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ariadnes_stringOh dear, I think this is why I usually post something right after the episode finishes. Because then I don't feel like I have to respond to anyone else's opinions--nor do I know how unpopular my own opinions are...
Oh well, I quite liked the episode, though it was a return to full-on early season ridiculousness--and to crazy-motherfucker!Steve (not BAMF!Steve, just crazy-motherfucker!Steve)--but with added angst. EW recently called him a talking surfboard (to which I thought, yeah, but that's one surfboard I'd like to ride)--but here he was a walking surfboard with soul.
But, ridiculous maguffins FTW, huh? When Jenna said she'd figured out what the key was for, I was sure she was going to say it was for an eighteenth-century music box stolen by the Nazis, and she had some contacts in the FBI's White Collar division she could call. Because seriously, it approached that level of "huh"? A bureau? (a word that AOL seemed to have strange difficulty with). It was, as Danny thankfully pointed out, as if someone had been watching too many episodes of Antique Road Show.
Otherwise, however, I spent the episode loving Jenna. Her little reactions of "huh, I didn't realize y'all were quite that crazy" every time some new piece of the season was recapped for her were gold. And necessary, since Danny, who had been playing that role, was waist-deep in the Great Grimpen Mire of Angst and WTF-ery this time.
(if anyone had an icon of Jenna making that face, please point me towards it!).
I can't get quite as upset about the adultery as many people are. It's not right, it's not cool. But it happens. All the time. To good people making bad decisions as much as to conniving amoral people. I'd actually wager that it happens more often, and with less severe consequences then, say, ninja-ing your way into the homes of elected officials, or setting off grenades in small, locally owned businesses. (and no, I'm not saying that out of some kind of "who's less immoral" wank--I'm just saying it).
Okay--enough unpopular opinions. Otherwise: I agree that Steve was hot as hell in his I'm-taking-people-down-with-my-thighs-again angst; I also agree that the insta-pregnancy plotline was annoying--and a narrative corner I can't quite imagine the writers getting out of without recourse to the lovely conspiracy theories I've seen this morning; and, yeah, no way did Chin flip on Steve or anyone else--the guy's middle name (heck, his first name) is loyalty--he's just working the inside.
Oh--and the eggs. Steve hates the way Danny makes eggs (though he's been pretending to like them). Danny has been making eggs for Steve every weekend, right?
Oh well, I quite liked the episode, though it was a return to full-on early season ridiculousness--and to crazy-motherfucker!Steve (not BAMF!Steve, just crazy-motherfucker!Steve)--but with added angst. EW recently called him a talking surfboard (to which I thought, yeah, but that's one surfboard I'd like to ride)--but here he was a walking surfboard with soul.
But, ridiculous maguffins FTW, huh? When Jenna said she'd figured out what the key was for, I was sure she was going to say it was for an eighteenth-century music box stolen by the Nazis, and she had some contacts in the FBI's White Collar division she could call. Because seriously, it approached that level of "huh"? A bureau? (a word that AOL seemed to have strange difficulty with). It was, as Danny thankfully pointed out, as if someone had been watching too many episodes of Antique Road Show.
Otherwise, however, I spent the episode loving Jenna. Her little reactions of "huh, I didn't realize y'all were quite that crazy" every time some new piece of the season was recapped for her were gold. And necessary, since Danny, who had been playing that role, was waist-deep in the Great Grimpen Mire of Angst and WTF-ery this time.
(if anyone had an icon of Jenna making that face, please point me towards it!).
I can't get quite as upset about the adultery as many people are. It's not right, it's not cool. But it happens. All the time. To good people making bad decisions as much as to conniving amoral people. I'd actually wager that it happens more often, and with less severe consequences then, say, ninja-ing your way into the homes of elected officials, or setting off grenades in small, locally owned businesses. (and no, I'm not saying that out of some kind of "who's less immoral" wank--I'm just saying it).
Okay--enough unpopular opinions. Otherwise: I agree that Steve was hot as hell in his I'm-taking-people-down-with-my-thighs-again angst; I also agree that the insta-pregnancy plotline was annoying--and a narrative corner I can't quite imagine the writers getting out of without recourse to the lovely conspiracy theories I've seen this morning; and, yeah, no way did Chin flip on Steve or anyone else--the guy's middle name (heck, his first name) is loyalty--he's just working the inside.
