Surprise…Charlie Jade is not a force of nature. Neither is he a man with no name. He’s flesh and blood, and filled with contradictions. Like anyone, Charlie has a past that informs who and why he is and this week we get a peak into it.
Diamonds are Forever
Remember that gangster’s pinkie ring Charlie wears? The one he pawned to pay for his sweet ride? Charlie hits the shop, looking to retrieve it. Instead he finds the owner dead and the ring missing.
A flashback to five years earlier shows us Charlie as a soldier of some sort, on a sweep with his partner. Charlie lags behind as she bursts through a door and opens fire, killing a man and his wife. She scans his implant, then cuts that recognizable ring from the man’s hand, passing it over to Charlie with a smile on her face. Charlie hears steps at his back and spins, weapon at the ready. He finds a small child in his sights and recoils. Happy partner takes the kid out with one quick shot.
Lacey wants to watch SMACC (Supremo-Destructo Martial Arts Combat Channel), because the martial arts are the most confrontational of all the arts. But she can’t adjust their satellite dish and comes back in when Wendy Watson sees fuzzy porn. Turns out, it was just Varsity Fanclub. Then Lacey demonstrates her fandom by dancing along with the five perpetually pubescent harmonizers.
Pip drops by to invite the gang to his gallery show, Deus ex Pip, at The Gate. But, “his” paintings are Wendy’s! Uh, but the armed gorilla is still in the illegal sublet Wendy shares with another young photogenic artist. How’s the Pipster pulling this one off?
Adam and Jamie in the water – Copyright Discovery Channel
It’s that time of year again. The time when a young man’s fancy turns to sun, sand, and surf. And though I try to honor Tracy Jordan‘s challenge to “live every week like it’s Shark Week,” even I need a gentle reminder once in awhile. Fortunately, Discovery Channel is happy to oblige.
This year, Shark Week kicks off with the two-hour MythBusters: Shark Special on Sunday, July 27 from 9-11pm ET/PT. The MythBusters test seven myths about the great predators using their standard formula of scientific whimsy mixed with insane experimentation. There’s madness to their method and that’s what makes the show fun for us. Sometimes scary for them, but fun on the safety of our La-Z-Boys.
Myth #1: Eye Gouge
Is it even possible, under the thrashing and duress of an attack, to find a shark’s eyes to ward it off?
To test the myth, they decide *not* to climb into the gaping maw of a real man eater. Instead, Master Busters Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage build a 17-foot, robotic Great White. Using a replica fiberglass shark made from a life cast and cutting it into segments that can be articulated, the guys make a robot suitable for the test. The robot includes real chomping and thrashing action, too.
Starting off with a mouthful of custom cut steel teeth, sharpened and serrated just like nature’s own, the guys test out bite strength on a surfboard and pig’s carcass. But that’s not the reason they’re in SF Bay. Adam swaps out the steel choppers for some rubber ones and he and Jamie rope Grant Imahara into taking Bruce on his maiden voyage. Not to worry. Adam’s turn will come soon enough.
Myth #2: Is Playing Dead a Good Strategy in Shark-infested Waters?
Based on the experience of one of the survivors of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis (CA-35), the Junior Busters will determine whether playing dead in the water is a viable strategy, at least when other survivors are thrashing nearby.
Down in the clear blue waters of the Bahamas, Grant and Tory Belleci gear up with chain mail and scuba tanks and hop in the water while Kari Byron chums it. Cute Redhead + Dead Fish = Crazy Hot. It also equals plain crazy. I have to say, I now believe there is something a pretty girl could ask me to do to which I’d say no: jumping in chummed water and thrashing about while sharks swim by. But these guys are game. Scared, but game.
She keeps them in the water for 10 minutes and they’re clearly thrilled to get out. Then she shows her sadistic side. I mean, they can’t be sure the experiment was definitive unless the boys get back in and switch roles, right?
Myth #3: Do Magnets Repel Sharks?
Sharks have a network of jelly-filled canals in their bodies called Ampullae of Lorenzini. With these, sharks and rays are able to detect electromagnetic fields and temperature gradients. The theory is that magnets may be able to repel sharks by interfering with their electomagnetic sense in some way, so Adam and Jamie test it out.
They first test with small sharks, but decide they need to run a full-size test with Lemon and Tiger sharks. Chum boxes are studded with magnets and Adam climbs into a shark cage. I’m not sure how he and Jamie decided who’d be the water monkey for this – a coin toss, short straw, roshambo – but I guess you could say Adam won? The Hyper Host gets to see the sharks up close while his colleague, Ol’ Calm Sideburns, only gets to hear about it over the radio. Then again, Jamie’s safe on deck and not feet away from swarming, hungry sharks.
