Friday Night Lights Season Five Episode Seven

Okay, so Friday Night Lights is another show that I love but don't often blog about. However, just had to say how surprised I was at how happy I was to see Jason Street again. Also, when Luke was all, "Wait, you like it when I'm nice to you?," to Becky, I had to giggle. No one should ever take advice from Billy Riggins. Or I guess maybe they should, since it sort of worked. Anyway, I've been enjoying this final season thoroughly. Good show, FNL.

thoughts on Glee season finale

First off: I'm glad that Kurt put things in perspective with his conversation with Blaine. Dude. They are a bunch of high school kids who got to go to New York City for the first time. They placed twelfth out of the fifty best show choirs in the nation. Two years ago, their school didn't even have a glee club, and last year, they placed dead last at regionals. COME ON. They have nothing to be upset about or ashamed of. In fact, they should be pretty darn proud. That's some impressive stuff.

So. You all know that I've thought Glee has been pretty hit or miss lately, but I pretty much loved this episode. It perfectly captured the excitement of a first trip to New York City. Also, I don't really give a crap about Rachel and Finn, but I do love that they got so caught up in the song that they kissed onstage. I also loved that when Rachel was all, "I'm going to New York City after graduation and I'm never coming back," like that was a valid reason for her and Finn not to be together, Finn was just like, "Um, graduation's a year away. What are you doing until then?" I also still like Jesse quite a bit. I enjoy that he and Finn are about two seconds away from punching each other in the face every time they see each other, and I went "Aw," when Jesse told Mr. Schue, "I couldn't stay away," and Mr. Schue was like, "From the show? Or her?" I'll say it again: AW! This year is coming up ALL Rachel! Also love that Mercedes and Sam are together, and loved Brittany and Santana's conversation. I'll bet they become a couple for real next season, but I like that this isn't coming easily or quickly. Oh-- and I LOVED Kurt and Rachel's duet on the song from Wicked. For a nationals episode, I didn't think that this episode really had a lot of overly impressive musical moments, but that was great.

Even though I basically loved everything about this episode, it did make me giggle that 1) they didn't even start writing their Nationals songs until they got to New York City and 2) Mr. Schue left a bunch of high school kids unsupervised in New York City for what looked to be a full 24 hours and seemed to honestly expect them to just sit around in the hotel working on their songs. He's so dumb.

So...that's it! Most of the shows I watch either have already had their season finales or are having them tonight, but hopefully I'll find some TV shows on DVD or movies to blog about over the summer =).

thoughts on Something Borrowed (spoilers)

First off: when I went to see Water for Elephants a few weeks ago, I watched the previews and thought to myself, "Wow. I am going to be at the movies all summer. I would see literally all of these movies." Larry Crowne, The Help, Something Borrowed, and a couple of others that I'm not remembering right now but that looked at least okay. Today's previews were more of a mixed bag: there were two that looked awesome (the last Harry Potter movie and Crazy Stupid Love, starring Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore, and Emma Stone); one that looked surprisingly good given the concept (Friends with Benefits, starring Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis); one that could potentially be funny but also kind of crude and gross, which many of you know I don't really go for (The Change-up, starring Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds); and one that looked pretty dumb but had a good cast (Our Idiot Brother, starring Paul Rudd, Zooey Deschanel, and some other people). The thing is, even the ones that didn't look great looked like they would have some redeeming qualities, and let me just say, this summer's movie season looks like it has so much more potential than last summer's. I think last summer the only movies I was looking forward to seeing were Iron Man 2 and Sex and the City 2, and Sex and the City 2 wound up being Just Awful. So...yaay for Hollywood, I guess.

Okay, so...Something Borrowed. About once or twice a year, I feel like going to a romantic comedy. That romantic comedy usually stars Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Garner, or Kate Hudson, actresses who I became fans of largely because of their work in other genres, but who raise the level of pretty much any movie they are in. You may disagree with that. I think they're all fairly dependable; even if you don't love the movie they're in, they'll all usually make it at least somewhat enjoyable. Two of the romantic comedies I've seen in the past three years have also featured Ginnifer Goodwin. I don't think she's as likable of an actress; her characters usually come across as somewhat one-dimensional, somewhat shallow, and somewhat annoying. In other words, she's not exactly a major draw for me, but whatever. I wanted to see Something Borrowed. My verdict on it?

