Black Swan Lake

Black Swan
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Cast: Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey
Released: 12/03/10
Viewed in theaters: 12/30/10

The last Natalie Portman film I saw and really liked was The Professional all the way back in 1994 when she was 12 years old. She's 29 now and all I have to say is welcome back, Natalie. This is easily her best role since she played the little assassin-in-training. True, I have yet to see the other major contenders for the Best Actress Oscar, but Portman is definitely a lock for a nomination.

Portman plays Nina, a ballerina who dances at Lincoln Center in NYC and takes her craft seriously. She stays late at the studio to practice, she never goes out with friends, she doesn't drink, and the very little she does eat, she throws it up. She lives with her mother (Hershey) who used to be a ballet dancer when she was younger, but had to give up her dream when she had her daughter. The relationship between them is a bit creepy - even though Nina is in her late twenties, her mom still treats her like a little girl. Nina's bedroom is all decked out in pink and she still has stuffed animals. Her mother is always helping her brush her hair or take off her jewelry and hair pieces and even unbuttoning her clothes. You can tell that they only have each other.

I covet that coat!

Speaking of creepy relationships, the one Nina has with her coach (Cassel) is exactly that. His company is putting on a production of Swan Lake and he needs someone who can dance both roles of the pure and fragile White Swan and the more sensual and unbridled Black Swan. He has no doubt that the frigid and buttoned-up Nina will be able to effortlessly play the former, but he's not sure she has the passion to play the latter. He becomes convinced that she will be able to pull it off after her reaction to his advances towards her. There are some very awkward and very inappropriate scenes between instructor and dancer.

Even though Nina gets the role of her dreams, she becomes paranoid that Lily, a new dancer from San Fransico (Kunis) is after her part and even as a member of the audience I wasn't sure if Lily wanted to sabotage Nina or if it was all in Nina's head as many things in the movie turned out to be - some of them were obvious like when she's dancing as the Black Swan and sprouts feathers and her arms turn into wings, but there are other scenes where I wasn't sure if they actually happened or were just Nina hallucinating. I hope when the DVD is released there is a director's commentary because I'm sure there are little minor details that I didn't catch.

Although there are a few shots where you are watching them dance as though you are a part of the audience, the dance scenes are shot as though you are experiencing the dance through their eyes. I'm sure this is not the first time this has been done, but it prevented the dance scenes from becoming too dull. Aside from a few difficult dance moves, that was Natalie Portman doing most of the ballet steps.

Black Swan isn't scary; it's more of a psychological thriller that stays with you long after the film has ended. It gave me plenty of scenes that made me jump (and I knew they were coming, but I still jumped!) One scene in particular was when Nina was, um, having some private time and she turns and suddenly there's a flash of her mother sleeping in a chair in her room. I knew that was coming, but I thought it was going to be the mother walking into the room.

Like I mentioned before, Natalie will get nominated for an Oscar, and the film and Aronofsky will also get nominations, but the movie won't win because it's probably too risque for the Academy members. Definitely see this film, but I wouldn't advise seeing it with your parents or grandparents. Trust me on that!

Game On

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Director: Edgar Wright
Cast: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Ellen Wong, Anna Kendrick, Jason Schwartzman
Released: 08/13/10

In Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Michael Cera plays the title character who is a Toronto native in his early twenties and plays the bass in a band with his friends where all the songs they play sound exactly alike. He falls for Ramona Flowers, the new girl in town (from America!) who entices him with her brightly hued hair (that changes colors every week) and wide eyes that make her look like an anime character. There's just a couple of hitches, though: Scott is already dating a high school girl named Knives Chau (and gets flak about it from his bandmates, his gay roommate (Culkin), and sister (Kendrick), but Scott is too scared to break up with her because he doesn't want to hurt her feelings and is too much of a wuss.

That's not his biggest problem, though. In order to be with Ramona, he must fight her seven evil exes (not ex-boyfriends, but exes). The fight sequences are cleverly film to look like a video game has come to life and it's done in a smart and cool way, not in a dumb and boring way. Now, I haven't played a video game since I had a Nintendo and we're talking about the original Nintendo that you could play classic games like Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt and my personal favorite, Zelda - that was the coolest game ever. Am I right or am I right? The point is, I am no video game aficionado and even I got the little video game gags, like when his opponents turned into a pile of coins whenever they were defeated and when Scott got his 1-Up life (always loved finding those in Super Mario Bros.). I thought it was clever how they made the Universal theme music sound like video game music from the '80s.

The movie moves at a fast pace, but it's a fun and fresh way to view a film. You may think that him having to fight seven exes gets a little repetitive, but it's not. The fight scenes are really cool. The only one I didn't like was when he fought the twins - that "fight" was kinda lame.

This movie could have easily replaced any of the movies that were nominated for a Golden Globe in the comedy/musical category. Granted, I haven't seen any of those movies, but I'm sure Scott Pilgrim is much better and much more fun to watch than Burlesque or The Tourist.  Shame on you, Hollywood Foreign Press!

Oscar season is upon us

True Grit
Director: Joel and Ethan Coen
Cast: Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Hailee Steinfeld
Released: 12/22/10
Viewed in theaters: 12/23/10

This movie may have been completely shut out of the Golden Globes (and yet they give a nomination to The Tourist for Best Comedy - huh!?), but I have no doubt it will rack up quite a few nods when the Academy Award nominations are announced. The film is a remake of the 1969 one of the same name starring John Wayne in the role Jeff Bridges takes over in the updated version. I've never seen the original, so I can't compare.

True Grit takes place in the nineteenth-century and is centered around a 14 year old Arkansas girl, Mattie Ross (played by newcomer Hailee Steinfeld in a role that's Oscar-worthy) who is trying to find Tom Chaney, the man who killed her father. She enlists the help of the best marshal in town, the one who will most likely be successful in helping her catch Chaney and that is Rooster Cogburn, played hilariously by Bridges. He's usually drunk half the time and he wears an eyepatch over one eye, so he has horrible aim with his gun. One of the funniest scenes involves Cogburn and Matt Damon's character LaBeouf, who accompanies them on their journey, when they have a shooting contest.

My mom complained there was too much talking between characters, but the script is strong and quite humorous at times and there is still plenty of action. I audibly gasped aloud many times when Mattie falls into a snake pit. Believe me, this is far from a dull movie. I predict a Best Picture nominee. I'm not sure if the Coens will get in directors since there are only five slots open for that category. I strongly think that Bridges and Steinfeld should get in the Best Actor and Actress category, but of course there are still plenty of other performances I have yet to see.

Holiday in London

Love, Actually

Director: Richard Curtist

Cast: Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Keira Knightley, Laura Linney

Released: 11/07/03

Viewed in theaters: 11/08/03

For my holiday film this year, I decided to go with Love, Actually, a warm and fuzzy movie about love and being with the people you care about during the Christmas season that revolves around about eight or nine different vignettes involving just about every major British actor. (Even Kate Winslet has a small "cameo"!) This movie makes me want to visit London during the holidays - it looks beautiful! 

If the premise sounds too saccharine for you, the movie is not all candy canes and sugarplums. Neeson's story deals with the death of his wife and raising his stepson. Firth discovers his girlfriend is cheating on him with his brother. Rickman and Thompson (Snape and Trelawney!) play a married couple who is in danger of breaking up. Knightley, recently married, discovers her new husband's best friend is in love with her. Linney plays a woman in love with her co-worker, but because she has a brother with a mental illness, he takes up all her time and she has to choose between him or having a relationship. 

Because there are so many different stories interwoven into the movie, it's always fun to pick out a favorite or two. Here are my three favorites: (warning: spoilers!)

1. I adore Colin Firth so that may have something to do with his storyline being my favorite, but it is a very sweet story. After his character Jamie finds out his girlfriend and brother are having an affair, he goes away to the country to work on a novel in a house by the lake. There he meets his housekeeper, a young woman from Portugal who doesn't know any English. They discover they've grown quite close and she learns English and he learns Portuguese and ends up flying to Portugal to propose to her at the restaurant she works at - probably one of my favorite movie proposals ever. 

2. After his wife dies, Neeson's character is worried about his ten-year-old stepson, Sam (and I have no idea where his biological father is in the picture). It turns out little Sam is so glum because he's in love with "the coolest girl" in his class and is sure she doesn't even know his name. They find out that little Joanna is singing in the school's Christmas program and decide that he should learn to play the drums and be in the band because that will get her attention. Joanna sings Mariah Carey's classic All I Want For Christmas Is You (which is a testament to how popular that song is - it was made nine years before this movie came out) and when she sings the last line, she points to Sam on "you". He's grinning madly, but when she turns to the audience and points to different members singing "and you and you and you", he quickly frowns and irritably bangs the drums. He does discover that she does know his name after chasing after her at the airport when she has to fly back home to New York.

3. Probably the funniest story involved Bill Nighy as an aging rock star who's covering Love is All Around (great song!) but replaces "love" with "Christmas" and changes the line "so if you really love me, come on and let it show" to "so if you really love Christmas, come on and let it snow". The music video involves girls in tight-fitting Santa suits licking their lips ala a Robert Palmer video. He knows the song is "shite" and to get his record to #1, promises to perform it nude on live TV if it does. One of my favorite scenes is when he goes on a music show to promote his new album and tells kids not to buy drugs - they should become rock stars and they'll get them for free. 

There were a couple vignettes that I thought could have been dropped and the extra time could have been used to focus on the remaining stories that maybe needed some extra scenes to make them more complete. I first would have gotten rid of the stand-in actors performing the sex scenes for a movie. They were just a side story and didn't connect to any of the other stories. And, as much as it pains me to say this, because I did think it was a funny sidestory, I would have gotten rid of the character of Colin and his quest to go to the U.S. because he's more likely to score with American girls because they'll love his "cute  British accent".  While it's funny, that story could have easily been dropped. I would love to watch it with a Wisconsin audience if only to hear their reaction when he tells his friend he's going to a "magical place called Wisconsin!" 

