Author Archives: Katie

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About Katie

I'm a writer and editor; a dancer and choreographer; and a passionate fan of more things than is probably healthy. I love film, literature, television, sports, fashion, and music. I'm proud to be a Nerdy Girl.

TV Time: Castle 7.14

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Hello, fellow Castle fans! I hope you’re all doing well despite surely not getting any sleep after this latest episode. Today’s post will follow a slightly different format to account for time constraints on my part and the open-ended nature of the first part of a two-part episode. I hope you find it to be a good starting place for discussing this chilling hour of television.

Source: spoilertv.com

Source: spoilertv.com

Title Resurrection

Two-Sentence Summary When a blonde woman with a connection to Dr. Kelly Neiman ends up dead, Castle, Beckett, and the whole team at the 12th precinct fear that the dangerous serial killer Jerry Tyson, aka 3XK, could be involved. However, Dr. Neiman’s plastic surgery work, the lack of DNA records for Tyson, and multiple cases of copycat identities allow the pair to continue to torment everyone at the 12th, including Castle and—in a very dangerous way—Beckett.

Favorite Line “I never forget a face, especially if I cut it.” (Dr. Neiman)

Episode M.V.P.: Nathan Fillion
Fillion always rises to the challenge when it comes to Castle’s dramatic episodes, especially episodes dealing with the 3XK storyline. While Stana Katic got to show off her dramatic chops during episode dealing with Beckett’s mother and Senator Bracken, 3XK has always been a more Castle-centric—and, therefore, Fillion-centric—storyline. These episodes have been building since Season Three to create a layered portrait of a man carrying the weight of years of guilt and fear on his shoulders because he didn’t stop Tyson and instead has become the killer’s favorite target for psychological torment.

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The Best Thing I Saw on TV This Week (2/1 – 2/8)

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This week in the TV world started with a very dramatic Super Bowl—and I’m not just talking about Katy Perry’s halftime show (or that exceedingly depressing Nationwide commercial). On Monday, Castle continued its strong streak of episodes in its P.I. arc. Tuesday’s Agent Carter took the team to Russia, and big changes were in store for character on both Parks and Recreation and The Mindy Project. Wednesday gave us a strong post-hiatus return for Nashville, another episode of Suits dealing with Louis’s feelings of betrayal and how it impacts the whole firm, and one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever seen on television on another completely compelling hour of The Americans.

There were a plethora of strong moments on television this week, but sometimes you just have to stop and single out one actor for their performance throughout an episode. This week, there was nothing that impressed me more than the heartbreaking work Connie Britton did on the latest episode of Nashville.

Nashville is a nighttime soap opera, but it’s grounded by some surprisingly honest and heartfelt performances. And this week, Britton’s performance was a thing of sincere beauty. She made me feel every bit of Rayna’s exhaustion and regret that she let things get so far with Luke before calling off their wedding. There was one moment when she went to hug her sister and her face crumbled into genuinely ugly tears (which I didn’t know an actress as beautiful as Britton could cry), and it was some the most realistic crying I have ever seen on television.

And then there was her scene with Deacon at the end of the episode. Declarations of love can often be so cheesy and overwrought, but both Britton and Charles Esten played Rayna’s confession that she still loved Deacon with the perfect amount of restraint. It was soft and simple, and that made it feel so genuine. There was such honest emotion and warmth between them in that moment, making it a scene I could watch over and over again, finding new things to love each time. On a show where it could be easy to veer into melodramatic performances, I’m always impressed by the grounded honesty shown in Nashville‘s best moments.

What was the best thing you saw on TV this week?

TV Time: The Americans 3.02

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the americans 302

Title: Baggage

Episode M.V.P.: The Sound Effects Team
“Baggage” was another episode of The Americans filled with fantastic performances, but let’s be honest: This episode belonged to the team that created the sound effects used in the scene that gave the episode its title. “Baggage” will forever be known as “That episode where they broke a dead woman’s bones to fit her in a suitcase,” and so much of the unforgettable horror of that scene came from the sounds of Anneliese’s bones breaking. No television scene has ever produced that kind of visceral reaction in me before. I didn’t know which to cover—my eyes or my ears. In the end, it ended up being the sounds that are still haunting me hours later. And I think that was supposed to be the case. The scene was so eerily quiet except for those sounds, emphasizing the cold, businesslike attitude of Elizabeth and Philip as they went about snapping a woman’s bones like it was just another day at the office.

