ORPHAN BLACK (5/2) RECAP

No Alison this time, alas. 

Turns our Rachel did know that Daniel was watching her and seems to be upset by his death. She appoints Paul as her new monitor and starts causing problems to the rebellious British clone. Firstly, she demands that Leekie stops all tests that could help heal Cosima to his disappointment, then she orders her new boy toy to run an errand.

Felix, whom Sarah introduces to Helena as another "sestra", delivers the wild blonde to Art. She mentions some mysterious "swan-man" and the locker that belonged to that Asian woman, Maggie Chen, who was shot by Beth. Surely, she escapes shortly after, leaving the detective handcuffed to a pillar in his own apartment.

"Brother sestra" is in the middle of a date, which is about to get very serious, when it gets interrupted by Paul and FBI. Paul makes Felix leave his prints on Daniel's gun and gives Sarah one day to give in and bring Helena with her, otherwise her bro will go to prison. 

Sarah gets to Art's place, and together they go to Maggie's locker, where they find a photo of the "swan man Duncan", who apparently wasn't killed in the lab explosion. She meets with Leekie and offers to bring the scientist to DYAD if they let Fee run free. This is when she finally learns that Cosima is sick, whom, by the way, Leekie intends to treat, despite Rachel's demands.

Art and Sarah find Helena with a sniper rifle in the building across Rachel's appartment, watching the bitchy clone having a dominatrix-like sex with Paul. Sarah convinces her sis' not to take Ms. Duncan out by giving a touching speech about family, sisterhood and missing parts.

And Gracie, after spending some time in the cell with her mouth sewn up, confesses she tried to banish Helena, and now faces the choice: either she helps her fellow villagers find the clone, or carries the clone-baby. 

Oh, and the DYAD lost the original genome, supposedly in the fire, but maybe Mr. Duncan has it?

COMEDIES FALL & MIDSEASON 2014-2015

There was a time when I almost exclusively watched comedy series on TV, so it is now painful to watch what the major networks have prepared for this Fall.

First of all, it is surprising to me that multi-cam sitcoms with the laughing track are not dead yet. I thought the finale of HIMYM meant the end of this type of comedy, but I stand corrected. I'll be shocked, if any of the next three shows below will get a second season.

1. The McCarthys (CBS, written by Brian Gallivan) is about an Irish sports-obsessed family, all members of which live in the same place, basically (like they always do in this type of series). In the center of narration is one of the sons who also happens to be gay. Sheldon's mom Laurie Metclaf is playing the mother of the family, that's the only semi good thing I can say about this sitcom after having watched the trailers. 

2. Stand-up comedian with the Mexican roots Cristela Alonzo got her own show on ABC (a channel that seems to focus on minorities this year), ingeniously titled as Cristela, about a woman that wasted six years on studying law without any productive results. The series focuses on how she still lives with her relatives and whatever that implies.

3. Alonzo's colleague and the SNL star John Mulaney also got a semi-autobiographical sitcom on Fox titled with his last name, about what it means to live your life as a comedian. This is what people must have expected from Louie before they watched the trailer or the first episode.

Then we have a bunch of romantic comedies.

4. NBCs A to Z is the classic sentimental comedy with Mad Men's Ben Feldman and HIMYM's Cristin Milioti about two people looking for "the one" and falling for each other in spite of their personal traits.

5. Another NBC show, slightly more bitter, with Ken Marino and Casey Wilson, created by David Caspe (Happy Endings) and Seth Gordon, is called Marry Me. After six years of going out, a couple struggles to pop the question so that it would feel right.



6. Manhattan Love Story (ABC) is somewhat innovative: it's gonna reveal what people think when on a date. The show would have been tolerable if there were any particularly smart lines and the characters wouldn't be such complete idiots, which the workers of television evidently think "normal" people are.  As of now it looks like MLS is based on a number of horrible stereotypes.



7. The modern version of My Fair Lady called Selfie is coming to ABC. It is about an Instagram star who asks a marketing guru to rebrand her in order to get real friends instead of people who just friended her webpage. Features John Cho from Go On.