Grant and Kari with RoboDog – Copyright Discovery Channel
Myth #4: Do Dogs Attract Sharks?
First a robot shark, and now a “barking, urinating, swimming, canine robot.” The Junior Busters start off by building a tank and filming Kari’s dog swimming so they can duplicate its movements. For science. After all, they want a doggie robot that does a proper doggie’s doggy paddle. Nobody wants a Daggett that drowns.
Grant eschews an electic motor for the ‘bot so as not to interfere with those Ampullae of Lorenzini, opting to power the guts of the mechanism with air. He includes a remote system for deploying syringes of dog blood, dog urine, and… well… alright, I’ll tell ya. Kari took her pups to the vet to have their anal glands “expressed”.
Ever wonder why dogs sniff each other’s butts? It’s for the incredible stench emanating from those glands. A stench that might just attract sharks as well as Shar Peis.
Myth #5: Do Flashlights Attract Sharks?
On night dives, you really need a flashlight. But sharks hunt at night and might be attracted to the light, or possibly the EM fields given off by the lights. So Kari, Tory, and Grant dive on two successive nights, once without flashlights and once with.
On both nights, their dive location – a wrecked ship – is lit by low-level lights to simulate moonlight. On the second, the three slice through the inky depths with flashlights. For 20 minutes they stay down, counting sharks. I can imagine few sensations as claustrophobic and horrifying as standing underwater in near darkness, counting sharks as they suddenly appear. That’s the price of doing science, though. And entertainment.
Myth #6: Do Hot Chilies Repel Sharks?
The Cuna Indians of Panama trail strings of habanero chilies behind their canoes to deter shark attacks. So Adam and Jamie decide to test chilies out as a deterrent. Pureed habanero is loaded into biodegradable balloons attached to the top of chum boxes.
Mmm! I think it’s time for sushi. I could go for some spicy tuna.
Myth #7: Do Flapping Fish Attract Sharks?
Adam and Jamie tested this once before, but too scientifically for Jamie’s tastes. Pumping out a 40Hz tone isn’t quite the same as a fish flapping. Unfortunately no one builds a robot for this test. But Adam does get to freak out on the ocean floor while Jamie splashes dangling fish from a rubber dingy.
Tory and RoboShark – Copyright Discovery Channel
Final Thoughts
I’m not a regular viewer of MythBusters, but I’ll occasionally find myself on a lazy Saturday catching a marathon. When I do, I usually spend two, or three, or four hours enthralled by the crazy lengths the guys go to in order to bust or prove myths. I appreciate not just the goofiness they bring to bear – using a pig carcass to test Bruce the Great White’s bite pressure and building a Robot Dog with real anal extract being just two examples – but their commitment to the scientific method. They make science approachable and entertaining which is something we desperately need as fewer and fewer kids care to pursue careers in the sciences.
Not to get all preachy, but I’d love if even one child watched this just to see the cool sharks and decided to study them himself. Or saw the articulated shark and thought she’d like to study robotics. It doesn’t hurt to remind adults that learning about the world through play is worthwhile, either.
Plus? Kari in a bikini, y’all.
R.A. Porter is an aspiring television writer who currently toils away in the software mines. He can be found at his personal blog and stalked on Twitter.
My buddy Michael Westen is busy in therapy or something this week, so he gave me this job. I’ll do what I can, but you know, “little out of my league. I’m good with papers not with computers. I think this is a computer thing, right?”
The Recap
That broad Carla left him a message in a crossword puzzle to meet at some mall. He shows up and she gives him a job. She needs this security badge duped and only one guy in town can do it. Nice guy, even if he don’t want to do whatchamacallit, barter, for the job. Takes him a couple of days to do it right, which leaves Mikey time to help out some other chick.
Lady DEA agent in way deep is getting stalked by some big honcho with the Cartel. Me, I like to stay far away from those guys. Guns give me the creeps. But Mikey helps her out. They make it look like this guy’s trying to kill his boss, and then the mook runs to the DEA for protection. He gets the shock of his life when he finds out he’s been hittin’ on the lady DEA agent for years, though.
When Mikey’s not helping her out, he’s seein’ a head shrinker with his mom. But she don’t like that any more than he does. Even if the lady looks just like her.
