Category Archives: TV Reviews

Sep 07 2016
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TV Reviews

TV Review – Burn Notice (2007-2013)

“Being a spy means having to do things you don’t want to do…like sitting through another one of BQB’s television reviews…”

Burnt spy + hot Irish babe/demolitions expert + hard drinking, wise cracking buddy + spy’s mom = a funny action series you should have paid more attention to when it was on the air.

But that’s ok. You can still catch it on Netflix.

BQB here with a review of Burn Notice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqP6JJc_EnU

The show begins with government super spy Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donovan) being “burned.”

As he explains during the show’s title sequence, his agency, without explaining why,  disavows him, writes him off, leaves him without any money or references and seeing as how Mike doesn’t have any job experience he can publicly admit, little in the way of skills he can use to make a legit living.

Thus, Mike moves back home to Florida to be closer to his elderly mother, Madeline (Sharon Gless of Cagney and Lacey fame.)

Mike forms a crew with:

  • His girlfriend, Fiona Glenanne (Gabrielle Anwar), a demolitions expert who, often to hilarious effect, wants to blow up everything first and ask questions later.
  • Sam Axe (Bruce Campbell), a fast talking degenerate/con artist/former Navy seal.

I love this show because to me, it felt like a modern day A-Team.  Just as the A-Team used their soldier skills to help people in need, Mike, Fiona and Sam form their own team and use their skills to help various residents of Florida save themselves from all manner of criminals and reprobates.

Now, keep in mind the show aired on USA, and not to cast aspersions, but USA is most likely your grandma’s favorite channel.

Ergo, USA shows tend to be simple (though I hear that might be changing with Mr. Robot as of late.)

Thus, the Burn Notice formula:

  • Beginning and end of the episode is about Mike’s ongoing quest to figure out who burned him and why he was burned.
  • In the middle, Mike, Sam or Fiona meet someone, often a nice civilian who has run afoul of some criminal.
  • Mike and the gang use their skills to help the person in need. Mike uses his spy skills. Fiona blows shit up. Sam uses his well worn alias “Chuck Finley” to sweet talk someone into giving up some information.
  • In fact, the trio often dust off their acting skills, using terrible accents and poorly crafted back stories to worm their way into the confidence of various criminal organizations before making their move.  If you suspend disbelief, its fun.

On top of all that, the Florida scenery is beautiful.

Mike even recruits his mom to help from time to time and there are a number of series regulars who come in and out.  Towards the end of the series, Coby Bell joins the group as Jesse Porter, a spy who, ironically, Michael burns.

I loved this show.  I looked forward to it when it was on every week as an escape. And it was one of few shows I was able to start when it was already on the air for a couple of years and understand what was going on before I eventually went back and watched the episodes I missed.

Somehow, the writers were able to balance the need for USA viewers to be able to understand what is happening if they just happen to start watching an episode at random with the audience’s desire to have interesting, compelling story lines.

I ended up caring about all of these characters and moreover, from start to finish, the writers make it clear that they care about you, the viewer.

Michael narrates each episode and explains his gadgets, strategies, plans, etc., usually with “Being a spy means…”

As Michael explains what he is up to, sometimes it is fun to watch to see if he can actually pull it off.

And everyone needs a girlfriend like Fiona and a buddy like Sam.

IMO, Donovan and Anwar are both underutilized by Hollywood and deserve more movie roles.

Bruce Campbell is a laugh riot and this role breathed much deserved life into his career.

Check it out, 3.5 readers.

Don’t forget to grab a yogurt. Mike loves his yogurt.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy.

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Sep 05 2016
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TV Reviews

TV Review – Archer (2009 – )

Bawk bawk.

I have no idea how this show was ever made or how it has lasted as long as it has.

Mind you, that’s not because it is bad, but because it defies any kind of usual TV show parameters, rules, guidelines or what have you and is therefore laugh out loud funny.

BQB here with a review of FX’s Archer, which has just wrapped up its seventh season with no end in sight.

In this adult cartoon (or should I say cartoon for adults?) H. Jon Benjamin voices Sterling Archer who is essentially a walking personification of the word “douche.” He is a world class spy so he has the skills and looks to back up his cocky demeanor, but he generally treats everyone like crap and gets away with it because his mother, Malory (Jessica Walter) owns the independent contractor spy agency (originally dubbed the International Secret Intelligence Service or I.S.I.S which obviously, due to current events, had to be changed a couple years ago.)

