Modern Family- The Odd Couple

Manny Delgado- "Oh no, who will pee all over the floor?"

Luke Dunphy- "I was brushing my teeth at the same time...you try and do that."

Is it really worth continuing to read blogs and listen to podcasts by Alan Sepinwall and Dan Fienberg if they continue to think that Parks and Recreation has had a better season than Modern Family? I love "Sep", as I call him on the streets, for his deconstruction of serialized dramas, and I'm starting to love Fienberg's Idol reviews, but these two obviously need some help on what is funny.

Don't get me wrong, Parks is having a much better second season and has taken a step ahead of 30 Rock for me, but to even compare it to Modern Family, and Community for that matter, is pretty ridiculous. The best comedy on television right now? Come on Sep! I guess you're asking for a lot from somebody who thinks Ron Swanson is the funniest character on tv even though he's not even in the top five funniest on his own show.

First post in which I talk about a completely different show for the first two paragraphs. This is a Modern Family post correct? Yes, it is. Last night's Hawaii episode was fantastic. Better than Come Fly With Me or Moon Landing? Probably not, but still one of the best of what has already been a fantastic first season.

What makes Modern Fam so good is the plethora of characters that bring it week in and week out. All three heads of each sub-family would be an unbelievable lead on another show. This ep we got Cam, Phil and Jay all tearing it up in their own special way.

Cam, as the big, obnoxious drama queen, had me cracking up as he ran down the hotel stairs screaming, "seal off the island!!" Phil, in all of his cluelessness, manages to throw in awkward one-liners no matter the situation. After he throws Haley's cell phone into the pool, "It's just the beginning. Buckle your seatbelt lady, you're being woo'ed." And then there's Jay, with that condescending nature of his killed me as he picked up his phone with, "What's up jackass?"

A couple of things made this episode stand out for me. The first was that even some of the characters that don't really do it for me managed to sneak in a few classic lines. Alex's pure younger sister hatred for Haley was hilariously epitomized by, "You're not going to like this as much as I do, but she's drunk." And Mitchell, who is the only one on the show that I could ever say I haven't enjoyed, was awesome inside the banana trees as he proclaimed Lilly is "gonna think she's back in Vietnam."

Hands down, the best part of the episode was the prominence of my new favorite dynamic...Manny and Luke. These two are so perfectly opposite. They are roughly the same age, what 10? Manny acts like he's 60 and Luke acts like he's five. Their contrasting personalities made for some of my favorite moments of the season in the Hawaii hotel room.

As they start settling in, which in this case means Manny folding and ironing and Luke dumping his stuff on the bed, Manny comes up with a plan to meet some young ladies,

"I noticed some lovely tweens down by the kids' club. Maybe we can find a nice spot by them near the pool and send over a couple virgin mai tais. They may be interested in two sophisticated men like us."

And right on cue Luke, in all his glory, emerges from the bathroom with his shirt off, shower cap on, using the hair dryer as a gun claiming,

"I am a bathroom martian. Beep. Boop. Boop. I am from the nebula of the great toilet. Beep. Boop. Beep. Boop. Bop."

And this episode ended on an awesome note (I really wish this had been the season finale) with Phil and Claire re-marrying to the tunes of a reggae version of Eye of the Tiger. I've always liked the heartfelt endings on Modern Fam, and this one didn't have the famous ending voice over that some have felt had to much cheese for their liking.

Fantasy Idol Results- Keep 'Em Guessing

Couple things from last night's results show...

Fantasia has the whiniest, awful voice I've heard in a long time. Her performance last night wasn't quite as bad as her highly touted Summertime, but it was still pretty terrible. How did she wins this thing again?

Idol keeps coming up with new ways to keep me guessing. When they made Casey safe first, I thought 'why on Earth would you take all the surprise out of it?' Then I started thinking that the only reason to leave Crystal or Lee as one of the final two was if they were the one going home. So when it did end up being Big Mike getting eliminated I was a tiny bit shocked.

I guess my reverse jinx of saying Crystal was going home the entire episode worked.