Some might think of those sounds (and the scene as a whole) as gratuitous (especially because it all centered around the dead, naked body of a woman). However, that scene needed to be as disturbing as possible to prove a point about the life Philip and Elizabeth lead (and the life Anneliese got herself involved in): It’s absolutely brutal. If this whole season is going to center around the conflict of whether or not to let the Center recruit Paige, then we need these reminders of what exactly Paige could be asked to do (or could have done to her). As Elizabeth’s motivations are becoming clearer and more emotionally compelling with each passing episode, Philip’s also need to be just as clear and compelling. The disgustingly vivid sensory details of that suitcase scene made Philip’s words about never wanting his daughter to have to put a body in a suitcase or end up in a suitcase hit home in a way they wouldn’t have without hearing those horrible, bone-snapping sounds before hearing him say those lines.

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TV Time: The Mindy Project 3.14

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Source: spoilertv.com

Source: spoilertv.com

Title No More Mr. Noishe Guy

Two-Sentence Summary Life-changing decisions are happening all over the place at Shulman & Associates, as Peter chooses to follow Lauren to Texas, and Morgan moves from his grandma’s basement to her attic. Mindy and Danny are also faced with some big choices when Mindy is offered a dream job in California but learns that Danny is making a new home for them in Manhattan, which could end up being a home for three after Mindy gets some big news.

Favorite Line “Just because I look like Olivia Pope does not mean I know how to disappear a body.” (Mindy)

My Thoughts No sense in burying the lead here: Mindy Lahiri is pregnant. So often, episodes are hyped as “game-changers,” when they’re really just average episodes with a minor plot twist at the end. However, the last moments of “No More Mr. Noishe Guy” were as game-changing as it gets. The reveal that Mindy is pregnant was the perfect way to end an episode that featured huge changes for both the characters and The Mindy Project as a show. Peter’s departure was surprising for the characters, but anyone who paid attention to entertainment news knew that Adam Pally was leaving the show. Industry news generally keeps character departures from being shocking (unless you’re The Good Wife), so The Mindy Project chose to surprise us in a different way—by blindsiding Mindy (and, by extension, us as viewers) with an unplanned pregnancy.

I’ll admit, my first reaction to Peter’s phone call was not one of joy but one of worry, which is probably how I should have felt if the goal was to put us in Mindy’s shoes. Mindy Kaling played her reaction so honestly—there was no overwhelming joy or happy tears or even the hint of This could actually be a good thing! on her face. And that’s real in a way television usually isn’t. In reality, Mindy wouldn’t be immediately overjoyed or think of the news as a unexpected blessing. She would be confused, anxious, and upset. I’m sure the coming episodes will show the unexpected joy to come from an unexpected pregnancy, but this wasn’t the time for that if the show was going for realism. This was the time for disbelief, shock, and other not exactly joyful emotions. Kudos to The Mindy Project and Kaling especially for creating such an honest moment that I’m sure plenty of women watching could relate to.

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TV Time: Parks and Recreation 7.07

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Source: screencrush.com

Source: screencrush.com

Title Donna and Joe

Two-Sentence Summary Donna’s wedding brings the Meagle family to Pawnee, and April is tasked with keeping the drama to a minimum. Meanwhile, Jen Barkley returns to convince Ben to run for the House of Representatives.

Favorite Lines
Ben: You have never been neutral on anything in your life. You have an opinion on pockets!
Leslie: Yes! I think they should all be bigger!

My Thoughts No show does weddings like Parks and Recreation. After the excellent way this show handled April and Andy, Leslie and Ben, and Ron and Diane getting married, I had high hopes for Donna’s wedding. And, like everything that’s happened so far during this fantastic final season, Parks and Rec managed to create something even better than I could have hoped to see. “Donna and Joe” fits in beautifully with both the tradition of great Parks and Rec weddings and the tradition of great Parks and Rec episodes that feature a pair of names in the title (“Leslie and Ben,” “Ann and Chris,” both “Ron and Tammy” and “Ron and Tammys,” “Leslie and Ron,” …).

We’ve spent a lot of time here at NGN discussing the surprising benefits of airing these final Parks and Rec episodes in back-to-back pairs. However, “Donna and Joe” deserved to stand alone. It contained plenty of big moments for a variety of characters, and I am happy that those moments will get a full week’s worth of attention on their own instead of being followed immediately by another episode.

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TV Time: Castle 7.13

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Source: tvequals.com

Source: tvequals.com

Title I, Witness

Two-Sentence Summary After an old friend of Castle’s hires him to do P.I. work on her cheating husband, she ends up dead, with Castle believing he saw her husband kill her. However, things aren’t as simple as Castle believes them to be, as a tangled web of deception is revealed when the team at the 12th precinct begins to look into the case, with Castle helping them as a witness.

