Sunday Night Roundup - April 20, 2014

What a great episode of Mad Men! Was a disturbing scene in Game of Thrones! More stuff after the break...

Sunday Night Roundup - April 6, 2014

Since all my favorite shows are on Sunday nights now, in lieu of doing a recap or discussion about each, I’m going to start doing a more general post and take it to the comments.

Last night was the long awaited return of Game of Thrones. Viewers must have been clamoring to see it, because HBO Go crashed. It seems obvious to me that this is probably due to people sharing their HBO Go logins and passwords with their friends. I mean if you had HBO, you’d just watch it live on TV, right? It’s not like there’s commercials or anything, and most people can pause and rewind with their regular cable boxes, right? Or am I overestimating the amount of people that have that service? Anyways, it was a solid episode to kick of the season. Something about it reminded me a little of the first season. Perhaps it was the celebration in the air around King’s Landing, that I can only assume is going to lead to something horribly bloody and/or tragic. I enjoyed the episode as a whole, but the only scenes I felt really excited about were those with the Hound and Arya. That scene in the tavern at the end was totally badass. It was good (if not a little chilling) to see Arya take back Needle and kill a couple of dudes that had it coming. Something about the way she slowly slid her blade in that guy’s neck gave me the heebie jeebies.

I also watched the series premiere of Silicon Valley, a new show from Mike Judge. On the surface I might not have much interest in this series, a comedy about a group of young tech upstarts. But I’ve grown to like Mike Judge over the years, and I’ve been a pretty big fan of some of the talent involved, including stand up comedians (and podcast regulars) TJ Miller and Kumail Nanjiani, as well and Freaks and Geeks alum Martin Starr. So I may have gone in with biased intentions, but I enjoyed a lot and will keep watching. I especially thought the lampooning of super progressive tech companies was funny, with their bike meetings and the “voluntary retreats that are really mandatory.” Thomas Middleditch plays a likeable, sympathetic lead, and TJ Miller is great as the weirdo wannabe guru. I’m just hoping Kumail Nanjiani and Martin Starr, who both played the character they always seem to play (but do it so well!) get more screen time in the upcoming episodes.

I plan on watching Veep this evening, so I’ll update the article or post in the comments if there’s anything to say beyond “it’s still a hilarious show about a bunch of assholes that run the country.”

I'm Just A Dude Who Loves Girls

Last night, the third season of Girls came to a close. It’s been my favorite season so far, and I can’t believe how quickly these 8 episodes flew by. It seemed like just yesterday we were picking Jessa up from rehab, and here we are today, wondering if she’s murdered a woman or not (cliffhanger!).

It’s been nice watching Hannah and Adam function as a comparatively normal couple this season. It was nice seeing Hannah get that job writing those ads that look like articles in GQ, and it was nice seeing her get the fuck out with some integrity, kind of. Of course it was nice seeing Adam do something with himself, even if it meant keeping Hannah at a distance.

Then there's Shoshanna Shapiro, ("S as in Sam, H as in Hank, A as in Apple, P as in Paltrow...") who has always kind of been my favorite, probably because I identify with her the least so she makes me the least uncomfortable. Her dropping those truth bombs on everyone at the beach house was possibly the highlight of the season for me. Her glassy eyed attempt to get Ray back was sappy and cliche-ridden (“You make me the best version of myself…”) but it’s totally believable coming from Shoshanna, who probably studied every romantic comedy in her collection to put together her appeal to Ray. And though it felt fabricated, it also felt sweetly sincere. Which made Ray’s response all the more heartbreaking, possibly because - and I’ll give full credit to Brandi for pointing this out to me - he thinks he has a chance with Marnie.

Fucking Marnie. She’s been struggling to keep it together, grasping at straws and sometimes straight up manipulating her way into some kind of situation that she feels she has control over. I’ve been wincing along with her failed attempts all season, yet I’m still wincing when her plan to come between Desi and his girlfriend seems to be successful. Fucking Marnie.

So what can we expect from season four? Will we have split settings, with some of the time spent with Hannah in Iowa, while everyone else lives their life in New York? That may seem awkward, but considering how little some of the characters interact with each other this season, it could work just fine (by my count, Hannah and Jessa only cross paths three times this season: when they pick her up from rehab, at the beach house, and when they celebrate Adam’s success in the hotel.) I’m also wondering if that’s the last we’ll see of Adam. With rumors of him joining the cast of Star Wars (which is set to start shooting in May) will he have the time? Personally I’ve loved watching Adam growing from a super intense and kind of creepy weirdo into super intense and pretty lovable weirdo. It seems like he’s finally had enough of Hannah, and judging by the last scene of last nights episode, she’s finally happy to move on without him. I doubt he’ll return in any major way, maybe just for a phone call or two. I love the guy, but I’m okay with seeing him go, especially if it allows my boy Ray to take up a little more screen time.