It was decent. All of the actors (including Hudson, Goodwin, and John Krasinski) do a good job, and they play characters who are like me and other people I know. However, those characters then do things that I don't entirely understand and probably wouldn't do myself, so I couldn't *totally* relate. For example: Ginnifer Goodwin's character, Rachel, often feels overshadowed by her louder, more vibrant friend, Darcy (Hudson); feels that she "wasted her twenties," I guess because she spent most of it in school (college, then law school) and didn't seem to have any serious romantic relationships; and lacks confidence: she missed her chance with Dex (Colin Egglesfield) largely because she couldn't fathom that a guy that good-looking would ever like her. She instead practically gave him to Darcy, who is now marrying him. This is all relatable. However, as someone who shares some of Rachel's qualities/problems, I can't fathom feeling overshadowed by a louder friend *practically every day of your entire life* without either making more of an effort to break out on your own or, at the very least, being more openly angry/resentful. She and Darcy rarely seem to clash, and not only does Rachel rarely have a bad word to say about her, she openly makes excuses for/defends her behavior. I wanted her to have more of a spine, I guess.

So does John Krasinski's character, Ethan, a friend of Rachel's who cheers her on; encourages her to stand up to Darcy; and encourages her to demand more from her relationship with Dex, who Rachel winds up having an affair with. However, Ethan also does things in this movie that I don't entirely understand. For example: he is constantly telling Rachel to stand up for herself more and be more forthright about her feelings and what she wants. However, there is this girl named Claire in the movie who he once had a one-night stand with, is part of their social circle, and who spends much of the movie actively pursuing him. He responds to her advances not by being as straightforward with her as he is constantly telling Darcy to be, but by...telling her that he's gay (which he's not, in case that was unclear). What? Who does that, especially to someone whose feelings they don't otherwise seem to be that concerned with hurting, and who, again, is part of their extended circle of friends and therefore will undoubtedly eventually learn that the gay thing isn't true? Stupid.

And then there is Dex, who...kind of sucks. He cheats on Darcy with Rachel and reveals that he's been in love with Rachel since they went to law school together. So, my question is...why get engaged to Darcy? Why never tell Rachel how you feel? I totally buy that, thinking that Rachel wasn't interested, he would date Darcy, who was blatant about being interested in him. But engaged? No. I can also buy that Dex and Rachel would like each other in law school and both be too shy to do anything about it. That kind of thing happens all the time. But given that they saw each other regularly for *six years*, what with law school and him dating Darcy, wouldn't you think those feelings would come to the surface before the time this movie begins? Also, Rachel flashes back to all of these moments from the past when she could have told Dex how she felt and instead just walked away. Yes. She should have been more forthright with her feelings from the beginning. But the thing is...he never goes after her. He lets her walk away again and again. If he's so in love with her, can't he take the tiniest bit of a chance or put forth the tiniest bit of effort? Similarly, he stays engaged to Darcy long after he tells Rachel he loves her. He just...sucks, like I said. We're supposed to want Dex and Rachel to end up together, but I just couldn't quite bring myself to want that.

There are also a couple of minor characters who are around a lot but never really developed, which I guess is probably a result of this movie being adapted from a book. One of them is the aforementioned Claire; I spent the whole movie wondering where I'd seen her before. Then I came home, looked her up on IMDB, and scrolled through her list of credits going "I never saw that...never saw that either...OH! Victoria! Ted's first season girlfriend on How I Met Your Mother!" So there's that.

So, overall, I guess I would say that while I found all of the characters and actors relatable and believable, I couldn't quite understand/approve of a lot of their actions. At least the situation and characters are somewhat complex, and like I said, the acting is good across the board. I guess if I were giving this movie a letter grade, I would give it a B- or C+.

thoughts on Glee: "Prom Queen"

I will preface my comments by saying that I enjoyed this episode quite a bit. Most of the songs were good, especially Rachel and Jesse's take on "Rolling in the Deep," and Sue and Artie's "torture" scenes were really funny: "You didn't spike the punch?" "No, I did." "With alcohol?" "Oh. No, then." And until all hell started breaking loose, their prom actually looked really fun.

