SYTYCD Season 8 - Atlanta & Bay Area Auditions

Can you believe this show is already on season eight? I can't. I've been watching it from the very beginning. Some changes for this season - they're going back to a top 20 (can I get a hell yeah?), but once it gets to the top 10 dancers, they are bringing in the all stars again. I'm just not sure the all star concept really works, but we'll see. Also? Mary Murphy is back! Yeah, the lady can be kinda crazy, but that's why we love her, right? It's not the same without the hot tamale train.

Tonight's two hour opener featured the auditions in Atlanta and the Bay Area. I'm not going to go through all of the dancers they highlighted, because I'm tired and at this point we can't really say who's going to get into the top 20 quite yet, but I will say that the following were the ones that stood out to me:

Melanie Moore, the jazz dancer who's also an artist. I liked her quirky style. Marko Gemar, the guy with the bullet in his arm. He looked like he had some real potential too. Those were really the only two from the Atlanta ones that stood out to me. There was that one girl who was doing all kinds of tricks with her partner, but I feel like that's all she was doing. How is she solo without a guy to lift her around?

In the Bay Area, I think they were setting up that girl Amber Williams as someone who's going to make it. You know, the crazed one. I'm really not sure I can handle her in large amounts, but they almost always have someone like that on every season. Remember Mollee? Yeah. Oy. There was one girl I wrote "kinda boring" by, and as I don't remember who she was, it must be true. There was the Zoe Saldana lookalike that they were all raving over, but I wanted her to bring more sharpness to her stuff. Maybe she will in Vegas. The B-boy Jeffrey McCann was pretty awesome, if they don't get any other amazing hip hop style dancers, he could be a shoe in. One girl I wish we'd seen more of was Lilly Nguyen. They showed just a little bit of her and she looked like she had a cool style. I always admire the ones with the funky style, it seems.

Also back is Ryan Ramirez, who made it to the top 24 last season but did not make it onto the show. I'm still not that jazzed about her, but I don't make the decisions, do I?

And that turfing dance style? Pretttttty awesome. The floating across the stage thing was amazing to see. Alas, the dude couldn't pick up the choreography. That comes as little surprise, but still kind of sad.

"Your spirit is fantastic" is code for "you're a terrible dancer, but we're being nice to you anyway."

Are you excited for this season? Or are you over the show in general? I'm sort of on the fence, to be honest. I guess time will tell!

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Strawberry Clafoutis

Today I bring to you something I had not heard of until a few months ago. Something I am kind of sad I had not heard of before that, because dang, it's pretty delicious.

Something called... clafoutis.

Clafoutis. Say that three times fast. Clafoutis clafoutis clafoutis. It's hard. Sometimes I want to call it caflouti, but that's not right. Clafoutis!

Okay. I'll stop. The word will stop having any meaning if we keep going like this. What exactly is this stuff, you wonder? It's kind of.. custardy. Mine is not as eggy as you might find a traditional clafouti, because I, gasp, used cream instead of milk! Well sorry, I don't like baked treats to taste like egg. And I had cream I needed to use. So there! But you're welcome to use milk instead. It just won't be as substance-y. It'll be more like flan, okay? So if you like flan, then hey, go there. If you don't, then hey, use some cream!

Strawberry Clafoutis

- 8 ounces strawberries, hulled and halved lengthwise
- 2 tsp cornstarch
- 1 Tbsp sugar
- 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 3 whole eggs, beaten
- 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
- 1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 375F. Grease a baking dish with butter (I just used a pie pan). Toss strawberry halves with cornstarch until evenly coated, then arrange berries, cut side down, on the bottom of the dish. Sprinkle with 1 Tbsp sugar. Set aside for now.

Whisk together flour, salt, eggs, sugar, milk, and vanilla until smooth. Pour over the top of the berries.

Bake for 45 minutes or until poofy and no longer overly jiggly. Remove from oven and allow to cool for at least 10 minutes. Serve with freshly whipped cream.

In pictures:

I apologize for the blurriness of this photo. I could not tell when I took it. 

The topping ingredients all whisked together.

That's one full pie dish.

Oh my. It bakes right up over the edges.

You let it sit for a bit, and it does this deflating thing. Not as pretty, but better tasting.

Clafoutis!

This stuff? This stuff is yummy. I highly recommend it, I do I do. In fact, I'm going to go eat some now. Hello clafouti, nice to see you again. You are so versatile in your dessert or breakfast-ness!

Supernatural 6x22 "The Man Who Knew Too Much"

Whoa. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. I believe that is the appropriate saying at this here juncture, uh huh. But I'll get to that. We have some other things to discuss first.