The most ridiculous storyline is probably Hugh Grant as the Prime Minister. Hugh Grant as the Prime Minister? Yeah, right. I did love the scene where he starts singing carols for those little girls and his chauffeur starts singing with him and he's got this really deep voice and sounds like Pavoratti.

I really adore this movie - I've seen it several times and own it on DVD. Even though my experience seeing at at the theaters wasn't so great (I had to sit in the front row because the theater was packed and ended up sitting next to the most annoying moviegoer in the world. She! Would! Gasp! At! Every! Single! Thing!) the enjoyment of the film overshadowed all of that. So go make yourself a cup of hot cocoa, light a fire, curl up with someone you love, and pop this in your DVD player! 

Ample Parking Day or Night

To close out National Television Week (and I hope you enjoyed it!), my final show is one of my favorite animated ones. Sorry Simpsons fans, but it's

South Park (1997 - )

I spent last spring watching 200 episodes (that equals 12 seasons) of this show and I made the mistake of sometimes eating while watching it, so I pretty much choked on my food and nearly died everytime I laughed which was quite often. Of course I've seen most of the earlier episodes, but there were many episodes (especially in the later seasons) that I hadn't seen before. I haven't caught up on any of the new episodes yet, so you won't see any of them mentioned in this blog. 


I'm probably what you would call more of an old-school SP fan because I definitely prefer the earlier seasons to the later ones. 


My 20 favorite episodes:

At first I was just going to do my ten favorite episodes, but there was no way I could just choose ten from 200 episodes, so I doubled the number. It was a bit difficult ranking them, so what I did after choosing the twenty I love the most was divide them in my top ten and my second top ten, then I ranked them from there. The order is likely to change from day to day, but as of right now I'm satisfied with how I ranked them:

1. Korn's Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery (S3, 1999) - Let me preface this by saying that not only am I NOT a Korn fan, but I wouldn't be able to name you one of their songs (in fact, I don't think I've ever heard any of their songs), so I don't care that they're in this. What I do love about this episode is the throwback to Scooby-Doo which I loved watching when I was younger. (Except when they brought in Scrappy...I bailed when that annoying thing came in!) Even the animation was very reminiscent of Hanna Barbera. I loved the shoutouts toScooby-Doo like Niblet helping them find clues, the guys saying corny (heh...I made a pun!) things like "groovy mystery" and "c'mon, gang!", that one Korn guy loosing his glasses ala Velma, and when they finally put together the puzzles of the clue and solve who's behind the pirate ghosts (or ghost pirates? LOL loved that little argument). I don't think they ever did another Halloween episode after this one.

2. L'il Crime Stoppers (S7, 2003) - This episode was so funny! Well, obviously all the ones I chose are very funny, but this one just had me ROFL. The boys are playing detectives and they start out the show by solving cute little mysteries like what happened to this old lady's pie that was cooling on the windowsill (their explanation about what happened to it was totally WTF?) and finding a little girl's missing doll. When they find the doll, the girl's mother tells them what a great job they did and calls the police to tell them how great they are, so the boys are called in to do some REAL detective work and their first gig is to go undercover at a meth lab. Yeah.... ("What's a meth lab?" Heh.) There was so much inappropriate things going on, but it was soooo funny. For one thing, the boys are taking a shower with the other cops. When there's a big shoot out at a strip club, the boys use their hands as guns and are going "bang bang!" Wow. I was laughing so hard at that. Of course everyone ends up dead except for them. In the end, they decide they don't want to play detectives anymore and instead start playing laundromat which was soooo adorable!

3. Trapper Keeper (S4, 2000) - There are two stories going on in this episode. The first one is about Cartman's new Dawson's Creek (heh) Trapper Keeper that has all these ridiculous and fancy gadgets and is going to take over the world in just a few short years unless this guy from the future can stop them. I love it when Cartman sings the DC theme song. The second story deals with the kindergarten class voting for their class president between Ike (go Ike!) and some other kid. This episode aired right after the 2000 election fiasco, so there was a lot of spoofing of that going on. It was great; I especially loved how the little girl named Flora (hee!) couldn't decide on who to vote for and all the kids wanting a recount and the absent kid needing to vote. There's even a hilarious "cameo" by Rosie O'Donnell. One of the funniest "current events" spoofs SP has ever done.

4. Rainforest Schmainforest (S3, 1999) - I usually refer to this ep by "the Jennifer Aniston one". She voices a character who takes the boys along on a trip to Costa Rica as part of a group called "Getting Gay With Kids" where they sing and dance as a way to educate people about saving the rain forest. One of the best episodes of classic SP. There are so many funny things in this ep: Kyle having no rhythm when they dance and sing (because he's a Jew), the fact that when they sing they sound like adults, Cartman being his usual assy self, Stan seeing Tony Danza during the lighting storm, and JA screaming "F*** THE RAIN FOREST!" after their group gets lost and caught by one of the tribes who live there and try to mate with her. I love their stats about how many people the rain forests kills per year at the end, LOL.

5. Casa Bonita (S7, 2003) - This episode is very dear and close to my heart because I have been to the actual Casa Bonita (the Disneyland of Mexican restaurants according to Kyle!) in Lakewood, CO. I take this episode as my own personal shout out. The funniest thing was googling "Casa Bonita" and finding forums where people wrote messages about how they were amazed that this was actually a real place - they thought it had been made up for the show because it just seemed so outlandish, but surprise! It's real! I just love that Casa Bonita is Cartman's favorite place in the whole world. It's horrible (and horribly funny!) that Cartman makes Butters believes that an asteroid hit the earth just so he can go to CB instead of Butters and of course naive Butters believes him. I also always get a chuckle when Kyle's mom is driving the boys to CB and Cartman keeps going on about what they should do and Stan says, "We should do what Kyle wants, it's his birthday" and Cartman goes, "F*** Kyle!" and Mrs. Broflovski does NOT look happy!

6. Asspen (S6, 2002) - Three things I love about this episode: the use of cheesy '80s music (especially Take On Me), the one douchy skier who challenges Stan to a race and calls him Darsh ("Stan Marsh? More like Stan DARSH!" - that never fails to make me laugh!), and that incredibly stupid, but incredibly funny "Montage Song". (We're gonna need a montage! A sports-training montage! Show a lot of things happening at once.... with every shot show a little improvement....even Rocky had a montage...") OMG it was sooooo funny! And catchy too!

7. Good Times With Weapons (S8, 2004) - This is a very clever episode because it has the boys buying ninja weapons and they make up their own ninja names with their own ninja powers and the animation goes back and forth from the regular SP animation to making the boys into anime characters complete with their very own theme song. Cartman's anime alter-ego made me laugh the most because he was just this big fat blob. I'm surprised that he didn't imagine himself to be buff since he doesn't consider himself fat. The boys freak out when Butters gets injured after Kenny throws a ninja star into his eye (um, owwww!) and don't want to take him to the hospital because they don't want to get in trouble. The story ends with the adults in town being way more outraged about Cartman walked naked across a stage (he was using his "ninja power" of invisibility) than what happened to Butters. This ep aired not long after the infamous wardrobe malfunction Janet Jackson had at the Superbowl half-time show.

8. The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers (S6, 2002) - Obviously if you're a fan ofThe Lord of the Rings (like me!), you're going to love this ep. If you've never seen the trilogy, you won't get this show. Randy gives the boys a copy of FotR to take over to Butters' house, except that he accidently gave them a copy of some hard-core porno. The boys are dressed up like LotR characters (e.g. Cartman as Gandalf) and they see this as a quest. Butters ends up watching the porno and becomes obsessed with it, calling it "my precious" and the boys have to figure out a way to destroy the tape because everyone seems to want it in their possession. Yeah, does this sound familiar? There are tons of references to the movies.

9. Best Friend Forever (S9, 2005) - I usually get this one mixed up with Kenny Dies (another great ep) from the fifth season where they kill off Kenny permanently (only to bring him back a year later). Both episodes center around Kenny's death, so that's why they're interchangeable to me. This aired when the big thing in the news was the Terri Schiavo case and I think it's the first episode of SP to win an Emmy. Kenny is one of the first people in South Park to get the highly-anticipated PSP (how Kenny can afford it, I have no idea) and Cartman is extremely jealous because they're all sold out by the time he tries to get one. While playing a game called "Heaven V. Hell", he's hit by a car and put in the hospital where he goes back and forth from being in a vegetative state to being dead. Apparently he had a calling from God because a huge battle between Heaven and Hell is about to start and God created the PSP game to see who would score the highest and lead Heaven to victory and Kenny was The Chosen One. Meanwhile, Kyle and Stan don't want the doctors to pull the plug, but Cartman is all for letting Kenny go because according to Kenny's will, he'll get the PSP and we all know that Cartman is a selfish prick (though I do agree with him in this case!)

10. Red Sleigh Down (S6, 2002) - Pretty much all SP Christmas episodes are awesome and this one is probably my favorite. As you can tell from the title, it's a play-on of Black Hawk Down. Cartman is worried that he's been more naughty than nice (you think?!) and wants to do the ultimate nice thing so it will cancel out all the naughty things he's done, so his plan is to ask Santa to bring Christmas to Iraq. A very kind gesture, except Santa's sleigh is shot down and he is taken prisoner. With the help of the other boys, Mr. Hanky (the singing Christmas poo), and Jesus, they manage to save Santa. Only Jesus is killed by Iraqis and Santa declares that from this day on, because Jesus died, Christmas should be a day where we remember and celebrate Our Savior. Meanwhile, a side-story had Jimmy, the stuttering cripple kid, singing The Twelve Days of Christmas before the lighting of the Christmas tree. Of course it took him forever to sing it and everyone was falling asleep.

