Grid Effect

For all the bitching and moaning we do about a show we’re not even sure how enamored we were with in the first place, we thoroughly enjoyed last night’s episode. There was an elevated light-hearted tone to it, even with the seven day long grieving period done after Nancy euthanized her dead husbands grandmother who never approved of her.

We need to quit reading spoilers because it was forthcoming that Albert Brooks was leaving after this episode. We particularly liked his departure coming in the form of blackmail with money to his pokerstars.com account. If we were in the business of blackmailing people, this is probably how we would go about it. His presence was a nice point of contention for four episodes, so it makes sense that right as he is leaving, Celia is arriving.

Not that she hasn’t been in Ren-Mar for the past two episodes, but back in the core contingency with Doug, Andy & Nancy. We were kind of liking the series without her in the main frame, but it’s hard to picture it carrying on without her as part of the main storyline. And Doug’s return was marked by the two funniest moments of the episode: his non-reaction to hearing that Nancy smothered Bubbie with a pillow and his return to the refrigerator for non-existent cheese. Between him and Andy who is now sneaking assisting in sneaking illegal immigrants across the border, I think we have our old show back without all the contrivances. Well, maybe some mild contrivances, but its close and already looking much better than season three. As for everyone else in Majestic, we assume they’ve been written off.

So long Tonye Patano, here’s hoping you get your own spinoff at some point.

Our only complaints would be the continued insistence by the series that we are supposed to sympathize with Nancy on some level. Maybe she wants to avoid violence at all costs, but her line of work tends to breed it. So whether she wants to avoid it or not is kind of moot. I mean, usually the best way to steer clear of such situations is to first, not deal drugs.

And while we did chuckle at the Deal or Deal joke with the coolers from Guillermo, we find about 90% of the scenes with him to be redundant and overly vague. The ambiguity is probably supposed to be for Nancy’s own good, but why can’t they just give her an assignment, then when she asks for specifics they just tell her that the less she knows the better off she is, and quit trying to be clever when they’ve exhausted all options for humor. Because if we see one more scene with her stumbling around their warehouse, with Guillermo casually detailing some life-threatening orders while everyone in the background hoots and hollers, we just might have to flip over our coffee table.

Still, these are minor quibbles. Here are some choice scenes/lines from last night:

“Don’t enjoy this.” -Nancy, after she straddles Andy to try and evade arrest.

“She survived, they must be lucky.” -Doug, referring to using Bubbie’s holocaust number’s for the lottery.

“If I stayed home for seven days every time a family member died I’d never leave the fucking house” -Guillermo

“I can’t feel my left……anything” -Andy, after trying Silas’ new product

“You think you’re better than me cuz your van has no windows” -Doug, stoned and lamenting his state in life.

As far as humor and plot are concerned, the show seems to be on the right track. If this keeps up, we might actual have a decent television schedule along with Mad Men (July 27th) and Generation Kill (Sunday). One can only hope, it has been close to a year since we could last claim to have a suitable amount of shows to actually write a TV blog.