“Hell’s Kitchen” is barreling toward the finale already, but wait….now there will be a 2-3 week break for playoff baseball. Anyway, when they resume in early November there will be 8 contestants left and they will probably keep up with the two-episodes-in-one thing until just after Thanksgiving. Either way, here is our rapid-fire recap of last night’s doubleheader:
It’s a blissfully slow movie news week so far, after last week’s frenzy, so far (unless I missed something…I’m busy!).
In any case, it’s time to catch up on the passing last week at age 93 of one of the most reliable members of the Hammer Films horror and science fiction stable of the sixties and seventies, as well as the director of the some of the coolest British TV of that time, Roy Ward Baker. Aside from starting his career as Alfred Hitchcock‘s assistant director on the spy-comedy-suspense classic, “The Lady Vanishes,” being one of the main directors on the legendary season of “The Avengers” that featured Diana Rigg as the immortal Mrs. Emma Peel, aside from directing “A Night to Remember” (about the Titanic, but without Jack and Rose), as well as the racy “The Vampire Lovers” and the gender bending “Dr. Jeckyll and Sister Hyde,” he also made one of my favorite pieces of British film science fiction. We Americans call it “Five Millions Years to Earth” but to the rest of the world it’s….
The food challenges are always interesting on NBC’s “The Biggest Loser.” Contestants can indulge (or not) to obtain some sort of prize that will give them an advantage in the game. This week it was cupcakes, but the prize was the biggest potentially in the history of the show. Finding the one-pound advantage card under the cupcake would be one thing, but then they could hold it over and let the card appreciate in value, giving that person two pounds next week, three pounds the following week, and up to eight pounds. Wow. But as some of the contestants pointed out, doing so would also put a target on that person’s back. Very true. So most of them didn’t even attempt it, but Adam and Rick did as well as Elizabeth, and Adam won, but not after ingesting about 1300 calories worth of cakes.
The life of an outlaw biker apparently doesn’t include vacation time, because the Sons always seem to busy with a variety of different jobs, crises and whatnot. So it was nice to see them relaxing a little bit in the clubhouse for the first time in a long while, even if it was to take care of a little paperwork. Along with the welcoming of three new prospects to the club (who are so unimportant that I don’t think we even got names for any of them), the charter also had to vote on transfer requests for Happy and Kozik, the latter of whom was denied by Tig because of their history with one another. We still don’t know why Tig doesn’t trust him, but Kozik doesn’t waste any time in proving his worth, getting right to work helping SAMCRO jack the van transporting the Mayans’ heroin for Stockton prison.
Instead of just selling it off and making some quick cash, however, Clay decides to use the heroin as barter in order to repair their relationship with the Mayans. In an effort to end their bloody war, Alvarez agrees to a truce that gives the Grim Reapers from Lodi the responsibility of transporting the drugs through Charming and SAMCRO a cut of each payload. In return, Alvarez just asks that the Sons take care of the surviving Calaveras member in the hospital – a seemingly simple job that Tig and Kozik manage to screw up. This will surely come back to bite them in the ass, and I’d even be willing to bet that Kozik will be the one who takes the heat for it in order to prove to Tig that he can be a team player when he needs to be.
Meanwhile, the club’s lawyer comes to visit Gemma in the hospital and inform her that the U.S. Attorney’s office has agreed to take the death penalty off the table if she confesses to both murders. Though it’s not exactly the best outcome, she agrees – that is, until Jax brings her a prepared statement that will seemingly clear her name. She can tell right away that it came from Agent Stahl, and though the last thing Gemma wants is to have to trust the woman who framed her in the first place, Jax convinces her that it’s the best thing for the club. The statement is actually pretty close to what really happened, except for one small detail: Gemma fingers Stahl’s partner/fuck buddy as the ATF agent who shot Edmond.
Welcome back to Chicago! Yep, looks like my suspicion at the end of last episode was on the money: Jimmy’s first stop in Chi-Town was to get back into Al Capone’s good graces, although it’s pretty evident from Al’s idea of a prank that he’s more than a little bit of a loose cannon. Firing a gun off at that range is likely to cause permanent hearing loss, wouldn’t you think? Still, it’s true: opium is good for what ails you. Not that Jimmy’s interested in pursuing that particular line of medication. His focus is more on his new female companion and nursemaid, Pearl, and after seeing how violently Al deals with his “clients,” it was all too easy to imagine Jimmy following Pearl to California. Al reminds him that he’s got some pretty big coattails that he’s welcome to ride on, but Jimmy shrugs, tells him he’s only passing through, and then offers the kind of advice which reveals that he could have his own criminal empire if he’d just put his mind to it. The difference between their styles of business only becomes more evident during their meeting with Charlie Sheridan (not to mention when they’re getting fitted for new suits), but I can’t blame Jimmy for wanting to let Al be hoisted with his own petard: the dude asked for it with his boorish manner. I mean, I know how history ultimately turns out, but surely Al needs to learn when to be a thug and when to be a businessman. On a related note, though, as soon as Sheridan’s boy came back into the whorehouse, I knew Pearl was in trouble, but I didn’t know exactly what was going to go down. Rough stuff, that. Come to think of it, it probably couldn’t hurt Jimmy to know when to be a businessman and when to be a thug.
Nucky’s practicing to look surprised for an upcoming birthday party when the ever-gorgeous Lucy pops by to inform him that she’s going shopping…which, of course, means that she needs money. After she departs, he chats further with Eddie about the guest list for the party, talking about how he’s anticipating to pull in some funds from an upcoming road appropriations bill. The fact that he’s pointedly underlined this fact leads me to believe that things aren’t going to go quite how he’s hoping they will. Nucky seems to be the only one in his camp who cares about finding out who Chalky’s man last week, but as he loudly reminds them, “Chalky cares, so that means I cares, and you can bet your ass, come Election Day, you’re gonna care, too.” It looks like Nucky’s chances at reelection are directly tied to whether or not he pulls in the African-American vote, but you’ll notice that Nucky has no ego about his situation and makes the very important distinction that it’s not that the populace in that community are doing what he tells them, it’s that he tells Chalky, and they do what Chalky tells them. Eli’s got a good point – Chalky’s not going to want to give up what he’s got – but better safe than sorry. Nucky’s getting positively anal about making sure everything’s right for the party and is stressed out to the Nth degree, leaving Eddie trying to maintain his good-cop persona and save face, but even he seems a little nervous about how crazy Nucky’s getting. It’s clear that he won’t be calming down until things have been smoothed over in Chalky’s community.
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