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Super Moderator
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Join Date: May 2006
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Jericho by Gina -
11-04-2006, 05:43 PM
Welcome to Jericho. Dun dun DUN. Let me just start out by saying that this is my favorite new show of the season. Not only does it feature nuclear bombery, dozens of horrible disaster movie clichés, and a permanently bewildered Skeet Ulrich, but its awfulness reeks so heavily of Locusts that it causes me to cream my pants in joy each and every week. Bless your heart, CBS.
But I digress! Back to the action! Last week we saw previews of MISSILES FLYING THROUGH THE AIR, so this should be an exciting episode, right? Right? Well, we’ll get to that. But not before we sit through the full minute and a half of Previously on Jericho. Shit happened. We get it. We don’t need a full recap of every single flimsy plotline.
Finally, missiles! The entire town stumbles out of the bar (which is pretty much how every episode starts) and stares at the sky. “Ours or theirs?” asks Stanley, the village idiot. Jake, our “hero”, guesses that they’re ours, and his brother Eric concludes that the country must be at war. Their father, the mayor, hugs their mother, who musters up a look of concern that seems to convey the same amount of alarm that “I burned tonight’s pot roast” would get. Hawkins, the Shady Black Man, runs home to his locked basement to find: Caleb Applewhite! Wait no, wrong Shady Black Family. Instead, he makes a beeline for his Mysterious Laptop Of Doom, which he has been using to contact someone in the outside world since the bombs went off. Of note, the screen also says “Ours or theirs?” which makes me suspect that Hawkins is in fact writing the script as we speak, which would explain a lot of things. Maybe it’s all locked up out of fear of embarrassment. He types in that he has been compromised, when suddenly his nosy daughter Allison pokes her head in. He tells her to collect the family, then slams the door in her face. Looks like someone has read the Jack Bauer Guide to Parenting. (Chapter 5 – THERE’S NO TIME FOR CHAPTER 5)
The townspeople are theorizing about what’s going on when something awesome happens! Wait wait no, there’s just a small explosion in the sky that is only shown for about a second. Come on, Jericho! You’re not exactly delivering with the wow factors, you might want to spend an extra buck or two on the only special effect of the episode. Even the townspeople kind of look at it like, eh. The power blows. Hawkins, stealing another page from 24, tells the fam that it was an EMP, or electromagnetic pulse, which fries anything with wires. Mama Hawkins asks if another bomb has gone off. Shady looks abound. Back in the only square in town, Encyclopedia Jake enlightens everyone about the EMP, and Mayor McCheese comfortingly assures them that help is not on the way. (I misheard his name in the pilot and McCheese has stuck ever since, and his giant head doesn’t seem to help the matter). The Jericho title screen comes up and Morse code beeps in the background, and FYI the Morse code always spells out a vagueish plot point for the episode. Tonight’s is THE EMP HITS. Or so says Wikipedia. *The More You Know*
Back from commercials, we find out that it has been two weeks since the EMP went off. Wtf? You mean for the first five episodes we’ve been creeping along day by day with these miserable folks, and now we just skip ahead just like that? What if there was another impromptu barbeque or other such nincompoopery? We missed it! Ah, well. Telling Jericho to improve its pacing is like telling Prison Break to start being believable.
Jake is parading around the town square in his only t-shirt. Some teenage boys have decided to take a baseball bat to all those useless cell phones lying around. One of them sails through the front window of Gracie’s shop and oh no here comes Old Man Dale! He’s waving a newspaper AND a rolling pin! Jake tries to break up the fight but correctly senses that he is in way over his head in a fight amongst high school boys and backs off. Hot Topic Bully talks some trash to Dale. Jake launches into his best Dr. Phil and tell Dale that if he needs anything to come to him. Dale incorrectly states he can take care of himself and runs off like the girl he is. Jake looks on disapprovingly. Jake HATES pranksters! He better watch out for a fiery parcel of shit come Halloween.
Back at the Shady Black Household, Hawkins waxes poetic on survival and scares the bejesus out of his daughter. Mama Hawkins orders her out of the room, then proceeds to yell at her husband. Since he hasn’t been around for four years, where does he get off trying to be the parent here? He ignores her and then berates her for displaying a family picture on the fridge. Since he’s not in it, it might raise questions. The most notable of which: why no fist-under-chin glamour shots?
Back at City Hall, the townspeople are getting restless and yelling at the police. The Only Asian Man In Town is PISSED! For those of you keeping score at home, that now brings the Jericho Diversity Jackpot to: 1 Asian, 1 Black Family, 1 Deaf Girl, and 1 Skeet. Mayor McCheese is home recuperating from the flu, leaving ketchup-stained Kleenex all over the house, Eric explains, so he can’t quite fix your water main problems right now thankyouverymuch.