Big Mike's farewell performance was one of his best. Although it didn't work last night, this I'm leaving tonight, goodbye everybody performance was pretty good. In this capacity his extra cheese factor worked and I'm glad to see him go out on a high note.

Fantasy Scores

The Rock Bodega
Casey James- Safe (67)= 67
Janell Wheeler
Tim Urban
Lee DeWyze- Safe (67)= 67
Week 12= 134 Total= 617

Splash Downs All Around
Todrick Hall
Crystal Bowersox- Safe (67)= 67
Tyler Grady
Michelle Delamor
Week 12= 67 Total= 290

Diabolical Haters
Didi Benami
Lilly Scott
Lacey Brown
Michael Lynche- Eliminated (-24)= -24
Week 12= -24 Total= 159

You're Coming With Me Leather
Andrew Garcia
Paige Miles
Aaron Kelly
John Park
Total= 150

The Curlgar
Ashley Rodriguez
Joe Muñoz
Haley Vaughn
Siobhan Magnus
Total= 92

HashTag Katie Stevens Is Only 16
Katie Stevens
Jermaine Sellers
Katelyn Epperly
Alex Lambert
Total= 19

Lost- I Wanna Go Home

Mother- "A little bit of this very same light is inside of every man, but they always want more."

Jacob- "Can they take it?"

Mother- "No, but they'll try. And if they try, they could put it out. If the light goes out here, it goes out everywhere."

I've watched Across the Sea twice already, have four pages of notes, and had two long gchat convos, but I think I'm just gonna start wingin' it here. According to Jaydon some people didn't like this episode and in his words, "that's poppycock."  The only thing I can say to that is, what are you nuts? This episode in and of itself was pure entertainment. As it pertained to the five and half seasons we've watched before, it was magical. The slight problem with it was how it may have fit with the series pacing. A lot of mythological background was shoved into one episode. I might have liked to have seen this play out through three or four episodes throughout seasons five and six. Having said that, all of the mythology involving Jacob, the Man In Black and their mother is merely background to showcase the characters (Jack, Sawyer, Hurley) that we've grown to love over the years.

How good were all four of these actors during this 45 minutes. I was captivated the entire time. As Jaydon remarked to me, "The casting of the kids was on point. Were they the children of the actors?" Not only did they resemble the Jacob and Man In Black that we know, but they managed to make me love the both of them. Why would the Lost people want me to feel so sympathetic for the Boy In Black at this point? They've spent the entire season gearing up to last episode where we have grown to hate him for killing all of our favorite characters, and being basically pure evil. Now they come up with this back story episode and I fall completely in love the original Man In Black.

Before his twin brother* shoved him down into the warmest and brightest light you'll ever see, the Boy In Black was just a normal kid who wanted to go to his real home. Sure he had a few anger issues, but rightfully so once he found out that his adopted mother killed his birth mother seconds after being born. All he wanted to do was go home, and once his fake mother knocked him unconscious, filled up the donkey wheel well, and killed all of his people, I have no problem with him mirking her.

*my reaction when the pregnant lady washed up on the beach, "Twins! I knew it!"

Both twins had good and evil in them. Jacob pummeled the Boy in Black to a pulp early on and then did it again once he saw that his brother killed their pseudo mother. The future protector of the light was so angry that he threw MIB down the light hole and turned him into the smoke monster (something he knew was much worse than death). Which one of these brothers was the evil one before that event? They both had their moments of weakness, but you could make a case for either one. Now there's almost a part of me that is rooting for UnLocke so that he could somehow turn back into his normal self and return home. I don't know if that's a good thing.

The fact of the matter is that this episode may have brought up more questions than answers for some people. Not me. I'm accepting all of this stuff at face value. The twins' fake mom has a huge amount of power as the protector of the Island? She can make rules like Jacob and MIB can't kill each other...MIB can't leave the Island? Yes. That is what it is. Whether she is some type of god or supernatural being, I'm fine with it. Let's use that information to form the rest of the story with our characters.

The same thing goes for the all powerful light. It has some serious magic. It is "life, death, rebirth...It's the source, the heart of the Island." It's all that is good (and normal) about the world as we know it. As opposed to the Smoke Monster you become from trying to go down into it (which is evil, eternal life of smoke and deception). It is very spiritual and very magical and I'm accepting it for what it is. I don't need any more explanation. Let's just see how it affects Jack, Sawyer, Hurley and the rest of our friends as they learn about the light in the hours to come.