That all said...I *do not* understand their school. Um, a bunch of jerks think it would be funny to write in Kurt as prom queen and Figgins...announces him as the winner? Wouldn't he just give it to the second place person? Or did he not realize Kurt would be embarrassed by that? And the glee club is supposedly so unpopular that *no one* shows up at their benefit concert and people throw stuff at them when they try to go Christmas caroling, yet everyone seems perfectly happy that they're the prom band? Just-- if they're going to have episodes like this, where everyone clearly enjoys watching the glee club sing, they need to never do another episode about how the glee kids are supposedly the biggest losers in school. They're clearly not.

Okay. So other than the stuff that made no sense, or would never, ever happen, it was a fun episode. Finn and Jesse get into a shoving match on the dance floor! Quinn slaps Rachel in the face! Prom! Whoo!

Glee: "Born This Way"

Okay. So here's where Glee runs into problems, I think. It tries to be Important. It does these episodes about legitimately serious issues that real teens deal with, like sexuality, self-esteem, drinking, etc. Often, though, it's unclear where the show stands on these issues. Sometimes, this is because the issue they're talking about is too complex to have a clear black and white answer, and the show does a good job straddling the line; you all know that I enjoyed the "Blame it on the Alcohol" episode precisely because it managed to show the pitfalls of drinking without being preachy or acting like it is something that no one should ever, ever do. Other times, the show makes me go "Hmmm."

"Born This Way" made me go "Hmmm." Overall, the message was, "You should accept yourself the way you are and embrace your flaws/quirks, because those things make you unique." At the same time, however, it acknowledged that sometimes it's more complicated than that: some of the things we think of as flaws/quirks are legitimate problems that are actually damaging our quality of life. Rachel's somewhat large nose? Just something about her that's different, not bad, that she should learn to love. Emma's OCD, on the other hand? A legitimate problem that she should seek professional help for. While this is all fine and good, there were a couple of things that bothered me about it:

1) The show seemed to be sending a mixed message about where the line should be drawn. Like, there was the whole storyline about how Quinn used to be overweight, and the other kids called her Lucy Caboosey, but then she discovered that she was athletic, lost the weight, and also asked her dad if she could have a nose job. Now, I *think* the moral of the story was that exercising and getting fit was a good thing, but that getting a nose job was going too far, which I can get behind. However, then you have Finn holding up the picture of Quinn in her "Lucy Caboosey" days all, "This is a picture of my girlfriend. I used to have another picture, but I like this one better. It's the real her." (And I'm not getting that quote 100% correct, but that's the gist.) Umm...what? Like, again, I get that self-improvement can go too far, and that Quinn always should have felt good about herself no matter what she looked like, but I don't think she was necessarily a *better person* back in those days. Like, yeah, she's clearly *too* concerned with appearances now, but discovering that she was athletic and taking up dance and gymnastics seem like good things to me. Like I said: made me go "hmmm..."

2) Some of the kids-- and adults-- seemed to be digging a lot deeper than others. Like, they're all supposed to be embracing what's different/unique about themselves, and everyone's supposed to wear a t-shirt with a word or phrase that represents that thing. So Will gets on Emma's case for wearing one that says "Ginger," telling her that she knows her issue isn't her red hair; it's her OCD. Her t-shirt, he flat-out tells her, should say "OCD." And then he comes out at the end wearing a t-shirt that says..."Butt Chin"? Really, Will? That's the biggest issue you have with yourself? You have a butt chin? And Kurt's up there in a t-shirt that says "Likes Boys" while Finn has one that says..."Can't Dance"? Oh, please, Finn, tell me all about how not being able to dance has negatively affected your life. For God's sake. (And, I got kind of confused while even writing this section, because what was supposed to be on their shirts, exactly? Something that they once didn't like about themselves or that other people didn't like about them, but that they've come to love and accept, right? If so, why should Emma's say "OCD"? Didn't they establish that this is something she should try to CONQUER, while Rachel, for example, should love and accept her nose? Do you see why I get frustrated watching this show?)

Other than that...I like that Kurt's back. Blaine and the Warblers got the best musical number of the show. I also liked "Born this Way," despite my issues with the t-shirts. "Unpretty" was pretty good, as was Finn and Mike's song and dance number.

So...yeah. More interesting than last week with better songs, but somewhat frustrating.