Well, folks, season 4 has finally drawn to a close. I say “finally” because this season was terrible. A complete and utter train wreck from start to finish. But before I get ahead of myself, let’s take a look at tonight’s episode.
This episode had some of the best one liners of the entire season. When Eric called Nan’s body guards “Gay Storm Troopers,” I peed my pants a little. Even Jesus got some laughs with his Pokemon reference. However, a few moments of funny dialogue does not a well-written episode make; and tears I shed during this episode were not born of laughter, but of misery and frustration.
Marnie’s story arc was like a diet drink, a vicious little pretender trying to hard to be good. Meanwhile, I’m left feeling unsatisfied and smacking my lips against a horrible aftertaste. Being True Blood, I was expecting there to be some sort of battle, or at least an epic finish to a story they spent so much time telling. Instead, it turns into an episode of the Real World for dead people.
SPOILERS AHEAD>>> Antonia talks Marnie down from making Bill and Eric into vampire potato chips, so Marnie has a scream cry and moves on with the other dead people? Talk about anti-climax.
This is it my friends. The end. The last time we will see the crew of Entourage together (until the inevitable movie). No more of my boy, Johnny Drama acting a complete fool with his permanent scowl. The show has had a good run and even though there were some low points, I’m really gonna miss it after tonight. Still a few things to deal with going into the finale: Vince and his quest to have a legitimate relationship with the beautiful and high morality Sophia. Ari and the never-ending saga of he and his wife staying together or getting divorced. And of course the Baby Mama drama between Eric and Sloan. So with that, let’s get right into it.
This episode starts with Vince making the announcement that he is getting married to Sophia in Paris… in the same day that the episode takes place. Everything is going great for our main character, but this episode was all about tying up the two major loose ends of Ari and his wife Melissa, not to mention Sloan and Eric.
Ari, looking good.
Ari is just about at wits end not giving two shits about work. He and Mrs. Gold have one last therapy session deciding to tell the kids about the divorce. After speaking to his daughter about whether or not he listens to her, Ari finally sees what he has to do and I can’t believe he didn’t do it before. He quits his company, sells his shares and goes to his house for one last ditch attempt with Melissa. Ari tells her what he did and wants to move to Florence, Italy with her and just be together and she agrees.
Ahhhhh, it’s so tough being rich… I was actually impressed by the emotion in the scene where Ari wins her back and even though it was a little cliche’ I still enjoyed seeing them have a happy ending.
With Eric and Sloan, we had a little back and forth tipping of the scales as Johnny and Turtle try to mend things to have Sloan at the wedding. Then Vince tries to do the same through Sloan’s father Terrence, but only serves to make things worse. In the end Vince convinces her to give Eric a last shot and be a father to their child. By the end the whole crew meets at the airport where a jet awaits the wedding party. Vince surprises Eric by unveiling a waiting Sloan and a jet that will take them anywhere they want and Eric goes his own way as Vince, Ari, Turtle and Johnny board the plane for Paris…. and credits roll.
I give the episode a 4 out of 5 bears because it felt a little rushed to tie everything up and give the boys a proper send off. I thought maybe an hour finale would have done it justice, but I suppose the ambiguous ending works too.
The only one we actually get to see a little more of is Ari as he and Melissa live the life in Italy. Ari actually gets a call from his old boss who is offering him the top spot at his studio. You can tell Ari is seriously considering it until he hangs up and Melissa is back with wine. But on the other hand he does lie about who it was to her and who knows maybe we’ll see an Ari Gold spin off show that I’d totally watch!
It’s the end of another Curb season and I have to say I am deeply fulfilled from the entirety. Between the chat and cuts, car periscopes, Palestinian chicken and Bill Buckner it was a pretty memorable run. I think since watching the previews of this week’s show though, I’ve been anticipating this episode with Michael J. Fox the most. Even more than the Ricky Gervais episode. This episode will beg the question: Is it pissed or Parkinson’s?
Larry has a run in of sorts with Michael J. Fox at the apartment place where they both stay, as his current girlfriend Jennifer plays the background piano music in the lounge. Larry becomes a little irritated that people aren’t paying much attention to her playing including Fox and Fox has the opinion that it’s “just” background music. As Fox departs Larry can’t tell if the Back to the Future star is giving him a disapproving shake of the head or if it’s due to his condition. Things get really heated and hilarious as Larry has a couple more incidents with his new neighbor and adopts the theory that Fox is just using Parkinson’s as a shield in order to be an asshole to him.
We also get introduced to Jennifer’s son Greg, who is a little effeminate or as Larry calls him “flamboyant”. The gift the gets the kid doesn’t sit well with his mother, nor does the product that he makes from it.
The ending to the episode was brilliant as Larry proves that social assassination is international and can be applied even in France. I give the episode a five out of five bears. It was a great episode all around and a good finale to a great season. Plus Michael J. Fox will always be the shiznite in my book! I can’t wait to hear if Larry David signs on for another season of the show, but I think he will because at this point it looks like he’s having way too much fun. I suppose we’ll have Bored to Death and Eastbound and Down to hold us over until then. Till next time Mr. David.
