Sunday, November 11, 2007

Desperate Brothers and Men Who Leave

Men In Trees - The Girl Who Cried Wolf - Ep. 205
Desperate Housewives - You Can't Judge A Book By It's Cover - Ep. 407
Brothers & Sisters - 36 Hours - Ep. 207

Things go wrong on Men In Trees, things get re-corrected on Desperate Housewives, and things get fixed on Brothers & Sisters.

I love that Murphy's Law is running rampant in Elmo. It's such the typical easy plotline but in the fluff that is Men In Trees, it sort of works and it's kinda fun. Desperate Housewives is getting rid of Victor but while we see Gaby whack Victor overboard on a boat in the promos, who knew she would do it TWICE? THAT. Was hilarious. Leave it to Desperate Housewives to make the murder of a major character by a title actor into something funny. Meanwhile, things get intense on Brothers & Sisters as the Walkers unite to confront Justin about his drug relapse, yet what could have been a dreary hour becomes mostly dramatic and poignant (the ranting and raving by Justin, calling out every low-blow shot at the rest of the family was particularly entertaining in that Oh-no-he-did-not-just-say-that way).

On Men in Trees: Mai has bad premonitions about the wedding but does everything in her power to bring good luck, but Murphy's out to get her and everything that CAN go wrong, will.

Annie's mom (Annie Potts) shows up for the rehearsal and bonds with Celia but is annoyed by Mai's constant presence. Annie's mom brings along Annie's old cat and makes the cat the ring bearer (with full heart pillow and all), at least until the cat runs away during the rehearsal.

Hot pastor Eric who is hot for Sarah gets the cold shoulder from his congregation when they find out about the relationship and Eric quits in haste. If only he thought it through a little more, since he was supposed to marry Annie and Patrick and he still can, just not in the church.

Annie and Patrick are happy to move the wedding to the Inn, but when Ben gets pre-occupied with the hockey team he just bought, he inadvertently leaves the bar unattended and of COURSE, the liquor board is on site, and closes the bar down. Leaving Annie and Patrick with no venue for the wedding reception.

Patrick gets a giant bell for Annie, to ring on their wedding day, but as he rigs it onto the roof of the Inn, you know disaster is waiting to happen. As Mai presents Annie with her Chinese Tea Set heirloom for a tea ceremony that brings luck to the marriage, the bell and Patrick crashes through the roof destroying both the building and the tea set.

Marin keeps finding herself outside facing off with a wolf until she stands her own and the wolf leaves. Marin is still sad that Jack is leaving on his extended trip, and is unaware that Cash has been brought back to take his place, but just as Marin is confident enough on her own, she meets up with the wolf again, this time surrounded by the entire pack..."to be continued"... (was this supposed to be the Season 1 Finale? It's the 5th episode of Season 2 which had taken in 5 already-taped episodes from season 1).

On Desperate Housewives: Lynette tries to offload her mom onto her sisters again, but Lydia and Lucy (Sarah Paulson, Studio 60 and the Sunset Strip, and Carrie Preston, Huffman's costar in TransAmerica) will have nothing of it. Lynette even goes so far as to ditch them at a diner as she secretly moves the suitcases into Lydia's car and then takes off. Genius! Then the sisters do it to Lynette. Double genius!!

Bree wants to circumcise the baby and Orson won't have it. It's discussed during a dinner party with Susan and Mike (AWKWARD!) where Bree also discovers Mike's pill popping. Bree warns Susan who of course ignores it until she finally finds the drugs... In a funnier story, Bree goes as far as to bring the baby to a Jewish bris and piggybacks the ceremony, pretending to be Jewish just to get the circumcision she wants for the child, after Orson had already warned every hospital in the state, plus adjacent states about his objections.

Finally, Victor takes Gaby on a yacht but Gaby finds out that Edie tattletaled to Victor about her affair with Carlos during the trip and thinks he's about to kill her. She instead whacks him overboard and leaves him in the water. Carlos comes to help and they go rescue him, when Victor really does threaten to kill Carlos and Gaby whacks Victor AGAIN overboard, this time unsuccessfully rescuing him.

Carlos and Gaby realise there's no way anybody knows she was with him, and if they got rid of the boat as evidence, it could seem like a suicide, and they subsequently release the boat toward the ocean.

As with Friday Night Lights, we now have main characters who have murdered (though this one far more comically than on FNL), and while they think they might be able to get away with it, I'm sure both murders will haunt their futures. I'm sure on Desperate Housewives, it'll turn out quite hilarious (especially this season), and I'm actually liking where the whole thing is going.

Meanwhile, after grandma waits for one of her daughters to take her in, she leaves knowing she's unwanted by Lynette, Lydia and Lucy.

Meanwhile, Dylan tries to search for more information about her real father and Katherine comes up with a manipulative scheme giving her full access to the info before she emotionally breaks down, scaring Dylan about the hurt her father caused, and Dylan backs off. Except, Katherine had been lying. Does this mean Adam Mayfair is in the clear? Since we are talking about her real father? Whew...

On Brothers & Sisters: Word of Justin's re-appearing drug problem spreads after Rebecca tells Holly. The entire family gathers to confront Justin about it, forcing him to deal with the problem before he unleashes his rage, all before the title credits! And they didn't even need alcohol!

The family takes shifts watching over Justin detox as secrets and lies start spilling out. Tommy's affair is discovered by Saul, and then Kevin.

Kitty is still somewhat dealing with her miscarriage while Kevin dances around Saul's possible homosexuality, which he vehemently denies.

On the "lighter" storyline... Jack's daughter comes to visit as Jack meets with a possible supporter, a donor he later finds out works in many shades of gray with questionable ties. Jack first fires Travis (Tony Award winner Denis O'Hare) and his whole team but then rescinds and fires just the team, more for publicity's sake. Jack also reveals that he was thankful the pregnancy didn't happen, since it wasn't what he needed/wanted right now.

When Robert returns to the Walkers house later, Kitty and Robert discuss their future, with marriage back on the tables, along with her wishes to get pregnant again, which Robert quietly concedes to.

Meanwhile, there's more scenes of Justin going crazy detoxing which somehow is crazy sexy and gives Dave Annable some great scenes in playing asshole/apologetic brother. Saul confronts Kevin as the loneliest gay man he knows. Kevin is forced to think about his situation with is "boyfriend" that he hasn't talked to in ages while he has taken in Scotty as a roommate (and possible "roommate"? One can only hope!).

Saul finally comes out to Nora while Tommy agrees to break it off with Lena.

I liked this more intense episode but I secretly do wish it returns to the slightly lighter/campier mode though there was some great acting tonight (and by great acting, I mean the intense gazes of anger/bitterness/resentment along with some nice shouting again). I do like that they are giving Tommy a plotline but again, does it HAVE to be the cheating plotline? Then again, they managed to get the Justin detox out of the way now in a much more entertaining fashion than I originally feared so hopefully we can move on now.

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