Previously on tv…

America’s Next Top Model

Tyra is asserting that this new cycle of Top Model is even more high fashion than the last one.

Gossip Girl

Dan’s entrance to the office at W was less sassy than last week’s, but still sassy.

And, Jersey Shore

The Situation called a cab for Snookie and Deena, who wanted to go up to Point Pleasant, and told the cab driver to take them to Times Square instead as a special surprise. The girls did not think it was funny because they thought they were being kidnapped. I feel like, at the point where they were yelling, “What is going on??? WHERE ARE YOU TAKING US???” the cab driver could have said, “Your friend wanted me to surprise you with a trip to New York!” instead of driving silently north like a creeper.

Anyway, when they got home, they were pissed at Mike for the prank, but also pissed at Vinnie and Pauly D for not letting them in on what Mike had planned before they left. When Pauly D found out they were pissed at him, he came to tell them that now he was pissed at them for being pissed at him.

Pissed.

The important thing is when Pauly D gets fake jokey attitude, he looks like a little old lady.

Previously on tv…

Jersey Shore

The Jersey Shore cast found the best dancer at the Jersey Shore.

Also, Deena’s description of the way she dances (slash has a good time) was the theme of my entire evening out at the club this weekend. I’m not making that up.

Gossip Girl

Dan got an internship at W magazine. He decided to be super sassy about it.

And finally, The Lost Valentine

This was a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie about Jennifer Love Hewitt in a series of increasingly unflattering maxi dresses interviewing Betty White for a color story on an old lady whose husband was never taken off the missing in action list from WWII. I’m not entirely sure how it ended, because they did eventually solve the mystery, find his body, and bring him home for a burial, which was great. But, then Betty White was in the backyard, where they had just cut back this dead rose bush the husband had planted to the root because she thought it might grow back that way. So, she grabs the hose to water her plants and notices a bud on the rose bush (which was a bush again, by the way, like, it was alive and it hadn’t been cut back anymore, even though that scene had taken place I think the day before?), and they zoom in on her face and she’s all, like, “Yay rose bud!” and then they go back to the rose, which is now a FULLY FORMED ROSE, like, wtf is going on with this rose bush? And then her ghost husband comes and starts dancing with her to Dream a Little Dream of Me, which is seriously the only song they ever ever ever listened to, like, it wasn’t even just “their song,” it was just the only song that their terrible radio station would play. So, she’s, like, swaying back and forth, smiling, but then she gets this pained look on her face, and then they have a tight shot of the ground where the hose drops, so I think she died??? But, you’d never know, because JLoHew is in the front yard running through the sprinklers with Betty White’s grandson (that makes him sound like a child, but he was her new bf). I definitely think Betty White died, though. Creepy.

This was the best part, though. When Betty White is giving an interview and gets to the point where she has to describe the day the telegram came declaring her husband MIA (And seriously, how long was this news piece gonna be? Betty White was telling her entire life story, starting from childhood!), she gets up to go into the house because she’s had enough for the day, and then this stunt double with a terrible wig and, like, a pillow stuffed in the back of her pants, goes down like a sack of potatoes, and makes a noise that sounds like someone just dropped four or five textbooks on the ground.

We rewound/recreated this scene approximately 87 times.

.

You’re welcome.

Previously on tv…

America’s Next Top Model

The girls dressed up in costumes to get in the holiday spirit! Actually, they were dressed up as “famous people” for their photo shoot, but the famous people turned out to be designers? Because most designers are so well-known for the specific way they would pose in pictures? So, some of the girls (like Jane as Marc Jacobs, Kendal as Vera Wang, or Esther as Christophe Decarnin) got a lot of flack, because they didn’t figure out a way to model as three of the most personality-unspecific people on the planet. “Marc Jacobs is a cool guy. You should have looked cooler.” “Vera Wang is a nice person. You should have looked more like a person.”

Then, Ann scared everyone at the fashion show when she started to walk like those J-Horror girls who have broken limbs, but they just won’t stop coming at you!

She also made a feast of what looked like a scrambled egg on top of the raw yolk of another egg and called it, simply, “Egg.”

And then she scared everyone at Venice Beach by causing an earthquake when she went down on her roller skates. Do you get it??? She’s tall.

This did remind me, though, of the time that my gym teacher got a state grant to buy enough roller blades for every gym class to have a roller blading unit. I am terrible at roller blading and really didn’t want to have to do it, but he made this big deal about having won a grant to buy us roller blades, so there was no way to get out of it. So, I waited in line to get my skates, and when I got up to the table, I was like, “Can I also have a medium size helmet, please,” and he was like, “Somehow, this grant allowed me to get exactly as many medium sized helmets as everyone would need, minus one, and one extra large helmet, so here is your extra large helmet.” And I was like, “Shouldn’t I wear a helmet that fits my head?” And he was like, “Don’t argue with me, just put your helmet made for a much larger head on and start blading.” So, I did. And then I fell. And the enormous helmet hit the ground and then, a few seconds later (it was a BIG HELMET!), my head hit the inside of the helmet. A friend of mine said it looked like my neck had broken and she started screaming. Other people had to take my blades off because my hands were bleeding, and I told my gym teacher that I refused to roller blade ever again if his safety equipment was gonna be that shitty. And it worked! I haven’t roller bladed since. So, I feel Ann here. You’re supposed to keep your knees from locking, because that makes you fall when you’re standing on top of wheels, but the first instinct when you’re about to fall is to LOCK YOUR KNEES. Dumb roller blades.

Incidentally, Ann basically cried through the filming of her commercial (I mean, really cried, tears in her eyes while delivering lines cried) because she was so paranoid about people laughing at her, and Mr. Jay was like, “Don’t cry! No one’s going to laugh at you because you’re not good at roller blading, silly!”

And then that bitch and all his friends did just that.

Dexter

Julia Stiles is guest starring on this season of Dexter as a woman who was kidnapped, tortured, and raped by a bunch of men – one of whom she sort of walked in on Dexter killing – and is intent on killing the rest of them, hopefully with Dexter’s help. Dexter doesn’t really want to help her, though, because he thinks the burden of being a killer will just make her worse, so he goes to her motel room to try to get her to leave town (you know, without telling anyone that she knows he’s a murderer), and he finds this wall of crazy person writing.

Spooky! But, really, can’t you just hear Julia Stiles screaming, “IS THIS HIM!!?”

Glee

Mr. Shue continues his crusade to be fucking creepy as all hell by insinuating himself into the most sexualized numbers the Glee club puts on. And by basically stalking his former girlfriend. He finds out that she loves Rocky Horror, and decides to have the Glee club perform it for the school musical so he can get in her pants. Let’s forget that last year, Rachel decided to leave the glee club so she could be the lead in the school musical instead and just pretend that the glee club having a lockdown on all the parts in the school musical makes sense, even though it doesn’t. Anyway, every adult (and even most of the kids) are like, “Rocky Horror’s kind of incredibly inappropriate for a high school to be performing, though, isn’t it?” and he’s like, “It’s about pushing boundaries! And accepting people! Like evil transvestites and zombie versions of Meatloaf!” and everyone’s like, “We were kind of thinking more, like, the songs about masturbation and sex with monsters are the inappropriate parts?” and Shue is like, “It’s fine! I’ll leave the songs about sex to me! I’ll sing the songs about sex! To the children! On stage! While wearing gold hot pants! That makes it a lot more appropriate!”

AAAHHHHH! Make it stop! Send him to jail! And canceling the play and saying that they could put it on for themselves, meaning they could perform the Time Warp to Shue alone in an empty auditorium is not making it better!

Chopped

On the Halloween episode of Chopped, the contestants had to cook with

lamb heart in the appetizer round,

black chicken in the entree round,

and grasshoppers in the dessert round. Sample comment from the judges: “This lamb heart is a little underdone.” HOW DO THEY KNOW? GROSS!

Bored to Death

My second favorite line on tv this week came from Kevin Bacon, who guest starred as himself on Bored to Death: “Can we get out of Brooklyn? I though it would be cooler, but it isn’t.”

Gossip Girl

Jenny came back this week. Wait. What? Jenny came back this week?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! MAKE IT STOP! DEMON! DEEEEEEEEMONNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!

Paranormal State

So, this guy Patrick and his wife and their two kids move into a cabin in Virginia, and Patrick sees a wolf man or something, which scratches his arm one night. And then a woman in white appears to his daughter, and he’s like, “Why the kids? They have so much pressure with school and homework. Why the kids?” (Actual quote.) Then the stepson got scratched on his ear and he was like, “Ok.” (Actual quote.)

Then they bring in old queen psychic Chip Coffey who gets real sarcastic, all, “Ok, I immediately feel nauseated, so thanks for that ghosts. *BIG SIGH*”

Then this ghost hunter talks to Patrick’s brother-in-law who’s like, “No, I never seen nothing,” and then the ghost hunter is like, “So, you never saw anything. Oh, well,” and then the brother-in-law is like, “But, my daughter, well, she seen a woman in white, um, yeah, about 20 times. Yeah, about 20 times.”

So, the ghost hunter goes to talk to the owner of the cabin, who’s like, “Well, my mother built the cabin and she lived there with my brother Rocky, who later committed suicide. And also he worshiped Satan. And also he was into black magic. And also casting spells. Does that information help at all?” So, the host is like, “Kind of, but also, was he into sex parties?” He was, btw.