But she does like the new coffeemaker Carla got her.
When I go pick up the badge – that Nefzi guy does real pretty work – I pay him a little extra ’cause Mikey wants to know what building it goes to. But Carla’s too quick. I run back in, but it’s too late. He’s dead.
Character Counts
Phew. That white track suit was hot. Didn’t breathe at all. Glad to be out of it. Tonight on Burn Notice, the heavy relationship lifting was all about Michael and Madeline. Of course there’s the new coffeemaker, conveniently left in Madeline’s house in the middle of the night by Carla or one of her goons. That’s a bit of a scare for Micheal.
More significantly, Madeline drags Michael to counseling. We get a great sight gag and reaction shot from Jeffrey Donovan as the camera reveals the counselor with hair of gold, just like Sharon Gless. It’s a funny moment, but it’s also a telling moment.
Madeline is seeking confirmation and help in getting her reticent son to open up, but when the tables are turned – really, just the therapist being fair and consistent – she quickly reconsiders the quality of care she’s getting. Michael’s mother is less interested in repairing rifts than regaining and retaining a mythical ideal of family. Her sons are still her little boys and she’s never been able to relate to them as adults, partly because their childhoods were cut short by circumstance.
When Michael comes to pick up his mother for their second session, she tells him she’d rather find someone else, “someone who asks better questions.” Michael reaches out, offering to spend time with Madeline. Standing side by side with arms crossed, postures fully guarded, Madeline gives Michael the answer to the question he’d asked in therapy: why she didn’t ask his nine-year-old self about a black eye he got stealing groceries for the family. She was proud. And thought Michael looked proud. She let him have his lie, that he’d bought the groceries, thinking that’s what he wanted, when in fact all the little boy wanted was his mother’s attention.
It’s a great scene, and the very small smile on Donovan’s face says all we need to know about how Michael Westen feels.
Chin Bits
Honestly, this wasn’t a great episode for Sam or Fiona. They’re pushed mostly to the background, only getting a couple of scenes each. Of course they shine even in support.
“When I’m on a job, it turns her on. It’s all I can do to keep up. The things this woman does. I’m trying to get some too.”
“Mike, look. I did a little pre-scouting but…I knew he was packing. I didn’t know he had a Mac-10. I thought it was like a regular gun.”
“I’m starving anyway!” (Particularly funny as Sam’s scarfing chips as he says this.)
“Well, Sammy will take whatever reward you want to give him, baby!”
Important Lessons in Spycraft
“If an operative hands you a crossword puzzle, chances are you just received a coded message.”
Nail polish remover dissolves ink. A nice way to counterfeit some checks by washing.
A great way to meet a thief is to pretend to be in the same business.
“People trust you when they have something on you…It’s all about making them feel secure.”
“People don’t trust information they get for free. If you want to sell someone on a lie, you have to make them drag it out of you.”
Experienced operatives play their roles harder under pressure.
The best way to distract men is not with a beautiful woman. They want her to stay around. But they want to get rid of obnoxious guys. That’s of course why Sam is always handy to have around.
“The trick to selling an assassination attempt is to use a lot more firepower. And an explosion or two.”
“If you walk in on a corpse and can’t catch your breath…someone might be pumping nitrogen gas into the room to displace all the oxygen.”
Parting Thoughts
We got some interesting tidbits on the long arc tonight. Michael *believes* that Carla speaks Arabic with a Kurdish accent. It’s not much to go on, but is a start. Of course, that’s going to be moot if she faked the accent. Michael knows those who burned him want to keep him around for the long haul. He’s refused their blood money, but he’s going to keep doing their dirty work until he can get some answers. He is a de facto employee at this point, and worried about the safety of his friends and family. Carla’s made it clear she can get to anyone of them at any time.
What’s she going to leave Madeline next time? A toaster?
I was moved a lot by the way Michael and Madeline interacted tonight. One of the rare times they stopped talking past each other and connecting, the kitchen scene at the end of the evening packed a lot of punch. That’s two episodes running with really strong character work. Actually, it’s more than two if we count last season’s finale.
The show’s firing on all cylinders, giving us good action, good intrigue, clever banter, and heart. It’s a shame the Emmy committee couldn’t find a place for this gem of a show.
What did everyone else think?
R.A. Porter is an aspiring television writer who currently toils away in the software mines. He can be found at his personal blog and stalked on Twitter.