  • FYI Jessica Walter played Charlie Sheen’s snooty rich mother on Two and a Half Men as well as the snooty rich mother on Arrested Development and therefore she has a lock on all snooty rich mother roles in the comedy world.  She deserves it as she knocks the snooty rich mother role out of the park.

Archer has an on again/off again romance with fellow agent Lana Kane (Aisha Tyler) who suffers the burden of being the only responsible adult in a crew full of dummies.

Those dummies include:

  • Cheryl Tunt  (Judy Greer) – the agency’s insane, oddball fetish having secretary.C
  • Cyril Figgis (Chris Parnell) – Total nerd who serves as the agency’s comptroller/bean counter who also has the hots for Lana.
  • Pam Poovey (Amber Nash) – Chubby potty mouthed HR rep with impulse control problems, known for her pearls and occasional dolphin hand puppet.
  • Doctor Krieger (Lucky Yates) – Mad scientist. Clone of Adolf Hitler though looks nothing like Hitler. In love with an anime hologram.
  • Ray Gillette (Adam Reed, who is the creator of the series) – Openly gay pilot/agent.  In fairness, Ray has it more together than the rest of the crew, though their incompetence regularly causes him to lose a limb or a body part as a running gag.

Speaking of running gags, the show is full of them. “Phrasing” is the best one that comes to mind. Say something that sounds remotely dirty and Archer will hit you with “phrasing” as in “you could have phrased that better.”

Archer loves 1970s action movies and is a devotee of Burt Reynolds.  Burt and many other stars have made cameos as either themselves or other characters. Being cartoonized as an Archer character has sort of become a sign than an actor/actress has made it in Hollywood (or at the very least, they have a good sense of humor.)

Animation has definitely allowed the show runners to get away with things that would never fly in live action. Somehow drawings of butts make it to TV but real butts are a no no. Oh well. I’m not a prude or anything I’m just wondering how the censors make this distinction.

Six seasons are available on Netflix.  They’re short, roughly twenty minutes long, so a good show to check out if you need a quick distraction.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy

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Sep 05 2016
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TV Reviews

TV Review – Mad Men (2007-2015)

Dun dun…dun dun…dun dun….dun dun…cartoon silhouette of a man falling out of a window combined with violin music.

Hard drinking, chain smoking 1960s advertising men and Christina Hendricks’s jumbotrons = a compelling historical drama.

BQB here with a review of Mad Men.

3.5 readers, I like to consider myself an educated person. I read books and shit after all.

But few shows brought to life for me the women’s rights struggles as this show did.

Ironically, that’s not what the show is about but it is what I’ll probably always remember it for.

The set-up – Don Draper (Jon Hamm) lives the life of a free wheeling, perpetually fornicating Madison Avenue advertising executive (aka he is a “Mad Man.”)

Because its the 1960s, he’s pretty much free to boink any babe he wants and just tell his wife he had to stay late at work if she asks any questions.

In fact, his comrades at the firm pretty much do the same thing.  His boss, Roger Sterling (John Slattery) and his underling Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) rival Don in their hard drinking, smoking, and extramarital affairs.

We often look to the past as simpler, more innocent times yet this show does put on display things that were commonplace in the past that would turn a head today, the most glaring example that everyone at the firm has their own fully stocked bar in their office and walking around the office with a cocktail in one hand and a smoke in the other happened all the time.

Good luck trying that today.

The formula is pretty standard:

  • Don cheats on his wife because he was once a poor bum who never thought he’d amount to anything and now that he is on top and the world is his oyster he feels this driving need to drink, smoke and boink as much as possible before his life is over.
  • Extramarital boinking is fun for five minutes but then he realizes family is the real deal, that one night stands will never bring him the long lasting happiness that being a family man will.
  • Don decides to straighten up only to start boinking again. In his defense, women just throw themselves at him so it is hard to avoid the boinking. It is easy for me to say that I’m not an evil boinker since no one is offering to boink me.
  • Don’s colleagues at the firm all experience the “be faithful to your spouse vs. boink while you can” conundrum.
  • Along the way, we learn a lot about the history of commercial advertising, how some of the advertising campaigns that fool us into buying crap we don’t need got started and continue today.

There are times when the show seems tedious, like it is going nowhere.  I get the main premise, i.e. love the one that’s loyal to you because the side action will never be as loyal.