So, he goes back to Patrick and is like, “The guy who used to live here was really into black magic and Satan,” and Patrick’s like, “Oh, MAN, guh.” And then the ghost hunter is like, “So, no one who ever lived her before was scratched by anything in this house until you moved in, so are you a Satan worshiper or anything?” and Patrick’s like, “Blink blink, no, not that I know of, stare.”

Then the ghost hunter calls up a former tenant who used to hear the piano playing in the house at night.

Somehow, he manages to understand what she’s saying, which is that there were two ids in the house and one of them was for Rocky and the other was for Wendy Cambridge, and the ghost hunter asks who Wendy Cambridge is, and the former tenant is like, “That was for when Rocky was in full drag.”

So, the ghost hunter goes back to Rocky’s sister and is like, “Rocky: cross-dresser, or…?” and she’s like, “He used to perform at a very creepy looking venue and I went and took some hell pictures of him in his scary fucking costumes and I can show them to you if you’d like.”

And the cameraman’s like, “Let’s not focus too well on these, we wouldn’t want anyone to NOT have nightmares.” And then the ghost hunter is like, “Do you have any pictures of Rocky out of costume?”

And she’s like, “You said out of costume, but you didn’t ask for a normal picture, right? Another fucking creepy picture of him is ok, right? Because I have one of those.”

So, the ghost hunter is like, “Hey, isn’t it weird that Rocky was a Satan worshiper and he never bothered any other tenants and then Patrick moved in and something started attacking him, but Patrick isn’t a Satan worshiper? Isn’t that weird?” And the sister’s like, “Well, I did ask him once is he worshiped Satan and Patrick was like, ‘Well, everybody’s got a past.’ That’s weird, too, isn’t it?”

So the ghost hunter goes back to Patrick and is like, “Seriously, did you ever worship Satan?” And Patrick’s like, “No, no, not at all. Never … Well, except – and this is just grasping at straws here – except for that one time I was in school and a kid on the bus was like, ‘Let’s pray to the devil to make us werewolves,’ and I was like, ‘Yes, let’s do that.’ I mean, does that help? Is that information you could use, or…?”

So, then they call a werewolf expert who’s, like, “Werewolves are energy creatures who separate from your mind where you make them up,” or something?

So, then they try to tell Rocky to go away, but the wife randomly starts crying and is like, “I want it to leave my children alone and come through me if it’s gotta bother someone!” And then the next day, she’s attacked! But she won’t say what attacked her, or how, or anything about what happened. Boo. So, they bring in a priest to do a house cleansing and then he’s like, “Hey, guys, this is a weird question, and just stop me if I’m totally reaching here, but, did anyone at all happen to say something to the spirits about coming through them? Because I’m good at personal exorcisms, too. Just thought I’d mention that.”

So, after the exorcism, Patrick decides to have a river baptism to finally cleanse himself of those pacts with the devil he keeps making and forgetting about. Then two weeks later, some “neighborhood kids” find a time capsule with a letter from a 12-year-old Rocky telling “future generations” to “have hope.”

This was the point where everyone in the theater was like, “That’s it? That’s how it ends? I want my money back.” … This wasn’t a bad horror movie? It actually was an episode of a ghost hunting reality show on A&E?

Community

This show is the best. The whole school got food poisoning from tainted government issued food that the dean bought for the party to save money, and they turned into zombies. And zombies are so over, right, but it didn’t matter, because it was a perfect episode, from the dean’s Lady Gaga costume to the fact that Britta is firmly sticking to her no sexy costumes rule, to the completely random but perfectly chosen all-Abba soundtrack, to Troy thinking that the “power of imagination” would help him defeat the zombies, to my absolute favorite line on tv this week and maybe for the rest of my life: “What makes me a nerd? My commitment to an awesome costume with my best friend?” AND I’M NOT JUST SAYING THAT BECAUSE I MIGHT BE THE ONE WHO’S A LOT MORE INTO DRESSING UP WITH MY SISTER AS OOMPA LOOMPAS IN THE TV ROOM FOR HALLOWEEN THIS YEAR EVEN THOUGH THE COSTUMES ARE INCREDIBLY HOT AND SORT OF REALLY HARD TO WALK IN. (Unsexiest costume award? Maybe?)

Are you guys kidding me with the not watching Community? Are you kidding me that this show has somehow made it onto the short list of shows that might be canceled because of poor ratings because YOU are not watching it? Stop it. Stop not watching this show.

Project Runway

Andy drew the short straw to be the contestant whose hometown visit gets the best scared reaction out of Tim Gunn (by showing Tim ugly fish that he has in his backyard).

Also, Michael C’s epic freakout after being eliminated right before fashion week was kind of scary.

Ghost Adventures

Ghost Adventures managed to get a few strange sounds on their recorders this week. One sounded like the word “boo” and the other was like, “huh KEY”. So, Ghost Adventures went back and filmed themselves “asking questions” like “what color pants are you wearing right now?” and “what’s your favorite sport?” which are totally normal questions to ask a ghost, and totally questions that they ask all the time and have always asked and will continue to ask forever. “What color slacks do you have on right now, ghost man? What ghost sport are you playing with your ghost friends?”

Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee

On Sandra Lee’s Halloween episode, she dressed in four different costumes, each with 30 tons of fake hair, which was SCARY because it was making me SICK to think of all that fake hair touching all of the (gross, scary) food she was making. “Have a store-bought piece of cheesecake that’s probably already overly sweet, which I just doused in white chocolate and covered in dragees, and also don’t forget to take a few long pieces of wig hair with you to eat with your disgusting cheesecake!”

Of course, the scariest part of any Sandra Lee episode is cocktail time, and she sort of outdid herself. I mean, nothing will probably ever top vodka, lemonade, and HEAVY CREAM, which curdled in her mouth and got this reaction shot, but I think she tried her hardest to outgross us all. She got out some, like, pint-sized glasses and filled them with about 1/4 cup of vanilla vodka, 1/4 cup of white chocolate liqueur, a few guzzles of Frangelico, and 1/4 cup of HALF AND HALF. Then she stirred it with a FEATHER, and put the FEATHER (the FEATHER part, where the FEATHERS are) INTO THE GLASS! “Did you enjoy the wig hair? Please enjoy this insanely boozy drink floating in some half and half and don’t forget to take some pieces of craft store feather to drink with your vomit drink!”

And finally, The Country Music Association Awards

These people have to be stopped! Look what they did to Hootie! What is this, the Lawnmower Man?

Joey and Bessie had decided to turn their house into a b&b, but after one day of being officially opened, Joey was ready to pack it in because of lack of customers. So, Pacey decided to help by getting a NYT b&b critic to do a review and asking Grams, Jen, Jack, Andie, Mitch, and Gail to pose as customers for the weekend.

This made Joey and Dawson very angry. Joey, because she’s an entitled brat who wants to succeed but knows that failing gets her more attention, and Dawson, because he’s an entitled brat who wants his parents to get back together but knows that their being friends makes it harder for him to get attention.

Then Joey explains to them that Bessie is thinking about taking out a mortgage on the house, and this is their reaction. Totally normal 15-year-old reaction to something like a mortgage. I didn’t even fully understand what a mortgage was until I was, like, 25, so how do these teenagers immediately grasp the concept of a mortgage being a possible bad thing should the b&b fail? Also, Joey’s supposed to be poor, right? I mean, Dawson’s supposed to be rich, because he has a big house on the water. And Pacey’s supposed to be poor because he’s kind of white trash and his family is working class and he lives… I don’t know, also on the water somewhere? And Joey’s supposed to be poor because she’s also sort of white trash and her father’s in jail for dealing drugs, and she also has a house… on the water. Um, so anyway, Joey’s always going on and on about being poor and how nobody understands what it’s like to be poor like her and how her only chance to get out of this (lovely) town and make something of herself is to get a scholarship to an ivy league or whatever. But, can we just talk about this house for a second? They own this house. They OWN this house. Free and clear, hence the idea of taking out a mortgage. Also? It’s ENORMOUS. There are separate bedrooms for Joey, Bessie (and her bf, when he’s around), and Bessie’s son Alexander. There is also a bedroom for Gail and Mitch to stay in, one for Grams and Jen, one for Jack and Andie, one for the critic, and at least one more which Joey references as a bedroom that’s unfinished. That’s an eight-bedroom house that is PAID FOR, by a woman who had cancer for a very long time and a man who became a (lousy) drug dealer to pay his wife’s medical bills and is now in jail. Let’s say the addition they were putting on the house in the beginning of this season (how were they paying for it, btw?) added three bedrooms to the original house. That’s still a FIVE-bedroom house to begin with. How is Joey poor again?

Anyway, Joey’s being a super bitch about the whole idea of Bessie taking out a mortgage because she thinks it’s a bad idea and Bessie thinks she should stop being so oddly interested in bank business at the age of 15, and she also thinks that maybe she should look around at all the people who were somehow suckered into helping her this weekend and thank them. Joey, instead, continues to screech at everyone who comes in her path.

Meanwhile, this stupid creeper is still trying to get Jen to go out with her. He took a one-week job at a restaurant fixing their leaky roof and asked only for one free dinner for two as payment. You got ripped off, dude!