11. AWESOM-O (S8, 2004) - I always love any episode where Cartman gets his comeuppance, and this show delivers that. Cartman spends the entire episode in a cardboard box disguised as a robot named AWESOM-O who is sent to Butters as a gift (even though Butters' birthday isn't until September 11th - of course that would be his birthday!) Cartman's plan is to try to get Butters to reveal his deepest, darkest secrets so he can make fun of him, but when he finds out that Butters has a compromising video of Cartman, Cartman has to keep the charade up for as long as he can so he can try to find the video. He even ends up going to L.A. as AWESOM-O with Butters to visit Butters' aunt. I think my favorite part (besides the end) is when Butters tells Stan and Kyle how awesome AWESOM-O is and he'll do anything you ask him and Kyle takes advantage of that.

12. A Ladder to Heaven (S6, 2002) - This aired during the time Kenny was dead for a whole season. The boys have won a shopping spree at a candy store, but they don't have the ticket they need to be able to do it. The shopkeeper tells them they have a week to get the ticket or else no candy. They remember that they gave Kenny the ticket to hang on to and thinking the ticket has been buried with Kenny, they ask Kenny's parents where he is and they show him an urn. (Which Cartman thinks is chocolate milk mix and ends up drinking Kenny's ashes...ugh). The boys decide to build a ladder to heaven to ask Kenny where the ticket is. The boys' parents and everyone else in town is so touched by this, that they don't have the heart to tell them that it's not going to work. Of course, they think the boys want to see their deceased friends and don't realize their intentions are purely selfish. Oh, and Alan Jackson makes a "cameo" by singing "Where were you when they started building the ladder to heaven..." Heh, I thought they would end up getting to heaven and God telling them their friend was in Hell, but the show went in a different direction.

13. Super Fun Time (S12, 2008) - The fourth graders visits one of those living museums where it's supposed to be 1864 and the people who work there pretend to be pioneers and never break out of character. A guy who is completely ripped off from Alan Rickman's character in Die Hard (I think he even had the same name as that character) takes the students hostage and starts killing people. Stan and Kyle are freaking out and ask their guide where the nearest telephone is and the guy goes, "What's a telephone? I don't reckon what a telephone is...that's a funny word!" Then when the terrorist is about to get one of the employees to talk and tell them the code he wants, the guide shoots him with a rifle because he was about to break character and there's a very strict policy about that. The terrorist asks "Murdering Murphy" to tell him the code and all the actors are freaking out because they released the town outlaw from the jail. When it's five o'clock they all return to their normal selves and say, "Let's go get something to eat at TGIFridays!"

14. Make Love, Not Warcraft (S10, 2006) - Even though I've never played World of Warcraft in my life and have no idea how it works, I got a kick out of the episode where the boys are playing it and you hear them talking to each other over headsets, so instead of seeing the boys, you see the characters they're playing. I LOLed so hard when everyone from school was playing and this one WoW character screams "TIMMAH!" And then you hear another character say "I pooped my pants!" in Ike's adorable voice. I was also amused that the animation for the video game was better than the actual cartoon!

15. Something You Can Do With Your Finger (S4, 2000) - Cartman has a dream that he's in a boy band with his friends and thinks it's a sign from God that he should start his own boy band and make millions of dollars. He recruits Stan, Kyle, and Kenny, but they still need a fifth member because all boy bands have five members, so they hold auditions (loved Ike trying out! He was soooooooooo cute singing! And love him giving Cartman the finger when he's rejected) and settle on Wendy because they determine she has the best voice. (Loved her song choice with the swear words that weren't really swear words). It's easy to make Wendy look like a boy because she's only a nine year old girl (and this was before she got breast implants, heh!) They call the group Fingerbang ("I'm gonna fingerbang bang you into my life, girl I'm gonna fingerbang bang you into my heart"...that song is kinda catchy) and Stan asks what it means and Cartman tells him it means using your fingers as a gun, but Kenny tells him what it really means in his muffled voice while using hand gestures and they're all like "Gross!" LOL, of course Kenny would know what that means! In Cartman's dream they all sound great and have perfect choreography, but when they audition in real life, they're all horribly off-key and can't dance.

16. Woodland Critter Christmas (S8, 2004) - Another great Christmas episode and probably one of the most sadistic episodes ever - at least tied with Scott Tenorman Must Die. It starts off with a bunch of cute little woodland creatures and a rhyming narrator. As the story goes on, we find out the little critters are Satan worshippers and one of them is about to give birth to the anti-Christ. Whenever I go for a walk, I can't look at a rabbit, bird, or squirrel without thinking "blood orgy". Oh, and I love the throwaway moment where Stan is watching The Jeffersons. Nice.

17. Timmy (S4, 2000) - So I sort of have a soft spot for Timmy and this has always been one of my favorite episodes. I remember when it first aired, my brother and I kept saying "TIMMY! TIMMY! TIMM-AH!" All. The. Time. and it drove my mom CRAZY, LOL. She doesn't watch SP, so she had no idea what we were talking about or why we kept shouting the name Timmy. I also loved how they made fun of Phil Collins and how he was always holding his Oscar.

18. Cartman Joins NAMBLA (S4, 2000) Thinking that he's too mature for his friends, Cartman sets out to find older friends so he can carry on adult conversations. He goes online to a chatroom called "Older Men Looking for Young Boys" or something like that and after he types that he's a nine-year-old boy looking for someone to chat with he gets hundreds of IMs. One guy tells him he's eight inches and Cartman tells him he's not looking for midgets, LOL! He ends up being the poster boy for NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association). Okay, I thought they had made this up for the show, but apparently it's a real organization! Eww! It was funny when I thought it was made up, but now it's just creepy!

19. Breast Cancer Show Ever (S12, 2008) - Like I mentioned before, I love any episode where Cartman gets his comeuppance and this is one of the best episodes where that happens. He pisses Wendy off and they make plans to fight after school, but he begins to change his mind because he's afraid that Wendy will kick his ass...which she totally does! The little twerp totally deserved it and everyone knew she was going to win the fight. She wiped the floor with him! I was surprised Kyle didn't give her any pointers since he hates Cartman (although she certainly didn't need any help). It was really cute when she took off her little purple coat and was wearing a shirt with a unicorn on it.

20. The New Terrance and Philip Movie Trailer (S6, 2002) - Even though I will admit he's a good actor, I can't stand Russell Crowe, so I thought this episode where he has his own show called Fightin' 'Round the World and travels the globe with his tugboat, Tuggy, and beating random people up was hilarious. I also love how he has an over-exaggerated Australian accent and it doesn't even sound like him at all. The boys are watching the show because the trailer for Asses of Fire 2 is supposed to play during it. They can't seem to find a place where they can watch the entire show in peace and end up going from Stan's house to Chef's house to Cartman's house to Kyle's house to a bar to an assisted living place and back to Stan's house... They do end up seeing the trailer, but it's the kind where words just fly towards you on the screen.


The following are awesome random moments from episodes that didn't make my top twenty list, but I had to give them a shout-out because they're too good not to mention:

(In completely random order):

1. Mr. Mackey's pronunciation of marijuana ("mara-JA-wanna") when he talks to the class about drugs and alcohol never fails to make me laugh and let's not forget how he passes a bag of said drug around the class so they know what it smells like! WTF?!

2. This sketch drawing of the boys is given to Kyle's mom to confirm if she knows who they are.  They actually look more 12/13 than 8/9, but whatever. Do you remember that scene in Stand By Me where Gordie tells that story about Lardass? Yeah, well that's who Cartman looks like. Damn, that kid is fat! Loved it when Mrs. Broflovski said, "Oh, yes, that's my Kyle, but that's an awful drawing!"

3. The funniest part in the Tweek V. Craig episode was the boys' shop teacher who kept looking at a photo of his dead fiancee and having flashbacks of her. What made me laugh uncontrollably the first time I saw it - and even several years later watching it again - was that they had a real person (Pam Brady, one of the writers) play his departed beloved and they shot her scenes in these creepy, hazy dream-like sequences where she was doing all these cheesy things like swinging ("Swing me higher, Richard!") or frolicking in a field of flowers and everything she says ends in an echo. The memories become more frantic when she's piloting a small plane that's crashing and blood squirts into her face BEFORE she crashes. Completely absurd and so funny. On the commentary, Trey Parker recounts a time he was skiing with Brady and some guy saw them and recognized her from the episode and started saying, "Richard, Richard!"

4. I hate Cartman, but I love it whenever he sings. If I could get him singing Poker Face as my ringtone, I would do it in a heartbeat. However, probably my favorite Cartman song is when he's reminiscing about the third grade when they've just started fourth grade and sings this song. I love how he's choking up while singing it!

5. I loved it when Butters had his own episode complete with his own theme song and every time "It's Butters" was said, he would pop up and say "A-that's me!"

6.  Everytime Breckenridge got a shout out (like that guy who was looking for directions to get there because he had an interview at Denny's), I would clap and cheer because that's my favorite place in Colorado. In fact, Breckenridge is where I found out South Park is an actual place in Colorado because I was watching TV in my condo (this was probably '98 or '99) and there was a commercial for a grocery store or something that was having a sale and it was located in South Park. BTW, I've never seen a Denny's in Breckenridge. 

7. The boys start their own news program for school, but their ratings plummet when Craig debuts his new show featuring close-ups of animals wearing hats with a wide-angle lens. It is the cutest thing ever! They used real footage of the crew's (I'm guesssing) dogs and cats and they're all wearing these silly hats. Like the kids say, they're "cuuuuuute!" and "suuuuuper cuuuuuuute!" Oh, and the best part is the clown music they add.