8. Jealous of the CBS series Bad Teacher, NBC have developed Bad Judge with Fargo's Mrs. Hess -  Kate Walsh, who's playing a reckless individual that discredits yet another noble profession by drinking and screwing around.

The rest of the shows fall under the category that I'd call "WTF".

9. Let's start with CW's creation for the teens Jane the Virgin, which raises questions about the quality of medical help one can get in the US. The person obsessed with her own virginity - courtesy of her neurotic mother, gets accidentally impregnated by her gynecologist. Tam tam tam!

10. Next one is ABC's black-ish with Anthony Anderson and Hannibal's Laurence Fishburne 'bout a black family living in the suburbia and hence losing some of its "blackness".

11. And finally in the nomination "WTF of the year" wins a weird fairytale musical Galavant with Joshua Sasse as the lead (ABC). 

FARGO - THE SIX UNGRASPABLES - RECAP

A flashback reveals how Lester got a shotgun: he did not intend to, but the store owner convinced him to pay $55 for it and the pack of socks he wanted to buy in the first place. His wife wasn't too thrilled about this purchase, but she doubtfully was ever thrilled about anything, really. Then the story goes forward to the night of the murder, and we see Lorne taking the gun and shooting Vern Thurman. A pellet goes right through the chief's body and ends up in Lester's hand, and a House-like computerized video shows how the inflammation is developed in fast motion. 

I love the box titled "Pinhead" in the front.

 This brings us to the time when the main story takes place and we see Mr. Nygaard being mildly tortured for the name of Sam's killer. Threatened to die from swallowing his own tongue (hello, Hannibal!), the insurance salesman gives out Lorne's name, his supposed whereabouts and even mentions that the police has his photo. The Fargo guys get out as the bail is paid shortly after and Lester is finally left alone. They acquire the file from one of the corrupted policemen and get going to Duluth.

Gus tries to find proof that Lorne is not who he says he is by browsing the Internet and sees the photo of the killer in the article about the minister. Searching for "Lorne Malvo" brings no results. He can't sleep and sits in the kitchen with a glass of milk. A neighbor  from the building across the street, the supposed husband of the lady that showed her underwear to Mr. Grimly in the second episode, notices him and invites himself to the policeman's apartment. Gus asks the guy if he should try to put the criminal behind the bars endangering himself and his daughter or let it go. The neighbor responds with a story about a man who gave up everything, including his life, to stop people from suffering and concludes that only a fool thinks he can save the world. "But you've gotta try, don't you?" responds Gus.

In the meanwhile, the man that the naive policeman tries to protect the world from is busy. He buys a police scanner and a walkie talkie (angrily refusing from the pink one) and gets to Don's house. He calls his employer, Stavros, and hears him mumbling about broken promises and first-born sons and eventually saying he's going to pay the blackmailer. The killer records this conversation and we see a number of such records, including one under Lester's name.

Don is too excited about it, so Lorne locks him up in the closet by putting long screws through the door. Stavros takes the cash from the supermarket safe and puts it to the case and doesn't listen to his son who's trying to tell him about the pet stores. Malvo drives the businessman back home and tells him the unsettling story about sex between a woman and a dog and how a dog had to be killed to stop it. So he basically suggests Milos to murder the blackmailer, which is why he doesn't do it himself. 

As Malvo drives to the house of the Supermarket king, he notices Gus and blinds him with the headlights. Stavros says he dos not require Malvo's services anymore and wants him to leave the next day. 

Malvo follows the policeman home and while sitting in the car outside of the building, uses the walkie talkie to catch what Grimly's daughter, whom he heard using the device on the night when he first met the deputy, is talking about. The neighbor that told Gus the story earlier notices him and tells him to leave. Malvo threatens him in his usual manner, but eventually drives away.

Molly presents to Bill, who's worried about the coming snowstorm, all the evidence she's got, including Sam's bragging about breaking somebody's nose on the day of his murder, and he finally starts thinking that maybe Lester is not so innocent after all. Molly didn'n get it quite right yet, she thinks Malvo was hired to kill Hess, but things went bad, so he killed Pearl and injured Lester. She wants to question the salesman and bill tells her he's in custody. By the time they get to his cell, the guy has a fever and is delirious, so they have to get him to the hospital. On the way there Molly tries to ask him about Malvo, but he only mumbles "I've never paid him".