The episode started off with Sam running through the streets, past this Castle Storage sign that I know I've seen on this show before, so that should've been my first hint that all was not as it seemed. He ran ran ran away from some police cars into a bar, where a comely lass played by Erica Cerra of Eureka fame greeted him with skepticism and mild alarm. He quickly informed her that he was without memory of who he was and what he was doing. She tried to convince him that he should go to a hospital, but he was sure that would be a bad idea, that he had somewhere he needed to be. He gets a quick flash of memory after spying an HP Lovecraft book in the bar (another hint - who just has his books lying around), and because she doesn't want this handsome amnesiac to go off on his lonesome, she drives him to the hotel he saw in his memory flash.

At the shady Nite Owl motel, the room is covered in hunter paraphernalia, and Sam gets another flash, this time a longer one of when he was last with Bobby and Dean on the hunt for purgatory. They were meeting Ellie, the former resident of purgatory, you remember, only she is mortally wounded, thanks to Crowley and Castiel needing her blood for a ritual to open up the door to purgatory. She dies, and Cas shows up, telling Dean that he'll save Sam once all is said and done. Save Sam? What does that mean? Cas then puts his finger to Sam's head and --boom!

Back to amnesiac Sam, who now remembers Bobby's name, along with his own, and finds a book with Bobby's address in it. At this point the girl wants to bail (did we ever find out her name?) but after they get shot at, he forces her to come with. And who shot at them? Someone who looks just like Sam? What?!

Okay, this time we go back to the present day, and it turns out Sam's in some kind of dreamscape zone in Bobby's basement, with Bobby and Dean watching. Bobby wants to continue the hunt for purgatory, but of course Dean is hellbent on fixing Sam. Bobby reminds Dean that Cas wants Dean to be thinking exactly that way, so Dean concedes that Bobby should go figure out where this ritual will be taking place.

Back in dreamzone, Sam runs off to confront this other Sam, and we find out that this other Sam is a broken off piece of the Sam whole. The soulless piece, in fact. And he wants to take over the whole shebang. Luckily, even though soulful Sam is not as heartless as soulless Sam, he is able to overtake him nonetheless, and gets the white light soul-ness from soulless Sam back inside him. Whoa, that was confusing to write. In any event, he remembers everything, and it turns out that bar girl was someone he had sacrificed back when he was in his soulless year, so she disappears now that he remembers it all. He heads on for Bobby's place.

In the real world, Bobby comes back with Balthazar, who tells them where Castiel and Crowley are holing up. Dean is reluctant to leave Sam, but leaves him with the address in case he wakes up. They head off. Meanwhile, at Che Wherever, Castiel had informed Crowley that he was basically reneging on their deal and would be taking all of the souls for himself. He used the phrase "flee or die" a lot here. Crowley fled. Balthazar goes to check in with Castiel, because remember he's being a double agent, only Castiel senses that he's lying, that he's no longer really with him. And he kills him! Cas!

Back with Sam in dreamscape. Once he makes it to Bobby's place, he comes face to face with the last piece to the soul puzzle. The bit of him that was down in hell, the bit that he's been blocked from remembering for some time now. In order for him to wake up in real life, he's got to reintegrate that part of his soul, though hell soul tells him this is not a great idea, and that he won't be able to handle it. But Sam is determined (because he's got to come to Dean's aid, naturally). He takes him in, and does some crazy seizing in real life.

As Bobby and Dean arrive at the angel-fortified huge house place of Che Wherever, a giant cloud of demonic smoke comes battling through the sky, sending them inside the Impala tumbling. Impala! Oh no! Not again!

Inside, Crowley shows up with Raphael, his new partner. Now it's Castiel's turn to be scared. He hands Crowley the jar of blood needed for the ritual and bops away. Crowley and Raph get to ritualizing, with a momentary interruption by Bobby and Dean, who managed to hobble out of the overturned Impala into the place, but don't have any luck stopping them. Once they complete the ritual, however, something is wrong. Nothing's happening!

Cas pops back in, with a strange sort of grin on his face. And Crowley immediately gets it - he gave them the wrong blood before, and already did the ritual himself elsewhere. Cas does the weird grin again, and Crowley gets out there lickety split. Which leaves Raphael to look crazy scared. And then what does Cas do?! He explodes him with a snap of his finger! Just like Lucifer did to him! What! Cas!

Cas then turns to Dean, who also looks freaked out. With good reason, I mean, really. He tries to get Castiel to see sense, that he needs to let loose all of the extra souls, because it's making him not think straight. But Castiel is tired of listening now that he's got all of this power. At this point Sam makes his grand entrance and attempts to stab Castiel with one of the angel-smiting swords. It goes through, but nothing happens.

Why? Castiel then explains - it's because he's not an angel anymore. He's their new God. And he straight up demands that they kneel before him and declare their devotion! Or else. Gulp.

And.... cliffhanger!!

