Top Moments: Desperate Housewives' Sex Stories and Good Wife's Kalinda's Got a Gun
Our top moments of the week:
12. Most Disturbing Use of Ear Muffs: Things get complicated quickly on Suburgatory when Eden — Noah's surrogate and George's lady friend — asks her baby doctor to say why having sex is good for the baby in front of Noah, George, Noah's wife Jill , George's daughter Tessa, and nosy neighbor Sheila. A fight breaks out between the overly protective Noah, George and Jill, at which point the doctor tells everyone to calm down because the baby is not reacting well to the tension. Cut to a sonogram of the fetus very clearly putting hands over his or her ears. The baby is not even born yet and needs a therapist? Now that's rough.
11. Worst Retread: The Ghost of Charlie Harper returns again on Two and a Half Men — this time in the form of Kathy Bates, who visits a doped-up Alan after he has a heart attack. Donning a bowling shirt and chomping on a cigar, Charlie explains to Alan that he's stuck in "an old broad's body" because he's in hell, before he tells his younger brother to "grow a pair." "This body has a pair — they dangle under my hooha," he quips. Look, guys it was cute the first time you resurrected Charlie, but this is now reeking of juvenile bitterness. Isn't it time to move on?
10. Are We There Yet? Award: For weeks now, Gossip Girl has been pulling out all the stops when it comes to Chuck's family. First, we learn that Diana Payne is his mother. Then we find out that she's lying to cover up for Chuck's real mother, a woman named Elizabeth. But all the mama drama turns out to be a red herring because — guess what? — it's looking more likely that Uncle Jack might actually be his biological father! As Chuck tries to figure out who the heck his real parents are, he is shocked to discovered that the man he believed to be his father, Bart Bass -- whom we were led to believe died in a car accident in Season 2 — is actually still alive! Where is the research team from Who Do You Think You Are? when you need 'em?
9. Best Laid Plans Go Awry Award: When Lily tires of Marshall's excessive baby prep on How I Met Your Mother, she slyly sends him off to Atlantic City with Barney under the guise that it's a baby boot camp. Everything is going according to plan — she relaxes with her milk and cookies; he's cutting loose and getting drunk at the craps table — until Lily suddenly goes into labor. She frantically calls Marshall, but he has turned his phone off to unwind (at Barney's request, of course). Looks like someone forgot the most important part of baby prep is to always be reachable.
8. Weirdest Sidekick Audition: Diane Keaton gives what just might be the most bizarre performance of her storied career when she appears on The Colbert Report to talk about her book. But instead, the eccentric Oscar winner tells the host that she will not be voting for him, that she doesn't want to see his "buck-naked ass" and that she's bringing him up on charges for hugging her too tightly. Oh yeah, she also calls him a sexual pervert. Close to the end of the interview, however, Keaton reveals what's really going on when she asks Colbert if he think she's a good sidekick. Way to bury the lede, lady!
7. Most Inspirational Moment: Every now and then on Dancing with the Stars comes a gem like Richard "Steelo" Vazquez's story. An up-and-coming film/TV street dancer, Steelo suffered a near-fatal brain aneurysm in June and, after months in therapy relearning basic functions, he makes his first public performance on the Dancing floor with his group, the Groovaloos, as the audience showers him with cheers and a standing O. It's a stirring triumph of the human spirit, and we still need some more Kleenex over here.
6. Best New Excuse: After Smash's Dev almost cheats on Karen with a bourbon-bearing R.J., he decides that he needs some stability in his life. So he heads to Boston, where Karen is immersed in tech rehearsals, to ask her to marry him. Her odd, laughable response: "I'm in tech!" "Is that the same thing as a yes?" Dev asks. Uh, no, Dev, it isn't! Gosh! We'd love to explain more, but we're in tech too.
5. Best Tease: Now that Castle's frostiness toward Beckett has cooled on Castle, she reveals to him that she's been seeing a therapist in the wake of her shooting — you know, when he told her "I love you." "I just wanted to put in the time, do the work, but I think I'm almost where I want to be now ... in a place where I can finally accept everything that happened that day. Everything," she says. "That wall I was telling you about — I think it's coming down." "I'd like to be there when it does," Castle replies. Judging by the preview, it sure looks like he will be!
4. Most Unexpected Choking Hazard: After advising, or trying to advise, Kurt all episode long about his big NYADA audition, Rachel turns out to be the one in desperate need of coaching on Glee. After Kurt's sassy performance of "Not the Boy Next Door" from The Boy from Oz gets a glowing review from Professor Carmen Tibideaux (guest star Whoopi Goldberg), Rachel messes up the lyrics to one of her favorite tunes, "Don't Rain on My Parade," not once but twice, and her audition is quicklydeemed to be over, at which point she starts sobbing uncontrollably. That's not just rain, that's a downpour.
3. Funniest Improv: You know how a celebrity goes on a talk show to hawk a project and engages in stilted, customary chit-chat with the host about what it was like on set? Well, Jimmy Fallon and Amy Poehler take it up a few hundred hilarious notches on Late Night when they ad-lib plotlines and tales about their time together on a bunch of fake movies. The pseudo posters are comical enough, but then we get such golden improv touches like, "There's a lot of symbolism in Connect Four" and "I remember a review about [their Sahara-set flop] Third ... 'Third is No. 2.'" And then there's the fantasy epic Chronicles of Holkroft 3: Kwest for the Krimson Amulet, in which Poehler has fists for breasts. "She would get the enemy really close and she would drop her robe and she would just punch them out with her boobs," Poehler explains. Now who's gonna make these movies? Because we'd totally pay to see all of them.
2. Best Overshare: On Desperate Housewives, Bree's lawyer, Trip (Scott Bakula), presses her to fill him in on her drunken one-night stands after he learns that the prosecution plans to ask the men to testify against her at her upcoming murder trial. When she refuses to do so, Trip invites himself over and tries to inspire her by sharing his embarrassing sexual stories, like when he lost his virginity at 24 to a much more experienced classmate, how he didn't last long and how his enlarged prostate scares off women. TMI, dude! So does this count as billable hours?
1. Come and Knock on Our Door Award: When one door closes, another one looks ready to open — whether Kalinda likes it or not — on the season finale of The Good Wife. Just as Alicia says goodbye to her old house, her estranged husband, Peter, and their kids, she stands in front of the door looking down on the welcome mat and wondering whether she should go back inside and eat dinner with her family. At the same time, Kalinda faces a much more mysterious house guest — who may or may not be her husband — after Alicia contacted him about her financial records. Kalinda being Kalinda, she sits in front of the door with the handgun and stash of money she had used a sledgehammer to retrieve from inside a wall. The episode closes with an ominous knock on her door. Apparently a simple "Honey, I'm home!" wouldn't have sufficed.
What were your top moments?
