Tag Archives: television

Daily Dose of Feelings #12

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There are some moments in television history that transcend the show they’re on and become much more than just a scene from a TV show. They become works of art, moments of high drama. And oftentimes, those moments can move us to tears by their sheer brilliance.

Ask anyone who’s familiar with The West Wing, and they’ll tell you that one of these transcendent moments is President Bartlet’s grief-stricken rant at God in “Two Cathedrals.” I don’t think there will ever be another moment on television quite like this one.

This scene is so powerful it gives me chills even after an incredible number of viewings over the years. Martin Sheen’s controlled fury is so palpable and so believable. President Bartlet is a man who’s reached his breaking point, and it’s so realistic to see him get so angry with God. This scene is like a heartbreaking summary of all the pain we’ve watched this man go through. There’s so much national responsibility on his shoulders, but what breaks my heart the most is the way this scene shows how much this man loves the people who work for him. Yes, his grief over Mrs. Landingham is probably the most memorably emotional part of this scene, but what always gets me most is the way his voice breaks when he calls Josh his son.

The most famous part of this scene is undoubtedly its use of Latin, and I love that we don’t need subtitles to understand what he’s saying. Sheen delivers the whole monologue so perfectly that we can feel every moment of loss and anger—even when we don’t know exactly what he’s saying. If that’s not the very definition of great acting, then I honestly don’t know what is.

Daily Dose of Feelings #11

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Torchwood: Children of Earth messed me up for a long time—we’re talking at least a week of emotional trauma. There were so many haunting, disturbing, and heartbreaking moments in such a small number of episodes that the entire viewing process felt like a kind of emotional overload. 

Although Children of Earth had more than its share of painful scenes and Torchwood was known for killing characters off in brutal ways, I wasn’t prepared for what I would feel when Ianto died in Jack’s arms, fearing that he would be forgotten in the thousands of years the immortal Jack would go on to see after leaving him behind. 

This is a scene that is heartbreaking on so many levels. Even if you have no idea who these two characters are or what is specifically happening to them, you can feel everything they’re feeling. Gareth David-Lloyd makes Ianto’s fear of being forgotten so palpable because it’s so relatable. Isn’t that what we all want—to know we’ll be remembered long after we’re gone? And I love how you can feel Jack’s certainty pushing back against Ianto’s doubt. When he promises Ianto that he’ll never forget him, you believe it because he’s never sounded so sincere before. 

That’s the most painful thing about this scene—it’s the most broken and vulnerable we’ve ever seen Jack. This is a character defined by his bravado, but here he’s stripped of his pride, begging the man he loves not to leave him. John Barrowman’s performance in this scene is incredible. He’s so comforting towards Ianto at the start of the scene, but as soon as he can see Ianto fading away, the panic beings to set in. The way his voice breaks when he says, “Stay with me!” is like a sucker punch. This scene is a great example of the power of an actor holding back tears. We know Jack is not a man to show his true emotions easily—with immortality comes a certain sense of detachment. But here he’s so overwhelmed with grief that he can’t keep those feeling down any more, even though he’s trying to do just that. When Ianto dies, Jack sounds so lost, so broken, and so hopeless—it’s such a hard thing to watch when you’re used to him being full of energy and sparkling charisma. 

Ianto was simply a quiet, kind man who just wanted to take care of Jack—that was his job, but it also became his life. Somewhere along the way, he went from being the coffee boy to being someone Jack trusted with his secrets—and ultimately his heart. Ianto was such a genuinely good character that it was a truly upsetting shock to see him die. 

I’ll never be okay with this scene, and that’s the whole point. And I know I’ll never forget Ianto Jones—this scene made sure of that. 

TV Time: Teen Wolf 3.08

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Title Visionary

What Happened? Scott and Allison listen to Gerard’s story about what happened years ago with Deucalion, Kali, and Ennis when they were in Beacon Hills to get advice from Derek’s mother, and the events that resulted in Deucalion’s blinding. Meanwhile, Stiles and Cora hear Peter tell the story of what changed the color of Derek’s eyes to a “cold steel blue,” a tragic story about Derek’s first love, Paige. However, we see, through the flashbacks, that Peter and Gerard are both unreliable narrators; things may not be what they seem.