8. This wasn't uproariously funny, but pretty awesome: South Park hosts a film festival and Cartman makes a comment about how the kinds of movies found at these kinds of festivals feature gay cowboys who eat pudding. What's pretty remarkable is that the episode aired in 1998 and Brokeback Mountain wasn't published until 1999 and the movie didn't come out until six years later. If only they ate pudding in that movie!

9. I loved Kyle's cousin (also named Kyle), this extremely Jewish kid who's like a mini me of Woody Allen with his Coke-bottle glasses and thick accent: "I'm baaaaack!", "I have aaasthmaaa!" "I can't eat that; it will give me gaaaaas!" And when he has trouble paying attention in class and Cartman says he should go to a concentration camp. Oh, no you didn't, Cartman!

10. When Wendy breaks up with Stan, he gets Jimmy to talk to her for him and asks him to tell her she's a "continuing source of inspiration." Well, of course stuttering Jimmy can barely get pass the first syllable and says to Wendy, "Stan told me to tell you you're a cont...a cont...a cont.." HAHA! OMG, I was dying! Wendy looked pretty pissed!

I talk about one of my favorite cartoons I used to watch when I was a kid:

And here is the clip of that kid telling the story.

"Oh boy"

Quantum Leap (1989-1993)

I vaguely remember when this show came out in the spring of 1989 and ended in 1993. I remember watching a few episodes when it aired. Though I don't remember any of them, I do remember the premise. So that's why, after all these years, when the lovely DVD player was invented and (most all of) TV series were put on DVD, it was my chance to revisit this show I've always found so fascinating. Personally, I think it's the coolest idea thought of for a TV show (followed, of course, by 24, one of my favorite shows of all time!) It's about this super smart guy named Dr. Sam Beckett, who, with the help of his super smart team, build Project Quantum Leap (PQL), which involves an accelerator he stepped into and vanished. In each show, he "leaps", so to speak, into a different body from one time and place to another. In every episode before he can leap, he has to set something right that once went wrong. He can only leap between the years of his life and death, so most of the leaping takes place between '50s and '70s. (There are only a handful of leaps from the '80s - this is why they need to make an updated version!) Sam's sidekick is Al, a human hologram, who, besides smokes his cigar or oogles after beautiful women, tells Sam what he's there to do and gives him all the details he needs. When Sam leaps into the body of his next persona, we the viewers see him as Sam, but the people around him see him as the person he's supposed to be portraying. And when we see him look in the mirror or any other kind of reflection, we see him as the person he's leapt into.


Now, I must warn you: if you've never seen the series and want to, don't read this because I do give away some major spoilers! 

The episodes included ones that made me laugh, made me cry, disinterested me, and just plain freaked me out! Here are  my ten favorite episodes, ranked in chronological order:

1. 1-06  The Color of Truth - In this episode, Sam leaps into the body of an elderly black man named Jessie Tyler in 1958 Alabama as a chauffeur for an old white woman.  Driving Miss Daisy, anyone?) Up until this episode, he had only been leaping into the bodies of white men, so it's the first episode that really catches your attention.

2. 2-05 Blind Faith - Sam leaps into 1964 as a blind pianist, but he can still see, so he has to disguise this fact from the people who know the pianist. The best part is at the end when he's trying to save a woman from being murdered and he gets blinded by a flash bulb, so he has to save her when he is, in fact, literally blind.

3. 2-22 M.I.A. - It's 1960 when Sam leaps into an undercover cop. Al tells him that he's there to prevent a MIA's wife from declaring him dead and eventually remarrying another man that she will meet later that day. Although he tries, the woman still meets the man. Sam then learns that Al is the MIA and the woman, Beth, is Al's first wife and first true love. It's not in the cards for Sam to change Al's history, so Al tells Sam the real reason he is there: to prevent his partner from being murdered in a drugs raid gone wrong.

4. 3-01 The Leap Home: Part I - At the beginning of each episode, there's a monologue telling the audience what the show is about and how Sam Beckett hopes, that with each leap, the next "will be the leap home." Well, in this episode, he DOES leap home. He leaps into himself as a sixteen year old in 1969. Of course, he thinks he is there to help his family, like making his father quit smoking since he died in 1974 and try to save his brother's life before he is killed in Vietnam in a few short months. The only catch is that he's not there to do either of those, but he's there to win a basketball game that he lost in the original history. I mean, seriously, that's the reason he's there? But my favorite scene in the episode (and in probably the entire series), is when he's talking to his sister about how their brother can't go to Vietnam or he'll be killed and tells her he know the future and she asks what will happen to the Beatles in the future and Sam starts playing Imagine on the guitar. He's about to tell her what happened to John Lennon, but Al tells him not to. But his sister is crying because she knows he's telling the truth and knows that their older brother will be killed.

5. 3-10 A Little Miracle - This episode was inspired by A Christmas Carol. It's Christmas Eve 1962 and Sam has leaped (leapt?) into the butler of a real estate owner who has gone all Ebenezer Scrooge and plans to close the local Salvation Army so that he can build Blake Plaza. Due to a chemical imbalance, Sam discovers that the rich man can see and hear Al. (Besides Sam, the only people who can see Al are children, people near death, and crazy people. Oh, and dead people and animals can also see him). So Sam and Al come up with an idea to have Al pretend to be a ghost of Christmas past, like in the Dickens tale.

6. 3-19 Last Dance Before an Execution - Sam leaps to find himself sitting in an electric chair just seconds before the switch is about to be turned on. At the last second he gets pardoned for a few more days...I can't remember the reason why. The man he has leapt into is sentenced to death, along with another man, for the murder of a priest who caught them stealing money from the church to give to the poor. Al tells Sam that he is here to prove their innocence, but getting out of this leap could prove to be more difficult than past leaps! Trivia: while Sam usually says "Oh boy!" at the start of every episode, in this one he yells, "Oh, God!"

7. 3-22 Shock Theater - Like I mentioned before, crazy people can see Al, so when Sam leaps into a man who is in a mental asylum, the other patients can see him (Al). Sam is given shock treatment and is confused about who he is and begins to think that he is different people that he has previously leaped into. Al tries to help him, but he is loosing frequency due to Sam being given drugs to forget Al, who the doctors think is his imaginary friend. The only way to get Sam back is for him to have shock treatment again.

8. 5-07, 08, 09 - Trilogy - I'm counting these three episodes as one since they're all part of the same plotline. In the first episode, Sam leaps into 1955 Louisiana as the father of a very creepy young girl named Abigail who happened to be the last person to see a man alive, the same man who is the father of a little girl who was found dead and Abigail was also the last to see that girl alive as well. The second time around it's 1966 and now Sam has leaped into Abigail's fiancé. (Yeah, he went from being her father to her fiancé, a little bit creepy if I do say so myself). The townspeople still believe that Abigail is responsible for murdering Violet, the little girl who died all those years ago and attempt to hang her, but Sam manages to stop them. In the third episode, it's 1978 and now Sam has leapt into the town lawyer where he for once and for all has to prove Abigail's innocence. It's Abigail's creepy ass mother, who lives in some kind of mental institute and has a blank, dead stare that gives you the shivers, who testifies that she was the one who accidentally killed Violet because the girl fell down a well when Abigail's mother tried to pry a locket that belonged to her daughter from her hands. But the big kicker is that Sam has a daughter! With Abigail! You see, when Sam leapt into her fiancé, he sort of leapt into a very uh, compromising position, and it just so happened that it was his daughter, and not the real fiancé’s when little Sammi Jo was conceived. So, of course, she has this sky rocketing IQ and works for PQL. I'm not making this up, folks!

9. 5-19 The Leap Between States - Sam has leapt from his timeline and into 1862 as his great grandfather, John Beckett, who was a soldier in the Civil War. After Sam is wounded, he is taken to a barn. A woman, who is later revealed to be Sam's great grand-mother is not happy to find the man in her barn because he is a Yankee (she's from the South) and a Yankee killed her husband and destroyed her farm. Al informs Sam that he has to make sure that John and Olivia fall love, because if they don't, then they'll never marry, thus Sam's grandparents will never exit, nor his parents, and of course Sam would never be born. Thrown in another man who is in love with Olivia and runaway slaves and you have yourself a love triangle - nineteenth century style.

10. 5-20 Memphis Melody - It's 1954 and Sam has leaped into a young, the-day-before-he-got-famous Elvis Presley. No, he isn't there to make sure Elvis gets discovered (though he still has to go to all the auditions to ensure that Elvis still becomes famous), but instead he is there to make sure a woman, Sue Anne Winters, get discovered. So far everything seems to be going fine. Sue Anne has a tendency of getting nervous when she sings, so when she freezes up on stage, Sam goes on with her and they sing a duet. Al tells Sam that he (Elvis) can't have a duo contract because Elvis needs to be discovered on his own. There's a great scene at the end where Sam just bursts out an Elvis tune in a diner and Al is dancing on the bar.


The following are episodes I found especially creepy (again, in chronological order):

A Portrait of Troian from season 2 - It's not that Sam has leapt into a ghost hunter, nor the fact that he's standing in the middle of a cemetery on a stormy night, that I find creepy, no, it's the old woman (who we later find out is a ghost) that I find uber-creepy. And she can see Al - that's what I mean about dead people being able to see him.

The Boogieman from season 3 - This is probably the most creepiest episode of all. Sam leaps into a horror fiction writer on Halloween and all these strange accidents keep happening and it turns out that Satan has taken the form of Al and Dean Stockwell has these crazy ass red eyes that just creep me the **** out! I probably shouldn't have watched that episode, at like, three in the morning!

