Parks and Rec and The Good Wife
Mar. 1st, 2014 08:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessParks and Rec 3.5 Media Blitz
The Parks and Rec Department appearing on all Pawnee’s media to promote the Harvest Festival? What could possibly go wrong? Ben. Very wrong. Heh.
The whole Ann/Chris thing was by far the weakest strand (just ask him outright, Ann!) while everything else had very funny moments – probably the complete meltdown on the TV show was the best, but also how Ron weaved into April and Andy’s lovelife (BOOM!) and that was Leslie admitting to a journo with a tape recorder that she’s attracted to Ben, although her flustering was a mere nothing compared with all of his.
3.6 Indianapolis
Laughed less (maybe there’s been an odd number/even number switch although I always thought I laughed more at the second episode in the double-bill with the first two seasons because the first episode had worked as a warm-up act. That seemed logical, regardless of the quality of the episode), but Ron’s love of steaks was a thing of beauty – and that first picture prompted thoughts of how impossible the idea of Ron Swanson as a child sans moustache is. Plus I always had my doubts that Chris would provide anything close to a satisfactory steak.
I nodded at Leslie probably being willing to commit murder for Ann, and have been pondering that ever since. I mean, sitcom rules and all.
But although the challenge and their getaway was funny, I was back to being reminded that Andy is a little useless at life now that he and April are together, so his thickness and qualities are back to being less charming.
The Good Wife 5.5
Brilliant. All that build-up and here SUCH pay-off (but I want more; I wished this was a double-bill even though it left me verklempt). The opening sequence – we went to break after the title card came up IIRC - was flawless. Josh Charles’s performance was amazing.) Watching Will’s heart break and anger rise as he took it personally, of course, was riveting stuff. Ditto the Cary-Diane scene.
I cannot go through every second and expound on how brilliant it was, but the amount that I laughed at the moment where Will reverted to decent human being and passed on Grace’s message to Alicia via her purloined phone shows just how tense it was.
Just...we end on Will and Alicia pretty much declaring WAR by way of their companies. And how fired up she was – have we ever seen her quite that fired up in court? – and on the ball (none of the other associates came close – no, you aren’t getting any bonuses - and Cary made a lot of missteps, although I think he’ll learn, and Alicia knows they make bad decisions without her. But she’ll drive them into making good ones is the way she’s feeling now.) Plus there’s Peter, in full-on protective mode (ethical schmethical, and in situations like this, I don’t think Alicia cares) (poor Eli), backing her up, loving how awesome she is right now. Then there’s Will, who has moved on from being punchy (professionally, yes, he was in commando mode, but he was definitely punchy around Peter) but has massive trust issues – for what it’s worth, I think he can mostly trust Kalinda, but he really needs Diane on side. Until Peter’s decision, I thought it was up to her to refuse the judgeship and not leave Will with David Lee (what joy at firing everyone) and Howard – because Kalinda is a huge asset, but she can’t argue cases etc. But Peter got mad and punished the wrong person, thus shoring up Lockhart & Gardner if it goes how I’d expect. Although it might not.
And I flat out loved that one of the resentments that came out, beyond the mass promotion that wasn’t, was that the partners did come swooping in to get the glory after their juniors had done most of the hard work of keeping the clients happy. It was so valid. As shown in the snippets of the case that we never got the full story of (but given that we discovered that Ms Stability, heh, was a PR person, we might) Alicia was the one who’d built the relationship with the client, and it’s partly because it’s in her nature and she’s the main character, but she nearly always is the one with the connection with the client, when she’s worked with Will and Diane.
But every breathless second, pretty much, was riveting and involving. Things intertwined and paid off and paid off and set things off and everything really has changed.
The Parks and Rec Department appearing on all Pawnee’s media to promote the Harvest Festival? What could possibly go wrong? Ben. Very wrong. Heh.
The whole Ann/Chris thing was by far the weakest strand (just ask him outright, Ann!) while everything else had very funny moments – probably the complete meltdown on the TV show was the best, but also how Ron weaved into April and Andy’s lovelife (BOOM!) and that was Leslie admitting to a journo with a tape recorder that she’s attracted to Ben, although her flustering was a mere nothing compared with all of his.
3.6 Indianapolis
Laughed less (maybe there’s been an odd number/even number switch although I always thought I laughed more at the second episode in the double-bill with the first two seasons because the first episode had worked as a warm-up act. That seemed logical, regardless of the quality of the episode), but Ron’s love of steaks was a thing of beauty – and that first picture prompted thoughts of how impossible the idea of Ron Swanson as a child sans moustache is. Plus I always had my doubts that Chris would provide anything close to a satisfactory steak.
I nodded at Leslie probably being willing to commit murder for Ann, and have been pondering that ever since. I mean, sitcom rules and all.
But although the challenge and their getaway was funny, I was back to being reminded that Andy is a little useless at life now that he and April are together, so his thickness and qualities are back to being less charming.
The Good Wife 5.5
Brilliant. All that build-up and here SUCH pay-off (but I want more; I wished this was a double-bill even though it left me verklempt). The opening sequence – we went to break after the title card came up IIRC - was flawless. Josh Charles’s performance was amazing.) Watching Will’s heart break and anger rise as he took it personally, of course, was riveting stuff. Ditto the Cary-Diane scene.
I cannot go through every second and expound on how brilliant it was, but the amount that I laughed at the moment where Will reverted to decent human being and passed on Grace’s message to Alicia via her purloined phone shows just how tense it was.
Just...we end on Will and Alicia pretty much declaring WAR by way of their companies. And how fired up she was – have we ever seen her quite that fired up in court? – and on the ball (none of the other associates came close – no, you aren’t getting any bonuses - and Cary made a lot of missteps, although I think he’ll learn, and Alicia knows they make bad decisions without her. But she’ll drive them into making good ones is the way she’s feeling now.) Plus there’s Peter, in full-on protective mode (ethical schmethical, and in situations like this, I don’t think Alicia cares) (poor Eli), backing her up, loving how awesome she is right now. Then there’s Will, who has moved on from being punchy (professionally, yes, he was in commando mode, but he was definitely punchy around Peter) but has massive trust issues – for what it’s worth, I think he can mostly trust Kalinda, but he really needs Diane on side. Until Peter’s decision, I thought it was up to her to refuse the judgeship and not leave Will with David Lee (what joy at firing everyone) and Howard – because Kalinda is a huge asset, but she can’t argue cases etc. But Peter got mad and punished the wrong person, thus shoring up Lockhart & Gardner if it goes how I’d expect. Although it might not.
And I flat out loved that one of the resentments that came out, beyond the mass promotion that wasn’t, was that the partners did come swooping in to get the glory after their juniors had done most of the hard work of keeping the clients happy. It was so valid. As shown in the snippets of the case that we never got the full story of (but given that we discovered that Ms Stability, heh, was a PR person, we might) Alicia was the one who’d built the relationship with the client, and it’s partly because it’s in her nature and she’s the main character, but she nearly always is the one with the connection with the client, when she’s worked with Will and Diane.
But every breathless second, pretty much, was riveting and involving. Things intertwined and paid off and paid off and set things off and everything really has changed.
