TVSquad

Sarah Gilbert
Portland, Ore. - http://www.cafemama.com

Sarah Gilbert used to work as an investment banker but it really conflicted with Ally McBeal. Now she's a work-from-home mama of two night owl boys who can only watch shows that are a little scary, like Law & Order, Medium, NCIS and Grey's Anatomy. That is, when she's not dancing along with the Backyardigans and brushing up on her Spanish with Dora. And she has somehow managed to convince her preschooler that the Food Network is really called the "yum yum channel" so she can watch all of Rachael Ray's shows and some late-night Iron Chef.

Sarah Gilbert
Portland, Ore. - http://www.cafemama.com

Sarah Gilbert used to work as an investment banker but it really conflicted with Ally McBeal. Now she's a work-from-home mama of two night owl boys who can only watch shows that are a little scary, like Law & Order, Medium, NCIS and Grey's Anatomy. That is, when she's not dancing along with the Backyardigans and brushing up on her Spanish with Dora. And she has somehow managed to convince her preschooler that the Food Network is really called the "yum yum channel" so she can watch all of Rachael Ray's shows and some late-night Iron Chef.

(S03E08) A friend and I were talking about a third woman, one who's involved with a volunteer organization. "I want my donation to be therapy for her!" said the friend. This week's episode of The 4400 opens that delicious possibility: the ability to force therapy onto someone. Oh, were it only true! I totally would have stolen that lady's herbs, too.

As it turns out, the therapy isn't always beneficent. Three people commit suicide at the opening of the show, haunted too cruelly by figures from their past. This sends Tom and Diana into a quest to find the source of the hallucinations -- a brand-new street drug called "Blink" -- and quash their own demons, personified by Tom's dead father and Diana's old fiancé.

Speaking of fiancés. The plot took its most delicious turn yet.

(S03E07) After Dennis Ryland's several near-death experiences in the third season premiere, and the peaks we see into Isabelle's cooperation with him in this episode, I'll admit I was beginning to feel hopeless. Ryland seemed all-powerful, able to fend off any manner of 4400 attacks and unstoppably diabolical. The perfect enemy and doppelganger archfiend for Tom.

That feeling kept cropping up throughout the episode, sometimes dully thudding as an undercurrent, sometimes spiking into a painful crescendo. Tom and Alanna were spinning out of control. First she was accused of being a Nova Group member, then we learned she had betrayed Tom's trust (but we all knew she was doing good the whole time, right?). Then it seemed she was headed for several years behind bars ... and Tom and Diana, how would they live with themselves if they gave up Gary Navarro to Mr. Perfect Evil himself?

(S03E06) Last week there were arguments. I said the wrapup was too neat. Some of you said no, I just didn't get it -- there was complexity. Things might not be as they seemed. And I'm happy to ring the bell of correct-ness. Ding ding ding! az1324 called it: Matthew was sent back from the future to work for the "other side." Whatever the other side, is.

Indeed, much to my delight we're given ever more conundrums in The 4400. It does seem as if Isabelle has redressed her "angel of death" moniker, although she is causing quite a bit of murder and mayhem as she turns the gifts of the Nova Group members against them. Perhaps we should replace the "of death" in her title, in fact, with "avenging."

Add Alana -- who through her work with students in the 4400 school, finds the man who killed her first husband and son -- to the list of AA members. And when we're talking 4400, AA stands for Avenging Angel.

(S03E05) As if the writers were pumping promicin themselves and reading the viewers' minds, Maia is neither gone nor forgotten in the second part of "Gone." And she comes back with explosive force, erupting into Tom and Alanna's fantasy worlds, radiating through Diana's frantic subconscious. I'm rapt as I watch Diana making a frightening collage of little girls' faces, as I see her sink into desperation when she learns that Maia has been sent back to the 1800s -- and died, at 25, only having left diaries behind as she expired on the Oregon Trail.

While I'm rapt by Tom and Diana emerging from the distinct wooden quality of the past several episodes, I'm thrown by the seemingly random details skittering about the edges of the plot. The 4400 we meet this week, an investment banker, can smell pheremones. It's a cool party trick and, you'd think, useful in the plot of a drama starring Alicia Silverstone. But it's a sideshow, just like the valiant efforts made (and subsequently erased) in the far past by the other children: synthetic fuel, colonies on the moon. Lovely, but ... why do these very interesting details feel as if they were picked out of a science fiction grab bag?

(S03E04) 'Gone' is an appropriate title for last night's episode. Gone is Lily, dead at the feet of her gorgeous and precocious (in sex, and in everything) daughter. Gone is Jordan Collier (even though he is tantalizingly alive according to last season's finale). Gone -- from the storyine line this season so far -- are Kyle and any number of tantalizing minor characters. Gone are Shawn's confidence, Matthew Ross' wisdom and principles, Diana's interestingness, Tom's keen relevance to the plot, all Diana's good dialogue.