Also, Andie and Jack keep having the following conversation:

Andie: “Jack, will you please move back into our house, because I’m lonely and I don’t like that you left me all alone there with Dad.”
Jack: “So, Dad wants me back and he’s getting you to do the asking for him? Typical.”
Andie: “Actually, I want you back and I’m asking you for myself.”
Jack: “So, Dad wants me back and he’s getting you to do the asking for him? Typical.”

When she goes with him to Grams’s house (where he’s been living) to get some more blankets (the heat is broken at the b&b), she notices a shopping list on the refrigerator and is like, “What’s Jack milk?” and I’m like, “Oh, EWW!”

Mitch talks to Dawson, who thinks that it is “a little confusing, perhaps hurtful” for his parents to pose as a happily married couple when he’s a “child of divorce.” Mitch says, in so many words, if Dawson can so easily articulate why a real human boy might have feelings of resentment, then he probably doesn’t really have them himself. He also tells him that he found out through friends that Gail had been having trouble finding a job and needed some support, and he’s willing to give that to her, as an old friend. Dawson bitches that, as her son, his mother should have told him first about her job hunting troubles, even though, as her son, he should be the last person his mother should be burdening with job troubles, DUH!

Mitch also talks to Pacey, who’s feeling sorry for himself about trying to help a very ungrateful Joey especially considering how wrong everything’s going, but Mitch tells him that the person he should really be mad at in the situation is Joey, for being a cold-hearted bitch. I mean, he doesn’t say that at all, but he should have!

Anyway, the critic goes out for dinner, and the rest of the idiots build a fire and then start telling their favorite smell stories.

The critic returns during this completely cloying conversation and Joey’s basically like, “Um, thanks a lot for coming to our fucking stupid b&b that sucks balls, but it sucks and you know that, so fuck you for coming here and goodnight.”

The next day she wakes up to this. Ugh. They’re all so into it, it’s gross.

Also, this is a REAL SCENE THAT I DID NOT DOCTOR, I SWEAR. WTF is going on here?

Anyway, the critic is sitting there watching these jokers dance around and have heart-to-heart talks about how Joey should stop being such a bitch when people are trying to help her (I mean, they don’t, but they should have), and then he says that the heat was broken, but this is the warmest b&b he’s ever stayed in. Vom. I’m sure b&b critics are sappy because b&b’s are the kind of place that, like, Thomas Kinkade would stay in, but really? He works for the New York Times. That’s gross, dude.

Then, Pacey is the lead in the school play, as part of a deal he made with his English teacher to get his grade up. It’s opening night, but Joey is not going to be there, because she has a date with that fucker AJ from Harvard. Ugh. Her explanation for the choice of night has to do with the aurora borealis and how it can only be seen from Capeside on the exact night that Pacey’s play debuts, so she’s going to have to miss something that’s obviously really important to a good friend of hers. “I’ll just go tomorrow night!” Why don’t you just go on your date tomorrow night?

I’m sayin’!

Anyway, Joey is so sure that this date is not a date and is only about seeing the stupid northern lights and Pacey’s like, “This is my favorite day ever because they gave me old movie style fast-dialogue AND hand movements and I’m gonna make the best of it!” He tells her AJ will compliment her on her outfit and help her on with her coat and then try to get her alone once they go to the party (“if there even is a party”) and if he does those things, then she’ll see that he’s right and that AJ just wants to “separate her from the Potter pantalones.” (This is one of my favorite scenes, like, one of the only scenes I genuinely like from this show for reasons that have to do specifically with the dialogue and acting, btw.) I mean, how does Joey NOT GET THIS OUTRIGHT? Anyway, she says that helping her on with her coat and complimenting her outfit will only prove that he’s a gentleman.

Some gentleman. He doesn’t even ASK who the guy standing in the room with them is. Also, could Joey be putting her coat on ANY SLOWER? If you want him to help you, just tell him to help. Geez.

So, the party is at a mathematician’s house, who AJ describes as being “sort of [his] mentor, once up on a time.” Um, BARF! You’re 19! You’re a SOPHOMORE UNDERGRAD! WTF are you talking about? When was he your mentor? The third grade? Anyway, the party is filled with old people, because intellectuals don’t hang out with anyone under 50, and there’s pan flute music playing, and they’re drinking out of metal beer steins. It’s so gross. After going on and on about the other people at the party (“Grad students, a couple astro-physicists, left-leaning impoverished academics. Can’t you tell?”), he actually has the audacity to take a sip of the drink and say, “With pretentious taste in drink! Yuck. It’s mead. It’s what Beowulf drank before he slew Grendel.” What an asshole! He also won’t let her try it, because it’s “alcoholic.” Oh, my God.

Anyway, he asks her to take a walk and when she tells him how she wants to do something important with her life, he tells her that he thinks women who lose their mothers at a young age are more ambitious than others. Joey offers, “Like Madonna?” and AJ kind of scoffs, and looks at her condescendingly, correcting her, “I was thinking more like the Bronte sisters?” UGH.

After he kisses her, she makes this face, which is SO the face I would be making.

Meanwhile, at the play, it’s theater, so Andie and Jack wear turtlenecks. Theater!

That kid in the front is so excited about this play that he’s pooping in his pants!

At the after party, that creepy old hag shows up to scold Dawson for dropping film class.

And that idiot creeper Jen likes commits suicide.

Jen talks to Pacey while he’s taking a shot of soy sauce about how she knows he’s bummed that Joey didn’t come to the play. She does eventually show up for the after party where she’s all glowey about that dweeb AJ, and Pacey’s all like, “Well, I know all about falling in love in unexpected places,” and Joey’s all, “Like with who?” and Pacey’s like, “MY FACE IS SAYING WITH YOU BUT MY MOUTH ISN’T SAYING ANYTHING AT ALL!” Then AJ shows up at the after party and Pacey tells her to go talk to him, like a gentleman would.

What a dork! He’s probably like, “Excuse me, miss, I’m afraid I need some assistance. Could you direct me toward a young lady who bears a striking resemblance to Jane Eyre? Of course *snicker snicker*, pardon me, of course without the Victorian hairstyle, which I am sorry to say you more modern women don’t seem to be very fond of. Thank you kindly in advance. Sincerely yours, AJ Moller. *blink blink*”

They go for another walk, where Joey explains that she only pulled away from him when he kissed her because she figured he would realize eventually that she’s not worth his time (boo! what?), and then he’s like, “OMG ME TOO!” but in a much more pretentious way, and then Joey’s like, “Let’s be bf/gf,” and AJ’s like, “Correction, Joey. Allow me to court you, please.”

And finally, Dawson wanders over to Joey’s house to tell her that he’s feeling lost and Joey’s like, “What did you think would happen when you took down all of your movie posters, Dawson?” ACTUAL QUOTE! What? He’s a teenager! Who would have assumed he’d always keep them up? Anyway, it’s kind of important to note that he doesn’t even bat an eye at the fact that she was on a date with Faux Pacey. It doesn’t register. Just keep that in mind for next time.

Previously on tv…

America’s Next Top Model

Kayce got through with her best Wanda impression.

Ann thought she stunk it up at the photo shoot and wouldn’t be given best picture for the FOURTH week in a row, and cried for thirty six hours about it. She continued to cry at panel.

When they showed her picture, I was like, “Yeesh, total reason to cry,” but the judges were all like, “GORGEOUS,” and I was like, “Um, oh.” And despite their also raving about Chris, Kendal, and Kayla’s pictures, they once again gave Ann the best picture. You want to know why?

Because Tyra’s a nutball. She said to the other judges that she really appreciated the fact that Ann was breaking down over potentially disappointing them because that shows good BUSINESS SENSE???? Crying. Crying shows good business sense. Ugh. Anyway, it proves that Tyra is out to build up Ann until she cracks at the seams just so she can have a speech when Ann is inevitably in the bottom two about “the girl who got best picture four weeks in a row – a Top Model first.”

The next week, the girls did action shots walking down Rodeo Drive (which one of the models actually pronounced just like Uncle Harvey). Tyra, who was not shooting them, randomly showed up to distract everyone, and after demonstrating walking for five seconds, was wildly applauded by the bystanders. So full of barf.

I have no idea why Liz is still in this competition, when her pictures look like butt and her attitude stinks like one. They actually referred to this shot as “not hammy.” High fashion=low standards?

And GUESS WHO GOT TOP PICTURE AGAIN?? Yeah, I’m definitely seconding that emotion, Kayce. What the fuck, Tyra? She says to Ann as she’s walking up, “You’re making this very boring for us, Ann.” Hey, here’s an idea of how to spice up this, YES, Very Boring Cycle, Tyra: STOP PICKING ANN! Five weeks this show has been on, and five weeks Ann has gotten first picture. How about Jane or Kendal or any of the other models you raved about this week? Why aren’t they getting top picture? And why in the world does Ann, whose picture they (again, INEXPLICABLY) liked most but who was so painfully unfriendly and awkward in her CoverGirl challenge this week, gets first picture, but Kayla, whose pictures have been close to the top for all of the last four weeks but who complained on the set that her shoes were too tight and the pain showed on her face, and Kayce, whose pictures have been mostly good and who won the CoverGirl challenge and whose closeups this week were good, land in the bottom two? Liz gets in over both of them. Liz! Look at Liz again! “Not hammy” Liz gets in! I think that learning that sometimes sets will be uncomfortable and how it shouldn’t show on your face should be completely on par with learning how to not look uncomfortable in person, which Ann is currently incapable of!