Favorite Line “…Caught him red-handed and bare-bottomed.” (Castle)

My Thoughts Castle has found a really great groove recently. Every episode since the winter hiatus has been entertaining and has felt fresher than the show has felt in quite some time. The combination of personal (marriage) and professional (Castle’s P.I. job) changes in Castle and Beckett’s dynamic has actually done Castle a world of good, breathing new life into a show in its seventh season—no small feat.

“I, Witness” was another fun and compelling episode to add as evidence that many (myself included) were wrong to initially predict that the “Richard Castle, P.I.” experiment would be a weak point for the show. Instead, it’s been incredibly enjoyable to watch. This episode in particular had three excellent selling points: a compelling case, strong moments from supporting characters, and plenty of good Castle/Beckett moments.

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The Best Thing I Saw on TV This Week (1/25 – 2/1)

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This week in television kicked off with a Sunday that showcased the best in both sports and film/television. The NFL Pro Bowl, NHL All Star Game, and SAG Awards all aired on Sunday, along with another hilarious episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine that put Jake and Terry in a room full of defense attorneys. Tuesday’s lineup included another excellent hour of Parks and Recreation that saw the return of Treat Yo Self Day and the best hour of Agent Carter yet. Wednesday was a night of season premieres for some of my favorite cable dramas. On Suits, Louis’s sense of betrayal led to him lashing out at everyone around him, and on The Americans, no character escaped the hour without their vulnerabilities being brought into the spotlight. Finally, Saturday gave us my favorite episode of Saturday Night Live so far this season, as J.K. Simmons proved to be quite the natural host.

This was a week for fabulous ladies on television getting stuff done—whether it was Leslie figuring out a way to save her beloved JJ’s Diner and get her national park on Parks and Rec, Elizabeth taking down a pair of FBI agents on The Americans, or Amy using her conflict resolution skills on Brooklyn Nine-Nine. But my favorite fierce female performance this week was Hayley Atwell’s work on a fantastic episode of Agent Carter.

Peggy and Howard’s tense, emotional scene in her room was the finest moment so far on this great show. It gave real depth to Howard, but the most memorable part of that scene was Peggy’s monologue about why Howard has no right to Steve Rogers’s blood. In just a few sentences, Atwell was able to convey so much emotion: Peggy’s love for Steve—not Captain America but Steve Rogers and the selfless good he stood for; her disgust with herself for losing sight of what Steve would have wanted her to do and—more importantly—what the woman she once was would have done; and her deep sense of betrayal by someone she thought believed in the same things she did. Atwell has been fantastic as Peggy from her first moments in Captain America, but she has never been better than she was in that scene.

What was the best thing you saw on TV this week?

TV Time: The Americans 3.01

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Welcome to the first of my weekly The Americans episode reviews! I can’t wait to spend the next few months talking about KGB agents, family dynamics, and Martha’s gun with all of you!

The Americans 301

Title: EST Men

Episode M.V.P.: Keri Russell
“EST Men” was an episode that asked a lot of its leading lady—physical fighting, verbal sparring, physical pain, emotional pain, warmth, stoicism, vulnerability…And Russell delivered, with what was perhaps one of my favorite hours of work she’s turned in yet as Elizabeth Jennings.

At the center of it all was her relationship with her daughter and her mother. In typical The Americans fashion, there’s no one way Elizabeth’s bonding with Paige can be viewed: She talks to Gabriel about Paige as an agent, and she talks to Philip about Paige as a mother—and she is both; she can’t separate one from the other, and Russell is balancing those two facets of Elizabeth’s relationship with Paige brilliantly. The beginning of the episode framed Elizabeth’s mindset perfectly; she believes in the value of being thrown into the deep end, most likely because that’s how she was raised. And for as difficult as her own childhood seems to have been, she still loves her mother incredibly. That much was heartbreakingly clear in the scene where she listened to the tape of her mother telling her that she was dying. Russell’s work in that one scene was so good that I want to give her an Emmy nomination for it right now. We didn’t need subtitles to know what was being said; all we needed was Russell and her incredibly expressive face. The way she was able to allow us to understand the emotional weight of a message delivered only in Russian just by subtly changing her expression was everything that’s right about the acting on this show.

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TV Time: Parks and Recreation 7.05/7.06

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Source: screencrush.com

Source: screencrush.com

Title Gryzzlbox/Save JJ’s

Two-Sentence Summary Leslie attempts to turn the tide of the Newport land battle in her favor by exposing Gryzzl’s privacy invasion techniques. However, she finds an even better solution while trying to find a way to save her beloved JJ’s Diner.