On the balcony to the illegal sublet Wendy shares with another young, photogenic artist, she and Lacey are preparing for Art Crawl, a semi-sporadical festival of the arts. Dubby’s talking on the phone with her moms and Lacey’s a bit jealous. See, her moms – Dr. Barbara Thornfield, M.D. Ph.D. – is the absent type. But Lacey’s got Dubby to prop her up and keep her sane. She can always count on Dubby.
Snack Time
It’s Wendy Watson‘s first session with Sensei Ping. Sadly, we don’t get to see the master battler of the Clan of the Pointed Stick in action, we only hear him behind door number one. One hour of training – 59 1/2 minutes actually – and Dubby’s not dead. She’s thrilled.
That was awesome. That was the best thing ever. The teaching, the learning, the laughter, the bonding. I swept the leg!
In case anyone’s forgotten, Charlie works for Karl. He gets a couch and a hundred Rand a day to investigate Vex-Cor. But there’s a price to pay for being in Karl’s employ. This week, the price is getting his butt kicked by some white supremacists while following the trail of missing organizer and activist Themba Makandi.
Charlie Jade doesn’t take place in a vacuum. The geography of Cape Town – the ocean, Table Mountain, Robben Island – frequently come into play. The history of the city and South Africa also inform much of the show’s writing. The disappearance of Makandi is certainly more resonant in the South Africa of Beta than it would be in the North America of co-creators Chris Roland and Robert Wertheimer. The wounds of Apartheid are fresh and a source of much current pain.
Hi. I’m Terry Miller. Me mate, Michael Westen, is trapped in the back of a lorry, so I’ll be running you through this episode of Burn Notice.
The Recap
When Mike gets out of the lorry, he finds himself in the middle of a war zone. That bird Carla – the one who works for the wankers who burned him – gives him a job: make this poor sap Jimmy do what they want. Take him back to Miami and help him steal data from a low-rent Blackwater and the bloke can save his wife and kid. Plus Mike gets to meet Carla.
Mike gets to keep a copy of the data too. Figures it might help him suss out who burned him.
I come in the game when Mike needs someone on the inside. I meet the chief mercenary, Ryder Stahl. He says he’s just in security, but the chyron says different. Trust the chyron. This bastard doesn’t believe me, so he has me escorted out. I end up having to shoot at my mates Sam and Fiona to earn his trust. Fi proves her mettle by shooting to miss me. Close. Really close. I think she’s upset about something Mike’s done.
In the end, Ryder’s set up to the ATF, Jimmy’s death is faked, and Mike gets a copy of the data.
Character Counts
Burn Notice is fun and light-hearted, but it’s actually less about the bombs and bullets, mysteries and scams than it is about the characters. The relationships Michael has are what ground this show. A man who spent his whole life escaping ties and commitments turns out to have four very significant ones. His two best and only friends in the world, Fiona and Sam, and his mother and brother Nate keep Michael grounded. He might hate Miami, and might wish his mother would stop calling, but he loves these people and would do (almost) anything for them.
That “almost”, of course, is where the drama lies.
Michael’s mother Madeline (Sharon Gless) is still stressing over the men with guns. With the score silent, Michael tells her this is why he never came home, to protect her. It’s a small moment. A touching moment. A moment quickly broken when Madeline tells him he could have written. The score kicks back up, a bit jauntier than usual as they cut to Fi playing with explosives.
That was one of the quickest, most abrupt, and funniest tonal shifts I’ve ever seen and it was pulled off with aplomb. Of the many things creator Matt Nix does well, this is the best. It is also why the show will never get award-love: no one knows how to classify it. Sometimes it’s a comedy and sometimes a drama and rarely is there time to pause between the extremes.
On the drama front, the next-to-last scene between Fiona and Michael, when Fi finally realizes she and Michael can’t be together, is beautiful to watch. Gabrielle Anwar, usually tough as nails, finds some heartbreaking vulnerability here. What’s truly sad about the scene though is Jeffrey Donovan‘s narration.
When you work as a spy, it’s easy to think of people as assets, resources to accomplish a goal. Because you don’t have a personal relationship with an asset. You don’t care about an asset. You don’t miss the scent of an asset when she leaves the room.
Chin Bits
Ain’t nobody better than Bruce Campbell, and this is where we take a quick gander at some of his best bits of the night.
Wearing one of Michael’s shirts and looking silly: “Mike, How do you fit in these little shirts? They’re like doll clothes.”