Running Wilde

I really love that Keri Russell’s character on Running Wilde is sort of exactly like her character on Felicity. Like, exactly. Good intentions, completely terrible execution, complete oblivion that she’s making a fool of herself.

Gossip Girl

So, Dan was told by a former fling that she was having his baby. He moved her into his (GINORMOUS) apartment and was raising the baby with her. At some point, the baby mama ran away for a while and Dan got back together with his ex-gf Vanessa, who was going to move in and help him raise his baby. Then the baby mama came back and told him that he wasn’t the father and that she actually just needed to use him to keep the real father and his family off her back and now that she had cleared all of that up, she was going to take the baby that Dan had grown attached to as his son and move back home with her parents. Vanessa was like, “Do you want me to move out, too, since you no longer need a nanny?” and Dan was like, “Well, no, because you could just be my gf instead of my gf/nanny.” But then Vanessa wanted to spend all of their time having talks about how sad Dan was and Dan didn’t and he literally spent an entire episode doing everything to avoid Vanessa. Because Vanessa’s a drag!

Meanwhile, Chuck was mad that Blaire had lied to his gf Eva, which made Eva want to move back home to Paris (even after Chuck cleared everything up), so he vowed to take revenge on Blaire. And he did in this sort of ridiculous, like, “I’m going to take away your chances to partake in a lecture series by some, like, Martha Stewart wannabe or something?” way and it was all kind of stupid and boring because I feel like there would be better ways to spend your time as a student at Columbia than taking lectures by Martha Stewart wannabes or whatever. But, anyway, this all occurred at a party, where, after Chuck informed Blaire that she had lost the battle over the boring Martha Stewart lecture series, he told her (in my second favorite line from a show this week), “I have to go. I’ve heard some great things about the make your own pizza bar.” Columbia has the best parties!

Community

Pearce’s mother died and his weird religious cult made him pay tons of money to have her “vaporized”. Jeff was getting annoyed hearing about it and decided to bring Pearce to the morgue (under the guise of going for ice cream) to see that the cult had ripped him off, but eventually he decided that that would be a dick move and to just let him believe whatever stupid thing he wanted to believe if it made him feel better. So, he turned the car around and said he was going to bring them to a different ice cream parlor, because the one they had been on their way to was “kind of depressing”.

And I realize that he meant it was depressing because it was actually a morgue where Pearce’s dead mother was and not an ice cream place at all, but I thought it was funny because I often describe places as “kind of depressing” even when there’s no rational explanation for it. Like the Perkins in Asbury Park, NJ or the elevator in the Green Building at NYU.

Four Weddings

Four Weddings is a show on TLC where four brides go to each other’s weddings as guests and then vote on which one was the best. The winner gets a free honeymoon. It’s actually not a terrible wedding show because a) you get to see the weddings from the guest’s perspective which is kind of rare, and b) the brides are very often not acting like bridezillas. You see them as the wedding is happening, when any freakouts they may or may not have been having are over. It’s kind of nice to just see a group of women who are excited to get married and throw a party about it and aren’t screaming at their mothers-in-law because the invitations they forced them to cut out with scissors after a long day at work aren’t perfectly straight.

This week, though, the four brides were kind of all creeps. Yolanda, who claimed to be a lifelong New Yorker but was DEFINITELY from North Jersey (possibly Staten Island or Queens, though) based on the accent, and whose husband (a former Chippendale’s dancer) did a wedding striptease for all the guests, kept saying how “Jersey” one of the other brides was. She came from Nebraska and her husband was from NJ, so they wanted to have a mix of country and east coast. According to Yolanda, her dress proved that she had been “taken over by Jersey”, her vintage car ride to the reception was “very Jersey”, and the fact that the guys in the bridal party all had brown hair meant that you could “definitely tell they were from Jersey.” I don’t know what that means, and I can’t tell if she’s insulting my home state or what!

Oh, yeah, and this bride is an NYPD officer who was scared of everything! From being on top of a NYC tour bus and getting decapitated by a street sign to her bridesmaid dresses burning in a fire. Basketcase. Congrats, though! She won the honeymoon.

60 Minutes

There is a film called “A Trip Down Market Street” that was made by strapping a video camera to the front of a cable car in San Francisco, and 60 Minutes had the totally cool story about how they figured out exactly when it was from and who made it and why. So, the Smithsonian had assumed the film was made in 1905 because of the buildings that could be seen in it, but a film historian watched it and thought that it couldn’t have been quite that old. He checked the registration on some of the cars seen in the film, and also looked for dates that it rained because there are rain puddles on the street. He narrowed it down to April of 1906, which is the same month San Francisco had its big earthquake that destroyed most of the city and killed 1000 people. So, knowing the date, they were able to look through entertainment industry trade papers and find an advertisement from the company that made the film, looking for someone to buy it for distribution. They found out that the film had been made days before the earthquake and, despite the company’s building being completely destroyed, the film survived because it had been sent to New York on a train the night before the earthquake hit. Amazing!

You can actually watch the entire video here. I suggest watching it while listening to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92 – II because it sort of fits perfectly (and better than the tinkly piano they have over the film on the 60 Minutes website). Almost every building on that street was completely destroyed days after this was filmed. It’s pretty awesome to watch because so many of the people in the film stop and stare at the camera, obviously fascinated by the maniac sitting in front of a cable car, cranking away to get this video. It’s easy to forget how many really fantastic things exist.

Project Runway

Easy to forget! Oy. So, Ivy got eliminated, like, 1000 years ago, but she came back with other eliminated designers to be an assistant in last week’s challenge. She decided to take the opportunity to call out Michael Costello for cheating in a challenge from, like, fifteen weeks before she even left the show. Apparently, a lot of the designers assumed that Michael C had used tape to keep his dress from falling off of his model because they saw tape wrappers in the bathroom. She brings it up in the sewing room, all, “Do you think you deserve to be here still, since you’re a cheater?” and Michael is like, “Don’t try to fuck me over,” and then Ivy’s like, “Language! Language! Wow! Inappropriate! Wow!” which is one of the most obnoxious passive-aggressive techniques, I think. Yeah, cursing is kind of low-class, and perhaps it’s an indicator in some people that they’ve really lost their temper. But for a lot of other people, it’s just their natural vocabulary, and when someone is starting a fight with another person and purposefully talking in a calm voice, using no vulgar language just to incite the other person into cursing and raising their voice, it’s the worst! When he asks her if she thinks that she’s still bitter because she got eliminated for making a shitty looking dress, she tells him that she’s not because “it’s just a tv show.”

Anyway, Ivy then goes around the workroom patting herself on the back for acting like a sour grapes bitch. BTW, “taking one for the team” implies that you will have put yourself at risk for the greater good of others around you. Since you were ELIMINATED WEEKS AGO, you were taking no risk in acting like a whiny baby. And also? The person you’re currently informing of your taking one for the team is also NOT ON ANY TEAM, since she, too, was eliminated.

This brat tells Ivy that she just has to congratulate her for being the only one to step up and call Michael out on his supposed cheating two years after it supposedly occurred. Ivy then tells her that, should she drop dead tomorrow, she can die happy knowing that she brought this all to light. Woah. Is it no longer just a tv show?

Calm down! Nobody cares!

Tim then comes in to tell them that he heard about the alleged cheating and asks Ivy to explain what she’s accusing Michael of. I mean, it definitely sounds like some of the female designers saw the tape wrappers in the bathroom, talked about it, threw out the possibility that a designer was using it to cheat, picked the only designer they didn’t like to be the probably target, and then it just sort of became a fact. Just like when you’re in school and you’re like, “I heard someone was having sex with a teacher in the supply closet!” and your friend’s like, “OMG who was it?” and you’re like, “I have no idea!” and someone else is like, “Who do you think it was?” and you’re like, “Do you know??” and they’re like, “I mean, I don’t know, but…” and then your friend is like, “Tell us!” and then someone else is like, “Are you talking about that teacher?” and you’re all like, “YES! Who was it??” and they’re like, “I mean, it sounds kind of like it was probably Maureen, you know?” and you’re like, “No way! Maureen?” and then your friend is like, “I don’t know, it sounds like Maureen,” and then the other guy that came up to you is like, “Are you serious? It was Maureen?” and then you’re all like, “YES! I KNOW, RIGHT?”

That’s how Tim Gunn sees it, too, and he tells them all that if the camera crew, the judges, and he didn’t pick up on any top stick in all the hours the dress was around them, then it probably was never used. He tells them all to forget about it and stop acting like fucking babies. (I may have added that last part.) Mondo, can you sum up this whole idiotic subplot?

Thanks, dude. I hope you win!

Meanwhile, the challenge was to create three looks that would fit in with Heidi’s active wear line. Um. Why does that fabric look like it came pre-pilled? Anyway.

Mondo doesn’t want to make a big, giant poncho, so he makes a little pullover cropped sweater. Heidi comes into the workroom to check his progress and pulls the sweater on and says, “Does this look like something I could go shopping in? Could you see me going to pick my kids up from school in this?” and Mondo’s like, “Yeah, why not?” But apparently rich ladies can only go shopping and go to their kids’ schools in enormous, flow-y, boringly colored tunics and hoodies. “Sorry, this t-shirt and jeans are so uncomfortable. Let me change into my sweatpants and hooded poncho dress so I can go buy apples at the farmer’s market.” BARF.

