Saturday, August 22, 2009

Recap 8/17 - 8/21 2009

Big Brother Spoilers at the end!

Warehouse 13:

Ths episode started out with them playing the song Queen B by Puscifer (the lead singer from Tool's other side band.) I have no idea as to why as it didn't fit what was going on in the scene, but I'll take a gratuitous use of that song any day.

The episode was about an ancient Samurai sword that was going to be presented to the President of the US by Japan after having been uncovered in a dig about a year earlier. To me that made no sense. The sword was supposed to have been from the most powerful dynasty in Japan's history and it had been lost for hundreds of years. So it finally turns up underground, and now they're going to give it to the US President? Huh?

Anyway, it is said to be able to bend light around the user, rendering him invisible. So they are supposed to swap a duplicate that Artie made and store the actual sword in the warehouse.

The 2 agents go to the Japanese consulate and there is a powerful event that takes place. The 2 agents are sucked into a wall. Just as he's falling unconscious, the male agent sees someone leave the room where the "event" was located. After waking up, they tell Artie that it was more like an implosion than an explosion. Artie freaks out.

Artie travels to an electronics store where a guy who he knows has made implosion grenades is located. Only he finds him turned to dust (earlier we saw someone collect a briefcase of grenades and then fry the poor guy.) Artie finds a clue that appears to have been left purposely for him. He now believes that it is a guy from his past. The agents also think that whoever is doing it has Warehouse tech as they catch a masked theif trying to steal the sword's Tsuba (which is the disc like part, usually decorative, that is between the blade and the handle) who has a Tesla gun. They end up being caught by the Secret Service with the Tsuba and are implicated. The Japanese liason also gives a file to their old boss at the Service that alleges that Artie is wanted for treason. It's not looking good for the 2 agents.

The agents are let go but given the file. They don't know what to think. Later, Artie is nabbed while trying to steal the Tsuba away from the Secret Service boss's safe. The agents want to know the truth, but Artie says that Mrs Frederick (who didn't believe that the person who Artie thinks is behind all the commotion is actually the right guy and that Artie is making it personal) had long ago buried all of that information about him and the alleged espionage against the US. It seems that Artie (with a different last name) was once a code breaker, but ultimately got accused of selling secrets to the Russians. So Artie knows that if the file got out, only somoeone who knew about it and had it in for Artie coould have dug it up...meaning that he is correct with his suspicions. Mrs Frederick gets Artie freed and now she admits that she was wrong and Artie as right.

The suspect once worked with Artie and there was a fallout over a woman and their work. The guy, named MacPherson, ran off with a woman Artie cared about, and then went rogue. Artie tracked down the woman who wasn't happy with him and also felt that Artie was wrong, but ultimately didn't care. Now freed, Artie tracks the sword which has been reunited with the Tsuba (making it whole and allowing the power to work) as the Japanese liason turns out to have been working with Artie's nemesis. The guy kills the liason by lopping off his head while invisible, and then stabs Artie. Artie holds onto the sword, inside him, as the 2 agents arrive. MacPherson gets away.

At the end, they show the 2 agents stashing the real sword in the warehouse while a recovering Artie talks with Mrs Frederick about the danger that MacPherson presents to them all.


Top Chef Masters:

This was the season finale. The final 3 were Classic French Chef Hubert Keller, Italian influenced Californian Chef Michael Chiarello, and Traditional Mexican Chef Rick Bayless.

They started by treating the Final 3 by taking them to the Getty House where they got to relax and dine in elegance.

Then they had to made a 4 course dinner that told their "history" as chefs. The first course would be their oldest food memory. The second course would be the dish that made them want to be a chef. The third course would represent their first restaurant. And the fourth course would be where they are and where they are heading.

The diners were the 3 Top Chef Master judges, the TC:M host, the 3 judges from "regular" Top Chef (Tom, Padma and Gail,) and the 5 winners of the 5 seasons of Top Chef. Good mix! Padma seemed very quiet, and didn't seem like she wanted to be there and hardly said anything.