If I didn’t bear a striking resemblance to a gargoyle, I would take this to heart and tell the side action to take a hike. Alas, I am too hideous to attract side action.

But maybe I’m the lucky one. Maybe Don would have been better off if he weren’t so damn handsome and having so many women throwing themselves at him, demanding that he be unfaithful.

I mentioned the women’s rights movement earlier.  So, what I noticed is that Betty (January Jones) who is super hot and frankly, would be enough for me (I’d be racing home from the office to get all up in that) basically has to put up with Don’s bullshit.

She’s a housewife. No money. No career. No job prospects. If you’re a 1960s housewife and your husband cheats on you, your choices are a) put up with it and lose your dignity or b) leave and be poor because the best job you’ll be able to find is waitressing if you’re lucky and also you’ll lose the kids because your husband has the money to hire a lawyer and you don’t.

So thanks a lot, Don, you big time douche. Dudes like you who had no idea how good you had it created a world where women had to take charge and alas, I don’t have January Jones waiting for me when I come home now.

Aside from the man drama, you also have Joan (Hendricks) and her enormous sweater cannons, which are basically characters in and of themselves and Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) paving the way for women in business, showing what working women had to go through.

Throughout the series, we see Peggy go from mousey secretary to female Don Draper while Joan must navigate her way through a sea of perverts who want access to her sweater cannons on her quest to be taken seriously as a businesswoman.

All seven seasons available on Netflix. Set your TV to widescreen mode so you can take in Joan’s chest rockets in their entirety.

Seriously, its like watching a movie when you the theater is packed and you have to sit in that damn row that’s right up against the screen.  You have to look to the left to see the left boob then crane your neck to the right just to see the right boob.

Very stressful.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy.

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Sep 05 2016
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TV Reviews

TV Review – Breaking Bad (2008-2013)

I am the one who reviews!

High school chemistry teacher with cancer + his former student who calls everyone “bitch” = show that most critics would agree is the best television show of the twenty first century thus far.

BQB here with a review of Breaking Bad.

When this show came out in 2008, someone close to me had just died from cancer, so I wasn’t interested at all.  I saw the previews for it and was like, “eh” then I saw the previews for Showtime’s The Big C, a show that came out around the same time about a woman trying to keep her life together while fighting cancer and I was just like, “Look Hollywood, cancer is not funny or glamorous and it is the last thing I want to see on TV when I’m looking for an escape, thank you very much.”

So the years passed and then somewhere in the early 2010s I heard people talking about this show so I gave it a chance on Netflix and was immediately hooked.  And from what I’ve heard, the invention of streaming media breathed life into this and a lot of other shows.

Because when you think about it, a show about a high school chemistry teacher dying from cancer doesn’t exactly sound like good time appointment viewing, but once it was available in a format for people to check out when they had a free moment, boy howdy did they get hooked.

And truth be told, the show isn’t so much about cancer as it is a study of a) the sadness people feel when they reach the end of their lives feeling like they never reached their full potential and b) how much the legal system keeps us all behaving like good doobies without us ever realizing it.

Remove a) the fear of dying because you are already dying and b) the fear/humiliation of ending up in prison (because you’re dying) and the nicest person you know might end up walking down an evil path.

The set-up – Walter White (Bryan Cranston) was, in his youth, a promising chemistry scholar who starts a business with friends Elliot (Adam Godley) and Gretchen (Jessica Hecht).

Walter sells his share of the company early, the company becomes huge, like Facebook huge.  Meanwhile, Walter grows old and bitter, having spent his life in mediocrity as a high school teacher with a part time job at a car wash just to make ends meet.

Somehow he manages to snag a hot wife, Sklyer (Anna Gunn) while his son, Walt Jr. (RJ Mitte) oozes happiness and gets along as a typical teenager despite a handicap.

When Walt is diagnosed with terminal cancer, his despair over his untapped potential haunts him. He’ll die without using his genius brain to make it big.

Alas, his brother-in-law Hank (Dean Norris), a DEA agent, takes Walt on a ride along.  Walt catches a glimpse of just how much cash a good drug dealer rakes in and the little hamster starts rolling around the wheel in his brain.

What begins as an idea to use his chemistry know how to cook crystal meth in order to leave some extra cash behind for his family turns into a long journey into the proverbial heart of darkness, as Walt uses his smarts and fearlessness (because, hey, he’s dying anyway) to rise to the highest ranks of the criminal underworld.