Dreams from season 4 - At the end of the episode there's this creepy black and white dream sequence depicting a murder.

The Curse of Ptah-Hotep from season 4 - Sam leaps into an archaeologist excavating a mummy's tomb in Egypt and there's this whole curse (of course) and the mummy comes alive and there's this bad guy who's in it for the treasure and he's killed by the mummy. It was a bit startling!

Trilogy from season 5  Although Sam leaping into a girl's father one episode, then her lover the next was a bit on the creepy side, the girl's mother in the insane asylum was the creepiest. She had these dead eyes that just stared blankly ahead and would talk in this little girl sounding voice how she hid under her bed when her siblings were being killed by her mother and she could feel the blood dripping on her face. Brrrr!

Deliver Us From Evil and Return/Revenge of the Evil Leaper from season 5 - These episodes weren't that creepy, it was just the concept of there being an evil leaper that left me a little uneasy. I guess it would make sense that if Sam is out there to set things right, then there has to be a ying to his yang and there's someone out there to make life miserable for others. And the notion that Lothos = Satan? Creepy to the nth degree!


10 most interesting leaps:

1. Sam as Jimmy, a young man who has Down Syndrome in Jimmy from S2 and Deliver Us From Evil from S5. What I find the most fascinating is that he leaped into the same person twice!
2. Sam as his sixteen year old self in The Leap Home: Part 1 from S3.
3. Sam as a pregnant woman in 8 1/2 months from S3.
4. Sam as a mental patient in Shock Theater from S3.
5. Sam as a hologram when he and Al switch places and Al becomes the leaper in The Leap Back from S4.
6. Sam as a KKK member in Justice from S4.
7. Sam as a monkey (yes, a monkey) who is being tested to go up in space in The Wrong Stuff from S4. That's probably the show's worst episode.
8. Sam as a young Al in A Leap for Lisa from S4.
9. Sam as Lee Harvey Oswald in Lee Harvey Oswald from S5.
10. Sam as his great-grandfather in The Leap Between States from S5.


Before they were famous,they guest starred on Quantum Leap!

-Teri Hatcher played Sam's future wife as a college student in Star Crossed.
-Jason Priestly was in Camikazi Kid.
-Willie Garson (Stanford from Sex and the City) was in Play it Again, Seymour AND Lee Harvey Oswald.
-Kelli Williams (Lindsay from The Practice) was in Disco Inferno
-Patricia Richardson (Jill from Home Improvement) was in Good Morning, Peoria.
-Michael Madsen (Kill Bill) was in Jimmy.
-Marcia Cross was in Good Night, Dear Heart.
-Danni Nucci (Fabrizio from Titanic) was in Leap of Faith.
-Joesph Gordon-Levitt (500 Days of Summer and Inception) was in Permanent Wave.
-Eriq La Salle (Dr. Benton from ER) was in A Song For the Soul.
-Carla Gugino was in Ghost Ship.
-Bob Saget was in Stand Up
-Brooke Sheilds was in Leaping of the Shrew. (But she was already famous...)
-Jennifer Aniston was in Nowhere to Run.
-Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Howswer!) was in Return of the Evil Leaper.
-Gregory Itzin (President Logan from 24) was in Memphis Melody.


Even though the show premiered in 1989, it's 1995 in Sam and Al's present time. I forget when we are told this information, but by the end of the series which was '92/'93, the time of the show is now 1999. And let me tell you: their idea of the "future" is hilarious. In one episode, Killing Time, Sam leaps into a murderer and the real leapee, who came from 1958, gets loose from PQL and he's running around the street of some random town in New Mexico and he meets this hooker who's wearing a - get this - jacket that LIGHTS UP! Hilarious. And she takes him to her place and everything is operated by remotes. It's so funny, especially since that's not how things worked in '99.

***SPOILERS!!!******

I have mixed feelings about the very last episode. First of all, I was a little confused because Sam leaps into himself on his birthday, the exact minute he was born. So wouldn't he have been his newborn self? Ah, well. I suppose it's best not to dwell on little things like that. And I guess it was suppose to be all philosophical. So there was an episode, the last one from season 2 called M.I.A. where Sam had the chance to tell Al's first wife, Beth, that he's not really dead, but since that wasn't what he was there to do, he never did and she remarried another man. And Al, of course, got married four (five?) times. But Sam gets the chance to leap back to that moment and he tells Beth that Al is still alive (and yes, I was crying when I saw this!) and she starts crying and we learn that Al and Beth have been married for forty something years and they have four daughters. Now, while it's all sweet that Al got to be with the woman he loves, it changes the whole perspective of the show! There's a photograph of historychanged!Al and he's wearing a Mr. Rogers sweater vest! Now that's certainly not the Al Calavicci we all know and love! He's always wearing fedoras and bright colored or crazy-printed suits on his journeys with Sam. So therefore it seemed his fashion sense (and most likely personality) changed. Also, while he still might have been involved in PQL, it is doubtful he would've been Sam's guide, so that's kind of sad to think about. The whole history of the show changes with that one episode! It's like all those other shows we saw with Sam leaping and Al helping him never happened because there would have never been hologram!Al! Augh, it is just so frustrating! Of course, I want Al to be happy, but I'm also selfish and I like my sarcastic and fugly fashion sense Al! :-( Oh, and Sam never returned home? WTF?!?!?!




I talk about what I did when I wasn't allowed to watch an episode of popular TV show:

A Show Worthy of its Wins

The West Wing (1999-2006)

I am one of those people, who, when watching a new TV show, needs to be hooked by the first three or four episodes or else I'll give it up. With The West Wing, I was hooked within the first few minutes and it's become one of my favorite shows, even though politics bore me. It has to be probably one of the best series that was ever on TV. Sure, some things did go over my head, but the acting is brilliant, the writing is brilliant, the cast is brilliant, and the show is very intriguing. There are no vampire slayers or crimes or terrorist activity with only 24 hours to stop it, but there's just something about this show that keeps you wanting more. 


Here's how I would rank the seasons:

Season 2 - I rank the second season as my favorite because a lot of my favorite episodes are from this season. We find out that the POTUS is dealing with MS and he does plan to run for a second term.

Season 3 - Another top-notch season where CJ has a stalker (as well as a love interest - not the same person, though!) I was curious how they were going to deal with this season since it started in the fall of 2001, so I was wondering how and if they were going to address 9/11. They did, but it was a special episode they did (the season premiere) where they dealt with a crisis and about racial profiling. 9/11 is never specifically mentioned and this episode had nothing to do with the rest of the season, it was just something they put in. This season dealt with Bartlet’s campaign. They need to work extra hard because he has MS and they’re afraid the American public won’t vote for him, but of course we know they will!

Season 1 -As you can tell, I prefered the earlier seasons to the later ones. While all the seasons were great, it was the first half of the series that really shined. Besides, I have to give props to the first season because it made me fall in love with the series and kept me Netflixing the next season (and the next and the next...)

Season 4 - This season deals with Bartlet's campaign for his second term in office (which he wins, of course). It also marks Rob Lowe's last season as Sam Seaborn and he is replaced by a campaign manager named Will Bailey. (And Winnie Cooper works for him, lol). The season finale is one of the most nail-biting with the kidnapping of the POTUS's youngest daughter, Zoey.

Season 7 - The final season follows the presidential campaign race between Democrat Matt Santos and Republican Arold Vinick (played respectively by Jimmy Smits and Alan Alda). It's really interesting to see what goes on behind the scenes of a presidential candiate and their quest to become POTUS. While we saw snapshots of Bartlet's campaign in flashbacks of earlier episodes, here we get the genuine feeling and you're with them throughout the entire campaign. This season is also a bittersweet one with John Spencer passing away in the middle of the season, the character of Leo McGarry (who also happens to be Santos' running mate), also passes away, thus the scene of Leo's funeral is really sad to watch. There's one episode of the debate between Santos and Vinick that aired live so you really get the authentic feeling of a real debate. I think that was the first "real" presidential debate where I watched the entire thing! And best of all? Josh and Donna finally get together. I mean, damn, it took them long enough!

Season 5
Season 6
I like these seasons about the same, so I tied them. While I certainly don't detest them, I just didn't care for them as the other seasons. Probably one of the major reasons they didn't do anything for me was because Aaron Sorkin left when the fifth season started. A couple of the highlights of the fifth season include guest apperances by John Goodman, who takes over as POTUS when Bartet has to step down during his daughter's kidnapping, and Jason Isaacs as a photo journalist who befriends Donna in the Middle East (and also makes Josh very jealous, ha!) Season five also deals with them having to elect a new VP because the previous one had to step down.

In season six we are introduced to Santos and Vinick, as well as other new characters like Kate Harper and Annabeth Schott. C.J. is promoted from Press Secretary to Chief of Staff. Josh decides to run Santo's campaign. Even though I ranked these seasons last, they're still as top-notch as the other seasons.

Ten favorite episodes (in chronological order):

1. 1.1. Pilot (aired 9/22/99)- We are introduced to the characters: the POTUS; Chief of Staff Leo McGarry; Press Secretary CJ Cregg; White House Deputy Communications Director Sam Seaborn; White House Director of Communications Toby Ziegler; Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman; the President's aide, Charlie Young; and Josh Lyman's assistant, Donna Moss, among other characters. Like I said earlier, the pilot of every TV show is always very crucial - it lets me know if I want to continue watching this show or not. By the end of this episode, I was hooked on the series! My favorite scene is when Sam is giving a tour of the White House to a group of young students and tells them the chairs in the Roosevelt Room were made out of lumber from a pirate ship captured in the Spanish-American War. This does not make the teacher, who also happens to be Leo's daughter, very happy. Hee! I heart Sam. I so missed him when he left.