Favorite Quotes
“Why do I care? Let’s see…because over the last few weeks, my best friend’s tried to kill himself, his boss nearly got ritually sacrificed, a girl that I’ve known since I was three was ritually sacrificed, Boyd was killed by Alphas, I…do you want me to keep going? ‘Cause I can, alright? For like an hour.” (Stiles)

“How old are you now?”
“Not as young as we could have been, but not as old as you might think.”
“Okay, that was frustratingly vague. How old are you?”
“I’m seventeen.”
“See that’s an answer. That’s how we answer people.”
“Well, seventeen in how you’d measure in years.”
“Alright, I’m just gonna drop it.” (Stiles, Peter, and Cora)

“Actually, I was speaking about the fact that he’s a complete psychopath. He cuts people in half with a broadsword.” (Talia Hale, talking about Gerard)

My Thoughts One of the two storylines in this episode was Gerard’s tale of the events in Beacon Hills when most of the Alpha Pack were in town. What I found quite interesting is that we’re shown that Deucalion wasn’t always a conniving evildoer; in the past, he strove for peace. His character follows the way Teen Wolf has shown that often evil is not born, but made.

So far, most of the major antagonists on the show have been influenced by Gerard: Kate Argent undoubtedly was influenced by Gerard, considering he is her father, and it is certainly possible that Gerard assigned Kate the task of taking down the Hales; Peter became driven to kill out of pure vengeance because of Kate’s actions that decimated his family (though you could argue that from the events of this episode that it’s likely Peter has always been a sociopath with the potential for murder); and Allison was heavily manipulated by her grandfather, which set her on her grief-stricken and rage-filled hunt for Derek in Season Two. It often comes back to Gerard, which makes me incredibly suspicious as to what he’s up to now—the wheelchair doesn’t necessarily mean anything as, after all, we have previously seen someone appear to be incapable of committing the murders when in truth they were completely capable, as Peter showed us in Season One. Perhaps Gerard is the Darach, and this war between the Darach and the Alpha Pack is one big “Gerard versus Deucalion” rematch?

I also really enjoyed seeing Talia Hale in the flashbacks. Learning about her rare shape-shifting ability and how her power made her extremely respected by other werewolves made me realize even more just how much Derek lost and the weight of the expectations and responsibility that have been on his shoulders for so long.

Speaking of Derek, tonight’s episode was yet another sad story of how Derek Hale has been intimately familiar with tragedy since he was a 15-year-old kid in high school. I thought it was quite interesting that this story ultimately told us more new information about Peter than about Derek. We’ve always known that Derek has a tragic backstory; we just know now that it’s more tragic than we thought.

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Daily Dose of Feelings #10

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There’s one scene in each of my favorite TV shows that takes me from “I like this show” to “I’m all in.” Usually, this is a scene that makes me cry. When I find myself becoming emotionally invested in these characters to the point where I cry because of them, I know there’s no turning back.

In the case of Once Upon a Time, that scene is the moment in the pilot when Snow White and Prince Charming have to send their newborn daughter, Emma, into our world by herself in order to protect her from the Evil Queen’s curse.

The depth of emotion in this scene is so rare for a pilot, but it’s what we’ve come to expect from actors as talented as Josh Dallas and Ginnifer Goodwin. Goodwin is especially brilliant in this scene because she goes through so many different types of pain—the physical pain of labor, the pain of losing her daughter, the pain of knowing she might never see her husband again—and yet still remains a pillar of strength. This is the scene that made Snow my favorite Once Upon a Time character.

My emotions during this scene progress as the action does. I feel Snow’s pain as she struggles through labor (Goodwin does an incredible job with some very realistic screaming), but the tears don’t start until we get our first (and last) glimpse of that happy family together. I love the way the scene shifts so suddenly when Snow realizes Emma has to go into the wardrobe by herself. She’s so deadly serious in that moment, so desperate for her husband to see that Emma needs to be given her best chance. And when she kisses her daughter goodbye before doing the same to her husband, I find myself in awe of this character and her sense of parental love and sacrifice.

Snow gave up everything to make sure her daughter was saved from the curse. After Charming leaves and she finally lets her grief show, I can’t help but sob right along with her. There’s something so raw, so primal, and so real about Goodwin’s tears in that moment—it’s hard to watch, but the best emotional moments often are. In that moment, this character is no longer the poised Disney princess we all thought we knew; she is a brokenhearted mother who is forced to give up her baby, to make an unthinkable choice and simply hope that she’s doing the right thing.

And the tears don’t stop there. If you don’t find yourself getting a little emotional at the sight of Charming with his sword in one hand and his baby girl in the other, then you must have a heart of stone. Like Snow, this idea of Prince Charming as a father willing to do anything to see his daughter find safety elevates him from the stuff of fairytales to the stuff of real, human drama. When he uses his last bit of strength to make sure Emma got through the wardrobe, I cry because this incredible father is willing to literally give up his life to protect his child.

Once Upon a Time is a show filled with emotional moments, but none has ever hit me like this one did and continues to so long after I first saw it.

TV Time: SYTYCD Season 10 “Top 16 Perform”

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Well that was a bit of a letdown.