Michael took note that the one judge from Saveur Magazine was always hard on him, never giving him anything over 3.5 stars. So, Michael took pages of his magazine, and burned the edges, and made them a "doiley" for his second course. Everyone laughed...but the judge was still a putz.

Hubert's courses: 1 - Great, 2 - Hit & Miss, 3 - Miss, 4 - Hit

Michael's courses: 1 - Hit, 2 - HUGE Hit (Gail wanted to bathe in it,) 3 - Well cooked but boring, 4 - Collassal hit (Padma said that he had won her heart with that dish, and Tom was impressed by how complex it was to make yet seemed so simple.

Rick's courses: 1 - Hit, 2 - Probably the biggest HIT of the night out of all of them, 3 - Hit & Miss, 4 - Miss (especially the Chorizo Foam.)

So, looking at that, who won? Michael, right?
Wrongo friendo!
Rick won with 18 stars, Michael had 17, and Hubert had 16.5

As much as the jerk from Saveur magazine bagged on Rick's 4th course and loved Michael's 2nd and 4th course, he STILL only gave him 3.5 stars and gave Rick 4.

I knew it.
Everyone just LOVES Rick Bayless. He's so soft spoken, so friendly, and has such passion for Mexico and Mexican food, and his charity benefits Midwestern farmers. I picked him to win from the start.


Top Chef 6 - Las Vegas:

17 Chefs (Is that the most ever?)
They are the most qualified and respected they've ever had as a group. Many are executive chefs. Some are James Beard nominees (and I think even a winner,) 1 woman is the head chef for one of Eric Ripert's restaurants, and TC thinks of Daniel Boulud and Eric Ripert as like "The Gods."
2 are brothers.
1 guy always dresses like he's about to run with the bulls. I think he's from France.
1 Indian (as in the nation) woman looked like a guy, but this gal named Ashley looks just like musician Beck. I mean, I can't see anything "feminine" about her at all. She seems to cook well.
Oh, and the oldest gal has 2 forms of cancer.

For the Quickfire, they had to pull out poker chips to see who would be on the same team, and the cancer woman pulled a gold chip which meant that she didn't have to compete in the race (17 is uneven as they had 4 teams of 4,) and it also meant that she had immunity from elimination. She also got to pick which group she would compete with in the Elimination challenge.

The Quickfire was the dreaded mise-en-lace relay race, and the poor Indian gal was told to open clams (she didn't ask for it, they all picked the other 3 items and she got stuck with it.) It was the first part of the race, and she'd never opened clams before and tried to do it liek they were oysters (which is wrong.) I'm not sure she ever finished by the time that the first team had finished all 4. One gal cut her fingers and was bleeding all over the place, and then suddenly I saw her wearing a purple sanitary glove. I bet they stopped everyone while they put that on her so that she didn't get blood everywhere as the winning team then had to each cook the items that they prepared so that only 1 person would win a $15,000 poker chip!

The Elimination challenge had each group from the Quickfire compete against each other as a group. The best of each group would go to a winner's judging where one would win the week. The worst of each group would go to the bottom where the worst of the worst would be eliminated. Wolfgang Puck was the guest judge.

The dish they had to create had to represent a "vice" of theirs. Some chose drinking, some procrastination, etc. The guy from Haiti chose the memory of his 21 days at sea when coming to America. Tom didn't see how it was a "vice" but he ended up as the best from his group. This one guy with a big red beard (looks like Kris Kringle from the old Santa Claus Is Coming To Town puppet Christmas classic) ended up winning.

I thought for sure the only person from Michigan, Eve, would be booted. They TRASHED her dish as though she was someone who had just began to learn to cook. But, they sent packing this Hispanic woman with tats all over her, including this big one at the base of her neck. She wasn't very good either, but as a viewer, I thought that her dish was better than Eve's.


