Captain's Log
As if August wasn't slow enough, Comedy Central is making one of my favorite shows nearly impossible to watch
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, “The Gang Gets Ready for Prime Time” – Well, with Frank confirmed as the next Golden Bachelor, Dennis of course decides that the Gang needs to put their best foot forward for the inevitable “Hometown Visit,” so they hire a focus group to have some rehearsal dinners in front of to perfect the image they want to present to America. This plays on some familiar character notes– Dennis’ need to be seen as handsome and charming; Mac’s attempts at various tough-guy personae; Dee’s determination to try to be funny; Charlie not really understanding what the hell is going on– as well as the Gang’s familiar overall vanity and mistaken belief in themselves as a group of lovable misfits, but it plays them well, with some very funny sequences during the various dinners, particularly Dennis’ desperate control-freak tendencies and the attempts to seem youthful and vital coming off as creepy and possibly “a vampire” now that he’s pushing 50. Very good episode, with the actual Golden Bachelor appearance season finale waiting for us.
And Digman!… well, the streaming rights situation is godawful and I have no real way to access Comedy Central, and coverage of the show is so poor, that I couldn’t even confirm there was a new episode last week, let alone two, until yesterday. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep up with this show. “The Eligible Arky” features a Bachelor-style show put together by Quail Eegan (or, apparently, he used some of his billions to buy the network so he could host it), featuring Rip Digman himself as the Arky bachelor! Two of the women Arkys seem like strong candidates to win Rip’s love, but there’s a twist afoot… Anyway, without giving away more plot or jokes, I thought this one was really funny, mostly because Rip is such a goddamn mess of a person that no one on his team thinks this is a good idea, and he goes to show why they are right to think so. Featuring Stephanie Beatriz and Geraldine Viswanathan as the voices of the two main bachelorettes.
After that was “Freud’s Couch,” an expedition where Rip and crew go to find (see title). This involves infiltrating the Alpine Institute, the psychiatric institute built on top of the mountain that covers his old castle… you know, their version of Freud is a little bit different than what we were taught in school. (There may be a bit of Dr. Victor Frankenstein in him.) There, we meet Dr. Sandra Null (Kate Winslet!), whose name was apparently a setup for an incredible pun much later in the episode I’ll let you discover on your own. Anyway, some real fun adventure in this one, some lessons for Rip about actually listening to people (although he of course is such a narcissist he takes it the wrong way), and some really good jokes along the way, too. (The initial joke about Saltine’s “watch that can detect holes” killed me.)
Bob’s Burgers, “InsomniBob” – Bob’s insomnia leads him to start staying up late at night to try to perfect new recipes… and then he gets the idea in his head that his creative time is late at night with no distractions, and starts skipping sleep every night to work on his recipes… going crazy from sleep deprivation, talking to the chef on the cover of his book, that sort of thing. It’s a pretty fun episode, and if I remembered specific things I wanted to highlight, I would, but the Bob plot is the major thrust of the episode, as the rest of his family reacts to his newfound, uh, nuttiness.
The Great North is back with “Anchor Ham Adventure.” It’s Internship Week at Lone Moose, which takes a very Macbeth turn all around. The B-plot has Judy directing Moon’s survivalist group in a production of the play and getting frustrated with their unwillingness to rehearse. The more interesting (and funny) A-plot is Ham’s internship for the local weather broadcast; he’s assigned to the guy who, I guess, gets in a green suit and dances around to represent the weather on the green screen, or something like that. The guy is a jerk, though, and Ham’s ancestral ghost starts appearing to him to push him into scheming for his position… then for the weather anchor’s position… anyway, that was pretty fun. I think we still have a few episodes left, but according to Wikipedia, those won’t happen until September, which seems a little like a burnoff. I’ll make sure The Great North gets a featured-image space when this season ends, because we may not get another one. (And I was going to go with Bob’s this week for its season finale, but the image of Ham fighting Harry Hotfog in front of the green screen was much more fun to look at.)
Nothing but the usual Wednesday night stuff.
Well, my weekend was pretty busy, with a friend in town among other things. They’re not exactly “old,” but I did show him some recent episodes he hadn’t seen lately– namely, It’s Always Sunny‘s “Mac and Dennis Become EMTs” and King of the Hill‘s “Return of the King.” (Apparently he’s way behind on Sunny; Mac being out was news to him. So I suggested catching up at least on season 12.)
With as busy as I was over the weekend, we didn’t have much time at home, but we did fit a couple episodes of Detroiters and Royal Crackers in there over the last week. (Royal Crackers seems like it’s not getting a third season, sadly, although I can’t find any definite confirmation of that news.)
This appears to be the season 15 finale of Bob’s Burgers, though you won’t have to wait long for more, as season 16 premieres September 28.
Eh, we can wait a week before getting into the rest of the September premieres.
Tell us all what you’ve been watching.
About the writer
Captain Nath
Born on the bayou, thriving in the mountains. Writer, gambler, comedian, singer-songwriter, bon vivant, globetrotter, and all-around Renaissance Man with perfect opinions about TV and music. Pronounced with a long A and with the H.