Some Other Thoughts

-MIB can see dead people. Jacob can't. Or is the dead mother just a manifestation from a previous Smokey? Is there any connection in this to the fact that Hugo can see dead people?

-MIB will never be able to leave the Island. Is this just one of the mom's rules we need to accept? When did the rule become Smokey has to kill Jacob/candidates in order to leave? Because before he turned into Smokey he seemed to have figured out that turning the donkey wheel was a way to leave the Island (which we saw happen with Locke and Ben earlier in the series).

-Love that the baby, the kid, and the adult versions of Jacob and MIB all wear white and black, respectively.

-Mom, "Jacob doesn't know how to lie. He's not like you." Isn't lying bad? So that would make MIB bad right? Or is lying smart? And Jacob is just a dumb trustworthy guy who follows his mothers orders? MIB's intelligence was what made him the SPECIAL one?

-If Jack is the incumbent candidate to take the role of protector, who is going to feed him the wine and show him the light? Case the Base seems to think Hugo will be put through the paces by Jacob and I like that idea.

-I guess MIB was talking about his fake mother when he told Kate that he had a crazy mother too. That whole conversation seems much easier to sympathize with now that we've seen this episode. Maybe things would've been different...

UnLocke: "Because... my mother was crazy. Long time ago, before I... looked like this... I had a mother, just like everyone. She was a very disturbed woman. And, as a result of that, I had some growing pains. Problems that I'm still trying to work my way through. Problems that could have been avoided had things been different."

-And we got an unbelievable flashback to the sixth episode of the entire series! "Our very own Adam and Eve" It's awesome that they found a way to work that broad theming into a specific event having to do with mythology that we all know they hadn't even thought of yet.

-Jacob- "You wanted it to be him, but now I'm all you have." I really felt for him here.
-Mom- "It was always supposed to be you Jacob."  Why don't I believe her?

What did you think?

American Idol- Let's Duet

Ellen DeGeneres- "One of the classic, great movies of all time...Free Willy."

Yeah of course Idol was bad again last night. Was there a great performance in there? Yes. Crystal and Lee's Falling Slowly was fantastic. They paced the duet perfectly and their voices meshed together so well. In fact Casey and Mike's When a Man Loves a Woman wasn't half bad either. It was almost as if the contestants saw how terrible the duets were last year and decided to make a statement this season.

The downside of that is that it seems like the four finalists put no effort into their individual songs. Crystal moved back into first by default this week. Because everyone else was so bad, her so-so performance of Caddyshack's I'm Alright stood out as the one to beat.

I guess I'm stuck with Lee being the second best this week. I got excited real early when he didn't try to go falsetto in his Kiss From a Rose, but then in the second line he went to the falsetto and almost knocked my eardrums out. Brutal.

I'll now attempt not to make any comparisons between Big Mike and the whale named Willy that he was singing for. What a terrible Idol song. There are no lyrics to it. It's all "yeahs" and "ooohs." You can't grab a hold of anything in this, even though he should good vocals again.

And Casey James should now leave the stage. Quote from JJ on Casey's Mrs. Robinson, "Is he even trying?" Quote from Pops, "Is he drunk?" Two very good questions. This was a terribly uninspired performance full of top shelf vibrato.

Performance Rankings

1. Crystal and Lee
2. Crystal Bowersox
3. Casey and Mike
4. Lee DeWyze
5. Mike Lynche
6. Casey James

Lost- Becoming Jacob

There are only four and a half hours of new Lost left to air. In last week's post I went on and on about how Jack was becoming the new Jacob, but would they really be this obvious about something? Lost has made a habit out of making you think one thing and then going another way with it. Of course I personally still think that Jack is destined to become the new Jacob and rule the Island for another eternity, but there are plenty of other scenarios I can see coming in the near future.