He takes on Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), his former student turned junkie as his partner in crime and together, they become expert meth cooks.  As Jesse becomes like a second son to Walter, their relationship is sometimes tragic and sometimes even hilarious.

Add to the mix criminal lawyer (the show stresses you are to read this as a “lawyer who is a criminal”) Saul Goodman (veteran comedian Bob Odenkirk) who steals the show with his obnoxious TV lawyer ads.  Saul teaches the boys how to launder their money, dodge law enforcement, get out of trouble, etc. etc.

Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) is the old ex-cop/problem fixer that Walt works with. The combination of the grizzled old man who has seen and done it all and the chemistry teacher who sees things through gentrified eyes is comical.

Meanwhile, Giancarlo Esposito as crime boss Gus Fring is one of the scarier bad guys on television.

Throughout the series, Walt struggles to keep his public and private lives separate.  He continues to pose as a good dad and husband while sneaking off to cook meth and deal with criminals with Jesse.

All the while, lovable Hank, and I do mean lovable, is chasing some criminal without realizing the man he wants is his beloved brother-in-law that he spends the weekends with grilling burgers and shooting the breeze.

If anything, the Hank/Walt dynamic is what really makes the show. The show runners could have made Hank the stereotypical tough guy cop but instead they made Hank an average joe.  He loves his wife, Skyler’s sister Marie (Betsy Brandt), loves his in-laws Walt and Skyler, loves his nephew Walt Jr. and brews beer in his garage as a hobby.  He is, one might say, a true mensch.

The star of the series is Vince Gilligan, the show’s creator and man behind the scenes.  Every detail, every little thing that happens means something.  Take notes as you watch because if someone so much as sneezes it will turn out to be important later. Not letting a single second of time go wasted has become Gilligan’s signature.

So many shows take off and then descend into chaos.  The actors get too big for their britches and want to leave for bigger, better things.  Ironically, prior to this show, Bryan Cranston wasn’t that well known, his other biggest acting gig having been as the father on Malcolm in the Middle.

Like Walt, Bryan found fame and fortune late in life (albeit legally) but he never forgot the viewers and juggled all the big movie roles that came his way with Breaking Bad, keeping it all together to keep the show going.

And sometimes writers run out of gas, but Vince and company keep viewers on the edge of their seats to the very end.

In fact, if you’re a wannabe writer, I highly suggest checking out this show. (At present, all five seasons are available on Netflix.)

And catch the prequel, Better Call Saul on AMC. It doesn’t have a lot to do with Breaking Bad but you get to learn how Saul and Mike worked together before Walt came along.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy.

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Sep 04 2016
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TV Reviews

TV Review – Sons of Anarchy (2008-2014)

“Riding through this world…something something…a crow flies straight, look at us we’re all in leather…”

Guns. Bikes. Unlikely plots.

BQB here with a review of FX’s Sons of Anarchy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KngK8Kefv0Y

It has been off the air a couple years now, but surely you can find this show somewhere out there in the stream-a-verse.  In fact, at the time of this writing, Netflix has all seven seasons available.

Travel back with me to 2008, 3.5 readers. A show called The Sopranos had just wrapped up a year before and was groundbreaking in its ability to bring viewers to cable movie channels.

Suddenly, everyone wanted to copy the Sopranos by putting out a TV show featuring a crime family. “It’s the Sopranos on a boat! It’s the Sopranos in space!”

Who knew that a show that was “Sopranos on motorcycles” would last for seven seasons?

Ironically, “Hamlet with Bikers” would be a better alternate title as the conflict between Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam), his mother, Gemma Teller (Katey Sagal) and his step-father, Clay Morrow (Ron Perlman) was the overall main plot point of the series.

The set-up?  Years prior to the start of the show, Jax’s after, John and Clay started the Sons of Anarchy motorcycle club.  John died under mysterious circumstances, Clay marries Gemma and as a grown man, Jax reads his father’s letters (because if it is one thing bikers are known for it is their prolific writings) detailing his hopes that “SAMCRO” would one day become a legitimate organization for gear heads to bond together in the spirit of camaraderie and brotherhood, yadda yadda yadda.

Not happening under Clay’s watch.