April designed this and they said it looked like something you could throw on after the gym. AFTER THE GYM? WHAT??? What is HAPPENING? This was about the time my sister and I had a breakdown and just started babbling, “I don’t … I just… I don’t … What is… WHAT? HUH?” We also threw some fleece blankets over our shoulders and started wandering around the family room all, “Excuse me, is this where we wait to pick up our children from Baby Einstein Camp? Excellent.” “Where is my sweatshirt evening gown? I MUST get to the gym!” “I have so many errands to do. It’s a good thing I have on this effortless poncho!”

Gretchen designed a bunch of ugly clothes and Heidi hated them, but I took no joy in Gretchen being in the bottom three because her clothes were honestly no different to my eyes than all of the other ugly clothes that ended up in the top three. Or, for that matter, all of the ugly clothes on Heidi’s website.

Like these fugly Oompa Loompa sweatpants for EIGHTY EIGHT DOLLARS!!!!!!!!!!!

This week, the designers were competing for their spots in fashion week, and their inspiration was New York City.

April designed the same thing she designs every week and was the only designer not invited to fashion week.

Nina threw up in her mouth over it, she hated it so much. I mean, it’s not like I haven’t been wishing the judges would point out that she keeps making the same thing, but I kind of hate the fact that it took them till the end to notice and then act like they had been having this conversation with her every other week. They went nuts over that stupid “going to the gym” dress up there that she designed, which was this dress, just made in sweatsuit material. And they’ve gone similarly nuts for her almost every other week; their only note has been to not use so much black. I just thought that they seemed overly harsh with her when they had had plenty of opportunities to notice before tonight that she’s pretty one-note. (And it makes sense that she would be: she just graduated from design school. This was probably her senior collection and she’ll probably keep remaking this until she stops being 21.)

The other four designers were all in, but they’re actually going to do another mini runway show after their collections are completed to see which three designers make it to the final final show.

When Michael C got his spot, he told himself in an interview to take a minute to congratulate himself but then to go back to being humble. Which Sal and I thought was funny, considering we had just been talking to each other about how Michael C’s weirdest trait is, despite the fact that he thinks of himself as the underdog (and he is the underdog: everyone did very quickly assume he had cheated that one week, and most of the designers think he’s a hack), he’s the least humble! He’s less humble than Gretchen! He’ll walk into a room full of people who dislike him after snagging a win that he knows they think he didn’t deserve and he’ll be all, “They told me it was the best design they had ever seen, and that it was made perfectly, and that it was the most exciting day of their lives seeing my design, and that I was their favorite designer ever on Project Runway and also in their whole lives? It was really great.”

I’m not a big fan of his. I think his clothes are a little boring. I don’t think he’s deserved as much shit as he gets about sewing, since he can obviously sew, but I think his stuff is just sort of blah. Maybe they look better in person, though, because the judges called this week’s design (inspired, ON THE NOSE, by the Statue of Liberty) a “showstopper”.

Is the showstopper part where you can see the curve of her ass while she’s walking around the corner? Or is it when you get that really embarrassed feeling when you see it from the back because you think that she forgot to put on some part of her dress/undergarments and you’re nervous to tell her that because she might not have forgotten anything and it just might be how oddly low cut it is? Or do they mean showstopper because from the front it’s, like, “That dress is so boring, we figured we’d just stop the show right there”?

And finally, Dexter

My first favorite line from a show this week was when Dexter noticed cigar ash at the crime scene and asked if anyone from the police department smoked, and Masuka said, “It’s 2010. Who smokes?”

More importantly, how effing adorable is this baby??

Previously on tv…

Project Runway

After Andy made something ugly the week before last, he tells Tim that he’s fighting to get in the top because he’s been in the bottom “WAY TOO MANY TIMES”. Tim just nods solemnly, but I would have pointed him to his scorecard, which showed him in the bottom exactly one time before he made this statement. But that’s why I’m not a mentor, because I would always point out when people are being jerks.

In other news, between episodes these last two weeks, Lifetime ran a promo that mish-moshed together storylines from this week’s episode (design your own fabric that tells a personal story) and next week’s episode (someone – probably Gretchen – accuses someone else – probably Michael C. – of cheating), which was completely pointless, considering this week’s episode was dramatic enough!

After designing their fabric, all the designers got a surprise visit from their families.

And apparently, according to this episode’s photos on the Lifetime website, they all got to go to a luau with Tim!

Mondo designed the fabric his pants are made out of and he obviously won because his outfit was completely and totally awesome and because everyone else’s was completely and totally lame. But, then on the runway, he revealed to everyone that the inspiration for the design (which he was previously only telling people was “personal”) was plus signs indicating his HIV positive status, and EVERYONE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD CRIED. It was a really good episode and a really good reveal. Even though he had mentioned it several times throughout the show in interviews, he said that no one in his family knew. When his mother showed up for the surprise visit, he went and sat with her in the park and told her all about how well he had been doing and said later that he didn’t want to tell her then, even though it seemed like a good time, because he didn’t want to ruin her nice day. And I’d suspect he also didn’t want to reveal a huge and life-changing secret to her while she was in front of cameras. When he told everyone on the runway, it also didn’t seem manipulative, like he was hoping to win the challenge through sympathy (it wouldn’t have mattered; his design was far and away the best in the judge’s eyes, based on the comments they were giving him). When Nina said she wished she knew the story, she didn’t push any further, and it seemed like he was only prompted to tell his secret after the guest judge said she thought the design was so perfect and even looking that she thought his explanation that the design reflected what he had lived through in his past seemed insincere, like nobody’s life could be so perfect and even. I mean, her comment seemed kind of dumb considering patterns are often laid out in grid form, but maybe she thought his comment about his pattern reflecting his personal life when the challenge was to make a pattern reflecting your personal life was a cop-out and wanted to tell him that in so many words. Either way, the secret was revealed in a way that was emotional, but not gross, so good for Mondo and, surprisingly, good for Lifetime? But maybe just good for Mondo. Maybe if he only gave them gold to work with, they didn’t have an opportunity this time to make it shit.

Gretchen (EVEN GRETCHEN) made me cry, too, when she said that her mother was poor, with a sick husband to care for, and most likely wouldn’t be coming to see her and she was wondering what loved one they would send for the family visit. She even kept her back to the door, probably hoping to not show disappointment when her mother didn’t show up. But, then, of course, her mother did show up and Gretchen broke down like a real girl. But then her sob story was outweighed by Mondo’s and she loudly proclaimed to the room, “I am just so glad that I was there to witness that,”  regarding Mondo’s speech at judging. Good for you, Gretchen.

Gossip Girl

Last week in Paris, Chuck had a cane, due to the injury to his spine when he was shot at the beginning of the summer.

This week in New York, Chuck is miraculously healed.

Meanwhile, no girl fight will ever be complete again until one girl is picked up romance-novel-style by the other.

Community

Troy and Abed were trying to find an e-mail on their friend’s enemy’s computer. When the janitor found them, Annie tried to help by chloroforming him. Which made Troy freak out. Community is a great show.

Bored to Death

So is Bored to Death. Just trust me.

America’s Next Top Model

Last week on ANTM, Tyra still refused to give up on erasing people’s eyebrows from their faces as a lackluster “makeover” attempt.

Also, she told a contestant with a gap in her teeth that she was going to have the gap SHAVED DOWN MORE at the dentist.

I didn’t mix those pictures up by the way.

When Jay flamboyantly flapped his (upside-down?) wings at the girls and said, “What do I look like??”, none of them took the bait.

And Tyra acted like a bigger lunatic than normal at panel.

This week… Oh, no. No. Miss Jay? No.

This week, the girls went to Knott’s Berry Farm and were supposed to ride a roller coaster while posing.

It didn’t go so well. Btw, that coaster is the Silver Bullet, which all the girls were freaking the eff out about, like, “This is the scariest roller coaster they could possibly choose ever ever in a million years ever!!!!!” Talk to me after you check out your photo from the Xcelerator. You have no face on your photo on the Xcelerator. You also have no boobs, but that’s a discussion for another day.

Does anyone else get a Sarah Palin vibe from Kayce? Because Sal pointed that out last week, and the fact that she refuses to stop wearing that weird sleeveless turtleneck attached-brooch top that looks like it was stolen from a hip middle-aged politician’s wardrobe is really making it hard to hear anything but, “You betcha!” when she starts speaking.

For the photo shoot, Chelsea was given drag queen makeup.

Tyra didn’t like it. So, her advice was to not ever wear makeup like that. And when it’s put on her at a photo shoot, to learn how to work through it. But to know that no matter what she does, that kind of makeup will always make her look like ass. But never to complain to the makeup artists that the pictures will turn out badly if they use that makeup. But to never ever wear makeup like that.

After Rihanna was kicked off, Tyra watched her hug the other girls goodbye and said, “Look at how much you’re loved,” with a tone like, “Don’t be annoyed that you’ve been booted off this show, because people love you, but never forget that I’m the reason that you met them in the first place and I am, therefore, responsible for all the love you’re feeling right now. Okay?”

