WEEK IN REVIEW: 9/26-10/2

So, I didn't split it up this week. I wanted to, but I just ran out of time. I should be done with the novel by Monday at the latest, so hopefully I'll be able to do it next week. So this week we won't get everything. (Oh, and RIP Lonestar and My Generation. We barely knew ya)

DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES: I'm so happy that Vanessa Williams is back on television!! I love her and her snarkiness, which is in full force here. Hoping we get a lot more of it. We also found out that Juanita was switched at birth, which Carlos isn't telling Gabby. And Bree tells Gabby that Andrew killed Carlos's mother a million years ago, which Gabby doesn't tell Carlos. Both sort of blah - but not as bad as Susan's story which I will just ignore. Bree is deciding to remodel now that she is divorcing Orson, and her handyman is being played by Brian Austin Green. Somewhere in Heaven, Aaron Spelling is squealing in excitement!

BROTHERS & SISTERS: Gilles Marini in his skivvies. Was there other stuff? Sorry I stopped paying attention at that point.

RUBICON: Listen you can ask me what happened on any given episode of this show and all I will be able to say is, "a lot," without any real explanation. Partly because it is so subtle and partly because I'm just not smart enough. But it is consistently one of my favorite hours on television each week.

MAD MEN: In not a completely shocking twist, Joan is knocked up with baby Sterling after their tryst in the alley. Joan decides to "take care of it," although Richard is willing to let her keep it and pass it off as her husbands. After a rather awkward appointment with a doctor Richard suggested, she goes for an appointment in Morristown with a doc who does the "taking care of it." But we never see it happen, or even her go into the appointment, so if you ask me I say she didn't do it. What's crazy about this episode is that was the least intense storyline. Between Lane's crazy father who beat Lane with his cane and told him to dump his "chocolate bunny" and go home to his wife and kids and then Don almost getting revealed as being Dick Whitman thanks to Pete's airforce account, things got really scary really quick at SCDP. And to top it off, the loss of the air account and Lucky Strike (tho Richard has yet to reveal it) could mean the end of their upstart company. EEK!

CHUCK: There was some great stuff this week - the return of the non-efficient Buy More, with Morgan made manager, Karolina Kurkova, Lou Ferrigno, Sarah unpacked, Awesome went baby crazy, Isaiah Mustafa, Casey calls Alex - but frankly the only thing I am left thinking about is this: WTF was up with Bronson Pinchot? He was in the guest credits at the start, but had no line and was only on screen for, I'm not kidding, 5 seconds. Again I say: W. T. F.  ?????

THE EVENT: Dude. Love. The Jason Ritter part is like a fantastic Hitchcock movie (he is Jimmy Stewart and Sarah Roemer is Grace Kelley) Loved loved loved their meet cute in the pool. Swoon to the tenth degree. Then there is all the sci-fi/conspiracy thriller fun stuff. The detainees are what? Aliens? Maybe. Although if you ask me and Kev, we say they are from the future a la The 4400 (where the abductors were not aliens, but future humans). The changes in DNA - not alien, but just evolution. They talked about how a chimp is only 2% different in DNA, a 2% difference that can be accounted for by evolution, if you go with that explanation for mankind. And since this is a sci-fi show, we are going with that explanation. As for the end - there is no way Scott Patterson is dead, so I'm hoping the other 200 people aren't either! Harsh.

HAWAII 5-0: Looks like Hawaii 5-0 is going to give Castle a run for it's money in the awesome guest stars category. This week: Ivana Milevic, Scott Cohen (Max Medina!!) and Martin Starr. All awesome, although the casting of Ivana made the twist that she was a plant very very obvious. Hello! The bad guys were Russian!! Anywho, still a great ep, and loved the fake graduation for Kona. Got a little misty. But when don't I?

CASTLE: Bess Armstrong! Rachel Boston! I don't know though, H50 may have still won this week. But they had the "Alexander" moment at the end of the ep, so point Castle. Mini-swoon. AND DOUBLE RAINBOW SHOUT OUT!!! ATW!!!