Gearbox Software’s hit shooter Borderlands came almost out of nowhere in 2009, selling close to 5 million copies worldwide in the three years since its release. No surprise then that Gearbox is in development for a sequel slated to hit shelves sometime in 2012, and IGN has a whole truckload of details on the upcoming installment from the series’s concept designer, Scott Kester. Borderlands 2 will once again take place on the planet Pandora, but there are a lot of refinements being made to the way you’ll experience the old setting. For one, the game will feature a lot more variance in the look of the planet, adding snow and fields to the usual rockiness of the original, but there’s more to the world than just a change of atmosphere.
“There’s a lot more diversity this time around, but not even just in the environments, also the creatures that inhabit them.”Enemy AI is more intelligent in the sequel; you’ll see creatures “ripping things up and throwing it at you or just scanning the landscape and on the fly taking different pathways at you.”
In addition to Pandora itself, Borderlands 2 will feature a brand new ensemble of playable characters, eschewing the original four from the previous game. This is in order to better suit the deeper class system and skill-tree elements. Traditional damage upgrades and the like will be available but Kester noted players will have the ability to “modify their character’s behavior in more significant ways.”
“We’re really trying to make sure there’s a lot more depth for the more hardcore RPG player side. We wanted to make sure that even though you only had one action skill we were going to give you multiple ways to use that, more so than we did the last time.”
It really seems like Borderlands 2 is going to focus even more heavily on the weapons; different weapon brands are going to be a bigger deal and more distinctly so.
“The hardcore guys really understood the differences between a Jakobs and Tediore,” said Kester, and they plan on making everyone aware of just how big that difference is this time around. “
“We actually took all the guns we made in the last game and in all honesty we basically chucked those and we started again from the ground. We didn’t want to just re-skin the guns from the last game. Every single gun in this game is different from the last one […]
The system itself works relatively similar but now we have a lot more components to it. We can add a lot more variants. Sometimes they can just be purely visual like there’s a bunch of nails sticking out, but a lot of times that might add to the melee damage dealt with the weapon. We’re trying to make sure all the things we’re adding aren’t just there for show but there is gameplay to support them. We felt that the last game, an assault rifle kind of looked like an assault rifle but you weren’t sure what its attributes were going to be until you fired it. We’re really trying to make sure that that feels right even at a glance. It’s much easier to tell how effective a gun is going to be at this or that due to the amount of barrels it has on it or just the size of the clip. There’s still the tech effects from the last game too and some more surprises as far as that goes.”
On top of all the inner-workings being upgraded and revamped, Kester went on to address the story element of the next Borderlands, addressing the original’s unbalanced focus on co-op play and promising a better experience both for multiplayer and single-player gamers.
“I think statistically there were actually more people that played the game single-player just because that’s the nature of consoles right now. We’ve really made sure that the single player side this time is more satisfying.”
Most enticing of it all however, may be this tidbit:
“We’re trying to make sure that we’re not a cut-scene game, we’re not going to stop to tell you the stuff. We’re trying to integrate the story into the missions so as you’re playing you’re being delivered story, you’re being hopefully more engaged. The missions themselves aren’t so much fetch quests all the time that are just A to B, A to B. We’re making sure that those really propel the story forward.”
With all that in mind, remember Gearbox is still keeping their lips sealed on a lot of other content. Borderlands 2 is shaping up to be far bigger and more expansive than its predecessor, so if you’ve already experienced Pandora before (and I don’t mean the blue cat-people one) I’m sure you’re anticipating this one. I know I’m excited, and I never managed to get my hands on a copy of the first.
The new #1 of Detective Comics is off to a dark and gritty start, because you know, that tends to happen when the Joker is involved. In this issue we have Batman on the trail of the Joker in a string of murders that is more intricate and twisted than he thinks. Is it really the Joker or something more that the Joker is playing along with in his own sick and twisted way? You’ll have to read the issue to find out because I’m trying to minimize the spoilers in these reviews.
Only the first in a slew of new #1 Batman comics, Detective really hits the mark with the one man writing and art team of Tony S. Daniel, with extra props to his ink man Ryan Winn. Daniel did a great job of capturing the essence of Gotham City which is many times a hit or miss situation due to so many titles taking place in our beloved hell hole. Daniel has no problem because he has already tread this territory, working a lot with Grant Morrison on the dark knight and some issues by himself in Batman.
Daniel Joker art from Batman RIP
This doesn’t seem to be the Gotham City we know before Flashpoint and the new 52 reboot: The cops are mistrustful of Batman except for Jim Gordon who has red hair and not the trademark white/gray. There’s a Dr. Arkham in charge at the Asylum, when the last one I remember was dethroned as the new Black Mask. However Mayor Hady is still the mayor in the comic book and running for re-election, so that means it’s not taking place before the last year’s continuity or Jimbo is using hair dye. Bullock however is still a tubby slob.
Overall I give the issue a 3 out of 5 bears. It was intriguing enough to make me want to buy issue #2 and see what this Dollmaker person is all about, but it lacked the punch an issue #1 should have had, especially one dealing with Batman. I have faith that Daniel can at least give us a good overall story arc but I’ll reserve final judgment until we have the whole thing laid out.
Well, folks, season 4 has finally drawn to a close. I say “finally” because this season was terrible. A complete and utter train wreck from start to finish. But before I get ahead of myself, let’s take a look at tonight’s episode.
Continue reading Review: HBO’s ‘True Blood’ Season 4, Episode 12 – “And When I Die” 
Grizzly Bomb 