2. 1.10 In Excelsis Deo (aired 12/15/99) - This is the first holiday episode of The West Wing. Through a coat that Toby once donated to charity, he finds out that a forgotten Korean War vet has died, homeless on the streets wearing the donated coat. (Toby is notified because his card was in the coat's pocket). He attends the funeral, which is very moving and if memory serves right, made me cry!

3. 2.5 And It's Surely to Their Credit (aired 11/01/00) - Now my #1 WW ship is Josh/Donna, no doubt, but there was another ship I would have happily boarded, but alas, it never did sail. Oh, well, I knew it wouldn't happen with a Democrat and a Republican. Ainsley Hayes, a Republican, is the new associate White House counsel much to the chagrin of the others. Her first day is pure hell: her boss is hostile towards her, her co-workers do not welcome her with open arms, and worst of all, she is humiliated by two other staffers when they leave dead flowers on her desk (which happens to be in the boondocks of the White House) and a note with "bitch" written on it. Even though Sam and Ainsley, don't see eye to eye on politics, he is furious and demands to know who did it. Ainsley won't tell him, but it's not hard for him to figure it out and he rips those guys a new one. It is awesome! He slams the door to their office as he enters and says, "You know what, guys? When I write something, I sign my name." Hee! Go Sam! He grabs a sheet of papers and writes "You're fired" and signs his name. That episode made me such a Sam/Ainsley shipper. Alas, nothing ever came of it.

4. 2.10 Noel (aired 12/14/00) - Like their first Christmas episode, this one does not disappoint as well. In the first season, the last episode left us with a cliffhanger of an attempted assisination of the POTUS and Josh got shot. He hasn't gotten over it and Leo makes him see a doctor who specializes in analyzing trauma victims. I believed this won Bradley Whitford the Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a drama series. On a lighter side, the POTUS wants to personally sign all of his Christmas cards (lol, I don't think he realizes how many he would have to sign!) The episode ends with a special concert by Yo-Yo Ma.

5. 2.22 Two Catherdrals (aired 5/16/01) - After I saw this episode, it immeditely became my favorite episode of TWW ever, but it was only the last episode of season 2. Even after seeing all of the other episodes of The West Wing, this one still remains my favorite. In the previous episode, the President's secretary, Mrs. Landingham, had died in a car accident, so he is struggling with that along with the decision of running again for a second term even though it has just come out in the media that he has MS. This episode flashes back to when Jed was in college and this is where he first meets Mrs. Landingham who worked as a young secretary for his father (and how she got the job of being the secretary to the POTUS!) There's this great scene near the end where Bartlet is in the Oval Office, talking with the ghost of Mrs. Landingham. They have one last chat before he is on his way to a press conference to announce running for a second term, even though he has MS. The Dire Straits song, Brothers in Arms is playing and it fits the scene so perfectly. The West Wing didn't use songs in their episodes that often and for that reason, placing a song in an episode makes it all the more significant. Anyway, AWESOME episode. I believe this episode is the reason why TWW won four deserved Best Show Emmys in a row.

6. 3.17 The U.S. Poet Laureate (aired 3/27/02) - This episode made me LOL because Josh discovers he has his own fan-based website - LemonLyman.com. He becomes obsessed with it, reading all the comments that range from women thinking he is the sexiest man alive to posts about what a moron he is. Obviously, the former comments don't piss him off as much! Lauren Dern guest stars as the U.S. Poet Laureate

7. 3.22 Posse Comitatus (aired 5/22/02) - This was the season finale for the third season and TWW has proven to have some great season endings. Bartlet faces a terrorist threat after he discovers that a high-ranking Middle Eastern official has been supporting terrorism. CJ, who has been stalked this season, has been falling for her Secret Service bodyguard. Of course their would-be relationship is limited by the boundaries of their professional relationship. And, alas, the fact that he gets shot and killed. The use of Jeff Buckley'sHallelujah makes the scene extra sad.

8. 4.23 Twenty Five (aired 5/14/03) - I told you, The West Wing has great season endings and this one for the fourth season is no exception. Chaos ensues when Bartlet's youngest daughter, Zoey, is kidnapped on the night of her graduation from Georgetown. He is forced to shut down Washington D.C. as he thinks this is the work of terrorists. Obviously, Bartlet can't continue on the duties of being POTUS when his daughter is missing, so John Goodman steps into his shoes for a few episodes. The more happier storyline is Toby's who becomes the father of twins named Huck and Molly.

9. 7.9 The Wedding (aired 12/11/05) - Bartlet's middle daughter, Ellie, gets married in the White House. Her wedding is on the same day that her father is trying to handle a situation between China and Russia over oil. There's a touchng moment between Ellie and her father right before he's going to walk her down the aisle. He tells her about a trip he took to Germany in his first term in Congress. Ellie, who was five years old then, was with them. They are on the East side of Berlin, waiting to cross over to the West said. Jed tells her that she "bolted out in the no man's land between the two guard posts." He and Abby were panicking, but Ellie calmly looked up at one of the soldiers on the wall and waved and he waved back. Awww. Then Ellie tells him that she remembers. Double awww.

10. 7.21 Institutional Memory (aired 5/7/06) - This was the second to last episode. It mostly focuses on CJ and what she's going to do with her future. She wants to leave D.C., but she is offered a job by Santos. Howerver, she is more interested in an offer made a by a billionaire who wants to start a foundation and will pretty much give her ten billion dollars to "save the world." I mean, how cool is that? Who wouldn't want to do that? CJ moves back to L.A. and she lives happily ever after with Danny Concannon. (At least, that's what I'm assuming!)


If you've never seen the show, or felt too intimidated to watch it, please do yourself a favor and Netflix it today! 


I talk about one of my favorite game shows when I was a kid:

I Don't Wanna Wait...

Today's show is:

Dawson's Creek (1998-2003)

  aka the show that gave us the future Mrs. Tom Cruise. Now keep in mind that this is not one of my favorite shows, but after watching all six seasons, I kept some notes on each one, which I will be sharing with you. While I had seen some episodes when it was still airing I never watched the show on a regular basis because it looked stupid (and it is), but yet, it's so addicting.

And I might add: if you have never seen this show, you are going to have no idea what I'm talking about. But I would recommend reading this even if you have never watched an episode of DC before just so you can understand how eye-roll inducing it can be. However, if you really, really, really want to watch this show, please be aware that I give away who dies, who dates who, who sleeps with who, who's gay, etc.

Season 1:

Let me just ask one question: was 1998 really that long ago, because the first season just seemed so outdated! A few examples:

-Dawson and Pacey worked in a video store. Yep, videos. Not a DVD in sight!
-There was one episode where they had detention and the librarian made them sort out the card catalouge. Do libraries even use those anymore? Everything is now on computer, right?
-In one show, Joey and her sister get their car stranded somewhere, so Joey goes over to Dawson's to call for help because they don't have their own cell phones!

I love how these are 18-20 year olds playing 15 year olds who talk like they're 30.

Heh. In the episode where they all have dentention, Dawson's all like, "This is so Breakfast Club" (and you just KNOW this line was coming up) and Jen says, "What's that?" Gimme a freaking break! Are you telling me sophistacted New Yorker Jen has never heard of The Breakfast Club? She does, however, remember it when Dawson explains to to her, then asks whatever became of the actors, so Dawson explains something about Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall and says the others are in television obscurity, then Pacey says something about Emilio Estevez being in those "Duck" movies and how they're classics. Hahahaha, DC! You did an inside joke. Okay, I admit, I was a little confused for, like two seconds, then of course, I was like, DUH.

Oh, and this show gives me a huge headache with all the stupid love angles. Check this out:
-Joey is in love with Dawson.
-Dawson goes out with Jen, the new girl.
-Dawson and Jen break up and Jen dates football jock.
-Dawson wants Jen back and tries to get back togehter with her.
-Joey is still in love with Dawson.
-Pacey sees Joey naked (accidently) and decides he wants to have a go with her. He asks Dawson for permission to date Joey and Dawson says yes. Then he says no. Then he says yes. Then he says no. It doesn't matter anyway, because Joey doesn't have any feelings for Pacey.
-Dawson sees Joey all dolled up and decides he loves her. (EYE ROLL!!!)
-Jen wants to try things again with Dawson, but he says no.
-Dawson wants to get in a relationship with Joey, but she doesn't think it's right.
-Jen's grandfather dies, so Dawson lets her sleep over to comfort her. They kiss the next morning, the same morning that Joey has decided she is, indeed, still in love with Dawson and has decided at the very moment when Jen and Dawson are kissing to tell him how she feels. She cries and runs away.
-Dawson tries to explain everything and they kiss. (EYE ROLL!!!)

Not to mention that Pacey has an affair with his literature teacher and Dawson's mom cheats on her dad with the anchorman. Good Lord, and that's just the first season, which was just half a season, y'all. This show seriously gives me a headache!

Season 2:

 Here are some of the plot points of the show's sophomore year:

-Dawson and Joey get together, then they breakup, then they get back together, then they breakup in the last episode of the season. They have the most boring relationship ever.

-I was confused by the timeline. The season picks up from where we last left off in season 1, and I was under the impression we were almost into summer towards the end of seasons 1 since Joey kept talking about maybe going to France for the summer. But then when S2 starts up, the kids continue to go to school and they're still sophomores....there was never a summer break. It was weird.

-Pacey gets together with Andie, the new girl in town. Andie is crazy! She sees dead people!

-Andie's brother, Jack, starts to date Joey when she and Dawson have broken up for the first time. It turns out that Jack is gay.

