TV: Last week on the tube...

Funny lines and interesting or annoying plot points of the week:

30 Rock
Liz was dealing with Jenna's desire to out-diva Tracy and Jack was trying to hide his love affair with guest star Edie Falco. His best line was when he said "This company has a very strict bros before hos policy," as I'm sure all companies have. In the end, Liz proved to Jenna that she's just as much of a pain in the ass as Tracy, which cheered her up, and Jack threw caution to the wind and announced his relationship to the higher-ups. It inspired many subsequent confessions, my favorite being the last when a man confessed to murdering his wife. Not quite the same thing.

Life
In Monday's episode there was a lot of spectacle. A girl who considered herself to be in "prehab" made out with Dani unexpectedly. It got Dani so frazzled she practically blushed. A new red headed supporting character was added and she seems intrigued by Charlie. They find a cellphone from the 90s buried with a corpse and they needed her to download the numbers. So she asks, "Who remembers their number from 10 years ago?" and Charlie says, "I do, but it wasn't a phone number." Even though Dani mimes that it was his prison number, red head is still intrigued enough to pass him a confidential file in the elevator right after she pulls the emergency button and lays one on him big time.
In Wednesday's episode, the documentarian asked an interesting question: "When he went in he was innocent. Did he come out that way?" That was pretty much the purpose of this two-fer; answering the question of whether Charlie is still the criminal they made him out to be. After matching the little girl's drawing to a mug shot of Jack's informant, he kidnapped the man who murdered his friend and his family and literally drove around town running errands with him in the trunk of his car--visiting his wife on their 15th anniversary, having lunch with his buddy, and getting run over by an SUV with two assassins at the helm. In the end, he got the scumbag to confess, he officially cleared his name and he backed Jack into a corner. We learn that it wasn't only about getting revenge on those who imprisoned him, but about getting redemption for his friend who died. In the middle of all this, it turns out Charlie met the little girl he had been searching for. Some men attacked her while searching for her "dad," who happened to be the man who murdered her family. Now Jack is using her to get Charlie to back off. Playing dirty.

Friday Night Lights
This was the episode that FNLers have been waiting for. Some were eager to get this whole Tyra-Landry-murder scenario over and done with. And others were gnawing at their lower lips in anticipation of Landry's confession. I knew he felt bad about what he did, but I had no idea that it would bring him to tears. Jesse Plemons is a pretty damn good actor. In the end, the charges were dropped and he became a free man. Although by the look on his face he will remain in a subconscious jail of his own. One question though, where the hell was Landry's mom through all of this? She's one of those Southern moms who babies their sons till their married--and sometimes even after--and yet she was nowhere to be found. Speaking of which, is Matt his best friend or what? While Matt's exploring the wonders of sleeping with an older woman and ignoring Smash's pathetic advice, his bff was almost tried for murder. The most interesting part of this episode, however, was the development of the Santiago's character. Throughout the episode he seemed terrified to play in the big game and so he flipped out on Buddy so he wouldn't have to. But instead of letting him bail out and run away, Buddy got all fatherly and gave him a pep talk. And Santiago reciprocated in a son-like manner by saying, "I hate you." If he wasn't Mexican, I would've mistaken him for Buddy Jr. right then. And I'm not sure if it's a criminal thing or a guy thing, but he doesn't talk much. I'm not even positive that he speaks much English. As for the other orphan on the show, Riggins finally bolted from his sketchy pad with that psycho stalker as a roommate and slept in his car outside coach's house. Coach took pity on him and let him crash in a sleeping bag in his garage. Seriously, he couldn't do better than that? I'm sure Buddy's got some extra room on his couch. Meanwhile, Tammy was scolding Julie for being jealous of her baby sister and Julie was venting about being underappreciated for all she's done and sacrificed. If anybody can tell me what "sacrifices" she's referring to, that'd be great.