Up to this point, I’ve been pretty impressed with the quality of both the dancers and choreographers this season on So You Think You Can Dance. Two weeks ago, I could already see some chinks in the armor, but this week I can’t just be polite and say the show simply faltered a little.

It was a bad episode, as bad as I’ve seen from this show in a long time.

I had a bad feeling about what was to come when I saw Carly Rae “Call Me Maybe” Jepsen on the judging panel, and I’m sad to say my initial doubts about her were spot-on. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a guest judge on this show who was so uninformed about dance and couldn’t even fake it. As someone who takes dance and—by extension (for better or worse)— this show very seriously, I felt insulted that Nigel and Co. would make me sit through two hours of critiques from a woman who spoke as if she’s never watched a dance routine before in her life. It was laughably bad. At least get a guest judge with some knowledge of dance vocabulary next time—that’s all I ask.

The eliminations this week were the only thing I felt was right about the show. It was time for BluPrint to go home, and Mariah’s solo this week felt like a rehash of what she did in her last solo. I like both dancers, but their time had come. Mackenzie’s solo was gorgeously fluid, Curtis’s solo was very strong proof of his skills as a tapper, and Alan’s solo was simply…WOW. That’s the kind of male ballroom solo I’ve always wanted to see on this show—powerful, commanding, strong, and precise. His work with the cape was brilliant, and I loved his stage presence throughout.

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Daily Dose of Feelings #9

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My favorite TV episodes are often the ones that make me cry the most. A good example of this is “Chuck vs. The Cliffhanger,” the Season Four finale of Chuck. I’ve seen this episode a few times since I first started watching the series on DVD last year, and it still makes me cry in multiple places every time.

One of my favorite things about Chuck is the warm and genuine chemistry between Zachary Levi and Yvonne Strahovski as Chuck and Sarah. This episode celebrates that chemistry in the most beautiful of ways: with a much-anticipated wedding. But before the actual ceremony can take place, Chuck has to save Sarah from a deadly dose of radiation poisoning she contracted at their rehearsal dinner. Life and love are never simple in the spy business.

Though things may never be simple for Chuck and Sarah, what moves me the most in this scene is how simple and easy their love feels. Sarah’s “practice” vows are such a genuine reflection of who she is and who Chuck has been for her. She was sent to protect him and teach him how to be a spy, but he ended up teaching her how to be someone who is capable of being so much more than just a spy. Chuck brings out the gentle side of Sarah, the side that smiles almost shyly when she’s done telling the man she loves exactly what he means to her.

And then there’s Chuck—sweet, open, big-hearted Chuck Bartowski. If you asked me to draw up my dream man, it would be Chuck, and this scene shows exactly why. You will never see a man on TV as devoted to the woman he loves as Chuck is to Sarah. Levi plays this character with such beguiling earnestness that it’s impossible not to believe in the love story he’s selling. The moment when he whispers “Perfect” with tears in his eyes before saying it louder to Sarah gives me goose bumps every time I watch it. You can feel how much this character loves the woman he’s going to marry, and that believability is both incredibly uplifting in that scene and incredibly heartbreaking as we watch Chuck sitting at Sarah’s bedside, holding her hand and silently begging her not to leave him. As the scene ends, you get the sense that this man is willing to do anything to bring back the woman who so brightly lit up his life in the flashback we just witnessed.

Sarah wants to show Chuck that he is a gift she deserves, and what’s so emotional about this scene is that we can see that Chuck believes Sarah is a gift, too. These two beautiful characters deserve each other and the happiness they clearly have even in a practice wedding. And nothing makes me cry like two worthy characters finding happiness with each other—and fighting to protect that happiness in the face of huge obstacles.

Daily Dose of Feelings #8

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As I keep posting these moments, you will notice that many of them will fall into a category I like to call “Actors Who Make Me Cry Whenever They Cry.” At the top of that list is Jennifer Garner. I watched Alias for five years, and whenever that woman let the tears fall, I found myself crying right along with her.

While Garner has some incredibly emotional scenes in the Alias pilot, the first scene to make me an emotional wreck came a few episodes later in “A Broken Heart.” With Sarah McLachlan’s heartbreakingly beautiful “Angel” (before it became overplayed) working its magic in the background, Garner allows us to see deep into the aching soul of Sydney Bristow, a woman pushed to her breaking point from bearing the weight of too many secrets, too many betrayals, too many lies, and too many needless deaths.

This scene proves to me that there’s never been a better crier on television than Garner. She’s not afraid to look vulnerable, to let her nose run and her mascara streak her cheeks and her shaking hands mess up her hair. And in doing so, she allows us to connect with Sydney, to see her as a real woman with vulnerabilities and a heart that’s perhaps too big for the work she’s been called to do. When she says, “He was lied to, and now he’s dead,” with such genuine devastation in her voice, I get choked up every time.