Earlier in the episode, the challenge winner and two friends got to go to a photo shoot with Tyra, where Tyra was dressed like she was stopping for a Big Gulp on her way to the Gap to pick up Vickie so they could catch Hey That’s My Bike at the coffee house. They had a tea party together. Here’s how it went.

Tyra poured them all tea, which was actually just hot water (Sally says probably not even hot) over tea bags, which means everyone had to wait five minutes for their tea to steep, but they all pretended to drink their tea as soon as it was poured because Tyra probably stared at them angrily until they did.

Then Tyra said, “Let’s pour a little out for the homies,” and dribbled out the drop of water that was in her tea cup onto the table.

When the other girls laughed at her joke, she got very serious and explained…

Then Tyra proceeded to stuff her face and get the girls to say in interviews how real and un-model-like Tyra is because she couldn’t get enough of the carrot cake.

Kiss her fat ass! But also worship her weight loss (FOR HEALTH REASONS)! But also appreciate her healthy portion-control methods! But also marvel at her ability to maintain weight while eating all of the carrot cake she wants! Not that you can! But that’s okay. Kiss YOUR fat ass! And then kiss Tyra’s fat ass again! It doesn’t matter that it’s not fat, because SHE’S GOT CELLULITE SHE’S REAL!

She’s so real that she’ll stuff carrot cake in her mouth while she’s talking about Serious Modeling Business.

She’s so real that she’ll drink pretend tea out of her empty teacup that we all know is empty because we saw her pouring out the water that was in it. (And also because it’s obviously empty.)

Ghost Hunters

These guys are old and will, therefore, find any excuse they can to sit or lay down during their investigations. “Are you going to go check out the basement and crawl space? Okay, we’ll be here in the bedroom.”

The 19th Wife

This Lifetime movie was about a woman on trial for the murder of her husband, a man in an FLDS cult with over 20 wives. A friend of hers contacts her grown son, who was kicked out of the cult when he was a child because he was getting too friendly with another little girl there. I don’t know where he went, because that wasn’t really explained, or why the authorities never found his parents and put them in jail for abandoning their 12-year-old son on the side of a highway. But, anyway, after visiting that old friend of his at the cult, getting punched in the face by a cop and getting thrown down a set of stairs by the prophet, he goes to visit his mother.

Looking like this.

And his mother’s just like, “Hey! How are ya?”

Also, the prophet threatens a young girl (the main character’s stepsister) with marriage to an older man, telling her, if she doesn’t comply, he’ll kill her mother, and one day, when she least expects it, he’ll show up to her house with her mother’s head in a bag.

Later, he tells the main character that he better leave, or he’ll kill his friend, and one day, when he least expects it, he’ll show up to his house with the friend’s head in a bag. Get a new threat, prophet!

Meanwhile, the guy’s stepsister escaped the cult and he finds her working at a coffee house. But she had apparently only escaped the cult two months before? And she’s 14? With no access to any non-cult-member adults she knows? How did she get this job, and how does she have those clothes, and how does she know how to make cappuccino?

All My Children

This girl plays Colby Chandler, and she delivers all of her lines like this:

In other news, these two (ADULT POLICE OFFICERS) are on their first date: a picnic in the park. Krystal, a friend of the girl’s mother, sees them and is all, “WOW ROMANCE IS ALIVE AND WELL!” Then she squats down next to them and says, “Your mom told me that you two were interested in each other!” Then she smiles a lot. And then she’s like, “So, how’s the date going?” And then they’re like, “Can you not tell anyone about this?” (Something about being cops and blah blah blah.) And then she’s like, “Okay, well, enjoy! Enjoy your date! Have fun!” Embarrassing.

And this guy looks like The Grinch.

Jersey Shore

For some reason, Angelina makes up lies about everything. Like, she tells her bf she doesn’t want to sleep with anyone, when she slept with one of her roommates. Then she tells her roommates that she did sleep with her bf, when she really didn’t. Then she says the house is gross and picks up a sponge to do the dishes, but then doesn’t go through with it when she hears the phone ring, and tells the guy who DID just clean up the house that she was the one who cleaned it. She’s just a weirdo.

Sam and Ronnie go to dinner with Angelina and her bf, where Ronnie reveals to Sammie that Angelina is not only stringing her bf along, but telling him not to mess around with anyone else because it will hurt her. So, Sammie, as usual, makes this revelation all about herself and decides that Angelina’s private business concerning her bf means that she’s stringing along Sammie, too. I mean, fair enough maybe, since Angelina, as established, is a weirdo compulsive liar. But, Sam’s conclusion drawing is nauseating, since she’s confiding in the person who DID CHEAT ON HER MULTIPLE TIMES WITH MULTIPLE WOMEN that she’s concerned that Angelina might not be on the up and up.

Then later, she and Ronnie congratulate themselves for a job well done at not fighting with each other. Barf.

Angelina meets this creeper at the beach. She brings him back to her place, where Mike has placed a used pad of hers he found on the bathroom floor on her bed. Throughout all of the rigmarole of which one of them is a bigger disgusting slob (Angelina for leaving the pad on the floor in the first place, or Mike for putting it on her bed instead of in a garbage bag like a rational person), this guy has a disturbing shit-eating grin on his face. My face would be like this: “GET ME OUT OF HERE WHAT WAS I THINKING HOLY CRAP I’M GETTING SO MANY STDS JUST LOOKING AT THESE PEOPLE”. His face is like this: “Hijinks! Menstrual hijinks!”

Mike sees Angelina with this guy from the beach and decides to tell her what a dirty slut she is because this is the third guy she will have had sex with in as many days (including her roommate and her bf, even though sleeping with her bf wasn’t true), even though Angelina doesn’t even seem interested in having sex with this guy, and she’s more concerned with why Mike went to the trouble of putting her used pad on her bed. I’m more concerned with why Mike keeps calling a pad a tampon. All of the other roommates infuriatingly agree with Mike: Angelina is the dirtiest dirty whore for recently (and allegedly) sleeping with three guys in three days, while Sam and Ronnie (who are spreading untold diseases by continuing to sleep together after the dozens of hookups he had have not culminated in an STD screening), Vinnie (who is the roommate Angelina slept with, who had also hooked up with Snookie days earlier), Snookie (who hooked up with Vinnie and then, days later, slept with a guy she had just met at a bar), Jennie (who picked her bf’s nose as a means of ending a fight, and then had sex with him while Snookie was a mere two feet away), Pauly (who made a 6:30am booty call and then had sex with the girl WHILE MIKE WATCHED AND ATE A SANDWICH),

and Mike (whose plans to have sex in the bathroom at a club with a girl he had met minutes earlier were foiled when the bouncer knocked on the door and told them to leave) are the epitome of class.

Dexter

Dexter is back! I want to have a Dexter Halloween party with plastic sheeting and a splatter analysis lab where you can take home the big giant splatter paintings you make and a bathtub filled with blood (sorry, Rita, too soon?) and these candies that look like Dexter’s blood slides and 8×10s of all of the people Dexter’s killed on the walls, and if you’ve seen Dexter you’ll totally appreciate all the details at my Dexter Halloween party, and if you haven’t, you can go watch Dexter on the tv so you can start appreciating all of the details at my Dexter Halloween party.

Sadly, I am not having a Dexter Halloween party, because no one would come.

And finally, Glee

No. I’m not talking about Glee again till it stops putting me to sleep.

Puck gets it.

Previously on tv…

Jersey Shore

This is what Pauly D looks like before his hair is shellacked into place.

And this is how The Situation bathes himself before a 6:30AM (6:30AM!) booty call.

Meanwhile, Vinny and Angelina hate each other. It probably has something to do with the fact that Vinny is immature (he wants to meet a nice girl he could treat as well as he treats his mother; his favorite thing about his mother coming to visit him this week was the fact that she puts everyone’s comfort ahead of her own and is willing to fly to Miami to visit her son and spend the entire day cooking dinner for him and his roommates while he sits in another room and ignores her) and nicknamed Angelina the Staten Island Dump, and the fact that Angelina is a liar (and a bad liar, at that!) who is always trying to start trouble and said that Vinny was disgusting and ugly. So, of course, they slept together. Unfortunately, Angelina’s been letting some dopey guy take her out to dinner and buy her gifts (even though she says he’s not her boyfriend, he obviously thinks he is), and she eventually tells him that she hooked up with Vinny. To her advantage, her dopey not-really-boyfriend thinks she just means “made out” and she doesn’t correct him. But, in an effort to show Angelina just how much contempt he still has for her, Vinny finds out that she’s telling her not-really-boyfriend the truth and he comes over to gleefully gloat-dance. Which would have been such a burn on Angelina…

…if Vinny wasn’t such a hideous dancer.

True Blood

The season finale was this week.

It was filled with vampire dramz.

Gossip Girl

When you are mugged and shot in the not-empty streets of Prague, you are not taken to a hospital.

You are dragged upstairs to the apartment of a scared looking young woman who pours liquor on your wounds, gives you a cane, and then becomes your girlfriend. One flight to Prague, please!

The Boy She Met Online

This Lifetime movie was about an almost-18-year-old girl who went on, like, OkCupid, met some guy who said he was in college, fell in love with him, and then found out that he was actually an ex-con. But, like, even though there was a ton of danger music and danger faces from her mother, the guy turns out to be pretty much not awful? Even though he violates his parole by helping a friend and has to go back to jail. And even though I was fast-forwarding through the last hour of the movie because everyone talked really slowly, I’m pretty sure he and the girl were still bf/gf?