 HIMYM: Before I get to the best part of the episode (or should I say the season, because short of revealing the mother, I don't know how they'll top it) let me tell you the best line of the episode. When they are cleaning out Barney's mom's house and find the Santa suit she would wear to fool the kids they discuss parents lying to kids, "Santa is a good like. Like when we tell Ted that he will meet the right girl and settle down." HAHA. It's funny cuz we know he will, but seriously, it's taking For. Ever. Anyway, best part was when Wayne Brady and his dad (I am convinced in real life) Ben Vereen sing Stand by Me, and NPH joins in. Just awesomesauce. Small shout out to Cobie/Robin's reaction in the background. And then the closing bit with the Kanye voice box? Gosh I love NPH.

GOSSIP GIRL: I love when Serena and Blair work together to take someone else down. So you can imagine how much I loved this episode! And I also LOVE Lily and Chuck scenes. So hurray for that! Speaking of Chuck - anyone else think that Eva has some sort of ulterior motive? Anyone??

90210: Mr. Cannon is super super icky.

NO ORDINARY FAMILY: A good pilot. I adore the actors (hello! Julie Benz!!) and thing the characters are all a lot of fun. Especially the "friends," played by Romany Molasco and Autumn Reeser. Autumn is basically played Taylor from The OC, but a science geek. And Romany is playing a DA, which I find to be odd casting, but I understand it's purpose and I'm letting that go because he is hysterical. Also, good setup for some mythology - her boss is evil and they aren't the only supers! Interested to see where it goes. (Also - plant Stephanie was talking about during the meeting related to whatever that was in the water that made them super??)

GLEE: It's Britney, Bitch. I was very curious how they were going to incorporate all the Brit because I knew that Mr Shue was going to be against it. Love how they did it as dream sequences while they were all getting work done by the adorable dentist/Emma's new boyfriend, Carl. Can he sing already, please? Uncle Jesse, FTW. Someone obviously spent a lot of time with some Britney videos, because those were all spot on - much like Vogue in the Madonna episode. But despite all the Brit, my favorite parts were Sue related, of course. When she went on some bizarre rant about the Democratic National Convention, Will had one of the best reactions ever where he did almost a triple take and looked around to see if anyone else was hearing this craziness. But Sue had the best line, "You wear more vests than the cast of Blossom." It's funny cuz it's true. Ready for next week's ep, Grilled Chessus. But scared to watch because I started to cry during the previews!

THE GOOD WIFE: Dammit all the hell, Eli! Why oh why did you erase that message?? WHY?!?!?! Sigh.... Other things that made me sad: I can't love Cary any more. And Kalinda's new possibly nemesis is played by Scott Porter (Friday Night Light's Jason Street) and I'm not sure we are going to be able to like him yet either. Or the new partner played by the also very pretty Michael Ealy. And yet despite all the drama that makes me sad, I'm still so excited this show is back. It's just great adult drama.

ONE TREE HILL: Dear Will, Thanks for dying so that Clay could live. Sucks for you since you seemed like a good kid, but poor Quinn needs Clay to live. Don't text and drive! -Melissa 

LIFE UNEXPECTED: That was a whole lot of exposition just to get to the inevitable Mr. Daniels will be tutoring Lux storyline! But it did give us some more of that cutie Jones. And Math finally telling Lux something she needed to be told: she is full of crap for whining about her parents! Thank's Math. We love you. But, for the first time ever, the best part was Ryan and Baze, who finally have come to terms with each other. Ryan and Cate gave Baze the money for Paige's part in the fire. Ryan put up a hoop for Baze to practice basketball with Lux. And Baze is being a big boy with a big boy job (with Emma Caulfied!).

UNDERCOVERS: Well, it's official. Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Boris Kodjoe may be the pretty star faces of the show, but it's the supporting cast that really makes this show fun. Gerald McRaney has perfected the crotchedy guy in charge. Ben Schwartz who could be grating as the spy in love with Boris's character earns my respect with his actual skills as a spy and last but not least (in fact best) Carter MacIntyre as Leo Nash (ex-boyfriend to Samantha and ex-partner/friend to Steven) is hysterical. I only hope that they don't wait til half way thru to bring him in every episode. When he says things like, "I don't want it to be awkward that I used to do sex with your wife," you don't want less of him.

COUGAR TOWN: Three words: Dead. Baby. Lasagna.