It's a gaming ship.
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Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
M*A*S*H, Season Two, Episode Thirteen, “Deal Me Out”
“Radar, whatever it is, sign it, cancel it, or order five more.”
“Will Captains Pierce and McIntyre please return to the conference? They need your money.”
“Everybody freeze.”
“What’s wrong?”
“One of the sandwiches just moved.”
This is a very loosely structured episode with a very clear premise, with Sydney making his first return (and debut as Sydney as opposed to Milton, although Klinger recognises him) in an episode where a bunch of characters play poker while things happen around them. Colonel Flagg also returns, though he hasn’t descended into complete madness yet, joining the poker game and quipping off Frank.
I really wish that Pat Morita as Capt. Pak stayed around longer (even if, as usual, they didn’t cast a Korean to play a Korean). I liked both the rare acknowledgement that there were Koreans fighting the Korean War, and Morita’s strong comic timing in the role.
In a lot of ways, it’s disappointing because you can see how Pak’s lines are fairly generic quips by this show’s standards and he’s so easily making them not only funny but his own – his gentle delivery and warmth. You could easily picture him going through a moral dilemma like any of the other doctors and being compelling as hell.
The X-Files, “The Blessing Way” and “Paper Clip”
This two-part opener can’t be as strong as “Anasazi”–the S2 finale had dramatic revelations that opened up major possibilities; the start of S3 has to focus on making sure those don’t go anywhere so the series can get back to its status quo–but these episodes have some magnificent bits, especially when it comes to sharply observed moments where characters make choices that highlight their priorities.
There’s also a surprising amount of humor that comes just from line deliveries that are more chipper than you’d expect. The Cigarette-Smoking Man gets several of these, with William B. Davis beautifully playing his increasingly more manic desperation and paranoia as he’s pushed into a corner and has to keep bluffing to try to get out of it: now that we’ve seen more of him, Davis is leaning into the slight sweatiness and fear that comes of his character knowing who he’s working for, and it’s great. The Well-Manicured Man–or, as I was calling him for most of these episodes, Fake Robert Mitchum or Robert Bitchum–also gets introduced and is instantly memorable: genteel, inscrutable, and dangerous. He gets one of my favorite exchanges when he warns Scully that people are starting to feel threatened by this investigation:
“Threatened enough to murder?”
“Oh, my, yes.”
Krycek also gets to deliver the perfect threat when he’s on the phone with the Cigarette-Smoking Man, post-car bomb: “I’m gonna make you a very, very famous man.”
There’s some clumsy voiceover here from Albert Hosteen–I don’t buy that he’d keep calling Mulder “the FBI man” when he knows his name; that feels like a cheap Othering of his narration–but Floyd Westerman’s performance is strong, and I do love the reveal in “Paper Clip” that Hosteen has spread the computer file’s knowledge out among the other Navajo, protecting via oral tradition what the conspiracy hopes to erase via technology. It’s cool. Also, we’ve now hit Tristan’s meme about the rules for going into a weekend, and I approve.
I actually got pretty emotional about seeing Deep Throat again, and I love him painting the show’s afterlife as containing all the truth there is but no ability to act on it: it resonates, and I completely buy that it would help drive Mulder back to the land of the living. Also, you can tell Jerry Hardin is a better actor than Peter Donat, because Hardin can make these astral-plane, crafted-for-profundity lines work and feel genuine and moving, and Donat sounds awkward as hell. Miss you, Deep Throat.
Conor brought up recognition, and how the Cigarette-Smoking Man had it, and that made me think about how Klemper absolutely does not recognize himself: he is, in-universe, not only a Nazi but specifically one grotesquely destructive enough to rank alongside Mengele, and instead of understanding that he’s gotten the most unjustifiable sweetheart deal imaginable, living safely into his old age with a cushy American retirement scheme and a kickass greenhouse, he’s complaining about history only remembering him as a monster.
The endless mine o’ files is the kind of image the show does so well, exaggerating bureaucracy into horror by making it secret and invasively comprehensive. Another bit of good horror is the microchip in Scully’s neck, and I love that she only finds out about it because being on leave forces her to go through the metal detectors: a great bit of one plot assisting another. I’d love to know the order in which the writers came up with those ideas.
Great choices: Skinner getting the tape but wanting to trade it for Mulder and Scully’s lives and careers (even after they both hold him at gunpoint sans apology, so Skinner is perhaps the best boss to ever live, purely and pragmatically devoted to protecting his two wayward agents). Scully agreeing to it, but making her agreement conditional on Mulder’s acceptance. Mulder wavering but doing it for Scully and her sister. Mulder’s mother revealing that she couldn’t choose between her children, but William Mulder could, and she’s never forgotten it: “Even in his grave, I hate him still.”
If I were involved in a top-secret government conspiracy, I would simply not take a cool group photo with my fellow conspirators. RIP to these guys, but I’m different.
