Breakout Kings – Renewed For Second Season by A&E

Good news for any fans of A&E’s Breakout Kings. According to Deadline, the cop/criminal drama will be back for another batch of episodes! It took me an episode or two to really get into the show, and I will admit it’s not MUST WATCH TV, but if you have nothing going on the night it airs, and are in the mood for a unique crime-drama then by all means you should tune in. Check out the news from Deadline:

A&E is bringing back its drama series Breakout Kings for a second season that could begin in the first quarter of 2012. The series, from Fox 21, stars Laz Alonso and Domenick Lombardozzi as U.S. Marshals who use former fugitives to catch fugitives. Production is slated to get underway later this year.

She looks too good to be a convict though…

It’s a simple enough plot idea, and the criminals that the marshals and inmates chase after and apprehend are definitely unique. Theodore “T-Bag” Bagwell from episode three stands out as deeply disturbed sociopath son-of-a-bitch, and I actually enjoyed watching to see what he would do next. It was even better when he got caught and Lloyd has a sit down with him and calls him out as not being a criminal genius or rosetta stone for the criminal mind, but just a defective human being. Lloyd is the group’s psychiatrist and is played wonderfully by actor Jimmi Simpson (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia).

Then again there’s Serinda Swan on the show as well, but she’s not the main reason I watch the show….even though she’s a big reason. Look below to get a look at the cast of characters on Breakout Kings and then hopefully check it out if it is ever on Hulu or Netflix. At only thirteen episodes it’s well worth watching if you have some down time. It’s like Law and Order but with the Hollywood feel to it and some great humor thrown in between the cast mates.

Charlie Duchamp

A former U.S. Marine with a heart condition that landed him a desk job with the U.S. Marshals, the Breakout Kings task force under his command is his chance to get out from behind that desk. Charlie is definitely not my favorite character on the show; he treats the convicts working for him like they’re just tools and has that Marine no-nonsense attitude about him. Regardless of that Charlie is an honorable good guy who tries to do his job as best he can despite his heart condition.

Ray Zancanelli

Ray is on thin ice with his superiors at the moment for taking some money he shouldn’t have to pay for his daughter’s car. He currently lives in a halfway house and his only shot of getting out and back to a halfway decent life is by the success of the Breakout Kings Task Force him and Charlie lead. Ray is definitely the foul-mouthed tough guy of the group, but he also adds some comic relief to the mix, which is good because the other authority figure Charlie doesn’t show us much humor.

Julianne Simms

Julianne is like the team’s ‘Oracle’ (from Batman). She’s tech savvy in every way and is the best at what she does. There’s only one problem…. She suffers from panic attacks, depression and has severe social anxiety. But I guess that makes her the perfect computer guru. She sees working for the Breakout Kings as a better alternative to working from her basement as a telemarketer. At least this way she can get back to some semblance of what she was— the top in her class at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Facility.

Shea Daniels

Shea is probably the most street smart out of the convicts recruited by Ray and Charlie. He created a gang at 17 that spread to 40 cities in 32 different states, making Shea quite the little street kingpin. Even though he helps the group, Shea never stops plotting to make his escape into the world. It makes you wonder if once he has the opportunity if he’ll take it.

Lloyd Lowery

Lloyd is pretty much a genius who royally screwed up his life with online slots gambling and selling prescription drugs to the wrong people. He graduated from high school at 12, college at 16 and was done with med school by 20. Very impressive. Lloyd is easily my favorite character and the main comic relief on the show. His main role is as the team’s psychiatrist who gets into the criminals’ heads to contemplate their next move.

Erica Reed

Erica is the convict of the group who is extremely easy on the eyes, played by the lovely Serinda Swan. Erica was landed in prison due to an arms technicality, but has five tally marks on her arm supposedly representing five of the six people responsible for her father’s death. Erica has an affinity for tracking down criminals, thanks to the lifetime of training her now deceased bounty hunter father passed down to her. She is hot but deadly!

Female Lead for Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D – Alexandra Daddario

There’s been a lot of Texas Chainsaw news lately, and in the tradition of hotties wearing tight jeans and white tanktops, Alexandra Daddario will be the female lead in the new 3D installment of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. If you’re confused as to who Daddario is, then look no further than Percy Jackson and The Olympians: The Lightning Thief, where she had her first big role as ‘Annabeth Chase’. It’s not her fault that the Percy Jackson movie sucked, because she performed exceptionally in it. I think ‘Grover the Satyr’ was like the ‘Jar Jar Binks’ of that franchise.