And thus, the Sons of Anarchy formula is born:

  • The Sons agree to push drugs, run guns, or engage in some other illegal activity in league with another criminal organization.
  • Shit hits the fan and the Sons are shocked, absolutely SHOCKED to learn that pushing drugs, running guns, or conducting other illegal activities causes all manner of dangerous consequences.
  • The Sons want out of the aforementioned illegal activity, but to get out of it, they must somehow do some sort of illegal task for the criminal organization they aligned themselves with, or engage in more illegal activity on the behalf of a new criminal organization in order to get them to take on the job they signed up to do for the original criminal organization.
  • When all is said and done, the Sons expend massive amounts of time, energy, money, manpower, and yes, even life as members of their ranks are killed all the time and yet they never, ever turn a profit on any of the illegal activity they engage in. They are, by far, the worst criminals in the history of crime and one wonders why they don’t just take half the time, money and energy they use on crime and put it towards legitimate enterprise.

In fact, every week when this show was on the air, I yearned for the following scene that never happened:

:::Jax and the boys gather around the table.:::

JAX: OK. We need money. Any ideas?

TIG: Let’s sell drugs!

JUICE: Let’s run guns!

RANDOM MEMBER: Let’s take our profits from the Teller-Morrow Garage, utilize the assistance of a reputable asset management planner to invest in stocks and bonds that yield positive dividends and then use the proceeds to start more garages, gas stations, and tow truck companies, thereby taking our love of automobile repair and using it to become respectable members of society.

:::Gang looks at each other:::

JAX: Take a walk, Random Member. You’re out of the club! Surrender your cut!

FYI – “surrendering your cut” means taking away your spiffy Sons of Anarchy vest, by far the worst and most humiliating punishment one can suffer in the SAMCRO organization.

Every TV show requires you to suspend a certain amount of disbelief, this one more than others.

The fact that no one in the club ever thinks, “Gee whiz, I could make more money flipping burgers at McDonald’s than I do as Jax’s lackey” is something that you’re never supposed to think about, nor are you supposed to consider the fact that if the Sons would take all the planning skills they use to concoct their elaborate schemes, they could probably put those skills to work in legit fields.

I know whenever I see someone in the Fast and Furious hacking twenty computers at the same time I end up wondering why they just don’t get a job in Silicon Valley and the same logic applies here.

Above all else, you are also not supposed to ask yourself why Jax’s girlfriend, the beautiful Dr. Tara Knowles (Maggie Siff) gives Jax the time of day.

Jax and Tara had once been teenage sweethearts.  At the start of the show, Tara has become a doctor and returns to town to take a position as a surgeon (yes, she is a surgeon dating a motorcycle gang leader but you aren’t supposed to scratch your head over that one at all.)

Look I get it. Love makes people do strange things. The heart wants what it wants.

All I’m saying is that if I’m Jax and I’ve got a super hot doctor girlfriend, I’m going to be all like, “OK you shitheads have fun running those guns, I’m going to chill at home and change the kids’ diapers while my wife brings home the bacon. Shit, maybe I’ll get a part-time job at Auto Zone and get my two year associate’s degree to make the little woman proud.”

Sigh. Lady doctors, you’re all so unappreciated by your motorcycle gang leader boyfriends.

Funny thing about the show though is that as unlikely as the story arcs were, they got the fans talking about the show and if people are talking about your show, then you’ve struck gold.

And to show creator Kurt Sutter’s credit, that gold lasted seven seasons.

Charlie Hunnam is great as the morally conflicted Jax who yearns to go legit yet always has one more criminal misdeed to carry out to save his family and/or friends (again, put the “why doesn’t he just let his doctor girlfriend handle the money” question out of your mind).

Dayton Callie also provides an excellent performance as Wayne Unser, the equally morally conflicted police chief of Charming, California who begrudgingly works with the Sons out of a fear that they protect the town from worse evils.

Worth checking out but…suspend disbelief and uh…have a strong stomach as the bikers and various criminals aren’t exactly kind to each other throughout the show, as you might imagine.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy.

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Aug 10 2015
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TV Reviews

True Detective -Season 2 Finale – TV Review by Special Guest Jake Hatcher

By:  Jake Hatcher, Official Bookshelf Battle Blog Private Eye

True Dick

True Dick

The name’s Hatcher.  Jake Hatcher.  I’m a gumshoe.  A sleuth.  A shamus.  A private dick.

And as of late, a coerced scribe for Bookshelf Q. Battler’s joke of a blog.

Not to put my employer down, but I’ve seen milk cartons with a higher readership.

Let’s take a minute and shoot the bull about True Detective.  The second second season just wrapped up on HBO and there were more twists than a road designed by a blind man.