Random Thoughts:

-  I wanted sooo much more of dreamscape Sam stuff. That all seemed to happen pretty quickly, considering.

- And how is Sam going to deal with the Hell stuff? He seemed to be having a tough time of it. Is it going to get easier? Harder? I really hope they explore this next season and don't just shove it under the rug or something.

- Jared has had a lot of opportunities to play different versions of Sam, and he's done them so well. It really shows his range. Great job! But please get a hair trim. It was really distracting me tonight.

- Castiel's disturbing grins. Whoa. Castiel with too much power is definitely not a good thing. Will they be able to de-soulify him, or will they end up having to find a way to kill him? That's probably going to be one of the big questions of next season, I would imagine.

- I'm trying to think where this finale ranks among the others and among the season as a whole. Do I need to make some updated top 10 lists this summer hiatus?!

Quotes:

"I was with two guys. One was like a... male model type." - Sam

"You seem even more constipated than usual. Maybe get you some colon blow?" - Crowley ... is that actually what he said?

"We'll ninja our way in." - Bobby
"Awesome. Yeah, until they hear your knee squeak." - Dean

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Supernatural 6x21 "Let It Bleed"

Full disclosure: I am writing the recap of this episode before I watch the second one, so I won't be having any back opinions on the two as a whole. I was informed that they're not really one long episode anyway, so we should be good. Why am I making excuses? Yeesh. Who cares! It's a blog!

But, seriously, how heartbreaking was the ending to this episode? The things Dean does for the people he loves, come on. Before I get too into that, though, let's start at the beginning. Dean, Sam and Bobby are on the trail of purgatory. I guess their plan is to figure out what is going to need to be done to open it, so that they can prevent it from happening? It turns out that a clue to this is in some Campbell's journal, a Moisha (I have no idea how that's spelled!), whose journal leads them to HP Lovecraft, he of the horror writing.

Apparently he wasn't just a writer, though, but also a looker-into-er of the blacker, witchcrafty arts. But before the guys can get too into their research, Dean gets a frantic call from Ben - some men have come to their house and taken Lisa (also killing the dude she was with, poor schmo), and are coming for him next. And it's not just any men doing this - it's Crowley! You see, he fancied himself a loophole in Castiel's warning that he not harm Dean and Sam. Well, he didn't say anything about not harming people they care about, now, did he? Crowley tells Dean they have to back off the purgatory stuff and Lisa and Ben will be fine.

While Dean and Sam go off in search of Lisa and Ben, Bobby sticks to the research. He tracks down a guy who has some old letters of Lovecraft's detailing a dinner party in 1937 wherein they tried to open a gate to, we presume, purgatory. It didn't appear to work, except that everyone who was at the party died within the year. Only one person survived, a boy who is now in his 80s living in a mental hospital. Bobby pays him a visit, and the guy informs him that it actually worked, their opening the door, only the thing that came out was invisible. The only reason he knows about it was because it went into his mom, and he could tell the difference. His mom, we come to find out, is Eleanor, who we met briefly once before back in the dragons episode. She was the woman who Dean got the sword from? Right, I would not have known who she was if we hadn't had the recap.

Bobby pays her a visit and tries to get her to tell him the secret to purgatory door opening, but she won't tell him, instead opting to go on her own, figuring she has a better chance of fighting off Cas if he finds her. Which he will, because he's also been on this trail the whole episode, almost always one step ahead of Bobby except for this last step, because Bobby conveniently already knew this woman and where she might be hiding. In the end, Cas does find her before she can make a getaway. Uh oh.

Back in the other storyline, Dean is frantically trying to get demons to tell him where Crowley is, but none of them are spilling anything but blood out of their guts. Dean gets a little sloppy and messes up his devil's trap, letting one of the demons come for him, but Cas shows up just in time to stop him. He tries to get Dean to understand his plight again and to trust him for a change, but Dean isn't having it.

How in the world are they going to find Lisa and Ben, anyway? Well, earlier on they asked for Balthazar's help. Balthazar was less than excited about the prospect, but after learning just what Castiel has been up to with Crowley and the quest for the souls, he decides to join Team Winchester and finds out where the demons are holding Lisa and Ben. He can't go in and get them thanks to some angel-proofing, so he drops the boys off to fend for themselves.

Sam gets knocked out pretty much right away, and locked in a cell, leaving Dean to go it alone. He does some badass demon-killing on his way to finding the two, but find them he does. Only once he unties them, Lisa's eyes turn demonic black and she puts a knife to Ben's throat. Yep, she's possessed. She throws some verbal barbs around the joint, at one point saying that Dean was actually Ben's father (the assumption, in the end, is that he still isn't) and how Ben's holding her back and all this crap. Dean manages to throw some holy water in her face, getting her to release Ben.