Mary Bailey, bar owner and strumpet extraordinaire, is needling Jake for information about Eric, whom she is currently sleeping with. Suddenly, a Troublemaker enters. We find out his name is Mitch, and he looks for all the world like the love child of Jack Black and Chief Tyrol from Battlestar. Mitch demands something from Mary, and Jake, putting on his best intense big boy voice combined with his best screwy-eyed face, says “You might want to rethink that”, causing me to collapse into giggles. I half expected “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” soundtrack to kick in. Apparently there is a history between Mitch and Jake, and they get into a scuffle, sort of, but with no actual fighting. They just stare and make vague threats at each other. Hawkins, having heard enough of his script get butchered by bad acting, gets Mitch to leave.
Eric finds his mom at her house, and boy is she CHIPPER. It’s almost as if there were no nuclear holocaust at all! Let’s play Parcheesi! Eric complains about the townspeople, but Mama McCheese lives up to her name and hones her inner Oprah instead. How is his marriage? He starts to tell her but – speak of the devil, here comes the soul-sucking bitch now! April the nurse has been taking care of the mayor, and tells the missus that even after a mustard transfusion, he’s still getting worse. Eric tries to escape, mumbling something about protein bars, and although a wooden April tries to engage him he still blows her off. Sad piano music plays, reaffirming her doormat status.
Meanwhile, back at the farm, deaf Bonnie is attempting to extract goofy brother Stanley’s arm from the tractor. Eh, not really. Wishful thinking. Up saunters Mimi, the cantankerous but sexy IRS agent from Washington, D.C. She was in Jericho to audit Stanley’s farm when the bombs went off and now she’s stranded. She tries to strike a deal with Stanley, offering to lessen his debt if he lets her stay at his farm. Stanley makes a joke about her now useless Rolex, and just when I’m praying that this playful banter will never end, Mimi is attacked by…LOCUSTS!!! XENA SAVE US!! Aww, sadly it is only some cockroaches. But this sets off the uh-oh alarm in Stanley’s otherwise empty head. The heretofore goofy elevator music switches over to ominous screeching as Stanley inspects a corn husk, which is filled with MAGGOTS. You see, the maggots are a metaphor for the inner demons that are eating this town alive now that they’re trapped in this frightening new world they’ve -- oh forget it, where’s my beer?
There it is. Moving on. Hawkins and Eric chat it up about Mitch. Turns out he’s part of a band of survivalists who live on the outskirts of town. Great. This is really interesting. Back at the Green household of happiness, where everything is back to normal and leprechauns dance freely about the fields, Jake and his mom are doing some farming (read: moving hay around). She says that if Jake had only stuck with his riding he could have become a jockey, which in my mind is the only profession he is even less suited for than acting. And then Mama McCheese is trampled by horses! No, really. They dirtied her sensible vest. Jake notes that the culprits are Mitch N’Friends, and he looks MAD. I think. He could just be constipated.
After the commercial, April tends to Mama’s arm, noting that she can’t believe it’s not broken. It’s almost as if that wouldn’t be expedient to the plot! Jake wants to exact revenge upon Mitch, but the rest of the fam stops him. We find out that the last time Jake got mixed up with the likes of Mitch he ended up leaving town and a boy was dead. Finally. An explanation. Almost as thorough as any from Lost. Mayor McCheese takes Jake’s gun and reminds him that they can’t enforce the law if they’re breaking it themselves. Touché, burgerman!
Stanley tries to get some pesticide from Gracie’s store. He explains that the corn is safe to eat because the paper-thin husks protected it from the RADIOACTIVE RAIN and that since the ears were already mature they didn’t take in any more moisture. Now I’m no scientician but something about that just don’t sound right to me. But he eats it and heck, he even gives it to his deaf sister, so it must be safe! Maybe she’ll grow some new ears! Or a third eye! Gracie will only give him the pesticide if he’ll split his crop with her. Stanley refuses. What a frigid bitch. Stanley, that is.
Eric presses Mary for information about the stolen horses, for whatever reason. You think she knows anything of the world outside that bar? But she does tell them about a man who bought a horse from some guys at the airfield. You know, I’m glad that in a show about nuclear annihilation the best plotline the writers (Hawkins) could come up with is one about stolen horses. No, really. I mean, this has all the suspense of a Nancy Drew mystery. Perhaps we’ll be graced with a visit by the irrepressible…Boxcar Children!
Stanley walks in on the mayor and his wife, who are in the throes of a passionate sitting session. The man wants pesticide, dammit! Mama freaks out because we cannot lose this crop, dammit! Apparently all of Jericho lives off of Stanley’s magical corn. Stanley doesn’t want to give up his crop, because it’s his, and he wants all the mutant corn for himself and his sister so that they can develop powers and become heroes and escape to a better television series. Then the scene inadvertently takes a turn for the funny as three things happen, all brought to you by Mr. Mayor himself. First, he tells Stanley he’s not being targeted, but he sighs as he says it and you can just tell he’s as bored with this scene as we are. Then, as Stanley leaves, he says “Come on back here MEOW” a lá Super Troopers. And then, as he sits back down, he has a little wheezing attack, but it really just sounds like he’s laughing. Which brings us to a little game I just invented, “How Many Beers Did Gerald McRaney Have Before Shooting This Scene?”