Favorite Line “Was it Putin? Voldemort Putin? Of Russia?” (Andy)

My Thoughts “Gryzzlbox/Save JJ’s” had the seemingly unenviable position of following “Leslie and Ron,” which was described by many (myself included) as one of the best and most emotional episodes of Parks and Recreation in the show’s history. How do you follow that?

It turns out, you follow that with a pair of episodes that touched on nearly all the high points of seven seasons of Parks and Rec mythology over the course of one highly entertaining hour: town meetings, Perd Hapley, Leslie’s scrapbooks, Burt Macklin, Ice Town, Dennis Feinstein, Treat Yo Self, Dr. Richard Nygard, JJ’s waffles…

This pair of episodes honored the show’s history in its details, but it also honored the soul of the show in its overall theme of the power of a group of good people working together for a cause that means something to them—whether that cause is a new national park or the preservation of a great plate of bacon and eggs. Just like last season’s finale, this pair of episodes could have felt too neat, its conflicts too easily solved by the power of positive, creative thinking. But Parks and Rec is a show where the good guys win, where good things happen to good people. And in a television landscape that grows more cynical and antihero-driven by the day, I like knowing that I can watch Parks and Rec and feel good and happy and hopeful when all is said and done.

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10 Reasons Why You Should Be Watching The Americans

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The americans S3

Let’s get one thing straight right away: The Americans is a show for grownups. Being a grownup is hard and messy and complicated—three adjectives that could be used to describe any of the characters or relationships on FX’s critically-acclaimed drama about Russian spies living undercover in a suburb of Washington, D.C., during the height of the Cold War. Being a grownup is also about realizing the world isn’t as black-and-white as you might have once believed it to be—a theme that goes to the very heart of The Americans as both as spy show and a family drama.

The Americans is a show to be savored, discussed, and thought about into the early hours of the morning after each episode ends. It’s also a show that deserves a bigger audience and more attention than it gets. So here are 10 reasons why you should catch up with the first two seasons of The Americans and watch as the third season unfolds Wednesday nights at 10 p.m.

1. Its themes are universal.
One of the most common ways to describe The Americans is to say it’s a spy show that’s actually about marriage and family. And aren’t all the best spy stories about more than just wigs (no matter how awesome they may be) and gadgets? They’re about secrets and identity and loyalty. The Americans takes those themes one step further by asking us to think about them within the context of marriage and family. What does it really mean to be intimate with someone? What secrets do we keep from our spouses and our children? What secrets are they keeping from us? What are our parents really like? These are the kinds of questions The Americans asks in every episode. Yes, it’s a show about Russian spies and FBI agents. However, most of its brilliance lies in the depths beneath its “spy show” surface.

2. You’ll actually like the kids.
In order for those universal themes of marriage and family to work, the family at the center of The Americans has to be one that’s easy to invest in. For many shows, this is where things begin to fall apart, because young actors are typically the Achilles’ heel of even the best shows. However, The Americans features perhaps two of the most engaging and likeable child actors on television. Keidrich Sellati is cute without being cloying as young Henry Jennings, projecting just the right amount of innocence. And Holly Taylor is turning in some of my favorite work on television right now as Paige Jennings. Paige is written and played with the kind of deft touch that teenage girls on television are hardly ever brought to life with. She’s moody and self-absorbed at times, but she’s also looking for the truth about so many things—who her parents are, who she is, and who she could be. Teenage girls’ ability to care deeply about things is often the subject of ridicule, but Paige’s passion and enthusiasm for figuring out her place in the world are treated with such wonderful respect. With Paige set to be an even bigger part of the story in Season Three, I’m so happy that both the writing for and performance of this character are as truly fantastic as they’ve been so far.

3. It features the best pair of scene partners on TV.
You can’t fake chemistry—you either have it or you don’t. And Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell have it. As Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, the show’s central characters, they are asked to do so much in terms of their performances, and they always rise to the challenge, supporting each other every step of the way whenever they share a scene. The Americans is an unconventional love story about two people who have been in a fake marriage for 20 years finally trying to make it something real, and Rhys and Russell make you feel every step on that rocky journey, often without needing to say any words. They’re masters of silent communication, projecting incredible intimacy through gestures as simple as her holding his hand or him unzipping her boot. They’re able to have entire conversations using only their eyes that convey as much information and probably more emotion than they could using dialogue. Philip and Elizabeth have come to rely on the strength of their partnership, and the same can be said of Rhys and Russell. They’re two of the best actors on television right now who only seem to be getting stronger with each episode.

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