One thing William B Davis gets about CSM that makes him so compelling is that he knows, fully, how weak and pathetic he really is, not just in reality but in his own emotional assessment of himself. He hates himself (and his own weakness and fear) and he takes that hatred out on the world. CSM is interesting in the annals of Cool Evil Villains (alongside Hans Gruber and Sideshow Bob) because his recognition, paradoxically, makes his constant flopsweat and oily villainy cool. There’s a part of Mulder that could be attracted to giving up all his morals and becoming CSM, purely to beat down on the world.
There’s a good balance in the plotting of CSM being always in control and very much not, he has “a little bit of power” but that only goes so far, as we see in his bluffing during the call with Krycek.
Live Music – my general rule-of-thumb is that if an Australian band comes over to the UK to play tiny venues, they’re probably going to be worth seeing. This has generally paid off, if you’re going to travel around the world and probably lose money doing it, you’re most likely going to be doing it for the love of it and put on a great show. Last night’s band (Dippers) stretched that a little, I enjoyed their set well enough but it was the kind of laid-back, messy slacker-pop that I can get on board with in local bands but it felt a bit odd to see an international touring band doing it? Not sure if that makes sense, I’m glad I went along and the local supports were good fun too but I guess I’m surprised that a band with such an “is this finished?” approach to songwriting would have the motivation to tour the other side of the world. I dunno, odd one.
Woo, live music?
Woooooo live laid-back Aussies!!
Curb Your Enthusiasm, S9E6 – Rewatch of a great episode wherein Larry pisses off both of Richard and Marty Funkhauser’s new girlfriends. Elizabeth Perkins especially is almost terrifying. “Do you…like…my water?” (Marty exploding “It tastes like I put a straw up a frog’s ass” is the biggest laugh.) I find unlike a lot of sitcoms that I analyze Curb in terms of “is Larry right/what would I do here,” and (1) the stabbing bit is funny, I agree with Larry that you do want to make a stabby motion when you have a steak knife in hand and (2) Larry is correct to speak for the group re: the water – sometimes modulating everything you say is bad, and you shouldn’t drink shitty tap water! He might be rude but he is correct. Just masterful plotting too, Ed Begley Jr. saying “It’s a comedy emergency” ties it all together here.
Four episodes into the six-part first season of Slow Horses. As you know, Captain, this is about a bunch of MI5 agents who’ve screwed up in some way and are exiled to do busy work under the supervision of a flatulent and grumpy Gary Oldman, burnt out but hardly a screw up. There is a plot involving the “Sons of Albion,” who have kidnapped a South Asian Moslem (and native of the UK) and are threatening to kill him live on YouTube, and for reasons our pack of losers is involved. I am enjoying the show so far – it’s stylish, propulsive, twisty, and well acted – but I can’t say it makes much sense. Why is there a Slough House? What exactly are they doing there? There is some sense of “wheels within wheels” in a LeCarre fashion, but at the moment, I am more puzzled about things than excited. That said, I also like that there is also a LeCarre sort of cynicism about MI5 in the 21st century, where the best way anyone can come up with to deal with white nationalism is a false flag operation. We’re rooting for the losers because an innocent man’s life is at stake, and maybe because we suspect they aren’t such losers (and ok, the main character is in fact really competent but was screwed by a coworker). But we are never rooting for MI5 even if we aren’t rooting for the bad guys, either.
Howerton needs at least an Emmy nomination for his monologue, it is peak Dennis with how pathetic, bizarre, and terrifying he comes off. (His face being pushed back gave him Dafoe vibes.)
Howerton’s ability to deliver Dennis’s dialogue when it’s at its most bizarrely heightened and baroque is worth an Emmy all by itself.
I think we’re all agreed that Glen Howerton should have all the acting awards – but while his creepy monologue was excellent, I will be throwing my awards nomination weight behind hair and makeup. Artemis was unrecognisable!
At some point I will catch up on Always Sunny.
I’ve also been catching up on Always Sunny, and “The Gang Gets Ready for Prime Time” has already proven to be sublimely quotable. I’ve also heard multiple uses of “speak of the devil” since this aired, and I keep thinking of the test audiences downvoting that. (Love how you can see Mac make a face the first time Dennis uses the expression.)
“I love when the vampire slayer busted out the crucifix on his old vampire boyfriend.”
“Perhaps a flip to lighten the mood?”
Might have to watch it again just for Charlie’s face reveal.
Year of the Month update!
This September, we’re covering these movies, albums, books, from 1938!
TBD: Cori Domschot: Bringing Up Baby
TBD: Bridgett Taylor: Rebecca
Sept. 22nd: Sam Scott: Holiday
And there’s still time to sign up for 1959 this month. Check out all these movies, albums, books, et al
TBD: Bridgett Taylor: Pillow Talk/Some Like It Hot
Aug. 22nd: Gillian Nelson: Khrushchev Goes to Disneyland
Aug. 27th: Lauren James: The Hound of the Baskervilles
Aug. 28th: Cliffy73: Sleeping Beauty
Aug. 29th: Gillian Nelson: The Monorail
Aug. 31st: Tristan J. Nankervis: North by Northwest