“I can count on one hand the number of buddies I got who would stage an armed assault to save my butt. You got Mike, you got…”
“I got lots of other friends with ovaries. I got you…”
Important Lessons in Spycraft
For some of us – particularly British? South African? businessmen with accents that meander from the streets of London to the north, down to Capetown and over to the antipodes when we miss a glottal stop or two – the most important part of this show is Michael’s lessons in spycraft. We didn’t learn how to make any explosives tonight, but we still had a few good lessons.
Airbags make evasive manuevers tough. But you still drive backwards.
“It takes a great marksman to miss, while making it look like they’re trying to hit you. Or markswoman as the case may be.”
“A great way to get people talking about their security is to put them on the defensive.”
“Counting your steps can be extremely useful if you need to reproduce a floor plan from memory.”
“The typical floor is concrete slab over 20-gauge steel pan with steel trusses spaced 30 inches for support. When you cut through a floor the thing you have to worry about is wiring…If you don’t want a chunk of concrete crashing through to the floor below, you need to drill a hole and anchor the slab.”
And always remember the most important tool: eye gear. You can also learn that lesson from Norm Abrams on The New Yankee Workshop.
Motion detectors bounce sound waves and analyze changes. Move slowly and use a wool comforter. A thermal blanket will make you invisible to a heat sensor.
Quadrangle buckshot is best for destroying the inside of a computer…
Frag-12 is better for hardened security glass.
Parting Thoughts
I haven’t mentioned the beautiful and talented Tricia Helfer. There’s a few reasons for that, but primarily it was because there was a big-ass monsoon tonight. MikeO is up north and missed this one, but I didn’t. Neither did my satellite dish. On the 7pm showing I got everything but the tag at the end. But Pop Critic #1 filled me in (and I recorded the 10pm showing as well.) Beets. Huh. Interesting. I mean, coming from the Battlestar Galactica girl. That Bruce Campbell sure is a teddybear of a man, too.
That’s right. Matt Nix tossed in a massive, awesome, NBC-Universal pop culture joke and I love him and this show for doing it. I also quite liked the Gabrielle Anwar Scent of a Woman reference. Maybe it was unintentional, but I doubt it.
What did everyone else think?
R.A. Porter is an aspiring television writer who currently toils away in the software mines. He can be found at his personal blog and stalked on Twitter.
It’s pop quiz day for Middle-trainee Wendy Watson, and it starts with an emergency call to meet at the Rendevous Point. Five minutes distracted by Lacey and 15 to travel and Dubby made it to the Rendevous Point Diner out by Lyon Estates. She didn’t even need a Delorean to do it.
Middleman is concerned that Dubby’s been thrust into the thick of it without proper grounding and training in all things Middle, so he’s tickled pink to help bring her into the fold. It’s not just about training her mind and body, but building l’esprit de corps. Unfortunately, DubDub’s a bit distracted this week. Turns out Ben, her über-douche boyfriend from the pilot who filmed their breakup for class, put it up on the DubDubDub. In one day, it’s attracted 750,000 hits. It’s a viral hit, for sure.
This is usually the point where those of us who are fans of this fantastic show can stop promising it’ll all be worth it if you just hang on a little longer. This is the point where the newbies become converts and start proselytizing right alongside us. This is also where we see the real crime of SciFi‘s quick hook. (more…)
Wendy Watson ain’t got no money. Lacey Thornfield ain’t got no money. And the Middleman’s just stressing over the arrival of Sensei Ping.
Wendy won’t get paid until she finishes her training and Lacey’s a confrontational spoken word performance artist whose last show had an audience of two. One of whom was Wendy’s mom. Things are rough in the illegal sublet Wendy shares with another young, photogenic artist. That’s why Lacey is starting a job at the Booty Chest, the pirate themed sports bar with scantily clad waitresses.
Allez Cuisine!
On her way to Middleman HQ, Wendy’s crapmobile, a Kruk Bugbear, breaks down. A friendly musician, himself looking for a job, stops and helps her out. He’s a fan of the “poor man’s Yugo.” Turns out the young man had a job opportunity but his roommate lost the message. An opportunity at the Jolly Fats Wehawkin Temp Agency! Hmm. Wonder if we’ll see him again tonight?
Surprise…Charlie Jade is not a force of nature. Neither is he a man with no name. He’s flesh and blood, and filled with contradictions. Like anyone, Charlie has a past that informs who and why he is and this week we get a peak into it.
Wendy Watson ain’t got no money. Lacey Thornfield ain’t got no money. And the Middleman’s just stressing over the arrival of Sensei Ping.