But now what to do? He can't kill Lisa. So he starts doing the exorcising latinizing. But DemonLisa is not happy about that, obviously. So what does she do? She stabs herself in the gut! I saw that coming, but whatever, still gut-wrenching (har har, pun!). But Dean doesn't stop the exorcism, sending the demonic smoke on its way, and Lisa tumbling to the ground, badly wounded. He gets Ben to man a shotgun to blast their way out of there while he carries her, and manages to free Sam along the way as well.

They get Lisa to the hospital, but things do not look good. While Ben goes off to sulk and be angry at Dean, Cas shows up, though Dean did not ask him to. Castiel heals Lisa, but Dean wants him to do one more thing. And even before it cut to Lisa awakening with Ben at her side, I knew what he was going to make Cas do, and how terrible to behold it would be. Dean stands there in the doorway watching them as Ben explains they were in a car crash, but they're okay. They eventually notice the handsome but sad gentleman standing there and Ben inquires, "who are you?" Yes, Dean asked Castiel to make them forget him and their time together! Weep! The most heartbreaking part of the whole thing was when Dean told them he was the one who crashed into their car, and he was going to let them get on with their lives now. Oh god, seriously. Dean!

Sam admonishes Dean for taking away their memories like that, as someone who knows what that's like, but Dean stonewalls him, telling him if he ever brings up Lisa and Ben again, he'll break his nose.

Random Thoughts:

- Those demons sure incapacitated Sam easily. That seemed a might too convenient for me, like it was done just to get Dean alone in the room with DemonLisa and Ben.

- It's possible that if Castiel takes in too many souls, he'll go nuclear, possibly taking out half the planet with him. Okay. I'm confused. What happens to the souls if they get angel-ingested? They just disappear? Or they end up in heaven that way? I don't get it. Since when can they ingest souls, and why would they only just be doing it now if they always knew they were powerful? I'm having to suspend my disbelief and questions a lot when it come to the soul stuff.

- The look on Dean's face when DemonLisa says Ben is actually his. Oof.

- I'm glad Lisa and Ben weren't killed, I was getting seriously worried there for a bit.

- Sam. Get a haircut. Jeez.

Quotes:

"Hi. Glad to meet ya. Bobby Singer, paranoid bastard." - Bobby

"Let them go now, or I swear..." - Dean
"Right right, you'll rip me a cornucopia of orifices..." - Crowley

"You know, trench coat, looks like Columbo, talks like Rain Man." - Dude

"I'm officially on your team. You bastards." - Balthazar

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Strawberry Shortcakes

It's strawberry season, friends. You know what that means - tons of strawberries for cheap prices. Which means, if you're like me and live by yourself, you've got to start using those babies up in recipes before they go bad. Because bad strawberries are just sad. Good strawberries, on the other hand - wonderful. Amazing. Fantastic. And, of course, yummy. Can't forget yummy.

So what did I start off with? A classic. Strawberry shortcakes!

After much perusing of various baking sites that I visit often, this one caught my eye the most. One thing I found totally weird about it - it uses hard-boiled egg yolks. I think this may be the first time I have ever seen that in a recipe. Maybe that just means I am not very well-versed in recipes, but.... I don't know. I was surprised, and decided I had to try it.

It did not disappoint. I wish I had been paying more attention and actually cut the shortcakes as thick as they were supposed to be, because mine are really thin, but oh well! Maybe that just means I'll have to make more?!

Well, I can only make more if my stomach decides it doesn't hate me anymore. Don't just love when you make something delicious, are looking forward to having it as dessert, then suddenly your body goes into mass food rejection mode? Yeah, me either. It, in fact, sucks big time. Not that you needed to know any of that. But whatever. WHATEVER! On to the recipe...

Strawberry Shortcakes
via Smitten Kitchen

Serves 6
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
3 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon plus 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 hard-boiled egg yolks
1/8 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2 teaspoons lemon or orange zest (optional)
2/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon heavy cream

Shortcake assembly
1/2 pound strawberries, washed, hulled and quartered
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 cup whipping cream, beaten to soft peaks

In the bowl of a food processor, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, egg yolks, and salt. Pulse to combine. Add the butter and zest, if using, and pulse until the flour resembles coarse meal. Add 2/3 cup of cream and pulse until the dough comes together.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and gather into a shaggy mass. Knead a couple times to make it into a cohesive mass and then pat it into a rough circle about 6 to 7 inches in diameter, and 3/4 to 1-inch thick.

Using a sharp knife, cut the circle into 6 wedges and arrange on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Alternately, you can use a cookie cutter to make shapes of your choice. Chill for 20 minutes (and up to 2 hours).

Preheat oven to 350°F. Brush the tops of the shortcakes very lightly with heavy cream and sprinkle lightly with the coarse sugar. Bake until risen and golden brown, 18 to 20 minutes. Turn the pan around halfway through to ensure even cooking.