And, at the end of the episode, gone is Maia, at least in the incarnation we know. Certainly, she'll be back, but not as Diana's daughter.Her absence creates a huge hole, most notably in Diana's deep connection to the 4400 through their close relationship.

(S03E01/S03E02) I had so many questions in the weeks leading up to last night's third season premiere of The 4400. Two, however, were keenest: Jordan Collier is alive!?! And, Isabelle went from baby to young woman in the space of a minute? (and, did she do it on purpose? and, is she really evil?)

Surprisingly, we saw absolutely nothing of Jordan Collier (not even a hint, really). Instead, the episode was largely centered on Isabelle's instant aging which was, literally, sapping the lifeblood of her mother, and on the rise of a dark subset of the 4400 who were using their powers for a bloody fight against evil: evil, that is, as personified by the NTAC elite whose fear of those very powers led to so much illness and death at the end of season two.

Chief among their targets is E-vil himself, Dennis Ryland. When he proves to be indestructible (just how many times can one man escape death, anyway? Does he have special powers we don't know about yet?), the Nova Group announces their plans to show the world their true power, on October 19.

But what everyone surely wants to know: was Jon Stewart funny? Someone wrote about how Stewart was an odd choice, given that he's all about New York, and news, whereas Hollywood is about Los Angeles, and fiction. I didn't see the disconnect - don't most of today's stars have homes both in LA and NYC? - but, still, I was worried. Jon seemed pretty nervous on his Daily Show performances leading up to the Oscars. Jon's the sort of guy who (despite his ever-present sarcasm) wears his heart on his sleeve. He uses the comedic device of truth, and geekiness. And that's what is oddest about having him at the Academy Awards. Self-effacing truthful geekiness is so out of place next to Jessica Alba (who, to follow a tangent Stewart started me upon, I definitely would not pick to repopulate the earth).

"I need coffee," she tells her husband at 6 a.m. when he realizes she's awake. He calls her bluff, telling her to just drink tea, and she insists. "I'll be gone a few hours, I'll cry without anyone hearing me, and I will come back with a bag of coffee," she says. Soon, she's discovering the body of the Coffee Palace's manager. And we're thrust into the mystery; is it a robbery gone bad? An easy way out for the victim's husband? Or something else? Where's the twist?

Before we talk twists, though, I'd like everyone to say "hi" to my friend Kristi, who said she stood next to Patricia Arquette during the filming of this episode! Hi Kristi!

You've got all this righteous anger, against Meredith over her treatment of George, Alex over his romp in the hospital bed with the hottie nurse, and Addison for just being there. And if you're anything like me: your anger pulled a switcheroo on you, diffusing, spreading out over the whole cast until it wasn't anger any more, really, but sympathy and sorrow and this little, sad hope.

But before we continue on with the major themes of the show I have to send out a hearty, loud, mama-rific cheer to the writers for their portrayal of Bailey. Oh how I love you, writers. You made her leak. As I'm deep in the throes of my second experience with breastfeeding, I've had those twin milky spots on my nice work shirt oh, so many times. And the way she plays it is priceless, in an especially emotional conversation with Addison: "Please don't cry! You're going to make me... (holds breasts in a motion to which I totally relate) lactate!" I would have jumped off the couch and done a little dance of joy over this realistic and funny portrayal... but I was breastfeeding my 10-month-old.

I feel like a total heel for saying so, but McSteamy - a.k.a. Mark, Dr. Shepherd's best friend and wife's lover - he's totally hotter than Derek. I am so not surprised that Addison fell for him! And his introduction, just one of a series of witty yet emotionally charged scenes, shows that the Grey's writers aren't taking a pass after last week's awesome episode. Was this one better? Nah. But it wasn't at all a disappointment, with a little surprise around every corner and a shocker at the end. Let's just say, all you George fans out there? You got a little bit of yours today.

When this episode ended, I just wanted to turn off my TV. I knew that nothing coming after it could possibly approach my now-heightened television standards. This show now ranks in my top-five list, greatest hours of TV ever. Seriously.

And it wasn't just the dramatic circumstances - the bomb inside a patient, the impending birth of Bailey's son, the threatened death of her husband, the sexual tension between Alex and Izzie, the looove tension between Shepherd and Meredith, Burke and Cristina. It was the film work, the emotion, the music, the heart-stopping fear and love and agony and ... just wow. And the shower scene, my lord, that was truly great stuff. Every bit of dirt that sullied my conscience after loving the shower scene that opened last week's episode was [yes I'm conscious of my double entendre] washed away.

Thanks, ABC, for advertising the Season 1 DVD at the end of this episode! Great. 'cause all I want is the DVD of this season now.