I’ll start the guessing at 5.
Jake is now snooping around the airfield, and finds the horses. It would appear that they don’t like him either. And here comes…Dale? What is he doing here? He shows up just in time to warn Jake about the rifle that is about to hit him in the head, courtesy of Mitch. Actually not just in time. Woefully late. Jake’s down. After commercial, Mitch shoves Dale, who recoils hilariously because he looks like Mr. Burns whenever he’s attempting to give someone the thrashing of a lifetime. Jake informs Mitch that he has, in fact, crossed the line. To prove this Jake puts on his best “I’ll kill you” face, which, again, may just be bowel-related. Mitch lays out some sweet sweet backstory, as he explains to us, the audience, that Jake bailed on Mitch and the unnamed dead kid that night because Jake didn’t want to rob anyone, which I assume is what they were planning on doing. Okay, I know that we, the viewers, are supposed to care about this because it’s the big mystery, oooh what’s the deal with Jake, but honestly I really don’t give a crap. Exposition laid out by a dirty stranger in a barn. Riveting. More bombs and irradiated mutants please! Then, almost as if everyone can sense our apathy, some action is randomly inserted: Jake beats up Mitch, Mitch pulls a gun on Jake, Eric and his Merry Men arrive and shoot at him, Mitch gets away on horse, Dale and Hot Topic Bully are arrested, and the audience collectively yawns.
Back at City Hall, Jake has now apparently been promoted to Lead Investigator and grills the two boys. Hawkins questions his intentions, asking whether this is about the boys or Mitch. Jake warns that Mitch and his kind will prey on this town like LOCUSTS! Again! It can’t just be coincidence. CBS must be planning a sequel. Or dare I say…prequel?!
But there’s no time for that silliness. There has been another major theft in Jericho. Gracie’s pesticide is gone! One of the two deputies that are left goes to question Stanley, and dammit if this guy doesn’t look just like the poor man’s Dave Coulier (I’m not sure what the rich man’s Dave Coulier would look like, but suffice it to say that he probably wouldn’t be rich for much longer). Stanley gets pissed, because these two are apparently best friends, which I don’t buy for a second because Stanley does not resemble either Bob Saget or John Stamos. Stanley tries to stop him but Officer Coulier sticks his finger in his face, while Mimi appears from nowhere, looks at his outstretched finger, and acts as if he’s just pulled a gun. This is pretty funny. Stanley is now powerless to stop him.
Jake talks to Dale. Schuyler, Dale’s embarrassed lover, bursts in and demands that he get an attorney. Jake admits he’s not a cop, which makes me wonder what happened to the little fantasy world Jake had built up for himself there for awhile. Did a part of him die? The whole scene turns into a Very Special Episode of Jericho, as Jake warns Dale of the dangers of hanging out with the wrong kids at school. And say no to drugs too, don’t talk to strangers, show me on the doll where the bad man touched you, etc.
Allison snoops around her dad’s basement again. She sees the big map with all the Pushpins of Doom, and then sees Jake’s mug shot on the computer screen. Suddenly, there’s the trademark Trumpet Blare of Danger that plays on Lost before every commercial break. It’s Hawkins! Run! Or just slowly walk to the other side of the basement. That’s fine too. She asks him if all the pushpin cities are gone. He says they’re the ones he heard about before the EMP went off. Also, his laptop is still okay because it’s ruggedized and issued by the government and designed to withstand an EMP. How convenient. Allison asks some more questions, is he a spy, what’s the gun for, and Hawkins answers none of them. It’s official. He’s a filthy Other.
But back to the more spellbinding plotline: pesticide theft. Officer Coulier clears Stanley, and after another round of squinty-eye staring, Stanley decides to burn the infested parts of his fields. You know, Stanley kind of looks like Fievel Mousekewitz. And in a shocking turn of events, Mimi admits that she hired some kids to steal the pesticide! I am on the edge of my seat!
April apologizes to Mama that there’s not more she can do for her the flubag. I understand. It’s not like you’re a licensed medical professional or anything. The two women have a touching conversation about Eric. Mama confesses that she’s been where April is. What?! Did Mama McCheese have an affair? With a certain someone whose name ends in “amburgler”?
Dale admits to Jake and Eric that he had only gotten involved with those mean boys because he needed their help to move Gracie’s grocery stock. He had found it in an abandoned train and wanted to hide it so that no one else would know about it. He leads them to the barn where he was storing it but WAHP WAHP it’s all gone. Jake flashes his best bewildered look (his only look, I would venture). Damn you Jericho! Will your labyrinthine plot twists never end?!
Stanley shows Gracie the pesticide, which had been moved to the back alley of the store. See, it wasn’t stolen at all. It was just moved. All a misunderstanding. Gracie buys all this horseplop for some reason. I also find it funny that in her store there is a sign that says Seafood 79¢. It’s just as bland and vague as the rest of the show.
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