Grey's Anatomy
I have to say that of all the disaster scenarios that Grey's has had, this was the lamest. Granted, I thought the performances of the paramedics who were best friends was perfection, but I don't think it merited a two-parter. I get that the whole scenario inspired Meredith to lay claim on McDreamy once and for all, but people die in that hospital all the time, why did it take that one guy to remind her that life was short? Either way, Rose kissing McDreamy at the end only gave me chills because for once he looked happy. That's a nice change of pace. I'm more interested, however, in McSteamy's obsession with Erica and how he's learning that she's self depracating and imperfect. During their surgery she said to Sloane, "And now you're going to play dumb, does that work because of the way you look?," which was unnecessarily harsh. Working up all those clever quips must've distracted her because she almost killed the patient and she was verbally abusing herself for it. To which Sloane responded: "That's fascinating Dr. Hahn." She asks, "What?" And he says, "You're as unkind to yourself as you are to everyone else." Now that was a much deserved burn.
Meanwhile, his other patient guest star Seth Green was gushing all over Lexie, yet still managing to make jokes even though he noticed that "Seriously you're like wearing half of my blood." Unfortunately, he was the casualty within this two-parter. But without his death Christina never would've reached out and brought her home to brood. Also, meeting Ava kind of killed running to Alex for comfort. Oddly enough Izzie required some too. Both her patients lived, but since Hahn told her she couldn't update the family, her patient's husband flipped on her and called her inhumane. It was then that Izzie realized that she could never be as "kick ass" as Christina or Hahn. Last time I checked, she was pretty kick ass on her own. But at least she got the comfort she wanted when her and O'Malley finally fessed up to the bad timing of their relationship and Meredith invited her to dance and drink away her troubles so she can finally be let into the club she so desperately admires.
Miranda, on the other hand, couldn't catch a break. Not only did her husband threaten to divorce her but Christina accused her of being selfish and racist for pulling her off a huge cardio case to make a racial statement. Honestly, if they were really trying to make a statement, they should've had more white supremacists breathing down her neck while waiting for the guy to get out of surgery. It just seemed like they were trying to get a lot of story lines shoved into 2hrs. Overall, the best part of this episode was when the Nazi got pissed that Miranda altered his tattoo and tried to defend what he was and O'Malley said: "Since we're sharing belief systems, I believe if you were dead, the world would be a better place." Then he stared him down. The sexiest moment in the history of George.

Gossip Girl
Back to the basics I see. Dan was sized-up and shut down by Granny Vanderwoodsen. Apparently, he wasn't good enough to take Serena to her cotillion, not that he was volunteering or anything. But you know Dan. Tell him he can't, and he'll fight to prove he can. But the old bag decided to bribe him, which unveiled the truth about why Lily ditched his dad. Apparently, her inheritance was more enticing than a life with a washed up musician. As cold as that seems, when Rufus tells Lily that he never should of let her go, I was actually surprised by how sincere it felt. Meanwhile, Chuck's losing his comic touch, what with his "romantic" obsession with Blair. His best lines were disseminated to Nate when he was trying to get him to move on: "Like the book says She's just not that into you," and to Blair when he was trying to get her to move on with: "That broken record was a hit last year. Get with the times. He bores you." It's like Gossip Girl said in the end: "Spotted: Chuck Bass losing something no one knew he had to begin with...his heart." As for Blair, she finally got Nate back and all it took was playing hard to get. So predictable. Chuck set up Carter Basin as the guy who Blair was ignoring Nate for. So Nate clocked him, which got Blair all hot and bothered. Apparently, she likes bad boys. Wouldn't it be easier to just date one instead of settling for a wannabe? I don't think Basin is going anywhere any time soon though. He's got a Chuck-like crush on Serena, which is most certainly troublesome.

Reaper
The boys get a little too bff-ish and over-examine Sam's new girlfriend to see if she's the spawn of Satan. Somehow that involved them thoroughly examining her entire naked body while looking for the 666 sign. She was a little too obliging, which makes me think she really is the devil's daughter. That and the fact that all her goldfish die (granted, they die on everyone) and flowers wilt after seconds in her presence. This week, the devil tempted the boys with millions of dollars and Sock and Ben took the bait. I really liked that Sock try to replace all the things that were lost in the fire he accidentally set in his ex-girlfriend Josie's apartment. He is totally trying to win her back. Awwww.

The Closer
This was the most excruciating episode ever. Two hours of Brenda abusing her parents' hospitality and lying to a criminal about the death of his little brother to get him to reveal the whereabouts of his accomplices. She even went as low as to bribe him with alcohol even though he's an addict. And her father justified it with: "He's going into life time rehab anyway." I don't know. Doesn't really sound like the Christmas spirit to me.