Eureka:

This episode had a lot going on.

Kim 2.0 was degrading and all of her data would die with her. Billy Campbell guest starred as an expert at extracting data, and showed that just one lock of her hair was FULL of data, but that his laser and radiation combo could extract all of it quickly. When they tried to run the laser/radiation scan on her, it wasn't working and it was harming her. So they tried putting her into a bath of anti-biotics and nutrients, and while it worked briefly, ultimately Kim shut herself down (essentially killed herself.) They brought her back but she knew that her existence was to bring back data so if she must die to do it, then so be it. They ran the laser/radiation scan on her again, but this time in a vat of acid which would cause all of her cells to disperse, allowing the laser scan to read all of the data more efficiently. Henry cried while watching "Kim" "die" for a second time. They got all of the data.

3 women in charge of varying baby items of the future threw a baby shower for Allison. One gave her a superabsorbant diaper, one gave her a special bottle that allows all of the liquid inside to come out (nothing clings to the bottle,) and the third gave her a device that connects the mother to the unborn baby in a unique way.

The day after the party, the monitor woman is found drowned in her car that is full of water. The next day, the bottle woman drowns in the Cafe's bathroom. A third person, a cleaning woman, is found drowned ni the sauna at GD. Since Henry is dealing with Kim 2.0, Fargo does the autopsies and discovers that the water each woman drowned in is a synthetic water made at GD intended for space colonization. The water compresses and so an ocean could fit into a drinking bottle...that's how the women drowned, the water decompressed inside them and spilled out.

Tess and the diaper lady are found to also be full of the water, and are now slowly drowning. They are in the GD infirmary where their lungs are being drained as quickly as possible, but even then it would take a month to drain out all of the syn water...and both women would die of organ failure before that. Carter (!) realizes that perhaps the syn water lady and Billy Campbell's laser/radiation device could be made to work together to remove the compressed water as if it were data. They put it together and tell Tess that it will feel like she's drowning but it should work...unless it causes all of the water to decompress all at once. They try it out and at first nothing seems to be happening and she struggles like she's drowning. Eventually, they get the water out.

Now, Carter is supposed to be about the least intelligent person in Eureka, and yet with every crisis, HE seems to be the person who comes up with the solution...usually by thinking of combining 2 or more GD techs together. I mean, come on. Also, how many times is that going to happen before the writers come up with something new?

Big Brother Spoilers:

I'll update the Veto winner Sunday, and if any replacement nominees are made it won't be until late Monday. To see spoilers, hold down the left mouse button and drag it down to where it says End Spoilers. That will highlight the "inviso text."

It seems to be much quieter in the BB house, but there still has been some tension and little fights. Jeff is HOH, Russell & Michele are Have Nots, Kevin & Natalie are nominated but depending on the outcome of the Veto (all 6 remaining HGs get to play) Russell could be the true target to be backdoored, although Kevin seems to be the primary target for now.

End Spoilers. Check back Sunday for Veto winner and late Monday for the outcome of the Veto Ceremony.

Veto Winner Spoiler!!!

The veto competition was yesterday, and all 6 HGs got to play. Jeff won. It now looks very likely that he will "backdoor" Russell which has both pros and cons.

End Veto Spoiler!!!

Veto results spoilers!!!

Veto meeting was held. As expected, Jeff used the Veto to remove Kevin and put up Russell. Russell is PISSED. Jordan was screaming at him that he's just mad because Jeff was able to "get" him before Russell "got" Jeff. Kevin and Natalie are laughing their butts off. They call it the Last Minute Lie (LML) that they believe will now cost Jeff the game and perhaps win it for one of them. They laughed that they told Jeff & Jordan that they'd be in Final Four with them, but if either of them wins, they're going to nominate both Jeff & Jordan so that if either wins Veto, they'll remove themself and then the other will go.

End Veto results spoilers!!!

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