While the shortcakes are baking, toss the strawberries, sugar and lemon juice together in a bowl. Let stand several minutes. (If the strawberries are extremely firm, do this 30 minutes in advance.)
Split the shortcakes in half horizontally and set the tops aside. Place the bottoms on dessert plates and heap strawberries over them. Spoon whipped cream generously over the strawberries and replace the shortcake tops. Serve immediately with any remaining whipped cream on the side.

In photos:

The flour, sugar, baking powder, egg yolks and salt in my teeny-tiny food processor.

I had to move it to a bigger bowl and use that thingy that I'm blanking on the name of to incorporate the butter. Pastry cutter! There it is.

After the cream has been added. Sticky stickiness.

Confession time: I made mine too big and thin. 

Which resulted in nine shortcakes instead of six. Of course, I was too lazy to start over.

So they didn't come out very thick, but hey, they still taste great.

Another confession: I may or may not have just used cool whip instead of making my own whipped cream.

Deliciousness!

Chuck 4x24 "...vs. the Cliffhanger"

My friends, I apologize for the tardiness of this recap. I spent most of last night sick to my stomach and generally feeling terrible. Joy!

But, back to Chuck. You can say one thing for this show - they know how to end a season with a game changer! Before I get to that, though, in case you didn't know, Chuck has been renewed for a fifth and final season. It will likely be 13 episodes, and will now be airing at 8pm on Fridays, if the new NBC schedule sticks through the summer. Sometimes they change things up, but I bet it will stay on Fridays. Which will now mean the two shows I still recap will be on the same night! Dang it!

Okay, back to this finale episode. As you may recall, at the end of last week's episode, Sarah was struck down by the Norseman device. We pick right up with the gang hurrying her to the hospital. Somehow they are able to keep her from dying for a while by sticking her in an ice bath. I'm not sure why she didn't die instantly like the other dude did last week, but whatever. Ellie tells Chuck she doesn't have much time - something like 12 hours - so they have to find an antidote to this poison before then.

The one person who will know the antidote, however, aside from Vivian, is locked up in maximum security, and it would take weeks before they would get permission to visit him. The him being Volkoff, of course. Chuck is on a mission, however, so he and Casey break into the prison. Only, they're too late, Volkoff has been moved. Because the CIA had been expecting something like this from them. They've put a new man on the case, a dude named Clyde Decker that would be happy to get rid of the whole team if they continue to be insubordinate.

Well, as we all know, Chuck will not rest until Sarah is safe, so they have to come up with a new plan - they've got to catch the truck that's moving Volkoff before it gets to wherever it's going. The only way to get there fast enough is to use a heretofore never mentioned motorcycle called the Nighthawk that's apparently been hiding away in Castle this entire time. Right. Chuck mounts up and takes off. There's some fairly terrible green screen work behind him as he drives, but oh well. He manages to catch up to the truck and break in, only to find that Clyde has just taken the Intersect out of Volkoff's brain - leaving him the bumbling scientist Hartley Winterbottom.

Chuck takes him anyway, even though he doesn't remember any of his life as Volkoff. It turns out, though, that the Norseman was a device that he was working on back before he got Intersect-ed, so he just might know a cure. Something called Irridium-5. He makes up a batch for Sarah, and while it does appear to slow down the poison stuff somewhat, it's not a cure. They surmise that Volkoff was probably working on another version, Irridium-6, and that Vivian probably has it. They've got to get to Russia!

Only, by continuing on with this plan, Chuck is basically saying a big F-you to the CIA, and they're not content to let this happen. Before he and Hartley can leave, Decker manages to de-Intersect Chuck. But he's not going to give up, duh. He and Hartley head off to Russia and straight for Volkoff Industries. Though Hartley chickens out at meeting his daughter Vivian, Chuck steps up to the plate and offers up himself in order to save Sarah. Things aren't looking so good for him when Hartley shows up, just in the nick of time. They manage to convince Vivian that this isn't the life she's meant for, and that there's still time to do the right thing. Back to Burbank!

Chuck gives Sarah the cure, and as we find out after a commercial break - it works. We come back to them in the midst of their wedding, sharing heartfelt vows. If things had ended here, it would've been possible to end the series, but of course then what in the world would the cliffhanger bit of the title mean?

It means this - as Chuck and Sarah are driving off to their honeymoon, they discover an envelope in their limo. It's a gift from the former Volkoffs, now Winterbottoms. I knew part of the gift was going to be them now owning the Buy More, but what I didn't realize was that it really meant was they were gifted with the entire Volkoff fortune - some $877 million, or as Chuck likes to call it, a cool billion. Whoa. They decide they're going to set up their own independent spy organization with the money since they're not longer part of the CIA. And here's the second twist - Morgan finds a box of Chuck's belongings that Beckman left behind, and sees a pair of sunglasses. Uh oh, I know the whole audience knows what these are, but of course Morgan apparently hasn't a clue, and puts them on. He gets the Intersect! Will Chuck also re-Intersect himself? Or do the glasses only work once?

