Channel Surfing: GAME OF THRONES, GOSSIP GIRL, THE L.A. COMPLEX & More!

 
Two down, one to go for GAME OF THRONES’ Arya, who has been doing her late papa proud since winding up in service of Tywin Lannister. Fingers crossed that the third name on her list is Joffrey’s… not that I actually want to see my favorite love-to-hate character killed, but man, he’s a bitchy little thing, isn’t he? By far my favorite scene so far this season has to have been Tyrion calling out the snot-nosed king. Although watching Robb Stark be cockblocked by his mom was pretty entertaining too. Meanwhile, anyone else find themselves obsessively researching the history of Westeros? Having never read the books, and being unsure as to whether or not I actually want to dive into them, I’ve spent far too much time going from website to website reading about the GoT world. Maybe I should just read the books after all…
 
I’ll admit, I don’t always pay the closest attention to GOSSIP GIRL. Sometimes, it’s on in the background while I’m doing other things. That said, I was baffled as to why the only place the not-as-dead-as-everybody-thought Bart could hang out while waiting to skip town (again) was a house that was hosting a sex party. And is it just me, or did Chuck take the news that his dad had pulled a fast one way better than one might expect. Somehow, the Upper East Side Scooby gang was able to solve the mystery of who wanted Chuck’s dad dead in about 20 minutes despite the fact that Bart’s people, whom we have to assume spent at least a little time investigating this, weren’t able to figure out squat over the past couple years. By the end of the episode, everyone was more concerned with how Lily would take the news of Bart’s resurrection, but all I could think was, “Hey, wait a second! The guy you arrested isn’t the one who wanted Bart dead, he was just a henchman! Shouldn’t Daddy Bass still be laying low?”   
 
Not gonna lie: I’m disappointed that more of you didn’t give THE L.A. COMPLEX a shot, at least based on last night’s downright dismal ratings. (It’s debut was, like, the lowest rated show in CW history, but a rebroadcast later in the week did better and I hoped that maybe word-of-mouth would help bring this fun little sudser out of the gutter.) Yes, it’s little more than brain candy, but as guilty pleasures go, this one is shockingly satisfying. It’s more fun than MELROSE PLACE’s rather lifeless reboot, and better at capturing the struggle of would-be entertainers than just about any show in recent memory. Nick’s awkwardly bad comedy, Abby’s “big break” as a dead hooker being ruined (“I literally couldn’t act my way out of a plastic bag today.”) and the brutally impersonal reality that is auditioning make for television that is as compelling as it is fun. Okay, fine, it doesn’t hurt that there’s some nice eye candy on display, either.
 
By the end of the latest episode of THE KILLING, I found myself thinking, “Holy crap, that was great!” And then, in retrospect, I found myself reconsidering that assessment to “It would have been a fantastic episode… back in season one.” But for this late in the second season? Not so much. No new evidence of import was added, the case didn’t really move forward at all. Yes, there was good dialogue, some really emotional scenes (the stuff with Linden and her son broke my heart even as I found myself saying, “Yeah, she really is kind of a craptacular mother.”) but in the end, it didn’t go anywhere. Worse, I’m having real issues with the timeline. This episode took place on what we’re told is day 20 of the investigation. The season premiere followed the 15th day, which means that Richmond was shot only five days ago. Even if I’ve got the day count wrong, it can’t have been more than a week or so since his shooting… meaning his recovery (to the point of being propped up for a press conference that went so wrong I thought it might have been organized by Newt Gingrich’s staff) has been awful darn quick.