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Psych S07E04: "No Country for Two Old Men"

¡Muy delicioso! Like sour cream and guacamole, Jeffrey Tambor and Corbin Bernsen made a perfect pairing in Psych's hysterical homage to The In-Laws.

If anyone can walk in the shoes of William Shatner, who plays Juliet's con-artist father, it's the Arrested Development patriarch. And Lloyd, Detective O'Hara's rambling, oblivious stepfather, has more in common with Bluth Sr. than he initially seemed to: He's a recovering gambling addict with huge debts.

Lloyd was introduced at Juliet and Shawn's housewarming party, where his accounting anecdotes were so dull that most of his fellow guests wandered away mid-conversation. But that didn't stop Shawn from encouraging the two dads from becoming early-bird-special besties.

"No Country for Two Old Men" may not be an all-time great like last week's epic "Lassie Jerky," but it was a comical romp that hit all the right notes. One of the highlights was Gus, fancying himself a family man now that he's dating a woman with a young son, injecting himself into every discussion about parenthood.

"Don't worry, buddy, it'll happen for you someday," Gus consoled Shawn as they watched young Maximus, whom Gus just met last week, play soccer in the yard. "They grow up so fast, don't they?"

(It was a nice touch having Bend It Like Beckham star Parminder Nagra reassure her boyfriend after Gus failed to block her "goal." Well played, Psych.)

Henry and Lloyd's innocent lunch date took an expected (for Henry, anyway) turn, with the two fleeing gunmen, stealing a car, flying to Mexico, and clashing with local cops and one of the region's most-wanted criminals—all because the former gambler was trying to square his debts.

With each hiccup, Lloyd cheerfully promised his Costco-outfitted travel companion, "Smooth sailing from here on in!"

Close on their heels were Shawn and Juliet (a.k.a. Julihawn, Shawniet, and Shules, if you prefer one of Shawn's "singular" suggestions) and Gus, whose paternal instincts are warring with his sudden "suffocation" from his new relationship. ("Last week I was my own man. Now whenever I turn around, there they are!"; "A man just needs his space.")

They found an ally in "the Mexican version of Lassiter," who of course turned out to be a corrupt cop whose henchman nearly killed Lloyd.

In the end, Shawn's wish came true: The two dads became unlikely pals—which bodes well for the wedding we hope is on the horizon. Más Tambor, por favor!

The icing on the flan? Henry and Lloyd's adventure allowed Shawn to practice his terrible Spanish skills.

Not since Season 2's "Lights, Camera... Homicidio" has the fake psychic had so many opportunities to rolls his Rs so badly. And like "Homicidio," the Psych theme song—performed by show creator Steve Franks and his Friendly Indians band—was translated and sung in Spanish in the opening and closing credits.

The real in-joke here is that James Roday, born James Rodriguez, is half-Mexican. And although he may not be as fluent in Spanish as his father, it was his first language as a child. ¡Arriba!

Mexican buffet from Olé Mole, cumin, curried crab, Pinkberry, sopapillas with honey (Mexican pastry heaven), lobster thermidor, Tostitos (as in " Vaya Tostitos, Mexican Lassie"), Mexican Coca-Cola ("we use real sugar"), Coke Zero

– "Gus don't be the remake of Yours, Mine and Ours. For that matter, don't be the original either."

– "I wish we were the black Von Trapps." (Gus on Rachael having more kids)

– "I don't want to be the black Von Trapps. I want to be I Am Legend, and that's the truth of the matter." (Gus, later)

– "Semantics." (Gus, a new twist on Shawn's "I've heard it both ways"

– "Chickens, son." (Gus)

– "Look at me, I seem like this great dad and whatnot. The truth is I abandoned my family. I'm a black stereotype." (Gus)

– "I smell something: battered. Fried. Sweet. SOPAPILLAS!" (Gus and Shawn after the Super Sniffer's positive ID)

– "I never say no to disco." (Henry at gunpoint)

– "Mexican Lassie. Way better than American Lassie, not unlike Coca-Cola."

– "I suppose you can also use them to carve animal flesh, especially if said animal is invading your home." (Lassie on his ninja throwing blades housewarming gift)

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Last Resort S01E01: "Captain"

"You've been warned." Seriously, I warned you. Last Resort is this television season's best pilot (definitely among the broadcast networks, and possibly among all of TV), a thrilling hour of television that accomplishes so much in so little time, has a complete beginning, middle, and end, and even answers the show's most nagging question: Where can it go in Episode 2 and—yikes!—beyond?