HELLCATS: This show may be about Marti, but it is Savannah and Danny that keep me interested. Danny is a playboy and Savannah, as Marti put it, "wouldn't know casual if it came up to her on the street and said 'hey, yeah, whatever.'" But thanks to Savannah sticking up to her awful mother, and managing to be classy and loving in the process, Danny has become smitten with her and is going to give the whole "one girl" thing a try. (Very Logan/Rory, isn't it?) But back to our main girl, Marti - it's episode four and we already have her singing. How long til Tisdale is working it on open mic night?

MODERN FAMILY: Beso! Beso! Beso! (If you saw it, you get it. If you didn't, well, I'm just sad for you.)

30 ROCK: How does 30 Rock get Paul Giamatti, Brian Williams (love!) and Andrea Mitchell on an episode and it's not even sweeps. It's just the second of the season. What is going to happen come sweeps? (And I really missed Matt Damon)

FRINGE: This season is equally good and frustrating. The storylines are great, and that Walter/Peter scene broke my already fragile Fringe-loving heart. But Fauxlivia, oh Fauxlivia, you drive me effing nuts! First of all, HUGE shout out to Anna Torv who plays her alternate reality character to perfection. She plays Fauxlivia in a way that you understand why she is fooling everyone, but at the same time never fools the viewer. We see the differences (I think she even sounds different) but you can see how well she is hiding them. I can't wait for her to be discovered! I'm hoping it's Astrid. I love me some sassy Astrid.

BONES: Sigh..... Hannah. You seem like a good person. I don't want to hate you. I really don't. For those that watch Grey's, Hannah is like Addison. She is the other woman, you want her hands off the man whose heart clearly belongs to the titular character of the show, but you kinda can't help but like her just a little. That said, she needs to get the eff out of her. Did you see Bones' face every time Hannah was around?? It's the first time we finally saw how sad she really was about about it (aka how much she loves Booth). Even Clark, who hates any of this silly personal crap, can see it! Dammit!!!

VAMPIRE DIARIES: This exchange is why I love this show:
Mason: Great to meet you. Heard really great things about you.
Damon: Really? That's weird. Cause I'm a dick.
I heart you, Damon.

GREY'S ANATOMY: Who else got really sad when Lexie basically told Mark to eff off right before he was about to tell her he loved her? I love these two together, and want Mark to be happy, because his pouty face is oh so sad.  But more importantly than these two crazy kids: Christina Yang is losing it thanks to that whole 'performing on her best friend's husband at gun point' thing. She even thinks about divorcing Owen after 15 seconds of marriage. But Mer, of course, talked her out of it. And right after that Owen came in with a fantastic speech to win Christina back. Christina gets up, tells Owen they should go home and walks out the door. Owen gets a look of pride that his well-rehearsed speech work, to which Mer says, "I fixed her right before you came. But that was a nice speech." Oh Owen, you should know better than that now!

PRIVATE PRACTICE: These are some of the most child-like adults ever. I say it all the time, but it's always true.

NIKITA: Do we need a scene in every episode where Nikita and Michael hold each other at gunpoint and have a conversation that consists of Michael telling Nikita she will never win this fight and Nikita telling Michael that he is a sheep when it comes to Percy? Every episode? I still like the episode, but the repetition with that is getting a little annoying. Also - who else thinks Percy is Michael's father? I thought that was what he was going to tell Nikita in that flashback at the end of the episode.

SUPERNATURAL: Alright, that's better! Much better episode this week. Fun to go back to an old school monster - the shapeshifter- and learn that they have an "alpha" leader who doesn't need to shed to change? Crazy! Speaking of crazy- what is up with Grandpa? Who was on the phone?? Who is he working for?? And why?? And why after all these years when Dean tells Sam that something is weird about someone does Sam not believe him? Does no one else remember Ruby?!?! Plus we finally got some real quality Sam/Dean time. In a cheap motel room with a weird partition! And a baby! Well, that is new, but loved the baby's name! Bobby John!! But as great as the episode was, nothing, I mean NOTHING, is going to compare to the end. First Lisa has to go and make me like her but telling Dean he needs to hit the road because that is where he wants to be. AND THEN......... METTALICAR!!!! The beautiful Impala (and the only girl that really has any place on the show) was finally unveiled from underneath the tarp. I can't wait to see her on the road next week. Also next week: CAS!! WOOT!

Ok, that's the week! I'm excited I got that done. And still managed to get most of it in there!

Comment me!!