-Jen goes back to her bad girl ways, hanging out with resident Capeside bad girl, Abby Morgan. Abby gets drunk, hits her head, falls into the water and drowns. Good times!  Jen moves out of Gram's house, then moves back in with Jack after his father has decided to take Andie back to Providence to get her help.

-Dawson makes a movie about his life and gets it dissed from his film teacher.

-Mr. and Mrs. Leary seperate! Then reconcile!

Season 3: 

In their third season, Meredith Monroe and Kerr Smith (Andie and Jack) become regular cast memebers and I'll go through each character and what happened to them in this oh-so-pivotal-season. (Yes, that was sarcasm!)

Dawson - When we last left off from Season 2, Joey and Dawson split up with Joey never wanting to speak to Dawson again. Well, they do eventually speak to each other, but they never get back together this season. Dawson meets two girls One is the mysterious Eve who shops at Hos R Us and has taken Abby Morgan's place as Capeside's Resident Bad Girl. (RIP, Abby). Eve just happens to pop up everywhere Dawson is: school, the strip joint, but then he learns that she doesn't really exist. (Well, her name doesn't exist). It turns out she's looking for her real mother who is really Jen's mother. They didn't really do much with that storyline, but it would've been nice to see Jen and Eve interact, although maybe it's a blessing since Eve was really annoying.

He also meets a fellow film geek, the daughter of his principal. I thought a romance might bloom between these two film geeks, but alas, it does not. Dawson does however takes down all his movie posters after having a talk about her about how movies aren't everything and he needs more passion in his life and blah, blah, blah. Meanwhile, Dawson's mom starts her own restuarant and gets help from her ex-husband. Gail and Mitch realize they can't live without each other and get re-married. Awww. Oh yeah, Dawson makes a Blair Witch ripoff and it gets laughed at when he shows it for a film festival, haha!

Pacey: After learning that Andie had sex with another crazy like herself, poor Pacey becomes so heartbroken and breaks up with her. Then later on in the year he starts to lust after Joey Potter. Obviously Pacey has never read the unofficial guidebook to dating: you never date your best friend's ex. That's just asking for trouble. Of course, when Dawson finds out he isn't very happy and who can blame him, but really he should know that he's better off without the shrew. Pacey has the worst taste in women because both Andie and Joey annoy the living shit out of me.

Joey: So like I said, Joey and Pacey get together with Joey telling him she "thinks she's in love" with him. Please. The finale has the two of them sailing down to the Florida Keys on the boat Pacey has been working on named True Love. Gag me. Now what I want to know is did Joey tell her sister that she was going to be gone all summer? Alone on a boat with a boy she likes? And they're 16 years old. Like that's realistic. Plus what a shitty and selfish thing for Joey to do to leave her sister taking care of the Bed and Breakfast by herself. (Not that they had many customers, but still....) I'm also trying to understand what the hell is so special about little Joey Potter. I think my Katie Holmes hate is mixing in with my Joey Potter hate. Oh wait, I almost forgot! There's another guy in this season who is also in love with her: AJ, the college guy.

Jen: Thank God Jen wasn't involved in this stupid love triange. (Of course she couldn't be since a triangle only means three people can be involved). She starts dating Henry, the freshman football player who is infauated by her and their realationship is quite sweet. Jen kinda becomes a bitch towards the end of the season when she and Henry get into a couple of fights and I was on Team Henry for both of them. She gets mad at him because he'd rather be making out with her than hearing the details about the love life of her pathetic friends. And really who can blame him? Who gives a shit about the Dawson-Joey-Pacey triangle? I applaud you, Henry!  Then they get into a fight at prom when Henry tells Jen he's going to football camp all summer, and yeah he should have told her another time, but she was way harsh when she said she wished they'd never met and slamming the door in his face. Ouch! Luckily good old Grams comes through when she tells a story of how she never kissed a boy she liked, so the next day she found him and kissed him in front of the entire Navy. This inspires Jen to find Henry on the way to his football camp and apoligizes. So Jen does not get my hate this season.

Andie: Andie and Pacey break up after she has sex with a fellow mental patient and boo-hoo-hoo Andie is so upset when Pacey breaks up with her. Well, what do you expect moron? You CHEATED on him, duh! Speaking of cheating, Andie also gets her grubby little hands on the answer sheet to the PSATs (curtosy of Eve). She does admit to her wrong-doing later on in the season and pretty much only gets a slap on the wrist because she's usually such a good student.

Jack: Jack is still gay. He meets another gay guy who lives in Boston, I think. His name is Ethan. At first they're just friends because Jack wants to take it slow since he's never been in a gay relationship. Ethan doesn't think Jack is ready for a relationship and storms off when Jack won't kiss him! After hearing Gram's story, Jack wants to tell Ethan how he really feels but by the time he arrives in Boston, it's too late. Ethan has already gotten back together with his ex-bf. DUN DUN DUN!

Season 4: 
Here's  what happened to the sensational sextuplet in the fourth season aka their senior year. I'll do this alphabetically this time:

Andie - Andie somehow miraculously got accepted to Harvard which baffles me because she cheated on her SATs! Not only that, but for someone who got accepted to Harvard, she sure is stupid. At a party she takes Ecstasy when she's already on Xanax. Well, duh. That sure landed her in the hospital. Idiot. Believe me, I'm far from ivy league material, but damn, even I know that you don't mix street drugs with anti-depressants! I think the only reason she got in was because her family has the money and her dad is a Harvard alum. ;-) Poor Meredith Monroe got the shaft, though. They sent her packing most likely because she was the oldest of the group (she's ten years older than Michelle Williams who's the youngest of the group) and they felt like they didn't need her anymore. So Andie, who had all her requirements fulfilled went to Italy to visit an aunt for the rest of the year. At least they let her come back for graduation. They still had MM's name in the credits even after she left for some reason.

Dawson - Dawson starts a relationship with Pacey's older sister, Gretchen, who he used to have a crush on when he was a kid. Their relationship only lasts that year because they go their separate ways. Dawson has somehow miraculously been accepted to film school at USC. (Or was it UCLA? Oh, hell, I don't know). Have they ever even seen his movies? They all looked like crap to me! Dawson also starts another relationship: with a crusty old misanthropic (hey, it was Dawson's word, not mine!) man named Mr. Brookes. After Dawson and Joey take his boat out to sea to save Pacey and Jen from a storm (which they ripped off from The Perfect Storm, only with a much, much lower budget), Dawson has to repay Mr. Brookes by doing odd jobs around his house. Somehow, even though Mr. Brookes tells him what a crappy job he's doing and points out everything wrong with him, Dawson still wants to be buddies with him. I would've cried and wished a horrible death if somebody acted that way to me (like Mr. Brookes acted towards Dawson, not if somebody wanted to be friends with me). Dawson soon discovers that back in the day Mr. Brookes used to be a film director, so of course we have an instant bond. Mr. Brookes starts a little somethin' somethin' with Grams and when he's on his deathbed (oh, come on, you knew it was going to happen), Andy Griffith comes to see him! Well, he wasn't playing himself, but it was Andy Griffith! And last but not least, Dawson gets a new baby sister named Lillian, who is named after Joey's mother. Which makes me wonder: if Lillian Potter is the name of Joey's mother and the name of Harry's (as in Boy Wizard Harry) mother (I'm guessing that Lily is short for Lillian), then are Joey Potter and Harry Potter long-lost siblings??? Hahaha....that needs to be made into a fanfiction, if it hasn't already.

Jack - Yep, Jack is still gay. He starts his first real relationship with another boy this year. Tobey looks like he could be the love child of Clay Aiken and Anthony Rapp.

Jen - At the beginning of the season, we find out that Henry has broken up with Jen over e-mail. This makes no sense to me because one minute he's fawning over her, and the next he's broken up with her over e-mail. Obviously Michael Pitt had other engagements because we don't even see Henry in any other episodes, so there's no real closure to this relationship. Jen doesn't really have that much to do this season. Her one big storyline was seeing a psychiatrist, and going back to New York to face her father who she hasn't seen in a long time. An old acquaintance of hers, Drue Valentine, is now living in Capeside and he's pretty much taken Abby Morgan's place as being the the town's shit stirrer. Oh, and I can't forget the part where Jen and Jack (the gay one, remember?) almost have sex when they get drunk on a ski trip. Ha!

Joey - Joey and Pacey make sweet, romantic love by firelight in a romantic inn surrounded by snow. :::cue string quartet:::: I almost threw up from the excessive fluffy fluffiness. Of course, by the end of the year they have broken up because Joey has been accepted to Worthington (never heard of it), and Pacey has been accepted...a job on a yacht in the Caribbean. They have a pretty nasty fight during their prom (which was on a yacht and looked pretty cool, if I do say so myself). But of course we know these two kids are meant together and they will get back together. (Hey, I might haven't seen the rest of the series, but I do know they end up together!)

Pacey - Pacey graduates from CHS! Aww, I'm so proud of him. I even got a little tear in my eye when his name was called during the graduation ceremony. Oh, shut up! Pacey and Dawson slowly become friends again this season. He and Joey have the most obnoxious PDA at school. Dude, nobody wants to see you sucking your girlfriend in the middle of the crowded hall! Pacey and Joey somehow miraculously win the school's Cutest Couple, when we ALL know that Jen and Jack are the Cutest Couple. (So what if he's gay? They're still a Cute Couple!) 

Season 5:
In this season, the gang head to Boston to start their new lives as college students (well, except for Pacey). This is a year of change for our beloved Creekers!