More importantly, though, her mother did a google search for “my teenage daughter is out of control.” Which lead her to myteenagedaughterisoutofcontrol.com. Internets!

America’s Next Top Model

The girls are going to be in LA this season, and they all meet up on the boardwalk on the way to their house.

They run into this guy, who rollerskates over and starts singing a song about being a model and wanting to be on top, and, like, the words are practically, “I have been sent here by Tyra Banks to sing a song about the fact that you are all contestants on America’s Next Top Model and give you the keys to your house so stop making me feel like an asshole by staring at me like I’m a predatorrrrrrrrr!”

It still manages to completely confuse and frighten all of the contestants.

Even this girl, whose chip on her shoulder supposedly comes from being a New Yorker and not being affected by the same things all of the other bumpkins they got to compete against her are affected by. She got the boot first. It wasn’t because of her heinous attitude, though. They kicked her off because of her emaciated body. It sort of sucks for her that, in addition to being a less-good-looking version of Lady Gaga, this girl will only be remembered for probably having an eating disorder. And, whether she has an eating disorder or not is sort of here nor there, since her body hasn’t changed since the auditions and Tyra chose to put her on the show knowing exactly what that body looked like, knowing that the president of the CFDA (which just recently made a big deal about their new “healthy is beautiful” initiative for models) would be guest judging, and basically knowing that she’d be able to get a quick psa in before sending the first girl home.

At least she stopped wearing jumpsuits, though! She’s moved out of the 80s and has finally made her way up to 1993.

If I made a mask of DVF’s face from this shot and wore it for Halloween, do you think non-fashion people would just think I was going as a witch? Just wondering.

Masterchef

With seven minutes left before all the meals had to be presented to the judges, this happened.

Whoops! And she still won!

The O’Reilly Factor

It’s been all over the internet this week that Sarah Palin “couldn’t remember the name” of a Tea Party candidate she had endorsed when Bill O’Reilly asked her. Except, there are two problems with that headline. First of all, this candidate he was asking about supposedly wasn’t specifically endorsed by her. (Sidebar: SINCE WHEN DOES SARAH PALIN’S ENDORSEMENT MEAN ANYTHING BTW?? Barf.) And second, she didn’t just not remember the name. She didn’t respond. She didn’t shrug, she didn’t shake her head, she didn’t flinch. Bill O’Reilly was like, “What’s that guy’s name? Sarah? Remind me? I can’t remember his name? Ms. Palin, could you remind me of that guy’s name? Could somebody? Anybody? Okay, never mind,” and the WHOLE TIME, she just kept staring at him.

This is the big twist at the end of M. Night Shaymalan’s new movie Devil. After the people have been in the elevator for an hour, it’s just 35 solid minutes of Sarah Palin slowly blinking at you as suspensful music plays. And then the screen goes dark. And still, it’s better than The Happening.

Project Runway

In addition to being a hag, a know-it-all, and, as it turns out, NOT a top contender (five solid weeks out of the top 3), Gretchen is also one of those people who sets up a joke, lets someone else finish it with a punchline, and then repeats the punchline in a really loud voice so it still sounds like it was her joke.

Also, her outfit this week wasn’t in the bottom three, but I think it had more to do with the fact that the outfits in the bottom three were worse, and not that hers was better, kwim?

Also, Heidi was unimpressed with Ivy’s boob hole.

And Tim Gunn helpfully illustrated the word vulgarity.

And finally, the new Charmin ad

I have hated these stupid Charmin bears since the campaign started, because bears using toilet paper is idiotic. Plus, “Enjoy the Go” has to be one of the worst tag lines ever! Going to the bathroom is neutral. It’s not something to enjoy or not enjoy. But, now they’ve taken the bears out of the woods and put them into a home, so not only are they using toilet paper, but they’re also using toilets!

This is the worst ad yet. Someone at the Charmin ad agency is seriously effing with us.

This bear is singing a slow jam.

While his wife looks on amorously.

And it turns out that he’s seductively pooping. Oy.

Ugh. But, then you read the Sookie Stackhouse novels, and you’re just like…

Ewwwwwwwwwwwgross.

I’ve never read a vampire romance novel before, or even very many romance novels (except for that one time I was in vacation in Lake George with nothing to read except for what the owners of the house we were renting left behind), but is this for real? Are these Sookie Stackhouse books for real?

Obviously, the sex scenes on True Blood are mostly just eye-rollingly bad, but I am so grateful that the series is not following the books closely. Because if it was, there would be a whole lot more hot tub. In the first Sookie Stackhouse book, Vampire Bill remodeled the downstairs bathroom in his house to include a HOT TUB with CEDAR DECKING and POTTED FERNS. In the bathroom! Also, carpeting. Gross. And after he and Sookie have sex in this hot tub and then she is carried into the bedroom (OH YEAH DID I MENTION HE EFFING CARRIES HER EVERYWHERE IN THE BOOKS BECAUSE HE DOES AND IT’S GROSS), they have the following conversation:

Bill: I want to enter you again.
Sookie: You mean-? Oh, yeah. I see what you mean. I’d like that, too.

Gross!

After they have been dating for, I don’t know, two days, they have a conversation about how Sookie wants to start calling Bill baby names like “honey” and “sweetheart”, and then for the rest of the book, they’re all, “But, honey, I thought we were going to stay in tonight,” and “I know, sweetheart, but we have to go to the vampire bar first.” GROSS.

And after they have been dating for, like, four days, Sookie decides that she’s had a bad day and wants to just go straight home after work. FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Bill flies over to her house to say, “But, honey, you didn’t call or come over.” FIFTEEN MINUTES! Gross. No wonder I hate vampires. They’re so smothery and I am always late.

But, the grossest thing? Is the clothes. Nothing makes your writing more dated than describing the awesome clothes your characters are wearing. The Babysitters Club is an obvious example. Another is RL Stine’s books and his consistent use of Esprit brand sweatshirts on his characters. But, the thing is, this Sookie Stackhouse book was only written in 2001, and these clothes are way gross.

With the help of my book Drawing Fashions (and my amazing skillz at drawing faces), I have illustrated these amazing outfits which somehow never made it to the series.

“She was wearing spandex. An exercise bra in flamingo pink and matching calf-length leggings, with a man’s white dress shirt flung on unbuttoned.”

“I changed to a blue and green knit short set, brushed my hair and secured it with a banana clip.”

“Diane was wearing a one-piece lime green bodysuit spun out of Lycra, or some other very thin, stretchy cloth.”

“I yanked out some khaki slacks and a bronze silk blouse with short sleeves. I had brown leather sandals and a brown leather belt that would look good. I hung a chain around my neck, stuck in some big gold earrings, and I was ready.”

BEST FIRST DATE OUTFIT EVER.

Previously on tv…

America’s Next Top Model

ANTM is back, and second only to the fact that the preliminary round first episode was finally reduced back to a reasonable hour-long length, was the welcome “high fashion model search” change of format. I mean, yes, they still have that ridiculous CoverGirl contract which means the most boring girl will win anyway, but at least they have a career mirage up for the contestants now, instead of the badly drawn cardboard cutout they had propped up in the corner for the past ten cycles. Two spreads in Vogue Italia and a contract with IMG are a whole lot more exciting to start and end your career with than a cover of Seventeen Magazine. And as a bonus, we never have to see the Seventeen troll again!

This cycle is SO high fashion, that the producers didn’t even think the high fashion fashionistas watching the program would even know what a tumbleweed is. They also changed tactics for the preliminary rounds. Instead of Tyra as a fashion robot alien or whatever she was that one year, or Tyra asking the contestants if they wanted to be friends with her on FriendFace, they had a garden party hosted by Cynthia Rowley that the girls were trying to get invites to. High fashion garden party!

Even the girls who got the boot got it in a classy, on trend, high fashion style.

Even the solid 11 minutes of screaming the girls engaged in during their search for their garden party invitations was high fashion.

Among the semi-finalists was this girl who is anti-commercialism, anti-materialism, anti-consumerism, and anti-pop culture. She cried when she did not secure a place in the finals.

There was also this girl, who wrote in her diary that she narrowly missed rooming with “a black girl, eww”, and had to answer for her racism. She said it was misunderstood racism, because she was only talking about one particular black girl whose name she didn’t know, but was eww anyway, and she decided to refer to her by the color of her skin as a shortcut. No problem there, except for the phrasing: “a black girl” clearly indicates any girl who happens to be black. “The black girl” or “that one black girl” or “this black girl” would indicate a specific girl who happens to be black. She did not make it to the finals, and also, presumably, never found out why people who met her three hours before were already reading her diary.

And these sisters, who tried out together, are almost certainly the Brittenum twins in disguise. Same stupid shtick, same reliance of the fact that they’re siblings rather than talent, same creepy sense of entitlement. They made it to the finals, but please let them turn out to be identity thieves so they get kicked off the show.

In other news, this girl doesn’t have sex because she doesn’t like semen on her hand.

Real Housewives of NJ

The RHofNJ ended for the season, but this week was the second half of the reunion show. Obviously more important than that, though, is the fact that my sister and I met Kim “G” at a bar near where we live and got a picture with her.

