Rick and Morty 1.08

Rixty Minutes

Rick "fixes" the television so that the family now gets an infinite number of channels from an infinite number of realities. Jerry, Beth, and Summer get excited about seeing versions of reality where they are celebrities.

Funny but no where near close to my favorite episode. It felt a little too much like a joke stretched out longer than it should have lasted. I think I enjoyed it a little more than I did the first time I watched it, primarily because I knew that the finale wasn't going to satisfy me.

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Continuity Corner: Morty tells Summer about the unmarked graves in the backyard, where he and Rick buried the versions of themselves who were killed in 1.06 (Rick Potion #9).

Halt and Catch Fire 3.10

NeXT

Donna, Cameron, Gordon, Joe, and Tom get together to talk about Joe's big idea, which is of course the World Wide Web. Things don't start off well, although the productions values wouldn't lead you to believe that. Things get better, in the sense that they stop talking at one another and start talking to one another, over the course of a couple days. Cameron visits briefly with Boz. Joe hints at what happened between he and Cameron to Tom. Tom reads Cameron's e-mails. Joe and Tom get into a fist fight. Donna and Gordon share a moment and it looks like they are about to get back together but then don't.

The weirdest moment was Cameron doing a 180 and telling Donna at the the end that she didn't want to work with her anymore. This is of course after doing a 180 in the last episode where she initially told her that she didn't want to have anything to do with her. Donna responds in the most rational way possible and plans a trip to Switzerland.

My favorite moment was Joe talking about building the door. There is something about the imagery of a door that seems like magic to me.

Didn't love it, didn't hate it. It felt like a big tease for what comes next. Since watching the last episode I learned that there is just one more 10-episode season. It has yet to drop on Netflix. I might just watch it when it does even though I previously said this was going to be it.

Young Justice 1.16

Failsafe

This is one of those episodes. I mean that in a good way. It is one of those episodes that you have to give yourself over to. Sink in to it. It seems a little crazy but it in the end it works out.

The team watches as the Justice League are killed fighting off an alien invasion. The team heads to the Fortress of Solitude to intercept some of the aliens. They fight the aliens with more success than the League but Artemis is killed. They head back to the United States where they join forces with the troops led by General Wade Eiling. Aqualad is killed as they attempt to escape an alien attack on the Hall of Justice. Robin and Kid Flash make a discovery that hints that their dead friends may not be dead after all but prisoners who were teleported instead of vaporized.

The team launches an assault on the mother ship in the hopes that they will be able to liberate their friends and others. The mother ship is destroyed but Superboy, Kid Flash, and Robin are killed in the fight. This leaves just Miss Martian and Martian Manhunter, who appeared to have been killed earlier in the episode but then mysteriously showed up at the Hall of Justice. This part of the episode ends with J'onn killing M'Gann which causes her to wake up

Miss Martian discovers that the whole episode up to this point was a training scenario engineered by Martian Manhunter. It was done by mind-melding the team members together. It got out of hand when Artemis was "killed". Miss Martian forgot that it was all a training scenario at that point and really believed she had been killed. It wasn't until all the others had been eliminated from the scenario that Martian Manhunter was able to reassert control and end it.

This is crazy to watch for the first time without any knowledge of what's going on. My recollection is that I knew something was up but I didn't guess exactly what it was. I thought it was a dream. It is also cool because the stakes seem so high even though something seems off considering how quickly and easily the League is killed off.

There are some moments and transitions that didn't make sense to me. Everything was moving so fast that I just went with it. It is hard to say looking back if those moments are badly written or rushed because of time constraints.

An incidental character (Jason Bard) is introduced by name. The name sounded familiar so I looked him up. I don't recall reading any stories in which he appeared but he does have a history in the DC Universe. He seems to have been a recurring character in Detective Comics and Batman (1969-1984) and then later (1999-2009) in Birds of Prey, Batgirl: Year One, and Robin.

Overall this is a much watch episode for me. I don't recall what fallout or follow up there is in subsequent episodes.

I talked about this episode on episode 52 of Dave Talks Comics (11/02/14).

30 Rock 2.15

Cooter

Liz finds out she is pregnant. She's pretty sure that Dennis is the father. Jack is stuck in DC working at the Department of Homeland Security with Cooter (Matthew Broderick). Kenneth struggles to complete his application in time to work at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Tracy completes work on his pornographic video game.

This is not a great episode but I thought it was fun.

Rick and Morty 1.07

Raising Gazorpazorp

Morty fathers a half-alien child with a sex-doll from the planet Gazorpazorp. Rick and Summer travel to Gazorpazorp. There they find a society where men and women live separately. The men are extremely aggressive. The women are extremely petty. Both sexes have extra arms.

Morty tries to properly raise Morty, Jr., who grows up very quickly. He quickly learns that his son's first instincts are extremely violent and near impossible to correct. Rick and Summer get arrested once the women of Gazorpazorp discover that he is her grandfather.

Very fun and funny episode. I love the social commentary on men and women and raising children.

The Sopranos 1.07

Down Neck

Tony flashes back to his youth several times as he tries to figure out what to do about AJ, his son. He is concerned that one day he will have to talk to him about what he does for a living. He tries to get Dr. Melfi to tell him what to do but she just keeps turning it around on him and asks him more questions.

AJ and a couple of his friends were caught with wine stolen from the church. The school psychiatrist suggests that he may have Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and encourages Tony and Carmela to have him tested. This is the incident that seems to set off Tony's concerns. As he mulls it over he starts to have the flashbacks. He remembers the first time he saw his father (and Uncle Junior) beat someone up and the first time he saw them get arrested. He remembers watching his parents argue and how verbally forceful his mother could be to his father and also to him.

There's one scene that takes place at the Ba-Da Bing but for the most part this is a family-centric episode. Just about all the gangster related stuff that goes on happens in the flashbacks.

Another solid episode. This show really worked and works on a number of levels. Ultimately all these different levels are manifestations of Tony's life but they each have their own flavor. The fact that they all work and still taste good to me is a testament to the quality of the show.

Halt and Catch Fire 3.09

NIM

Four years have passed since the last episode. It is 1990. Gordon and Donna are divorced. She is now a partner in the same firm as Diane. Gordon is dating one of his employees but he still works for Donna. Cameron comes back to the States (from Japan where she and Tom live) for an appearance at COMDEX.

Donna encourages Joe to go to the show to see Cameron. She wants him to take her a message. He goes to the show but he doesn't read the message or take it with him. Cameron and Joe hang. Everything is cool between them until Donna shows up. Cameron doesn't want to see or talk to her and walks out. She ends up spending the night with Joe.

Gordon tries to entertain Michelle, the woman he's dating, but Joanie, one of his daughters, gets in the way. She wants to go to a party but Gordon says no when he finds out that there won't be any adults present. The situation gets very awkward when Joanie starts doing what she can to disrupt Gordon and Michelle's dinner.

I want to like this show. It has moments I like. I like some of the moments that Joe and Cameron share. I wish that this show was about the characters and not the computer industry. That's my read of course but in my opinion if it the characters were the focus of the show then the show would be more slowly paced and there wouldn't be as much fast forwarding as there is.

I think it is time for me to move on, after I watch the season finale.