Jack Becomes Jacob
I've been saying for a while that his new laissez faire attitude, and transition to the man of faith, has seemed very Jacob-esque. He wants to be on this Island because he knows it has a greater purpose for him. That being said, it is a bit of an obvious choice, right down to the point where Sayid flat out says, "it's going to be you Jack." Now sure there are only four episodes left, and maybe finding out who the new Jacob will be is not something to be saved for the final episode, but it still seems a little too perfect.
Odds: 2-1

Ben Becomes Jacob
So a theory that I think came from the mind of Doc Jensen is that Ben is destined to become the new Jacob. The point here is that Jacob has made up all of the candidates to fool everyone, including the Man In Black, to not worry about Benjamin Linus. This way he has an easy path to taking the throne. Jacob wasn't really testing all of the people on the Island by bringing them there, he was testing Ben. And although Ben did some bad things, he has also been heroic and good. His decision to go with Ilana instead of Smokey might have been the turn of the corner.
Odds: 5-1

Desmond Becomes Jacob
Now we all know that Desmond is special. He flashes the future, he can withstand electromagnetic energy, and now it seems he may have the ability to go back and forth between two parallel universes. Is he special enough to become the new Jacob? Maybe. The Man In Black did order Sayid to kill him after all. Many people are saying that the two universes will end in somebody or many people sacrificing one world for another. Now since Desmond is really the only one who has a better Island life (married to Penny, beautiful baby Charlie), what if he has to sacrifice that life by becoming the new Jacob in order to allow everyone else live happily ever after in the sideways world?
Odds: 6-1

Locke Becomes Jacob
Although he is dead in the Island universe, Locke is very much alive in the sideways world. When Jack told him that he was a "candidate" for spinal surgery, don't tell me you didn't have a few strange thoughts about that? In some sort of universe convergence theory, what if Locke was able to cross over to the Island world to become the new ruler? Highly unlikely, but if anybody deserved a chance to take charge over this magical place, it's John Locke.
Odds: 10-1

Nobody Becomes Jacob
There are too many scenarios to play out, in which nobody comes to take Jacob's place. Does the Island blow up? Does it disappear? Does the Man In Black die and therefore the Island needs no more protection? Did it never need protecting in the first place, hence he needs no replacement? A lot of different ways this could go, but it seems like one of these outcomes could be the most likely.
Odds: 3-1

Jacob Becomes Jacob
You know that little "Peter Pan" boy we met in the jungle back in The Substitute? And then saw in Everybody Loves Hugo, looking quite a bit older? This sure as heck should be Jacob right? He first tells Smokey that he can't kill Sawyer because he "knows the rules." This is very Jacob-esque. The theory here is that after Jacob died either he or a reincarnate of him is back to life on the Island and aging rapidly before our eyes. The Man In Black now has to kill all of the qualified candidates before Jacob returns to normal age, and then is allowed to take back his spot as ruler of the Island.
Odds: 8-1

Me and JJ were talking about the fact that at the end of the day a fantastic finish to the series would be if the final scene was two people sitting on the beach having the exact conversation Jacob and the Man In Black had at the beginning of the season five finale. Whether that is Jack and Locke, Jack and Sayid, Desmond and Ben, the new deities of good and evil discussing what continues to occur on this Island would be fantastic.

Man In Black: "They come. They fight. They destroy. They corrupt. It always ends the same."
Jacob: "It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress."

Survivor Weeks 12 & 13- You're Next

Russell Hantz- "Now you're next. It's not me doing it, but you're next."

If Russell fails to get immunity next week, he has to go right? How can he continue to come at people with these baseless claims and not pay for it. Jerri is questioning why all of the sudden it's Danielle that is getting voted out and he snaps at her, "you're next." He then defends it by saying that he's not the one making that decision. What? If I'm Jerri I say, "Russ you just made that up that I was next because you got mad that I questioned you. I think you should be next, Mr."

As we go back to the start of what was a jam packed double elimination night, we got to witness an abridged endurance challenge in which the girls got to show off the natural look of their under arms. Thank you for that Survivor. The question of this challenge was how could Russell and Sandra give up after one minute?!? I don't care what the situation is, I'm never feeling safe enough to give up that easily. And for a prize they hadn't even seen yet? Just silly.