And, finally, a bit before that, Chuck has a conversation with Decker, wherein Decker basically tells him there's been some kind of nefarious plan going on this entire time, with the Ring, Folcrum, Shaw, Volkoff, etc. leading to... something. Where? We'll find out next season.

Choice Songs:

Conscience Killer - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
I'm a Pilot - Fanfarlo

Quotes:

"That guy might think he's a hardass, but I'm the Intersect." - Chuck

"Your real name is Hartley Winterbottom." - Decker
"Nobody names a person that." - Volkoff

"Russians. So many Russians." - Casey

"Guys. I know kung fu." - Morgan

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Chuck 4x23 "...vs. the Last Details"

It's almost wedding time for Chuck and Sarah, and that means there must be some twists and turns a-coming, right? Right. Everything seems all well and good for the pair until a couple of days before their rehearsal dinner when they find out that Mama Bartowski has been captured by Vivian Volkoff. See, she was trying to steal the Norseman device and got caught. What's the Norseman device, again? It's this weapon that will kill someone using a DNA sample.
The team mounts up to go to Mama B's rescue in Colombia. They manage to reach her, but she informs them that Vivian is about to sell the Norseman and they need to get the weapon before she can. But the Norseman has already been moved, so the best they can do right now is get Mama B out of there, which they do after an encounter with Vivian and Riley.

They make it all the way back home only to hear from Beckman that they have heard that Vivian is planning on selling the Norseman to the highest bidder at a secret meeting in Moscow. Luckily for them, they happened to detain one of the dudes who was supposed to go to the meeting, and he looks just like Morgan, so Morgan gets to step in and pretend to be the guy, who will buy the Norseman. Easy peasy lemon squeezey, right? Of course not.

In Moscow, the plan is going well at first, until Vivian and Riley show up with the weapon and use it to kill all of the bad dudes who were there to try to buy it. Morgan has to fake being dead until they leave, and gets an awesome assist from Casey on the neighboring rooftop. He kills like six people in the room solely using these camera glasses Morgan was wearing as a reference, as the curtains were down. That's pretty amazing.

Meanwhile, Sarah and Chuck are going after Vivian, who still has the Norseman. They manage to stop her, and Chuck is able to tell her the truth about her dad - that he is actually a good guy, and therefore she is too. But Riley also manages to tell Vivian that the person responsible for turning Volkoff into the man he is today was one Stephen Bartowski, which of course doesn't sit so well with her. But she escapes to points unknown for now.

Back on the home front, Ellie has worked hard to make sure everything is perfect for the rehearsal dinner. Everything except for what was supposed to be Chuck's gift to Sarah - a romantic video showcasing their relationship. They tried to have Lester put it together, but of course he did something insane. But, it turns out that Jeff actually has some skill in making this kind of video, and it actually works out.

But all cannot be sunshine and roses, as we well know. As happier times are being displayed on the video, Chuck gets a call from Vivian, threatening to kill those closest to him since she has lost everything in her life. Chuck is convinced the person she's going to go after is his mom, but instead it's Sarah whose head starts hurting and nose starts bleeding, a classic sign of the Norseman device's deployment. Uh oh!

Kind of a meh episode for me, but I did love all of the Star Wars references. My favorite was probably when Chuck was getting Morgan psyched up to be the bad guy and started humming the evil Empire theme. Ha. Great.

Song Choices:

You Are a Tourist - Death Cab For Cutie
The First Day of My Life - Bright Eyes

Quotes:

"Why would you say that? Do you not watch movies?" - Chuck
"I finally watched Mannequin." - Sarah
"Oh? Yeah? Did you like it?" - Chuck

"We have voyeur. We have candid. We have nip slips. Of Chuck." - Jeff

"Move it along, Chewy." - Chuck
"Chewy? Why are you calling him Chewy? He didn't even eat anything off that disgusting platter." - Sarah

"I'll be right there. As soon as I get this guy's pants off. ... Oh shut up." - Casey

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Supernatural 6x20 "The Man Who Would Be King"

This was quite a solemn hour of Supernatural, wasn't it? Seeing things from Castiel's perspective was really interesting, in my opinion. We haven't seen much of the angelic one this season because he's been off doing his own thing, and just what that own thing entailed wasn't entirely clear. Until now. So just what has our dear Cas been up to? Not good things, as it turns out.

