December 9, 2010

Can't We All Just Disagree?

I guess the Glee writers are capable of getting it right once in a while.  That is to say, they can work movie homages into the show with some degree of organic storytelling and it was nice to finally see evidence of that with "Sue The Grinch." 

"A Very Glee Christmas" is just how I like my Glee - full to the brim with music, plenty of fluff with a heartwarming finish and very little "story."  I liked the songs and I loved the shamelessly Christmasy, sappiness.  I could have done without the Finn and Rachel breakup boringness but that's a fairly minor thing I was able to ignore as soon as the singing started. 

Apparently a lot of the internet thought this was one of the weakest episodes of the show yet but the internet and I often don't see eye to eye on these things.  I'm ok with that.  I'm a sucker for special holiday episodes and I don't really care who knows it. 


One Tree Hill skipped the Christmas ep and went for one of their patented "people might probably almost totally die, but not really" mid-season finales, sending the residents of our favorite fictional North Carolina 'burb a late-November hurricane and also a psychotic murderer.  Merry Christmas! 

Jamie took a dive in his spelling bee so that his little girlfriend could win then was driven home with Chuck and the girlfriend by Miss Lauren.  But it was like The Perfect Storm out so Miss Lauren's car turned over on the bridge - the one the limo went off after Hailey and Nathan's second wedding.  Luckily, Brooke and Julian had just been having a big fight about something ridiculous and she was driving to clear her head when she came upon them.  Chuck had a head injury and was losing consciousness.  Jamie and his girlfriend were ok but he was stuck in his seat belt and Miss Lauren was knocked unconscious.  By the time Chuck passed out Brooke had freed Lauren so Lauren took Chuck and Girlfriend to the hospital while Brooke stayed behind to try and cut Jamie out of the seat belt.  They kept showing a downed power line all ominous like so we'd think they were totally going to be electrocuted but then Julian arrived on the bridge just in time for some reckless-driving dickhead to hit the overturned car and send it careening into the river below. 

Julian jumped in after to try and save Jamie and Brooke - whose leg was now trapped under the steering wheel.  That's naturally when the levee broke and began to drown them.  Long story short?  Julian gets Jame out, then comes back for Brooke but doesn't free her before she stops breathing.  There's CPR for, like, 20 minutes and then she's fine.  By my count, that's 4 people on this show who've died and then come back in that exact same location.  Tree Hill should consider closing that bridge. 

Elsewhere, Nathan and Haley get a flat tire and Quinn is one again harassed and nearly killed by Dead Ringer.  Seriously, why didn't Quinn and Clay move after the shooting?  Never mind that she someone tried to murder them in that house, but it's 95% windows and 5% stairs - it's a completely impractical place to live when there is a psycho stalking you.  In the end, Quinn shoots Dead Ringer and leaves her to bleed out on the bedroom floor.  Fair's fair.

We never did find out how Chuck and Miss Lauren are - I guess if you're not important enough to get your face in the credit sequence, we aren't supposed to care if you lived or died. 


The internet and the critics who are prone to loving Life Unexpected held this week's episode in the highest esteem but I didn't much enjoy it.  Everyone in the episode was really fantastic except that I hate how selfish Lux is and how the writers don't seem to think that her behavior is selfish at all.  I'm not sure I have the energy to go into a long diatribe with examples of how everything she did during the episode was selfish but when this show ends for the season (forever) I believe I'll do a recap of the whole shebang and examine the many, many, many choices she made to care about herself more than anyone or anything else. 

Suffice to say, in this episode Tasha went to court to determine whether she was guilty of aggravated assault on Trey and we found out that the thing Lux kept not telling everyone was that Trey had molested and attempted to rape her when she was a kid.  We pretty much all saw that coming and I won't belittle that as a tragic, traumatizing and emotional event but I will say that because of the serious nature of all the other things that were happening in this episode - including the first sonogram of Ryan and Cate's baby, Tasha's fate, Lux's past, and the very way that the characters on the show have finally become one family - I found the inclusion of schmoopy Tiny Teacher love unseemly and gross.  And when he told her he loved her I wanted to punch him in his tiny face. 

Despite how often I complain about it, I really do like this show very much - I wouldn't stick with it if I didn't - but I can totally understand why it didn't find a large enough audience even by CW's standards.  People aren't going to like your protagonist just because you tell them they're supposed to, you have to make the person LIKABLE!  And if you can't do that (Dawson's Creek, One Tree Hill: The CMM Years) you can't rely on sap alone to win them over. 

Oh, Life Unexpected!  You had such potential but you just never could step far enough away to see your own flaws and pull it all together. 

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