Parvati won the challenge and we then got hit with a surprise. What was that surprise? Another friggin' hidden idol clue. Really? Another hidden idol. So there's at least one per elimination at this point. There have been so many at this point that the effect has become really watered down. Come up with some new ideas please!

Sandra finds the idol, Rupert fakes like he has the idol and Candice is the one who is sent home. Very graceful exit by her. She got beat for leaving her Heroes last week, and she knew it.

Second immunity challenge was a great one. Three competitions in one to widdle the group down to a winner. Impressed by Russell's ability to win when he needs to. The self-proclaimed King of Survivor then works his magic again by getting Danielle booted.

He finally realized that Danielle was Parvati's go to girl, not him. He needed to split them up. The surprising part of this whole thing was that Danielle couldn't understand why he was doing this. "Why aren't we getting ride of Rupert and Colby?" Hello that thinking is so prosaic. It could be a great move to get rid of your own alliance at this point so that you don't have to fight with them at the end. And lucky for Danielle, she gets to go to Ponderosa and shave off her mustache that was getting very Tom Selleck-esque at this point.

Fantasy Results

Punch Face Champions

Russell (Villains)- W12 (67), W13 (79), Immunity (20)= 166
Danielle (Villains)- W12 (67), Votes (-16)= 51
Sandra (Villains)- W12 (67), W13 (79), Idol found (10)= 156
JT (Heroes)
Tom (Heroes)
Weeks 12 & 13= 373 Total= 1,408

Redwood Original

Boston Rob (Villains)
Parvati (Villains)- W12 (67), W13 (79), Immunity (20)= 166
Colby (Heroes)- W12 (67), W13 (79)= 146
Sugar (Heroes)
Candice (Heroes)- Votes (-20)= -20
Week 12 & 13= 292 Total= 1,196

DJ Roomba

Tyson (Villains)
Randy (Villains)
Jerri (Villains)- W12 (67), W13 (79)= 146
Rupert (Heroes)- W12 (67), W13 (79), Votes (-24)= 122
Amanda (Heroes)
Week 12 & 13= 268 Total= 1,041

Kick Puncher III

Coach (Villains)
Courtney (Villains)
James (Heroes)
Stephenie (Heroes)
Cirie (Heroes)
Total= 164

Fantasy Idol Results- Road to the Final Four

Just some score updates.

Fantasy Scores

The Rock Bodega
Casey James- Safe (56)= 56
Janell Wheeler
Tim Urban
Lee DeWyze- Safe (56)= 56
Week 11= 112 Total= 483

Splash Downs All Around
Todrick Hall
Crystal Bowersox- Safe (56)= 56
Tyler Grady
Michelle Delamor
Week 11= 56 Total= 223

Diabolical Haters
Didi Benami
Lilly Scott
Lacey Brown
Michael Lynche- Bottom 2 (-11), Safe (56)= 45
Week 11= 34 Total= 183

You're Coming With Me Leather
Andrew Garcia
Paige Miles
Aaron Kelly- Bottom 2 (-11), Eliminated (-22)= -33
John Park
Week 11= -33 Total= 150

The Curlgar
Ashley Rodriguez
Joe Muñoz
Haley Vaughn
Siobhan Magnus
Total= 92

HashTag Katie Stevens Is Only 16
Katie Stevens
Jermaine Sellers
Katelyn Epperly
Alex Lambert
Total= 19

Lost- A Moment of Weakness

Great ep of LOST. I guess Sun and Jin didn't care about their kid when they decided to leave her an orphan.
Wed May 05 12:45:42 via Echofonlarry avitabile
larrington_bevy

Not only did I want to get knee deep in embedding tweets to my blog posts, but I loved Larry's late night tweet for two reasons. 1) this guy is the biggest Lost hater that if he says it was a great ep, you know it was a great ep and 2) his second point about Jin and Sun is so true and I bet no one else is going to say anything about it.

Yeah sure Jin was an absolute stud for being so strong and staying by his wife to die together. Of course it was an emotional moment, rivaling Charlie's drowning of season three *Update- and Juliet's* for most heart-wrenching death of the series. Yeah I absolutely bawled like a little girl. But let's not forget this very important point by Lar. The both of you are leaving your baby girl an orphan!

