The Good Wife – Recap & Review – Great Firewall

photo: cbs

The Good Wife
Great Firewall

Original Air Date: Mar 1, 2011

Patricia Morris Buckley – Sr. Staff Writer
pmb@thetwocentscorp.com

Imagine all our favorite characters’ happiness as a giant balloon. This episode represented the needle that popped that rotund plastic. Some people laugh because the popping balloon makes a cool sound while others are just, well, deflated.

That’s how Alicia felt after this week’s episode. She thought the case she was working on was about Shen Yuan (Ken Leung of Lost), a man from China who wrote some anti-government thoughts on an American social networking website, but then the website provided his IP address to Chinese officials. The result? Five years of torture and confinement.

SouthLAnd – Recap & Review – Failure Drill

photo: tnt

SouthLAnd
Failure Drill

Original Air Date: Mar 1, 2011

Farrah Kaye – Sr. Editor
farrah@thetwocentscorp.com

John is completely gone. Last week, he flushed his pills down the toilet but there’s no way he can live without them. What will that do for his trainee, poor rookie Ben Sherman?

Elsewhere, Sammy is working on getting his life back together after Nate’s family left him and crazyT gets ready to give birth, Lydia is back on the job and Russ is nowhere to be found.

Opening scene: A shootout in a warehouse/laundromat and Josie and Lydia are on the scene. There is lots of chaos and both of them fire their guns.

Voiceover: To protect and to serve. That’s the LAPD’s motto. But as most cops will tell you, you’re lucky if you can just survive.

The Cape is Over

Mar 2, 2011

Not unexpectedly, The Cape will not be returning to our living rooms. Even worse, the final episode taped will only be aired online, sometime in March according to an NBC rep. Earlier in the run it was announced that the original 13 episode order was reduced to ten, which had all already completed filming. Now, the small but strong audience the show did maintain will be denied seeing the final episode.

What do you think? Did The Cape deserve another chance? Share your TwoCents.

(From TVLine)

American Idol – Recap & Review – Top 12 Men

photo: fox

American Idol
Top 12 Men

Original Air Date: Mar 1, 2011

Patricia Morris Buckley – Sr. Staff Writer
pmb@thetwocentscorp.com

I have to hand it to the judges; I really liked the variety of musical styles of the Top 12 men they’ve chosen. It’s everything from rock and soul to hip hop and old style crooner. And in that mix, I think that there’s only one really strong pop singer, which shows the diversity of this year’s crop.

So it’s going to be an interesting ride because everything feels fresh. No more overemphasis on the elusive “Package Artist.” In fact, of the four guys I voted for, two are artists in genres I don’t listen to. Go figure! Best of all these guys all have the talent to be where they are – no Sanjayas among them.

Also no theme this week. The guys were allowed to pick any song they liked. Let’s take a look at how all 12 did:

NCIS – Recap & Review – One Last Score

photo: cbs

NCIS
One Last Score

Original Air Date: Mar 1, 2011

Maria – Sr. Reviewer
maria@thetwocentscorp.com

Showering, first kisses, a dead NCIS assistant, Director Vance being worryingly strict, heists, title drops, leather, a metric ton of movie references, women’s prison, fans of William Faulkner, leather, romance and more. Quite a lot of content, even for an NCIS episode, but what really makes this episode special is the fact it was directed by Michael Weatherly who plays (very) Special Agent Tony DiNozzo! Wow!

The case starts when a dead temporary investigative assistant is found under a car that doesn’t belong to him. The Agents get a shock when they do find the dead man’s car, as it’s filled with NCIS stuff. The man had been let go and he was looting everything he could get his hands on.

Parenthood – Recap & Review – Qualities and Difficulties

photo: nbc

Parenthood
Qualities and Difficulties

Original Air Date: Mar 1, 2011

Karen Belgrad – Associate Editor
Karenbelgrad @thetwocentscorp.com

It’s a shame that the Emmy Awards do not have an outstanding younger actor category.  Because if they did, I have no doubt that Max Burkholder (who portrays Max Braverman) would be a shoo-in after tonight’s outstanding performance.  At such a young age, to be able to portray such raw emotion,  I can only imagine how his talent will grow.

Tonight’s episode largely dealt with the fallout from Max overhearing Adam telling Crosby about his Asperger’s.  The writer of this episode, Jason Katims, has an autistic child, so the authenticity of information is never in question and the dialogue clearly comes from a very personal place.  So let’s review how it all played out.

Raising Hope – Recap & Review – Snip, Snip

photo: fox

Raising Hope
Snip, Snip

Original Air Date: Mar 1, 2011

Rachel M – Staff Writer
rachelm@thetwocentscorp.com

Virginia has a very obvious gossip face, which Burt sights immediately. As does Jimmy, a juicy tidbit for the family. The gas guy comes to turn off their gas, because Virginia hasn’t paid the bill. They link the late bill to Virginia’s period being late, omg. Hope is so darn cute!

Virginia is off to get the results at the free clinic, does she have an unexpected pregnancy of her own? Find out after the jump.

Harry’s Law – Recap & Review – American Dreamers

photo: nbc

Harry’s Law
American Dreamers

Original Air Date – Feb 28, 2011

Colleen – TwoCents Reviewer
colleen@thetwocentscorp.com

Dreams of a better life. We all have them, no matter where we are or where we may have come from. Especially the person that is fighting oppression or even to stay alive as we have seen in tonight’s episode of “Harry’s Law”.

We come across a group of five young people originally from Tanzania who are arrested when the police find out that they are here illegally. Well, they were here legally originally, but returned from their homeland of Tanzania when it was realized that it was not safe for them to be there any longer. See, they are Albino and whoever is Albino in Tanzania is at a greater risk of being killed, maimed or dismembered. How one can do that to their own citizens, I will never understand.

Chuck – Recap & Review – Chuck Versus The First Bank Of Evil

photo: nbc

Chuck
Chuck Versus The First Bank of Evil

Original Air Date: Feb 28, 2011

Jeff L – Staff Writer
JeffL@thetwocentscorp.com

Things are heating up on this week’s Chuck. The soon-to-be Mr. and Mrs. Bartowski are inching closer to their wedding – even misappropriating some top secret U.S. Government technology (one of the many new upgrades at Castle) to plan their perfect attire.

Morgan and Casey’s “father”/ “son” bro-mance heats up and Vivian Volkoff (Lauren Cohan) inches closer to fulfilling her destiny in her father’s stead.

Watch Full-length Final Auditions of Top 24 Online

photo: fox

Last week, we saw little snippets of the final audition the contestants performed for the judges before the Top 24 were chosen.

Now you can see the full-length version of these performances online.

Only the performances of those contestants who made the final cut are available.

Go to www.americanidol.com/videos/season_10/top_24.

Idol airs in a three-night event this week. The 12 male semifinalists will perform tonight, and the 12 female semifinalists will perform Wednesday (both shows will be pre-recorded). Then tune in Thursday to see who America picks to become a Top 10 finalist on the season’s first live results show.