like ... I think ... we're starting to see some possible connections here.

Covert Affairs "Scary Monsters": Invasion of the Body Snatchers

O.k. look, I did a checkpoint/review thing last week on Covert Affairs eps 311-13, and my plan after that was to wait until the last 3 eps of the season aired before I did another review.  That way I could consider the season as a whole.  But after Tuesday's ep, 314 - "Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)," I have more things I feel the need to discuss.  It feels like every single one of the past three episodes has gone about 50% of the way I expected and hoped they'd go, and 50% in some totally weird/off-putting direction, and 314 was no exception.  Lemme start with what I liked about this episode:

• I ended my last review with a question about whether any of the shitstorm Annie had stirred up in 313 would have sunk into her seemingly thick skull by the beginning of ep 314.  It is for that reason that I love the scene at the beginning of 314 in Megan's depressing hotel room where Annie is made to feel the full weight of just how badly she has screwed up this chick's life.  Megan calls Annie on the carpet for pretty much every single grievance too, forcing Annie to face everything head-on.
• I also love that we get to see just how much fallout there is on Arthur and Joan from the higher-ups due to this whole drone strike debacle.  To not show the consequences they have to face with the investigation would give this storyline a whole lot less weight and validity.
• In Annie's first scene with Auggie in 314, she does seem genuinely distraught about the situation she has caused with the drone strike.  To some extent.  I do still see issues on this front though, I'll touch on those in a bit.
• Unlike eps 312-13, I did not find myself wanting to shake Annie by the shoulders for any of the major decisions she made in this ep.  Every choice she makes in 314 is at least somewhere in the ballpark of what I would have done in her shoes.
• The writers seem to have resolved my previous question about whether Eyal would be proven guilty or innocent (of photo-doctoring betrayal and con artistry) in a rather ingenious way: He is guilty, but he's been strong-armed into it by Mossad, and he feels terrible enough about it that you don't wind up totally hating the guy for it.  In a sense it allows the show to have its cake and eat it too - It lets them present Annie with the consequences of placing too much trust in another spy, without making us completely hate a character that everyone has always loved throughout the series.  I also love that Eyal tells Annie straight up: "You know this thing you keep doing, looking for the good in people??  Not only does it make you weak, it makes you a target.  And an EASY one at that!!"  Again, some tough words she needs to hear.

That's the good stuff.  Now on to my concerns:

Dear Covert Affairs: Please Don't Screw This Up.

A few weeks ago I posted a blog entry about how Covert Affairs on USA (Tuesdays, 10pm) had surprisingly sucked me in by leaping from mediocre/decent in seasons 1 & 2 to pretty legitimately awesome in season 3.  Each season is 16 episodes long, and at the time of that blog entry, they had aired up through episode 3.10.  That entry included this caveat:

Now, here's the thing.  These plot developments all just came crashing down in episode 8, and we're only 10 eps in, so I'm still not sure of how this is all gonna play out.  There are still 6 more eps this season, which still gives the writers plenty of time to screw the pooch.

If this was just your average shitshow, the route the Covert writers would take with this is to spend ep 11 on the big dramatic escape from Russia, and then get Annie back to D.C. and say, "Whew, glad that's over!!  What's the next mission?"  And then she would be reset back to the status quo, and the rest of the season and beyond would be spent on new missions and wacky hijinks, and new hot guys to romance.  I seriously hope that is NOT the route they take, because if so then this show will have been a complete waste of my time.

That was then, and now it's been a few weeks.  As of the time of this blog entry, they have now aired up through episode 3.13.  So half of their back 6 have now aired, and we have 3 left.  Ep 11 ("Rock 'n Roll Suicide") was indeed spent escaping from Russia, as expected.  I thought it was a really good episode, with Annie's old buddy Eyal helping her to escape.  It had a very good mix of suspense, twists/turns, story developments, emotional payoff, great character interactions, etc.  The episode ends with Annie/Eyal beginning their long journey home, after escaping the Russian baddies who have spent the episode trying to re-capture and re-imprison Annie.  Thumbs-up from me on this episode.

Episode 3.12 "Wishful Beginnings" is really the start of the back part of the season, storywise.  It begins with Annie arriving home from Russia and starting back to work.  It's this episode and ep 3.13 "Man in the Middle" that have me feeling slightly nervous about how the writers will play out the rest of the season (or I guess I should say, have played out the rest of the season, since everything is already written and filmed at this point).  These are both very transitional episodes that are hard for me to judge before seeing where it's all headed, but there are a few bits that have got me going, "hhmmmm ... ?"  I'm not going to bother recapping these eps, because if you're reading this blog post, you should have already seen them by now.  Instead, I'll just point out the things I'm apprehensive about.