Yeah we get it that you never want to leave each other because you are so in love, but what about the breathtaking little girl that you were weeping over less than an hour ago? Jin you were so excited to see the pictures of her on the camera, but when you could have saved your own life to somehow get off the Island and spend the rest of your time on earth with what you and Sun gave to this world, you chose to kill yourself while holding hands. Interesting decision at best. At worst? Terrible move by you bro. I'm saving myself, I don't care how much I love Sun.

So how did we get to that epic moment in Lost history? Well sit back, have a Dharma beer and listen up. A ton of this episode was build up to get us all to the submarine. That build up was just so good. What's UnLocke really want? What's his game with the plane and the C4? What's Sawyer really up to? How's Jack gonna get this whole thing right?

The gang is currently captured by Widmore and his people and where are they sent? The cages! Sawyer obviously doesn't want to go in them again, but once Widmore threatens to shoot Kate they all willingly go. Widmore is willing to kill Kate because she is not on his list of names. Sawyer, Hugo, the Kwons are. Where did he get the candidate names? Good question.

Jack, continuing to stud it up in season six, joins forces with Smokey to get the gang out of the cages. When Kate asks the good doctor, "What are you doing here?" Jack calmly replies, "I'm with him." Of course he's not with Smokey, but his delivery of this line is awesome.

So now that MIB has everyone he needs together, we get to the good stuff. The UnLocke Monster gets C4 out of the Ajira plane that he claimed he wanted to use to get off the Island and shows it to the gang in order to gain their trust. Solid move. It's then that he claims that there could be more on the plain and Widmore will try to blow them all up if they get on the plane. I see where you're going with this there Smokey.

Only thing left to do is leave on the submarine (just what Sawyer wanted to do in the first place). Interesting how that all works out for MIB. Now everyone has so many different motives. Sawyer wants to leave with everyone except Smokey and/or Claire and Sayid. Jack wants to stay and could really care less what everyone else does. The MIB wants everyone to think he wants to leave with them, but really wants them all to get on the sub, which of course happens.

Jack is forced on due to the fact that his beloved Kate is shot and he needs to tend to her wounds. Once on board Sawyer starts the boat leaving. Well, well, well what is this? Another piece of C4 with a timer on it in Jack's back pack. "He dooped us again" "We did exactly what he wanted" Jack explained to the rest of the crew trapped in this enclosed submarine with a bomb.

Well yeah! Jack, and I, have been saying this for a while now. The Man In Black needs them all to die in order for him to get what he wants, which may or may not be to leave the Island. I first asked why did the MIB need to go through such an elaborate plan to kill all these people? Why not just turn into the smoke monster and throw them all around until they're dead? Well obviously because they're candidates and he can't kill them.

As Jack explains, the MIB needs them to kill each other. The bomb is not rigged to blow according to Jack. If they don't touch any wires it will not go off. I think I'm in agreement with this analysis by Jacko. The problem is that Sawyer doesn't trust Jack's reasoning and does a half-assed job pulling out some wires. The countdown of course starts going faster and Sayid decides to take one for the team.

Before running down the other end of the sub and blowing himself up, Sayid tells Jack that he needs to get Desmond out of the well because he is important. Yes! We all knew Desmond was important since he first started seeing the future, but it's so great to hear it come out of a character's mouth. "Why are you telling me this?" Jack asks the man of the Republican Guard. Well like I've been writing for a long time now, "it's going to be you Jack." How Sayid knows that Jack will be the one to take Jacob's place I'm not sure. Maybe he meant something completely different, but if not I'm excited. Jack has steadily been making his way back into my good graces and if he is the man that rules the Island for the next 1,000 years or so, I'll be happy.

And then we got Sawyer knocked on conscious and Sun trapped on the sub. Jack saved Sawyer and left Sun for dead with her husband. I truly sad moment, but they were collateral damage. What kind of consequence will all of these deaths be in the end? Will the sideways world have any effect on what happens to those who have died in Island world? I'm not sure, but it was quite a moment for the time being.