Dawson - Dawson probably goes through the most transformation out of all the characters. Here is what happens to him in the course of one year: 1) His dad dies. On the way home from the store, Mitch Leery gets in the car accident. Dawson blames himself because he was home and Mitch had to go to the store because they ran out of the milk. Dawson was supposed to be in L.A., so he thinks that if he wasn't there, the milk wouldn't have ran out, thus Mitch wouldn't need to go to the store. Pacey assures Dawson it isn't his fault, it's the guy who fell asleep at the wheel and ran into Mitch. Yes, technically, that guy was at fault, but maybe if Mitch hadn't dropped his ice cream cone and leaned down to get it while STILL DRIVING, he could have avoided asleep at the wheel guy. Just saying! 2) Dawson quits UCLA. After only a week of attending classes and his first day as an intern for a hot-headed director (he gets fired when he spills coffee), Dawson decides that Cali isn't the place for him and moves back East where he eventually enrolls in a school in Boston that specializes in the arts. 3)Dawson wins a film festival. Unbeknown to Dawson, his dad had entered his film about A.I. Brooke's into a film competition. 4) Dawson becomes a man thanks to Jen, if you know what I mean. 5) Dawson directs a new movie. This creepy and socially inept kid at his new school, Oliver, has written a script and wants Dawson to direct it. They do and show it in Boston and send it out to 60 different directors. Only one replies and wants to meet with them. Oliver screws up the interview, but Dawson manages to convince the director to give him a second chance, so we see him on a plane heading out to L.A. in the season finale...


Jen - Jen and Dawson start to date mid-season, but it doesn't last. They break up. At the beginning of the year, Jen meets a guy played by Chad Michael Murry! who is a suave, charismatic, smooth-talker. (I feel like I need to put an exclamation mark at the end of his name). It turns out that Chad Michael Murry! is two-timing her with another girl. Uh-oh. So Jen and the girl dump his ass. Jen also gets a gig at the radio station where she has her own show talking about relationships.


Joey - Surprisingly, Joey doesn't annoy me as much as she did in the previous seasons. I think it was because of her roommate, Audrey. (More on her later). Though by the end of the series, my Joey hate was slowly starting to creep back! Joey is attending Worthington and has a little fling with her writing professor. Okay, they don't do anything but kiss, but c'mon, that has to be the reason why her lame story titled "The Kiss" got published in the school's literary magazine! Everyone is in love with Joey again, even Chad Michael Murry! who wants Joey to tour with his band after she sang at a karaoke bar. (She sings I Want You To Want Me and sounds horrendous! She has this baby voice when she sings, ugh!) Even the creator/writer/producers love Joey more than any other character. Why? Well, not only did Joey get one show just centered around her (and none of the other young stars were in it), but the episode was where she got mugged and the credits were all serious and ominous, and did Dawson get that kind of respect when his dad died? Nooo! That episode just got the regular credits and theme song. There's still that do they or don't they love each other crap between Dawson and Joey. Do we really care? Yawn. 


Pacey - Pacey gets a job at a restaurant in Boston called Civilization. He starts as a busboy/dishwasher and works his way up to a cook until he's cooking all these elaborate meals for his friends. After the boss leaves, the restaurant is under a new management under a new boss, an older woman who puts the moves on Pacey. Pacey's girlfriend (Audrey, Joey's roommate), sees them together and is pissed at him. After Pacey sabotages a lunch the woman had planned for all these important executives, she drives him home and tries to crash her car since her career is pretty much over. Pacey manages to win Audrey back at the airport when she's flying home to L.A; he gets on the intercom and asks for her forgiveness.

Jack - You guessed it, Jack is still gay. He's invited to join a fraternity. They need him to fill a gay quota. For the first time in his life, Jack is happy that everyone accepts him as who he is. Of course, he turns into a beer-guzzler who's failing all his classes and Jen is mad at him and Toby dumps him. Not only that, but he gets kicked out of the House. Before that, when he moved in, he got his own room, but that was because one of the guys didn't feel comfortable sharing a room with him. I totally called he was gay, and what do you know, I was right! By the end of the series they're friends with the possibility of leading to more.


Audrey - Audrey is the new charater of the show. She pretty much takes Andie's place and is the antithesis of Andie. While Andie was studious and serious and a bit anal, Audrey is more laid-back and care-free and got into Worthington because she's rich. She's Joey's roommate and dates Pacey. (You'd think that be awkward, but Joey is fine with it, in facts, she encourages Pacey to chase her down at the airport).

Season 6: 
So here's what happened to the gang during the final season:

Dawson - In the premiere episode of season 6, Dawson and Joey sleep together and it seriously skeeves me out because their relationship has always reminded me of that of a brother and sister (okay, a brother and sister who seriously like each other, but still, eww!) I had spoiled myself on a lot of things that happened during the series, but I never knew that Dawson and Joey did the deed and I don't know why. I guess they were trying to please Dawson/Joey shippers, but really, are there any D/J shippers out there? Everyone seems to be a P/J shipper. Anyhoo, Dawson and Joey are a couple for like, a day, then Joey learns that he had a girlfriend and broke up with her AFTER he slept with Joey, so that didn't bode too well for them. Dawson gets back together with his girlfriend, who's an actress in some cheesy horror movie that Dawson's the assistant to the director. She's supposed to be some hot, young thing, but really, I thought she was F-U-G-L-Y. Dawson eventually breaks up with her and decides to make his own movie about his life. In the series finale, which takes place five years in the future, we learn that his indie movie has been made into a teen soap on the WB called The Creek. Hang on...if it's five years in the future, that would make it 2008 and the WB doesn't exist anymore!


Joey - Like I already said, Joey and Dawson sleep together, they fight, they break up. Yawn. And Ick. Joey's new boyfriend for the majority of the season is Eddie, played by Oliver Hudson. (He's Kate's older brother). Joey and Eddie meet in a literature class where their teacher likes to torment Joey. Oh! Right after Joey and Dawson had their fight, Joey wrote him an e-mail in the wee hours of the morning and was so tired, she didn't realize she sent a copy to everyone in her school. Oops. Her lit teacher read it aloud to everyone in her class. Ouch. At first, Joey and Eddie hate each other, but of course, like every other guy on the planet, Eddie falls for Joey's alluring charm, beauty, and brains. :::rolls eyes::: In fact, the first time they have sex, Joey misses her very important lit exam. I don't understand: she's been studying at his apartment all night (it was the only quiet place she could find), then he wakes her at six am, and they have sex. Then she goes back to sleep and misses her exam. Dumbass. So there's all this drama with Joey and Eddie, and I could really care less because I already know she's gonna end up with Pacey. (I saw the very last episode when it was aired!) Oh, and Joey finally realizes her dream of going to Paris.

Pacey - Pacey has a goatee through nearly half of the season and at first it's distracting, but it's not actually a bad look for him. It did make him look a lot older, though. So Pacey gets a broker job through Audrey's father and he becomes like Charlie Sheen in Wall Street, kinda swarmy and raking in the dough and buying all these new gadgets. He breaks up with Audrey and he and Joey almost get back together, but then Eddie comes back, so they don't...they just get back together five years later. Of course, we all know that being a chef is Pacey's true calling, so in the series finale, he has his own restaurant in Capeside. 


Jen - There's this poll over at TWoP that always makes me laugh:
Jen died, sure. But who really deserved to buy the farm?
Are you new? Dawson. - 59%
Joey, now and forever. - 13%
Faster, Pacey, die, die! - 5%
They should have put poor Jack out of his misery. - 4%
Actually, Jen totally works for me. - 17%
The "Actually, Jen totally works for me" always get a chuckle out of me. And I love that Dawson pretty much owns this poll. LOL. So here's the thing: Jen likes this guy, CJ, but CJ likes Audrey and doesn't like Jen "like that." So CJ and Audrey sleep together and Jen finds out about this and she gets pissed. But then, I can't remember how, CJ and Jen start to date and become a couple. Jen finds out that her grandmother has cancer, so they decide to move in with her mother in New York, so Grams can have the best health care offered in the country. And yes, Jen does die in the season finale. She has a baby (we don't know the father, God Jen, you are such a slut!) I totally cried when I saw the finale the first time and she was making a video for her baby. Yes, I am a sap. Someone once made a very philosophical observation that the show begins with Jen stepping out of the taxi cab when she first moved to Capeside, then ends with her death. 


Jack - Guess what? Jack is still gay. Can you believe it? He starts dating CJ's friend, whose name I never did catch, but he totally reminded me of a hobbit. You know the look: he was short and funny looking, but in a cute way. But before he starts dating Hobbit-boy, Jack develops a crush on his pop culture teacher. What is it with this show and inappropriate teacher/student relationships? First Pacey has a wild affair with his high school teacher, then Joey makes out with her creative writing college teacher a few times, and now Jack's married professor comes on to him and pretty much tells Jack that he's gay and interested in him. (Except, he doesn't actually say that). Well, the relationship doesn't go anywhere...which is kind of sad because I want some scandal, damn it! In the finale, Jack has ended up with Pacey's older brother, Doug who FINALLY comes out of the closet.


Audrey - The blurb on the Netflix envelope says that Audrey's storyline is that she becomes the lead singer in a band. While this is true, her main storyline is that she becomes a RANGING ALCOHOLIC LUNATIC! Seriously, everyone is invited to Gail's house for Thanksgiving and she gets sloshed and starts saying nasty things about everyone, then drives Pacey's new car through the kitchen in a very Full House moment. She almost over doses, then eventually goes to rehab, and there are tears and hugs galore. As for the singing, she gets invited to join Pacey's and Jack's British roommate's band and she SCREAMS, not sings the words. It's so horrible and yet people seem to like her. I don't get it...oh wait, yes I do. Because she's wearing tight tops, of course. The guys really seem to like her. Poor Audrey wasn't even in the last episode, but Joey mentioned she was on tour with John Mayer? Really? Somehow I can't see that. While I don't like his music, I don't recall hearing any screaming in his songs. Even Andie was in the last episode!

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