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TNT’s Falling Skies: Episode 5 – “Silent Kill” Review

Let me start this out by first saying Congratulations. Congrats to the show for proving me wrong and earning a 10 episode second season, which is slated to air summer of 2012, and was ordered only 3 episodes in to the first season. The show has managed to retain 3.8 million of the 5.9 million premiere viewers. Way to go Falling Skies, way to say “IN YOUR FACE” to an opinionated idiot that writes for a certain website.  Anyways on to tonight’s episode…

So for anyone who looooooooooves character development, this episode was for you. While the episode is centered around the rescue of Tom’s son Ben, we delve a little bit deeper into what makes Anne, Margaret, and a little bit of Captain Weaver tick. The episode kicks off with Tom and Hal once again coming up with a plan to rescue their missing family member Ben, and getting the ok from Captain Weaver. In short, the plan is to sneak in the hospital at night while the guarding skidder is sleeping, kill him without making a noise, and avoid alerting the patrolling mech. Hence the title SILENT KILL!

 After the plan is decided, we cut to the good teacher and Tom’s younger son Matt playing with radios and listening to a classic record. Captain Weaver picks up in the music while staring at a drawing from a child and calmly walks into the classroom, confiscates the record, and informs the good teacher that he can play record he wants, except that one. It appears the stoic Captain has a soft side after all. More on this later. Next, we have the best of the entire episode. The death of Dr. Harris!! While playing a little too close to the skidder cage and to study new noises the alien is making, the skidder manages to choke the life out of the cowardly doctor. Kudos to the writers for killing him off so quickly.

After Dr. Harris’s death, we then see Hal talking to the previously rescued boy about his time being harnessed with the aliens. From what he learns, Hal decides to change the original rescue plan and where a harness to disguise himself to save Ben. A plan not quickly approved by his father. Quick side note, I think they should have made this conversation a bit longer and more detailed. It would have been great to get more insight into what the aliens where doing with the captured kids. Anyways, we now join Anne, Tom, and Hal where they are discussing how best to kill a skidder without making any noise. Anne informs them of a weak spot in the aliens mouth that could provide a way to kill them. After placing a saucer of water, Anne attacks and kills the captured alien by stabbing it with a scalpel inside the creatures mouth at the soft palette location they were discussing. After killing the creature, Anne storms off to the lost child board and confesses Tom how easy it was to kill the alien by picturing her family and how she has nothing to reminding her of her lost loved ones, only the blood from the alien on her hand. We now see why she has shut down when it comes to discussing her family.

Next, we finally get the what we have been building up to for the past 2 episodes, the rescue of Ben. Hal is able to successfully break in to the hospital where his brother is being held wearing a harness as a disguise. He slips in line with his brother and the other harnessed kids being led by a skidder. This is where it gets a little weird. The skidder leads them all in to a room where they all lay down in a circle, and the skidder hovers over them, caressing their heads as they all go to sleep. This looked a lot like a mother nesting over her babies, showing that there is something more to this enslavement by the alien invaders. As skidder falls asleep, Hal attacks and thrusts a pocket knife into the skidders mouth as Anne did back at the base, but during his attack the harnessed kids pull at Hal to try to stop the attack. To make things even more weird, after the skidder dies and the rescue team starts save the harness children, we see the kids placing their hands over the dead alien showing a sign of concern and sadness. What the F is going on here?

With the kids rescued and Dr. Harris dead, it’s now up to Anne to successfully remove the harnesses from all kids on her own. After removing all the harnesses, the final child (don’t worry, not Ben) died on the make shift operating table. Despite encouraging words from Tom on the number of kids she just saved, she is focused on the one that died. Someone should really explain to her she needs to be a glass is half full kind of person. A ‘Debbie Downer’ is no good for surviving alien invasion.

While waiting for Ben to recover we see a conversation between Hal and Margaret, who was instrumental in the rescue due to her extensive knowledge of the hospital, where we get to learn that Margaret is a cancer survivor who was given a 50/50 chance to live, and its that mind-set that allowed her to survive not only the invasion but her time spent with Pope’s crew.

The show comes to an end with Captain Weaver watching Tom and his reunited family, then going off to play the record he confiscated in the beginning, and Ben waking up to recognize his dad. All in all, I would say this week the show was OK at best. While I know character development is a must for any show in order to gain sympathy and create a connection between us and the characters, I feel they went about it a little half assed for Margaret and Captain Weaver. They probably should have taken a page from Lost and spend an entire episode focusing on them mindset of each character, that’s just my opinion.

I’ll be curious to see what adventure the writers have in store for us next since we have spent the first few episodes wanting to rescue Ben. Do we go back and rescue Hal’s girlfriend, or is she just to be forgotten about and Margaret will take her place?

2.5 out of 5 grizzlies!

2011 NBA Draft – Winners and Losers: Top 10

In case you missed them:
2011 NBA Draft – Winners and Losers: 21-30
2011 NBA Draft – Winners and Losers: 11-20

Who were the winners and losers of this draft?  Well, let’s take a look at who had the best draft night down to the most awful, here’s out 10 best…

Continue reading 2011 NBA Draft – Winners and Losers: Top 10