TVSquad

Joan Cusack has made a career of finding the comedically crumbling foundations beneath what are at first normal-seeming characters. The two-time Oscar nominee also has a knack for making the most out of her roles, and in the new Lifetime movie Acceptance, both of her greatest skills are on display.

In the movie, which debuts on Saturday at 9PM ET, Cusack plays Nina Rockefeller, the hard-driving and high-strung mother of the movie's protagonist, Taylor (played by Mae Whitman of Arrested Development). The movie examines the pressure on high school overachievers to go to just the "right" college, and the story is told in a way that looks at it from both the students' and the parents' perspectives.

Cusack called me from Chicago (where she lives full-time) earlier this week. We talked about college pressures, if the notion of a Lifetime movie has changed, and why she loves working with her brother John so damn much.

(S01E06) Two words: very satisfying. This episode gave you everything you would want from a season finale. There was enough left to keep you hanging, but plenty was tied up in case Thief doesn't return for a full-order second season. I haven't seen any ratings, but I don't think we'll be seeing a return as I got the impression that this show grabbed a small audience. Regardless, this was a fantastic filler to tide F/X fans over as they transitioned from The Shield to Rescue Me (which returns on Tuesday, May 30).

All hell has broken loose. No one in Nick's crew can agree on anything and that fact that the Feds (led by an over-zealous agent named Patterson) are hot on their trail isn't helping either. But as I assumed last week, Nick had to make a choice between the score and Tammi. The reason he had to make such a choice was the real surprise.

(S01E04) The first three episodes of this show were spectacular. This episode was even better - it brought the show to a whole new level. Talk about a tense hour. I fell asleep early last night and woke up around five this morning to watch this before I headed off to work. I didn't need to make a pot of coffee. This jolted my eyes open just fine. Everything is coming together for the big heist but at the same time, all the things that are going to get in the way have now been made perfectly clear. The real tension for Nick doesn't seem to be the heist (at least not yet) - it's dealing with Wanda's house, his business, and the step-daughter who doesn't trust him. The dichotomies this show presents are great. Nick is ruthless, but he's a nice guy. He's a professional thief, but he's just like you and me. He's good and evil. Even skin color creates a gap between Nick and Tammi in the incredible last scene of the episode.