Samantha, who?
Sam crashes her dad's car, so she gets the brilliant idea to push it into a river. She got Dena to help her, but she didn't tell Andrea what happened. But when Andrea found out, Sam explained: "I'm sorry, but you should be happy I didn't draw you into this web of deceit." And Andrea comically responded: "Honey I'm an attorney, web of deceit is where I get my mail." Once the entire dirty secret is out Andrea tries to get Sam to remember something from her past and her ingenious method is to physically shake Sam's head twice. Then we learn that Sam poached that idea from her mom who had shoved their first car into the same river. We already know her mom's wacked. Hell, in this episode we find out that she used to put baby Sam in a huge birdcage instead of a playpen. Creepy.

Heroes
Let's see if I can manage to wrap this up in less than a paragraph. Claire saw her father and promised not to blow the whistle on heroes everywhere. Sylar shot Maya and tested the regenerative blood on her, bringing her back to life. Elle asked HRG if her father really made her what she was, which didn't seem to make a difference since she still felt the need to prove herself to him. She swooped in and saved Suresh and Molly from Sylar, but not before he gave Sylar the regenerative blood and unfortunately his powers back. (Was it a coincidence that Sylar summoned a spinach can to his hand or was it an homage to Popeye?) Nicky died in a fire, but succeeded in saving Monica. Hiro couldn't kill Adam, so he shoved him in a coffin in Japan. Big mistake. Peter had a standoff with Parkman where they used telepathic powers against each other, but mostly succeeded in making the goofiest telepathy faces. Eventually he listened to reason and destroyed the virus. But then Parkman and Nathan got the dumb idea to inform the public of the company's actions. So someone offed Nathan during the press conference. Didn't see that coming. The next chapter in the series is called Villains. What a nice change of pace.

Chuck
So basically Chuck gets super jealous of the guys Sarah throws herself at and Casey proves he's pretty much a follow-orders kind of guy. He needed a bit of coaxing to save Morgan from a bomb (However, Morgan reenacting the DiCaprio-Titanic moment made me want him to blow up.), but none at all to get rid of the Intersect, which happens to be inside of Chuck's head. I say Chuck pretends to have amnesia and calls it a day.
Here are few insights from Morgan: "Never trust a woman whose name is a palindrome."
"Ever wish you were born...Dr.Dre? Who's cheating on Dr.Dre man?"
It's so sad that when Morgan says something like "I made a horrible mistake," Chuck feels compelled to ask, "What did you swallow?" But it was even sadder when Morgan felt the need to be a cooler person for Anna's parents, saying "I gotta step it up. Who should I be?" and Lester responded: "Last I checked there are over 6 billion people on the planet. Pick anyone." His most endearing moment, however, was when he said, "She's an amazing woman dude and I am a lucky guy." Then Chuck responds: "Is there anyway you can say that to her instead of me?" And Morgan says, "Yeah, I guess I could but that would leave me completely vulnerable. You know, kind of like a sweet little puppy, laying on his back, waiting for his belly to be scratched, privates just kind of dangling out there for everyone to see." Only Morgan would picture vulnerability like that.
It was funny when Chuck told Sara, "I thought you'd be half way to Bryce by now," like he's a country or something. Although I'm not sure what it means when he says to Casey, "Would you stop sneaking up on me like that? This is a retail store, okay buddy, not Tora Bora."
Meanwhile, Sara was in denial, constantly saying the word "work," like if she said it enough she could convince herself that she wasn't having fun with Chuck. In the end, they were caught under the mistletoe and even though she didn't run for the hills, I sense she was pleased that Chuck just danced with her instead of kissed her. LA-HAME!

Ugly Betty
Daniel and Alexis were fighting for the company, Henry was fighting Gio for Betty, Amanda was fighting her sexual attraction to Nick, and Wilhelmina was fighting Golden Girls' Betty White for good press so she could get Slater magazine funding. Being the idiotic siblings that they were, they actually engaged in fisticuffs. And since he was losing, Daniel felt the need to ask, "What, did they give you super strength when they installed your vagina?" Meanwhile, Amanda was so confused by Nick's lack of interest in her she had to ask "You're gay right?" and he coldly snapped, "Only when it comes to you." No worries. They jumped each other's bones mid-paint ball war--the one the siblings used to settle who would get control over the company. Of course, Amanda had to have a few laughs before hand, dramatically declaring to Daniel after witnessing couture get pummeled with paint, "War has changed me." Such. A. Drama queen. In the end, Betty settled for Henry, we got an official confirmation that Gio likes Betty, Wilhelmina gave up on Slater magazine and plotted to have a Mead lovechild with sperm fresh out of Bradford's corpse, and Alexis tricked Daniel and gained control over the magazine. Bummer.