Parenthood Wrap Up and Modern Family's Visit From the Godfather

This was a busy week in television with the return of American Idol and the beginning of the new Kevin Bacon series The Following on Fox. I have already written about The Following and while we watched Idol it is kind of a big yawn.

Not boring this week were a couple of our regular favorites. Parenthood, the much loved but low rated NBC series, ended it's season with a show that wrapped all of the bows of the season up in a nice package. If you were looking for there to be any loose strings you did not find many. The Ron Howard produced show is consistently one of the best shows on the air, people joke about crying each week, but folks only cry when a scene hits home.

NBC finished the series off quickly as they want to make room for their rebooted show SMASH, which coincidentally is another cult favorite that the network would like to see build a broader base. As to Parenthood the worry each spring is NBC will pull the plug but it seems unlikely that they will throw such a well regarded show over the side. If that decision is made certainly it's viewers will have to be happy with the season end.

Over on ABC Wednesday night Modern Family had a smart episode. The plot line was typical sitcom stuff but what made this show standout was the ending sequence which out of the blue put together a spin on the culminating scene in the Godfather when the baby is being baptized and at the same time a wide variety of hits is going down all over Gangster world, even with the " Do you renounce Satan" line. The short clip at the end of the series even had Phil and his son closing the door to the den in Claire's face telling her " not to ask him about his business." This is pretty clever stuff and while silly this is culturally aware silly as opposed to the foolishness that typically goes on HIMYM that I wrote about last week.

Both of these shows are standouts this week.

The Following

Wow! That is the first thing that comes to mind if someone asks me what I thought of The Following. I have seen the headlines of the reviews since the show premiered Monday but as it was patiently waiting for me on my DVR I stayed away from them. I wanted to judge for myself.

I have to say that I was conflicted about this show before I even watched it. I normally do not like dark shows and clearly this show is about some of the darkest material one can find. Combine that with the recent news stories of killing and death and I had legitimate questions if watching a show like this was feeding into the rivers of violence that permeate our culture.

Still I like Kevin Bacon and try to write about new things so I felt I would watch an episode, in the light of day, no bedtime viewing of this show for me.

The show comes as advertised. Before the first commercial break, in the opening scene we are treated to a murder scene that is as gory as anything I have ever seen on network television. Over the course of the next hour we see a woman who has painted Edger Allen Poe references on her skin and then commit suicide in a very public way, we see people being protected by police guard still come to harm and most of all we see the psychotic web that a serial killer has used to attract untold groupies to his cause.

We all have heard about women who befriend men in prison, something about them attracts a certain kind of woman. After watching a show like this one has to be concerned about this sort of thing. Kevin Bacon plays Ryan Hardy an FBI agent who captured the serial killer years ago after he killed many young women in a terrible fashion. When the killer Dr. Joe Carroll, a professor of literature with a Poe fetish escapes from prison Hardy is called out of retirement to work the case, albeit reluctantly.

This is pretty standard fare, how many times did Jack Bauer get called back in in 24, but it is the rest of the storyline that sets this show apart. Somehow, and we learn how, this man even behind bars has been able to program different people, online groupies, prison guards, and others to help him not just to escape but in an elaborate plan to finish his life's work. At the end of this first episode you see how far he will go to do so and once done and he is back in prison we see that as Carroll tells Hardy that was just the beginning, the full sequel is about to begin.

I do not know if I want to watch this show, in fact I am quite certain I do not. I do not know if I want a weekly dose of something this dark to enter my mind and soul. Still for what it is, this show is as well done as anything you will find. Suspenseful, literate, challenging, this show is all those things. I am just not sure if that makes up for the over the top gore and the scary place one has to enter each week to enjoy it. I will watch next week's episode, this I am sure of, but I certainly have no expectation of watching this show over the course of the full season. It is just too good at what it does, too dark for me.

Crazy, Stupid, Love

This 2011 comedy features Steve Carell as Cal Weaver, a forty something man who married his high school sweetheart and has the life he wants. As he and his wife Emily, played by Julianne Moore are out to dinner one evening she abruptly tells him she would like a divorce. On the way home while she drives out of nervous energy she keeps talking and spills details that she slept with her coworker David. Cal is stunned and eventually jumps out of the car.

Cal moves out right away and soon takes to spending his time in bars at night. He settles on a bar and each night as he imbibes talks loudly about his wife leaving him, cuckolding him, cheating on him. Eventually a lothario who often frequents the bar named Jacob Palmer calls him over to his table and tells him he is embarrassing himself. He offers to help Cal learn how to get women, change his image, to become a player. Cal agrees to the deal and soon starts spending time with Jacob. Ryan Gosling does a great job as Jacob as night after night Cal watches him pick up a different women always ending with his best line, " You want to get out of here." After a week or two Cal begins to doubt the effectiveness of his " training" until when Cal offers him a couple of questions he realizes he has absorbed it all.

Eventually Cal starts picking up women too and soon word filters back to his ex wife that he is a dating machine.

Emily did not really know what she wanted when she asked for a divorce. She had cheated on Cal but did not love or really even like David. Kevin Bacon plays David as a shady womanizer and does well.

In the meantime Emily and Cal's 13 year old son has fallen for his babysitter Jessica, a 17 year old, that upon hearing of the separation of his parents comes down squarely on the side of Cal, in fact she has developed a crush on him. Cal, oblivious to this says things that make her love him even more. In the meantime Robbie, the son, keeps professing his love to Jessica. As you can imagine this is a very tangled web.

We also have Hannah, a young woman who at the beginning of the movie turns down Jacob, one of the few women who does. She is getting ready to take her bar exam but upon passing is disappointed to find out that her boyfriend's, played by Josh Groban, promised big question is not to marry him but to become a permanent lawyer in the firm. Upset and embarrassed by this she walks into the bar where she had met Jacob and asks him if HE " wants to get out of here." He of course complies but strangely when they get back to his place instead of the expected they end up talking all night.

Soon Jacob is in a relationship, foreign territory for him, with Hannah.

In the end all of these story lines tie together, surprisingly, in one uproarious scene that is very very funny.

Emma Stone as Hannah plays an attractive and likable character, Moore is always strong, and as I have said before I just enjoy Steve Carell.

There is nothing in this movie that makes it great and it is not, it is however a very good movie. One I strongly reccomend.

My Dog Skip

A quiet Sunday afternoon, cold outside, and my daughter picked this movie out for us to watch. Frankie Munoz plays a young Southern boy who is a bit odd, has few friends and is not a very happy fellow.

For his birthday he gets a dog. His father, Kevin Bacon, does Kevin Bacon ever play a bad part is a tactiturn traditional man who gives in and gets him a dog.

The dog changes his life. He makes friends, plays ball, gets involved with moonshiners, gets a girlfriend and in the end becomes a very successful student and writer.

The movie was cute, the family enjoyed it, the dog was cute and I did laugh at many points. I would recommend this movie.