I'm reminded of a certain saying that pops up in the last Harry Potter book here - "For the greater good." It's basically a saying used by Grindelwald to justify his actions and make them seem less horrific. I think we can safely assume that Castiel was adopting the same mindset, though he knew deep down that what he was doing wasn't exactly right. But was it entirely wrong? It's hard to say. Because if he didn't do what he did, then what would've happened? Raphael was intent on re-starting the Apocalypse, the very thing Cas and the Winchesters had just worked so hard to thwart. So what I'm saying is, I can see his side of the story. It's not so cut and dry, no matter how much Dean, Sam and Bobby tell him it is.

But I'm digressing a little bit here. Let's get back to the details of the episode itself. The episode was framed around Castiel telling his story to someone who we assume is, and later find out to be, God. I mean, as much as you can tell a story to God, since he's not actually there. Castiel's story takes us back to before there were humans, all the way to present day, and we find out just how long he's been working with Crowley, and what caused him to go to such lengths.

You see, after Sam jumped into the cage with Lucifer inside him, Castiel was brought back to life. When he returned to Heaven, the other angels were amazed and looked to him for guidance. What were they supposed to do now? Cas tried to tell them that they were free to make their own choices, but they were having a tough time wrapping their heads around that concept after millennia of being told what to do. Cas didn't get much chance to show him what it meant to have free will before being summoned before Raphael, who had other plans. He wanted Castiel to step in line and follow him as the new leader of Heaven - and restart the Apocalypse.

Castiel wanted to go to Dean for help, but after seeing him in his new life, he didn't want to disturb him. And then, a new opportunity presented itself in the form of Crowley. He had a proposition for Cas - that they should team up, to look for purgatory and get more souls, thereby getting themselves more power. Cas was reluctant at first, but after some silver-tongued persuasion from the new King of Hell, he agreed to his proposition. Crowley would give him 50,000 souls to power up and take on Raphael, and later when they found purgatory, they would split all of the monster souls in there. They did disagree on how they would go about finding purgatory, though. Crowley wanted to put Dean and Sam on the case (we also found out that it was Castiel who brought Sam back from Hell, though he didn't realize at first that it was without his soul), but Cas forbade him from using Dean. So that's why Crowley brought Samuel back - so he and Sam could track down purgatory for him. With me so far?

Which basically brings us to present day for those two. Crowley is pissed at Castiel for letting the Winchesters kill Eve, the Mother of All, as she was their best chance of tracking down purgatory. Crowley wants to take out the Winchesters before they track him down, but Cas forbids him.

Meanwhile, Sam, Dean and Bobby are indeed looking for Crowley, and though Sam and Bobby are convinced that Castiel is working with him, Dean wants to keep his trust in Castiel intact. They track down a hunter demon who has been taking out nests of monsters and the like, figuring he must be getting his orders from Crowley. After some back and forth, they get it out of him that he gets his orders from the demon version of Bobby - this demon dude named Elsworth.

They go off to find this Elsworth, but it's too bad for them, because Castiel was listening in on this little conversation and goes ahead of them to kill Elsworth and his cronies. Thus, when the Winchesters and Bobby arrive at the place, they find it suspiciously clean. Sam and Bobby are suspecting Cas, but Dean decides they've got to just tell him that they've been looking for Crowley and see what his reaction is. Before they can do that, though, some demons appear and attack. Luckily for them, Cas was actually listening in this whole time, and shows up to kill the demons.

They finally tell him that they've been looking for Crowley, and Cas manages to at first lie his way back into their trust. But then he slips. He makes a reference back to the conversation they all had earlier about Superman going darkside, which he wasn't actually supposed to have been there to hear. The look on Dean's face says it all - he knows he's working with Crowley. They put together a plan to trap Cas in holy fire, and it works like a charm.

With Cas trapped in the ring of fire, they're able to confront him about what he's been doing. Dean basically says that they'll kill him if they have to, no matter what his intentions may have been. Cas tries to explain, but they aren't understanding his predicament too easily. Before anything can really go down, though, some demonic smoke starts heading straight for them, and Cas tells them to run for it, which they do. It's Crowley, come to set Castiel free from the holy fire, and give him some grief over the situation at hand, asking him just what he's willing to do.

Cas makes one last visit to Dean to try to make him understand. Dean asks him to just stop what he's doing, because it's him asking. He wants him to trust him. But Cas is at odds with this request. He's gone too far now to turn back.

In the end, as he finishes his tale, he asks for a sign from God. What's he supposed to do?

It's a good question.

Random Thoughts:

- This episode was written and directed by Ben Edlund. Great job!

- It was interesting to learn that Cas (and, it seems, Crowley) could just sit in and listen/watch people without them knowing they're there. I don't think we'd ever seen either of them do that before.

- Crowley's new version of Hell does seem pretty terrible. Waiting in lines is the WORST!

- Castiel was the one who brought Sam out of Hell. Did he know it was without his soul? It was implied that he didn't know, but he's being awfully shady, you know.