Oh--and the eggs. Steve hates the way Danny makes eggs (though he's been pretending to like them). Danny has been making eggs for Steve every weekend, right?
no subject
Date: 2011-05-20 02:31 am (UTC)I saw the upset about the adultery not so much about whether it was bad (because yes, yes it is), but because it felt to many people out of character for Danny to be an adulterer. Although I can see the self-justification he might have used, that it wasn't "really" adultery because she was his wife originally in the first place.
Rachel has no self-justification at all, but I don't know her well enough to know if adultery seems OOC for her or not. Obviously not, because she's doing it now, but how did she strike you before this ep--adulterous or not?
I also agree with you that Steve is listening to his emotions rather than his brain this ep, and is totally crazyMF!Steve.
also with the HUH? about the bureau. what a thing to be a Clue?
no subject
Date: 2011-05-20 03:11 pm (UTC)And yeah, I can see people feeling like TPTB have messed with Danny's character. People seem to feel that very strongly. I...don't? I'm sure it has to do with my own somewhat jaded view of people--that many (most?) people (maybe especially men) faced with some sexual thing they really want, will go for it, and deal with the consequences later. And they haven't portrayed Danny as being particularly good at impulse control. (Chin, maybe, in that regard, but not Danny).
Also, for better or worse, I don't have a hard time believing that someone could be a good, loyal friend and a good father and still screw around in ways he wasn't supposed to.
YMMV, of course, and I think a lot of people felt that it would bleed into other aspects of his character....
(And it is a cruel and selfish thing to do, I'll grant you that--I've been cheated on, and it hurts like hell. Just, most people don't go into it with their upstairs brain).
I don't know if Rachel is the adulterous type or not, but I do think that many people--even otherwise extremely moral people--will have affairs in a marriage they think is over or in serious trouble.
I don't condone it all, obviously, and I was frankly really surprised that Rachel survived the episode. Usually TV shows tend to punish women for that kind of behavior. And I really don't see how the show can come up with a good solution to the plotline. The insta-pregnancy in particular seemed cheap....
I have to say I've been interested and surprised at how upset people are about Danny--I hadn't realized people had thought of him as that spotless a character....
no subject
Date: 2011-05-20 05:33 pm (UTC)About the adultery: most people don't go into it with their upstairs brain
You're completely right about that!
I think people had more problems not with the fact that Danny *did* the adultery (because you're right about how people kind of fall into that sometimes out of impulse), but with the fact that he didn't seem to have any second thoughts or worries or problems with it afterwards. It wasn't so much that he did it, but that he was blase about it that makes me feel it's OOC.
I don't feel like he has such a completely spotless character (he has serious anger management issues, for one thing, and he seems okay with or gives only token protests to shaving the law a little too closely--or ignoring the law completely--for another). But he does seem that he'd be a character who'd have Issues with adultery and with being an adulterer.
Maybe I needed to see the character flailing and yelling a little more, not lying back, all cool and entitled-seeming, taking in an old Elvis movie.
I think I would have been more okay with it if it had been Danny insisting that they needed to tell Stan, right away (not Rachel)....
I was frankly really surprised that Rachel survived the episode. Usually TV shows tend to punish women for that kind of behavior. And I really don't see how the show can come up with a good solution to the plotline. The insta-pregnancy in particular seemed cheap....
::nods, nods, nods:: agreed, on all points.
My thought was--Danny got Rachel back, has another child coming now, of course he's going right back to New Jersey. All the viewers know this, because the character has made it completely clear--Danny's top priority is his family, and he'd like nothing better than to go back home to New Jersey where everything is familiar. Which makes his decision to stay in Hawai'i, to help Steve, stand out even more.
But I join with you in wondering if this is a corner, plot-wise, that they've painted themselves into that they can't get out of...
no subject
Date: 2011-05-21 06:22 pm (UTC)Yeah, I admit I'd be happy to see that. And to be worrying more about what it would mean for Grace, since that does seem to have been the core of Danny's motivations/character since the beginning...