We've known most of the show's premise since it was announced over a year ago: The crew of an American nuclear submarine refuses orders to flatten Pakistan after deducing that the "official" command to fire is fishy, then someone under the guise of the U.S. military tries to put a hole in their hull, and that forces the sub to park on the shores of a tropical island... where the crew declares themselves the smallest nuclear nation in the world and aims to prove their innocence. And that about sums up the happenings in the pilot episode, "Captain." (P.S. Please, showrunners, will more of you name your pilots something other than "Pilot"? Thanks.) Yet even though we knew almost exactly what would happen, the episode exceeded the giant expectations we've been setting up all year because it boasted a level of competence that is rare in pilots these days.

You can thank creator Shawn Ryan for making a show with a fascinating concept and characters that spend equal time kicking ass and acting like real people. Ryan's sparkling resume includes the gritty The Shield and the cult hit Terriers, and his talent for compacting what matters most into an incredibly dense hour transformed a summer blockbuster into a breezy, tense program. This is no-bathroom-break television that might burst the bladders of those skipping commercials on DVR or torrents.

What struck me about the pilot was how much of the series was already in place after just 60 44 minutes. Most shows love to slowly paint concentric circles, moving outward as they open up their universe over the course of the season, but Last Resort threw the whole paint bucket at the wall. The pilot inspired confidence that there's a clear road map of what's going to happen next, instead of half-baked ideas that are made up as they go along (I'm probably getting ahead of myself, but like I said, it inspired confidence!). We know the sub crew will be front and center, as will their attempts to prove their innocence after defying questionable orders. But we've also already established the NATO crew, the natives on the island, a SEAL team, a weapons technology specialist back in Washington, D.C., a rear admiral in the Capitol, and whatever other political figures are pulling strings for their own gain. There's an impossible amount of stuff going on, but it's important to note the difference between a ton of story threads included fill time and a ton of story threads that are interesting. Last Resort is full of interesting.

There were a couple of plots that stood out to me in particular as having the potential to explode with intrigue and give the series the stamina it needs to fill an entire season. First, Captain Marcus Chaplin (the always awesome Andre Braugher) didn't exactly knock on the door of Sainte Marina, he kicked that shit in. That in turn upset the previous big shot of the island, a charismatic warlord named Julian (Broadway's Fela, Sahr Ngaujah) who is used to the simple tactic of barking the loudest to get his way. Julian and his men are going to represent the close danger—like unmasked Others—to Chaplin's crew, preventing them from turning Sainte Marina into a Sandals resort with a few tons of plutonium offshore. That's practically a show in of itself. And the other surprising plot that jumped out to me involved the man who stood up to Julian, James King (Aussie actor Daniel Lissing). As one of the SEAL team members who was plucked out of the ocean by the USS Colorado, King's the mixed-up man who knows a lot more about what's going on than most. The guy was in tears watching the destruction on TV, saying it was his fault, and his wounded buddy pretty much said they hit the wrong target. What botched secret mission were they on, and how is it connected to what happened in Pakistan? And how long before he gets freaky with Dichen Lachman's sexy native bartender Tani under a palm tree? Not-so-bold prediction: not long.

But what really drove the pilot and kept it afloat was Andre Braugher's performance as Chaplin, a man so commanding that he keeps any preposterous thoughts the audience might have at bay. I don't know about you, but if we were out of torpedoes and he told me to crawl into a torpedo tube, I would. There aren't many actors who could handle this role, but Braugher is perfect as Chaplin. Here's a man who practices defiance and patriotism, a character that both sides of the Congressional aisle can get behind. It's that dogma that's the heart and soul of the show. And just to prove that he's more than another blowhard submarine boss (I'm looking at you, Denzel!), he pulled that crazy stunt at the end of the episode. Facing death by bomber, he was prepared to back off and detonate the missile he launched on D.C., because he played a game of chicken and thought he lost. He didn't need the death of others to end up on his rap sheet. But what made him such a complex character was his decision to carry out his threat (mostly) once word of the bombers' retreat came across. This is a man practicing what he preaches. He told Sam Kendal (Scott Speedman) the genius of President Reagan's lunatic decisions decades ago: Image is everything, and if your enemies can predict your next move, they'll defeat you. And while we know he was doing it for show, there's a little spot in the back of our mind that says if he's willing to go that far that easily, could he go a little further? (Although I guess I have my doubts that a nuclear blast 200 miles offshore is completely harmless. Poor fishies.)

Having watched the pilot in advance on my computer, I can't say whether the special effects will pop as much in glorious HD on a big screen, but what I saw looked fantastic. Fact: Missiles flying out of the water (or into the water) look awesome, and while most or all of the submarine shots weren't real, I couldn't tell and most importantly I wasn't trying to differentiate between real and fake. I also loved the tilting camera angle as the sub pitched and yawed, and that the interior shots felt both claustrophobic and authentic. I would assume that moving forward we'll spend less time inside the sub, though, as it will be used more as a symbol of power than as a means to get around.

