Aliens In America - The Purple Heart of America

Purple Heart - Ep 107
My Musky, Myself - Ep. 108
Junior Prank - Ep. 109

I haven't commented on Aliens in America for a while, not because I don't love it anymore (in fact, I think it's just getting better and better every week) but because the Canadian network took it off Mondays and moved it to Wednesdays but is replaying the whole series from the start (yet thus, falling behind The CW's airings... I guess they are REALLY trying to stretch it out over the strike while trying to gain new viewers?). It's annoying but anything to gain more viewers can only be a good thing for this underviewed satirical family/political comedy.

So over the last few weeks, we saw Raja smoke causing Gary and Franny to fall back into their old bad habit, Veterans day taken to a new hallmark low, Justin becomes a fish, and Raja saves the day with Alpacas. I know. It makes much more sense on the show. Much funnier too.

Claire gets dumped and Justin, trying a nice gesture, sends his sister a purple heart, the high school's equivalent to a candy gram on Veteran's day (because nothing says respect to those lost in a war like a message of a hard on) and the school reads the gesture the wrong way, and Claire rejects Justin.

Justin becomes the school mascot to get close to the cheerleaders but nervousness sets in and Raja takes over. Then Raja's pent up aggression gets released in the anonymity of the musky mascot costume in one of the funniest fish-to-man headbutts EVER (you know, because it happens all the time). Funnier than seeing Mr. Matthews attempt to dance (Now THAT gives me a WHOLE new perspective on Christopher B. Duncan and his mysterious ways on Veronica Mars).

Watching Raja smoking, and finding it perfectly normal was also hysterical. Who is this kid? Adhir Kalyan is seriously gifted in the comedic innocent look.

Raja who is 16 and 3/4 years old tries to talk some sense into Justin who is 1/2 a year younger, out of the Junior class prank but Justin, needing to be part of the cool group, will do anything to become accepted. They try to vandalize the vandalizing prank, things get even worse (by flooding the football stadium instead of the school building itself) and Justin is ostracized even more.

Claire takes over the duties of taking care of the Alpacas and teaches Justin how to sneak out of the house (I love the dynamics between the brother and sister) as Gary tries to find ways of making more money, and Franny start selling everything on craigslist (I particularly liked the Drop of kids at school rant (22Oct07) and the Halloween rant (01Nov07) though a lot of this is great procrastinating sh!t!).

Just as Claire starts bonding with the Alpacas when Franny wants them sold, Raja finds a way to use them in the prank, leaving them in the classroom for all the teachers to find. Along with their doo doo. Because doo doo is always funny. Just saying doo doo is funny. Or the other word for it. Maybe.

I love all the different relationships on this show. Justin's constant need to be cool and Raja's complete ignorance of it all, and their geek buddy duo is so great to see, even when Justin gets mad at Raja for essentially being right all the time (except the smoking thing but Gary and Franny took care of THAT). Gary and Franny are so great together and I never though Scott Patterson could move on from Lorelai Gilmore but apparently he can, and do it really funnily too. Now I'm thinking how underused he was on Gilmore Girls and I never thought that when I watched the show. Maybe he did have a reason to be at odds with Lauren Graham for stealing the show.

I thought Claire was a bit of a throwaway character at first, and while she's still a bit too-cool-for-school one note popular girl, the moments she does get to bond with the family are nice.