BFFs with our big fake square tits!

Anyway, Kim made a special guest appearance on the reunion, which just kind of made everyone mad, even though Kim appeared as delusional about her friendship with them all as usual. At the end of the season, Danielle finally found out that Kim had been lying about being friends with all of Danielle’s enemies. When Danielle confronted her, Kim told Danielle that she hated her and that her boobs were square. These people were all born a very long time ago.

Meanwhile, since Jaqueline’s teenage daughter had pulled Danielle’s hair during a fight and was subsequently sued by Danielle for simple assault, she wanted to prove once and for all that what Jaqueline’s daughter did was really very violent. So, she brought a mannequin head with her to the reunion (A MANNEQUIN HEAD) with beaded extensions attached to it so that the host of the reunion could pull one of them and see for himself that pulling out beaded extensions actually pulls out chunks of the person’s real hair. But, I don’t think it really proved her point, since the host was barely able to pull anything out of this mannequin’s head no matter how hard he pulled.

Which, compared to the scene when Danielle’s hair was pulled makes the incident actually seem less violent.

Masterchef

This show is about amateur cooks competing to win a prize that includes a cookbook deal. This guy, Mike, is a complete spazz.

He acted like a crazy person for an hour-and-a-half to make a dessert that resulted in his elimination. Because he basically served the judges raw eggs.

In other news, this is one contestant’s dish BEFORE the judges started to eat it. He was also eliminated.

Project Runway

The contestants were told to design a piece of resort wear. After sketching and buying their fabric, though, they were paired with another designer at random. That designer had to become a sample maker and physically make their partner’s design, while their partner did the same for them.

When Michael (left) was paired with Mondo (right), Mondo acted like a total baby about it and told Michael to his face that his construction skills were shit. Michael then made the jacket Mondo designed and Mondo realized that it was actually really well made.

So, he apologized for being a dick and became Michael’s best friend/ventriloquist dummy. But, see, it’s kind of all the fault of Gretchen.

This is Gretchen. Gretchen doesn’t like Michael because she pretty much expected to win the season hands down. And in the beginning, it seemed like she was going to, because she won the first two challenges in a row. But, when you go back to look at the competition, the competition was kind of awful, and her stuff was sort of a little bit boring, but at least not a train wreck. So, she almost in a way won by default. But, Gretchen is a garbage slut. She’s one of those people who thinks “I am a natural born leader, therefore, I will lead everyone even when we are not in it together.” So, Michael started getting praise from the judges and winning some competitions and Gretchen decided that, it’s not that Michael’s designs were good, it’s that the whole universe had gone topsy turvy and obviously the judges were on crack because otherwise she would have won. (Not to say that one of Michael’s wins wasn’t totally undeserved, but that’s kind of neither here nor there for this particular story).

So, then one week, Gretchen got placed in a group with Michael and three other designers to create a mini fall 2010 collection, and Gretchen created a look that was, like, Boring Office Clerk Circa 1972 that she then told all of the other designers to basically piecework into existence. (Essentially, no one designer worked on any one look; they each worked on a vest here or pants there and then they put them all together.) And, for some reason (maybe because she’s the tallest?) they all listened to her. When their collection lost big time, she urged them all to stand together for their collection and not tell the judges that there was any one person responsible. Then she got up on stage and started crying about how much they stood by their work and how hard they all worked and she even told the judges to “be mindful” of the fact that they “tried.” All the other designers nodded in tearful agreement. When the judges showed no sympathy, Gretchen changed her tune and told them that she knew the collection sucked from the jump and didn’t know what to do to save a sinking ship but go around and try to help the designers as best she could. All the other designers nodded in shameful agreement. Then, the judges were like, “So, now you … don’t stand by your collection? Is there someone you think is responsible?” As the other designers were starting to shake their heads in team solidarity, Gretchen folded her arms and nodded silent rage, citing Michael as a terrible sewer and an unskilled pattern maker and someone who completely dragged their team down. The other designers quickly started moving their heads in the opposite direction in angry agreement. Michael looked like he wanted to cry. The judges then reminded Gretchen that Michael had immunity and wouldn’t be able to be eliminated and asked her to name another designer. Gretchen continued to insist it was all Michael’s lack of skills and general idiocy that kept the designers busy with sewing lessons and story time that kept them all from creating anything worthwhile. The other designers went down the line and said the name “Michael” in zombie voices to answer Heidi’s question of, “Who should go home?” Obviously, Michael did not go home, but looked like he was going to throw up regardless. And then Tim Gunn came in and gave one of the best disappointed teacher lectures EVER on the group’s creepy lack of balls when it came to Gretchen’s “leadership” and told everyone that he thought Gretchen was a bully. Her face didn’t move, because she might be a sociopath? She did, however, give an interview to say that she was disappointed and hurt in Tim’s assessment of her. She never did say, though, that she thought he wasn’t telling the truth.

These are Gretchen’s four latest designs, btw. They look like shit. In some cases, literally.

Meanwhile, Casanova, whose English is so bad that he sometimes needed translation on the runway when the judges were trying to explain to him why they hated his outfits, was kicked off. He was not sad at all. But was he disappointed? “A quart.”

24 Hour Restaurant Battle

This show is kind of like Last Restaurant Standing, but all done in one day instead of five, or however many days they have on LRS.

The important thing is that this contestant looked like Francis Buxton.

The Choir

The Choir is a show from the UK that’s been playing on BBC America, where this guy starts up community choirs. It combines two of my favorite things: 1) Seeing people ignore that feeling you get where you know you should be embarrassed to try something that’s out of your comfort zone, and then getting really excited when they accomplish something great because of it.

And, 2) Completely adorable guys.

And finally, Jersey Shore

I know!

So, Sammi and Ronnie are this completely despicable couple who have been together basically since they first met at the house on the first season of Jersey Shore. Sammi continues to be in a relationship with Ronnie, despite the fact that he goes out every night and cheats on her. But don’t feel too bad for Sammi, because in the beginning of this season, they had been broken up for a while, and she was still insisting that he tell her where he was going and how long he’d be. They’re just basically both assholes and their relationship is stupid and boring and filled with college drama, and the producers have spent way too much time on their whole, “I love you I hate you I hate that I love you I’m breaking up with you Can we cuddle now” bullshit.

But, anyway, Sammi is pretty sure something’s going on because everyone seems sort of cagey when she talks about how much she loves Ronnie. And the thing that’s going on is that Ronnie leaves her at the house, goes to a club, hooks up with lots of girls, and then comes home to sleep with her. Duh. Everyone knows what’s happening, but they’re all divided in their loyalties: do they tell Sammi and betray Ronnie, or do they keep Ronnie’s secret and know that they’re withholding important information from Sammi. ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Snookie and Jennie decide Sammi should know, if for no other reason then to warn her that she’s probably got a number of new venereal diseases in addition to the ones she was already packing. But, they’re too chicken shit to tell her, so they type up an anonymous note, which they address to her in THEIR HANDWRITING with marker and, like, squiggly lines under her name, and stuff into her drawer. She reads it and is like, “OMG, who could have written this note?” Then she asks all the guys in the house. It’s too bad she never deciphered that impossible riddle of the girly handwriting on the FRONT OF THE NOTE. Anyway, she asks around to see if the content of the note is true, which eventually EVERYONE cops to knowing about. She still wants to know who the note’s author was, though, to thank them for giving her the information she was asking for. Finally, another person in the house decides to tell her that it was Snookie and Jennie who wrote the note.

Now, she’s started making this disgusting smug face constantly, to let you know that she’s mad or whatever. But, she’s not mad at Ronnie, the guy who cheated on her CONSISTENTLY AND CONSTANTLY. She’s mad at Snookie and Jennie, for writing the note containing information she begged them for. Don’t break up with the guy who cheated on you. Break up with the two friends who pretty much had nothing to do with your stupid dorm drama in the first place. But, then again, why would you want to break up a solid relationship like Sammi and Ronnie?

Sammi: You sick of me yet?
Ronnie: {shakes head}
Sammi: Honestly.
Ronni: {shakes head}
Sammi: No?
Ronnie: No. You sick of me?
Sammi: …No.

That’s love. Anyway, Sammi gets in a physical fight with Jennie, and then she asks around to see who won. She literally asks. She asks the guys, “Yo, did I really punch her? Be honest.” They kind of giggle and make punching motions, because I don’t think they want to tell her that after all that she still looks like a complete and utter fool. But then she starts going around congratulating herself for kicking the shit out of Jennie.

Btw, here’s how the fight went down:

Jennie pushed Sammi, Sammi fell on the floor. Then Sammi got one hit on Jennie, and then Sammi fell on the floor again. Victory!

Meanwhile, here are Mike’s best quotes of the night:

“I just hope they can end the high school, uh, kindergarten, uh, prehistoric shit.” (You might see this quote elsewhere as “high school, kindergarten, preschool shit”, but dude said “prehistoric.” Believe me.)

“The girl was pretty much, uh, peed on by Ronnie. He peed in many different ways.”

“Just like when you’re little and you want to believe Santa Claus is alive. Santa Claus is fucking dead.” (I love that his belief in Santa didn’t fade. He was told, and still believes, that Santa eventually stopped bringing presents because he died.)