The biggest compliment any pilot can get is a burning desire to tune in for Episode 2, and that's what we have here with Last Resort. This is a cable show that somehow found its way to network television, and it'll have that uphill battle to climb (not to mention a difficult time slot against CBS comedies, The X Factor, and, well actually not NBC any more so never mind). Good television does not always translate to a successful run, but this one has a chance.

– One other thing I noticed, or should I say didn't notice, was the necessary exposition that typically drags down pilots. Details flowed in normal conversation because things were written in a way that weren't intrusive or insulting to our intelligence. And it didn't hurt that Autumn Reeser did some (s)exposition in her delicates. It may take a few rewinds to hear what she said, but it certainly didn't grind things to a halt.

– The character I was most worried about in the series was Grace Shepard (Daisy Betts), the pretty third-in-command on the sub with no experience who fills the requisite "C'mon, a bunch of dudes are going to take orders from a chick?" question. But having her kill a guy in the first episode certainly raised her beyond the expected stereotype. And to Betts' credit, she played nervous and awkward very well as her character roamed a sub full of people who didn't think she belonged there.

– I'm having problems figuring out the estimated location in which everything took place. From the maps on the NATO screens, it appears Sainte Marina is in the Indian Ocean. Does anyone else have a better estimate?

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Leverage S05E09 and S05E10: "The Rundown Job" and "The Frame Up Job"

See you November 27, Leverage! It's been a good summer, and I'll be sad to see you go.

For Leverage's big summer finale, TNT aired two episodes back-to-back. The first featured Hardison, Parker, and Eliot; the second focused on Nate and Sophie. Splitting up the characters worked really well. Team HPE was able to concentrate on the exciting elements of the show, while Team NS was able to focus on the humorous aspects. On one hand, this actually underlined the show's biggest weakness: It tries to do so much, and it has five VERY strong characters, but it has trouble squeezing all of its awesome into an hour-long episode every week. Maybe that doesn't sound like a problem, but it is because it means we sometimes go a few weeks without an Eliot smackdown, or Parker breaking into somewhere impossible, or a scene that makes us laugh at an immature volume. It's a balance issue, really. I'd love to see Leverage figure out how to fit all of its awesome into one episode... and then do that every week.

The first episode, the "Rundown Job," was about a terrorist attack. At first I was nervous because that's SO not typical Leverage material. The chances of it being a terrible episode were pretty high. But then we cut to Hardison, Parker and Eliot finishing up a con in Washington, D.C., and within the first five minutes I got to see Hardison do a cool tech thing, Parker gymnastic through some lasers, and Eliot beat someone up. Worry ELIMINATED! Plus the pacing was much faster than most Leverage episodes can handle, which made for an extremely exciting installment where the stakes were really high.

As they finished the job, Eliot received a phone call from someone he knew in the past who wanted to hire him to kill someone. He turned it down, but that meant the job was still getting done, so the crew scrambled to find and save the target from a sniper. After saving her (using a combination of aerosol cans and golf clubs) she told them she was in charge of 911 emergency services for D.C. To Eliot, that screamed that this attempted hit was part of a terrorist attack. Weaken the infrastructure so the city will be more vulnerable, right? So he talked to his old friend Colonel Lance. There had been other attacks that morning, all on similar types of people. The Colonel would be restrained by pesky laws and regulations, but the Leverage crew doesn't have to worry about that kind of stuff, so they began making moves. Lance helped them steal a fancy van to work out of. Poor Lucille, she stays at home only to have Hardison running around with a bigger, better van!

After some research, they found a forgotten lab that had been walled off in a basement. Awesome. I want to find an abandoned lab! Only I'll take mine without the Spanish Flu, thanks. Because that's what they found down there. After more digging they found that the people killed earlier in the day had all attended a conference where Dr. Everett Udall talked about bio-terrorism. Recently, Udall had been going more and more crazy. They found the pig farm where he had been breeding the Spanish Flu, which included a hella creepy shot of a ginormous pig pen full of dead pigs. Then they found Udall's house and Parker had to do acrobatics over Hardison to disarm a claymore bomb. Then Hardison rigged a car to use Morse Code to warn Lance and his team away from a decoy van before it exploded. It was all so thrilling!

Eventually Hardison was able to trace Udall's phone, which led them to a subway station. Parker climbed on top of the train, then as it sped along she got inside and worked her way toward Scalzi. Hardison and Eliot stole a car, raced to the next subway stop, and out-foxed the police chasing them for car theft.