What I love about this scene is the way Garner makes Sydney—one of the strongest female characters to ever grace television screens—seem so small and so normal. She’s not a robot, and that’s what makes her such a beautiful character. Alias would never have worked as a show if Garner couldn’t make you feel the humanity at the heart of this character.

The range of emotions in this scene is so vast. It begins with sadness and anger that Jack would abandon Sydney again (though it’s really so much more complicated than that). Then it becomes a scene about loss—both for Sydney’s friend and for her sense of self. Garner sells her identity crisis so painfully well that I always laugh and cry along with her when she throws her beeper into the ocean—one act of defiance for a woman who feels as if she’s losing her ability to stand on her own two feet.

But when she can’t stand on her feet, this scene introduces the one person she could lean on, her greatest source of strength—Vaughn. I love the total sincerity in Michael Vartan’s delivery of “I’ve seen who you are.” Vaughn never wants Sydney to lose that humanity that makes everyone—including the audience—fall in love with her. And when the darkness threatens to overwhelm her, it’s wonderful to see that she finally has someone who can be her anchor, her guiding light, and her guardian angel, helping her find her best self because he believes in and loves her for exactly who she is—the only honest relationship she has at this point.

When Sydney grabs Vaughn’s hand and neither pulls away (despite the fact that they could be killed just for being seen together), I can’t help but cry because it’s the beginning of such a beautiful relationship. Sydney may carry the weight of the world on her shoulders, but Vaughn is the one person she can go to who will help her carry that weight. She may be incredibly strong—and he may be drawn to that strength—but in Vaughn she’s found the one person she can let her guard down with. Everyone needs a hand to hold when they’re at their lowest, and it’s a very emotional thing to see a character as beautiful as Sydney Bristow discover that she has that in her life for the first time.

The Best Thing I Saw on TV This Week (7/14 – 7/21)

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This was a very exciting week in the world of TV. The Bachelorette entered into its final stretch with the “hometown dates” episode, where it became even clearer that Brooks in the frontrunner. Suits returned for a new season with plenty of drama and the promise of much more to come. Hollywood Game Night was hilarious and thoroughly entertaining once again. And Late Night with Jimmy Fallon gave us the Jesse and the Rippers reunion we never knew we always wanted—plus a Jesse/Becky kiss!

My favorite moment of the week, though, came from ESPN’s annual ESPY Awards ceremony. Robin Roberts was given the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage, and no one has ever seemed more deserving. Her acceptance speech was articulate, gracious, and truly inspiring. My love for this strong, beautiful, positive woman grows more every day.

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

Daily Dose of Feelings #7

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This one is pretty self-explanatory.

For my generation, there’s no moment in television that gets our collective tear ducts going like the final scene of Boy Meets World. It’s the perfect storm of great writing, incredibly strong (and realistic) acting, and the heightened emotional power that comes with a series finale. This scene gave us a chance to say goodbye to a group of characters that we literally grew up with, to watch their stories come full circle to the classroom where it all began.

Everyone has their moment in this scene that makes them cry the most, but mine will always be Shawn’s goodbye. And if you don’t openly weep when Mr. Feeny turns to the empty classroom and says, “I love you all. Class dismissed,” then I think you need to make sure your heart isn’t actually made of stone.

 

Daily Dose of Feelings #6

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This is a tough one.

When I came up with this list of emotional moments, one of the first scenes I wrote down was the breakup scene between Finn and Rachel from Season Four of Glee. When that episode first aired, I found myself sobbing almost uncontrollably when the couple I’d been rooting for since the pilot ended their relationship for good. I cried because Lea Michele was so raw, real, and absolutely devastating. I cried because this scene perfectly encapsulated the pain of walking away from your first love. I cried because Cory Monteith gave such a subtly heartbroken and lost performance. And I cried because even though this was a breakup scene, it was filled with so much chemistry and so much love that you could practically feel it through the TV screen.

Now, though, I’ll cry even harder every time I watch this scene because of what it means after Monteith’s death. In this scene, he was Michele’s rock, and that’s who he was in all of his scenes on Glee—a rock for his costars and a relatable presence for the audience. Monteith was Glee’s everyman, and the show will never be the same without him. But what really breaks my heart is thinking about how the people who loved him will never be the same without him. It’s clear watching this scene how connected and in love he and Michele were. Throughout the show’s run, he gave her the strength and confidence to go to emotional depths she never reached opposite any other actor. That kind of support and partnership produced her best moments, such as this scene. My heart aches for her when I think of what she lost.

This scene is about the very real heartbreak of the end of a relationship even when love is still clearly there. With time, it will only get more painful to watch as we remember the real-life love story that ended even more painfully than its fictional counterpart.

R.I.P. Cory Monteith.