- I liked that Crowley actually gave the Winchesters their due after Castiel told him he didn't need to worry about them finding him. He basically said that they'd killed all these other demons, so yeah, he did need to worry. True, true.

- Even though Eve is dead, she's apparently still laying eggs, and when Crowley touches her exposed brain with a hot poker thing, it makes a vampire he has tied up go nuts. Interesting.

- Next week is an off week with the series finale of Smallville, but on May 20 we get a two part finale. Can you believe season six is already coming to an end?!

Quotes:

"He's the Balki Bartokomous of Heaven, he can make a mistake." - Dean (wow, super obscure reference)

"If I knew then what I know now, I might have said: It's simple. Freedom is a rope, God wants you to hang yourself with it." - Castiel

"Do I look like I'm joking?" - Raphael
"You never look like you're joking." - Castiel

"I know two eerily suited Teen Beat models with time on their hands." - Crowley

"You know who spies on people, Cas? Spies." - Dean

"Just because you can do what you want, doesn't mean that you get to do whatever you want." - Dean

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Chuck 4x22 "...vs. Agent X"

I don't know about the rest of you, but by the end of the episode, I was practically yelling at my TV to get on with it already, because I had so totally figured out who Agent X was by the time of the big "reveal." I mean, duh. No, I didn't know who it was at the beginning of the episode, but as soon as Ellie revealed that Agent X had been someone who received an entirely new identity, I immediately said, spoiler alert, "Volkoff." Duh.
But that's getting way ahead of the game. At the beginning of the episode, Chuck and Sarah were treated to their separate bachelor and bachelorette parties. Unfortunately, while Chuck and the other guys thought Awesome was taking them to Las Vegas, he was instead actually taking them to Las Vecas, some kind of hiking/camping area. Is this a real place? Anyway, while they were enjoying the outdoors, Sarah was getting treated to some lap dances back at home in Burbank. The problem was, she had received a message from Beckman that Papa Bartowski's computer location had been compromised, and some nasty people were coming after it. So Sarah had to spill the beans to Ellie that she knew about the computer.

Only Ellie didn't have the computer, because, as was so obviously planted you'd have to be a dummy to miss it, Devon accidentally took the wrong bag that had the computer in it, so the bad guys are actually showing up to Chuck's party. But thanks to Casey, the are able to defeat the bad guys, but not before the computer gets stabbed. And just who are these bad guys, you are curious to know? They've been sent by Vivian Volkoff to find the computer, so they can track down Agent X and... I don't know, kill him or something? I'm not sure of their plan exactly, to be honest.

Back in Burbank, Chuck decides he's got to finally come clean with Ellie that he's still a spy and that he knows about the computer and whatnot. He even tells her about the Intersect, or rather, shows her how the Intersect works. She takes it all in relative ease, really. But while Chuck tells her that he thinks that he himself is Agent X, Ellie informs them that would not be possible unless he was implanted with it before he was born. Because the real Agent X got the Intersect in 1980. They're able to pull up a little bit of information on him - his name was Hartley - and this picture of a house. Chuck flashes on the house, which happens to be in Somerset, England.

And by this time it's so bloody obvious that Agent X is Volkoff, this last bit felt really superfluous. But whatever. Chuck, Sarah and Casey head off to Somerset to visit the house, and come upon an old lady, who we soon come to find out is Agent X's mother. She also knew Papa Bartowski, who was trying to track down Agent X to fix him, presumably. Before she can give them more information on him, though, the bad dudes show up. They have a bit of a fight, grab Hartley's spy will from the basement, and blow that popsicle stand. Literally. They blew the house up.

Back in Burbank, they gather to open up the spy will. And we soon come to see that Agent X, aka Hartley Winterbottom, is none other than one Alexei Volkoff. The CIA created this massive cover up because they were the ones who created a seriously evil arms dealer guy. Casey tells the gang that they can't take this any further, because the CIA won't want this dirty laundry out in the open. While Casey locks away the will, though, Chuck and Ellie have a heart to heart, wherein she basically tells him that she thinks that their dad would've wanted them to try to help Volkoff/Hartley get back his true identity.

In a little subplot, Big Mike, Lester and Jeff were so upset that they didn't get to go to the real Las Vegas on their trip that they decide they're going to go on a road trip of their own... to Reno. Of course, they were dummies and let Jeff drive, so they ended up in Renaux, British Columbia. All was not lost, however, as it turned out that Renaux had its own gambling. Que sera sera.

Song choice:

Really the only song featured tonight (that I noticed) was Kesha's Blow... which is sort of a disgrace, but also somehow catchy. Damn it all.

Quote (sorry, only wrote down one this week):

"I'm making it rain! Canadian style. Which is technically making it snow." - Lester

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