DUN DUN DUN.

Hardison figured out that Udall must have vaccinated himself, since there were lots of eggs in his fridge, and that's apparently how that works? Parker squeezed people's arms until someone winced. Eliot smacked Udall, but the bomb was already armed so Parker took it outside and used her mini-blow torch to ignite it.

Whew!

Nate and Sophie's adventures in "The Frame Up Job" weren't quite as thrilling, but they were absolutely hilarious. With the others gone, Nate and Sophie were free to relax. Sophie got Nate a ticket to a film festival, then went off on "personal business." Knowing Sophie's personal business generally involves theft and expensive pieces of art, Nate followed her to an art auction. Good thing he was still able to match his tie to her dress.

An old man, Jonas Gault, had just died and his daughter was selling off all of his paintings. He had a massive collection of paintings by an artist named Mettier. One of them, Ma Mystere, had only ever been viewed by the artist and Gault. However, when Ma Mystere's vault was opened, it was missing. Since Sophie was the only known art thief (or ex-art thief, as she kept insisting) around, things didn't look good for her. And when Sterling showed up (YES!!), he assumed it must have been her. Which left Nate and Sophie to prove she didn't do it.

Such a good set-up, and they did such amazing things with it. Nate and Sophie were so good in this, I just loved their witty banter so much.

So Nate and Sophie searched the house and found that Gault's pills didn't add up. Which meant... murder! Again, YES! Stepping up from a robbery to a murder is almost always a recipe for amusement. They interviewed possible suspects: Gault's curator, daughter, ex-wife, lawyer, and semi-estranged son. They all had good motives, except (SEEMINGLY) for the son, who had been cut out of the will. Gault was considering putting him back on, but after he died that was no longer a possibility.

While searching, they accidentally found what looked like a Mettier painting in the manservant's room. Sterling was satisfied, but Sophie insisted that it couldn't be Ma Mystere. To prove it wasn't, they stole the presumed Ma Mystere, and also another Mettier painting that had just been sold. To distract Sterling, Nate pretended to have noticed something wrong with Sterling's case against the manservant, but wouldn't say what. It was so much fun to watch those two play hot and cold with where the missing (and non-existent) clue was.

Nate tested the paint on both paintings and discovered they were indeed mixed the same way. Nate proposed both were fakes. They told Sterling, who jokingly put it in front of the assembled guests. The curator, not knowing a joke when she heard one, ran away. They chased her, but found her dead in the pool. Now, the episode still had about fifteen minutes left on the clock, so I figured there had to be more to it than that. Sure enough, Nate went back to the safe... and Gault's son pulled a gun on him. WHAT?! The one person without a motive! So clever! He had been forging the paintings, then getting the curator to help him swap them out. When the old man realized what was happening, he had to be taken out of the picture (hur hur hur!).

Sophie helped Nate get away, but not without first doing some couple-y arguing. After Sterling took everyone away, they went back down to the vault and found Ma Mystere hidden in the wall. Sophie had known the first painting wasn't Ma Mystere because she had been the model for it. Aww. So the two decided to keep the priceless painting for themselves. THE END.

Questions:

– What do you think of Eliot's new hair?

– Which episode did you like better?

– Does anyone out there actually enjoy taking mid-season breaks from shows?

– Who's your favorite Leverage supporting character?

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One of the knocks against Showtime's Homeland, the best new show of last year, has been the question of sustainability. The series' premise—a decorated POW may or may not have been turned into a terrorist against his country—sounds like a fantastic logline for a miniseries, but for multiple seasons? How is that going to work?

Well the trailer below has shut this critic up with a moody minute-and-a-half of snippets from Season 2, all to the sounds of kids chanting The Police's "Every Breath You Take," which has no business working in this context except that it does! The dialogue-free trailer starts off slow, but by the end it's an accurate reminder of the paranoia, desperation, and tension that made Season 1 such a triumph.

Wow, could that have been pieced together any better? Things climb slowly with intrigue (why is Carrie going brunette? Why is Brody in the CIA's headquarters?), then get intense (why is Carrie in the Middle East? Who hasn't washed blood off of themselves at a gas station? Pill chugging!), then go full-blown insane (the Carrie cry-face! Brody flashbacks! More crying from EVERYONE!), all intercut with shots of surveillance before kicking us off the cliff with what the show is really about when Carrie *gulp* shows up at Brody's hotel room donning that remember-me-I'm-the-crazy-chick smile. Excuse me, I have to set my time machine dial for September 30. So, so good.

Homeland Season 2 premieres Sunday, September 30 at 10pm on Showtime.

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