I’m required to warn you this review has more SPOILERS that you can shake a stick at.

Trailer – True Detective – HBO

Like most capers, it all begins with a murder.

The City of Vinci.  It’s a factory town.  Lot of big business, but only a handful of people actually live there.  That means the cops and the local government pretty much act with impunity, free to wrangle their devious deals without any oversight.

And like most mysteries, this story begins with a murder.  The city manager, a real pervert’s pervert, is put on ice.  A special task force is put together to figure out the whodunnit.

It includes:

  • Rachel McAdams as Ani Bezzerides – Hubba hubba.  Even though they try to ugly her up so she looks like a real downtrodden broad, she still makes this gumshoe’s ticker skip a beat.  Hell, I still haven’t stopped thinking about how this dame wore the hell out of that dress in Southpaw.  Bezzerides’ pops ran some hippy dippy commune and growing up on it made for a tough life.
  • Tayler Kitsch as Paul Woodrugh – A highway patrolman who takes a bad rap when he pulls over a speeder.  Turns out its some floozy actress who puts the frame job on him.  She makes a false claim that he tried to get the goodies just to get out of trouble because she’s had one too many run ins with the law before.  His bosses put him on the special detail so he can lay low for awhile, but the case allows him to do anything but.
  • Colin Farrell as Ray Velcoro – a real mean so and so, a drunk bastard to boot.  Beats up people at the drop of a hat.  I kinda liked him.  (Well, except for the corruption part.)  Ray’s wife was raped years ago an he turned to mobster Frank Semyon to hand over the perpetrator. Unfortunately, Ray pays for that info with his soul as he ends up becoming Frank’s lapdog for the rest of his life, using his position to further Frank’s criminal interests on account of Frank now having something to hold over Ray’s head.

Frank, played by Vince Vaughn, is a crooked club and casino owner whose duked his way out to the top of the underworld ranks.  He’s experienced success late in life and like most folks who’ve had that happen, it’s hard for him to be happy about it.  He’s bitter that it took so long and his worst fears are met when he discovers that the city manager had been looting all his money behind his back.  It’s up to Frank to find out who the manager was working with.

I’m a straight arrow when it comes to the letter of the law, so I don’t care for it when a bad guy is glorified.  However, Vaughn steals the show and the writers try to get the point across that sometimes folks like Frank, born into bad circumstances, see their only way to the top as being a life of crime.

To the show’s credit, it’s also made clear that Frank could walk away at any time and leave the degenerate life behind.  His wife Jordan, aka Kelly Reilly, begs him to take the money they have left, forget about revenge, and call it quits, but Frank just can’t do it.

I can relate.  My third ex-wife, Connie, often tried to talk me out of dropping the gumshoe game.  She wanted to move to the sticks and start a bed and breakfast.  I came up with a million reasons why that wasn’t feasible but the real one is that I’d of been bored out of my mind.  Sometimes you get to the point where you’ve pummeled so many criminals that you don’t know what you’d do without another one to smack around.

But I digress.

Overall, it was a decent program with a lot of action and intrigue.  Also, there’s the occasional bare set of bosoms.  It’s not like I try to notice things like that, but I can’t help it.  I’m a detective.  I notice every detail.  No matter how big.

One criticism might be that the plot is a bit convoluted.  I watched the whole thing and had to stand on my head and spin before it all made sense.  You’ve got land deals, murder, a cold case from 1992, some impropriety in Afghanistan, sometimes it all ties together, though you need a flowchart and a slide rule to figure it all out.

Maybe that’s director Nic Pizzolato’s point.  Sometimes the answers to mysteries aren’t handed over all wrapped with a nice shiny red bow.

Word on the street is there have been some complaints that this season wasn’t as good as the last.  To that, I’d point out that the idea is that each season rolls with a new group of detectives in a different locale.  Thus, each season is like watching a whole new extended movie, so it’s hard to compare one film to another.  Just because you really like one movie, aka season one, doesn’t mean the second movie, aka season two was terrible.

They were just different.

Ahh, Rachel McAdams.  What a foxy broad.

Jake Hatcher is the Bookshelf Battle Blog’s Pop Culture Detective, sworn to solve 100 pop culture mysteries.  Sometimes he even shares his own tales of daring do in LA’s seedy underworld.  If you have a pop culture question, put Jake on the case.  Tweet questions to @bookshelfbattle or leave them in the comments.

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