Covert Affairs 4.15: There Goes My Gun

O.k. this is super obnoxious ... I always use Amazon HD to get my screenshots for these blog posts, but for some reason, Covert Affairs ep 4.15 is still not available to watch there.  They normally make them available in the wee hours of the morning after it airs.  Not sure what the hold-up is.  Guess I'll just use these pics I got from the show's official Facebook page.  The one below of Auggie fighting the dude in Hong Kong is a real doozy.  It's too hilarious not to use if I can't get the screenshots myself from Amazon.  Heh.

Covert Affairs Eps 4.09 "Hang Wire" & 4.10 "Levitate Me"

Dear Covert Affairs, you are kiiiiiilllllllllling me.  Seriously.  There are few things in this fangirl's life that are more frustrating than to watch a TV show take its HUGE potential and squander it.

My last post was for episode 4.08, because I went out of town on vacation for a week and a half after that.  I was out of the country for 4.09 & 4.10, so this is my post to link to those two reviews.  At the time of my last post for 4.08, this is what I said:

I just pray that eps 4.09 and 4.10 are completely epic because ... they seriously need to be to make up for the lameness of 4.07 and 4.08.

So ... were they epic?  Well ... no.  They were not epic.  They were not horrible, don't get me wrong, but they just, were NOT epic either.  And rather than appease the frustrations I was already having after 4.07-8, they simply compounded and multiplied them.  And it all ended in this scene:

This scene that just ... it broke my fangirl heart, because it was something that could have been SO amazing.  It could have been.  It SHOULD have been.  There's no goddamn way this should have been anything other than ass-kickingly awesome.  But it just wasn't, and the problem was NOT the scene itself.  The scene on its own was wonderful.  The problem was that very little of what led into it made sense.  And therefore, the scene itself didn't hold much weight.

UGGH.  Anyway.  Just check out my reviews for the details.  Will they fuck up the back 6 when the fall season starts??  We've had 6 good eps this season and then 4 not-great ones in a row.  Somebody wave a magic TV wand for me, please.

Ep 4.09 "Hang Wire": http://geekfurious.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-plopper-reviews-covert-affairs-409.html

Ep 4.10 "Levitate Me": http://geekfurious.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-plopper-reviews-covert-affairs-410.html

Covert Affairs 4.08: I've Been Waiting For You

Sigh.  Covert Affairs, WHY are you doing this to me??  You know how much I love our Sweet Puma Cub.  And last week's ep was so painful to watch, that I thought a Teo-heavy episode was going to be just the remedy we needed this week.  Turns out, there is actually such thing as too much Baby Teo.  Who would have predicted!?  It also turns out that Brooding Mysterious Teo is a lot sexier than Whiney Daddy-Issues Teo. 

I'm being a little unfair, because I actually liked the scene with Arthur in the woods.  But, the reason I had issues with it here was because it completely steamrolled over our MAIN characters.  Well, just read my full review and you'll see what I'm talking about:

http://geekfurious.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-plopper-reviews-covert-affairs-408.html

I'll admit though, despite all that, the Teo-punching scene in the motel room was pretty awesome.

I'll on vacay next week so my review will likely be late or very short.  And I may not get a chance to link to it from here until after I get home.  I just pray that eps 4.09 and 4.10 are completely epic because ... they seriously need to be to make up for the lameness of 4.07 and 4.08.  I'm bummed right now because I thought 4.01 through 4.06 hummed along quite nicely until the Helen twist seem to throw everything off kilter.  Oh well.  Fingers and toes and everything crossed.

Covert Affairs 4.07: Crackity Jones

Crack Crack.  Crackity Jones!!

Uggh.

Where the hell do I even start with this episode??  First off, I love the Pixies and they have SO many good song titles that would make EPIC episode titles ("Wave of Mutilation" anyone??) ... so why do they keep picking ones like Crackity Jones??  Actually I shouldn't complain about this one.  At least this one is memorable.  Unlike "Space (I Believe In)".  BUT ... at the same time ... does it even MEAN anything relevant to the ep??  I'm assuming because the song is about a crazy guy who sees things (hallucinations) ... and the episode is about someone coming back from "the dead."  So you'd feel like you were seeing things.

Whatever.  I just didn't like episode.  That's the bottom line.  I had hoped beyond hope that the writers and director and everyone involved would pull off this Helen storyline in a believable way.  That ... didn't happen.  None of it worked for me.  None of it.  Except Barber and his little buddy whose name I forget.  Barber is THE BEST and this was most definitely the best scene he's ever done.  And guess who didn't listen to Barber's advice, AT ALL??  AUGGIE, that's who.  Grrrr.

Also, Piper.  At the end.  The girl SOLD her heart out of that scene even if I didn't believe for one second that anyone in their right mind would break up based on the riddic events of this episode.  Chris too, don't get me wrong, although I was frankly a bit disappointed that Auggie wasn't more upset than he was.  I was also disappointed that Auggie did not disagree with Annie when she practically BEGGED him to.  None of this made sense on any logical level.  But Piper did act the shit out of that scene.  And it (she + the scene) left me feeling like there was nothing good left in the entire world by the time it was over.  All the flowers turned grey and died, the sky turned black, and every puppy in the world looked like that horrible SPCA commercial with Sarah McLachlan.

Anyway.  Here's my review:

http://geekfurious.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-plopper-reviews-covert-affairs-407.html

You can let me know if you think I'm nuts.

Covert Affairs Ep 402 - 404 Reviews

Remember that time I said I would be linking to my Covert Affairs reviews at GeekFurious from this blog?  Yeah.  I guess I got a little lazy with that.  The reviews are still coming, I've just been forgetting to link to them from here.  Here they are, the reviews for eps 402 through 404:

4.02 "Dig For Fire": http://geekfurious.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-plopper-reviews-covert-affairs-402.html

4.03 "Into the White": http://geekfurious.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-plopper-review-covert-affairs-403.html

4.04 "Rock a My Soul": http://geekfurious.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-plopper-reviews-covert-affairs-404.html

Hey!  It's Barber!  Enjoy!!

¡Vamos! Covert Affairs Season 4 Begins

I've thought about possibly creating a new blog that is just for my TV-related posts, but I ended up not doing it because I'm going to be reviewing Covert Affairs over at GeekFurious instead of on my own blog for season 4.  And I can't guarantee how often I'll write posts about other shows, at least while I've still got my Bible Reviews project going on.  I've been following and enjoying Magnus's blogs (ChuckGasmic, GeekFurious) ever since the Chuck days, and let's face it, reviewing Covert there means it'll actually get SEEN by a few people!  Unlike here, where I'm lucky if I get 20 non-spam hits in an entire week.

Anyway, Covert Affairs' 4th season finally started last Tuesday.

Mmmm, yes please.  Teo Braga could be my new Simon Fischer.

If you're one of the few people who has actually read my blog before, you may recall that I got sucked into the show late last summer, and then reviewed several of the last few eps of the season.  Here is my review of the season 4 opener over at GeekFurious:

http://geekfurious.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-plopper-reviews-covert-affairs-401.html

I guess I'll keep linking to them from here the same way I do for my Bible blogs, though I'll be surprised if they bring any more hits.

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.