In the hospital the doctor informs her about the pellet and says Lester nearly lost his hand. He also mentions that Vern's widow's just gave birth to a girl, Bernadette, and Molly pays her a visit. Either the tragedy's made her smarter or going through with the labor, but Mrs. Thurman seems a lot smarter now than when we first met her.

Molly goes to Lester's house and checks the back of the washing machine, where the owner used to hide the weapon of murder, but, alas, it's no longer there.

ORPHAN BLACK (2/4) RECAP

Remember the track that hit Sarah and Daniel's car at the end of the last episode? Well, turns out Cal was driving it. Now Sara regains consciousness, though judging by how she holds the gun that Daniel used to kill the countryside cop, she's clearly not thinking straight. As Cal points this out, another great idea visits her: she hides the crashed car with Daniel's supposedly dead body under a bunch of pine branches, after having taken DYAD's employee's phone.

Alison is in the rehab and Donnie threatens to take the kids away, if she leaves the place before finishing the program. The lady from the personnel advises her against having relations with other patients, otherwise she'd be kicked out. 

Helena wakes up with headache and finds herself surrounded by strange hillbilly people, who claim to love her for who she is, unlike Tomas. She later learns this isn't entirely true - the retarded girl, Gracie, attempts to kill Helena with the pillow, when she gets a moment alone with the clone. Luckily, Helena's resourceful, so Gracie gets knocked out instead. Helena leaves the room and finds a weird lab. Her memory comes back to her and she remembers weird alien-like experiments taken on her in this room.

She runs away from the Proletheans, and Art, who happens to be taking pictures in the neighborhood the very moment, helps her escape by slowing down the guys chasing her.

Sarah leaves Kira with her dad, whom she tells she's being chased by DYAD corporation (but no word about clones) and goes to her foster mother's house to look for clues. She finds a bunch of news clippings, one about Carlton, the guy who smuggled little Sarah to the UK (and the one Siobhan is having a passionate sex in a public place about the same time), getting a 15 years sentence, and another -  about a lab explosion that killed 6 scientists including Susan and Ethan Dunkan - the supposed parents of the bitchy clone Rachel.

Turns out, the Dunkans were the people on the photo that Sarah's birth mother gave her. Cosima suggests that project LEDA refers to the myth about kids that were half human and half gods and that it was a military project.

Sarah pays a visit to Rachel's exquisite apartment and watches a video with little Rachel being hugged and loved by her "parents", which seems to prove Cosima, who profiles the proclone as having been raised with no emotional attachment, wrong. Unfortunately for Sarah, Daniel, who, of course, is not dead (but seems to be Rachel's monitor, which she's unaware of ), gets to the apartment and catches Sarah. He ties her up in the shower and starts cutting her in order to find out about LEDA, but Helena, who followed Sarah from Mrs. S' house, takes him out before he could do any serious damage. Sarah is, however, more petrified of her sister, whom she personally shot, than the DYAD torturer. Luckily, Helena doesn't seem to have any intention of killing her. The blonde complains that something was taken from inside of her. And they have a disturbing sort of hug, while whining together.

The Proletheans are in the lab, watching how the egg that they took from Helena and fertilized divides.

FARGO - EATING THE BLAME - RECAP

Finally, we learn how Stavros got the money to start his supermarket business. Turns out, he fled with his family to Minnesota from the debt collectors. They ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere, and in desperation he asked God to help him. He then saw an orange scraper on top of a snowdrift, started digging and found a case with loads of cash. This was the moment when he became the believer.

Now he calls for a plumber to find out about the blood shower, so Don comes in, disguised as one, and tells him there is no sign of anything in the pipes that would have possibly caused this. He also brings up the Ten Plagues and suggests that Stavros' done something to upset God. The supermarket king loses temper and attacks the guy, but Wally interferes.

Don's next task is to buy loads of locusts, which he does, and Malvo releases them in Stavros' supermarket. As Milos comes out to oversee the insect invasion, he receives a call with the demand of $1 mln. 

Gus Grimly comes to Mr. Milos to follow up on the dog murder case and sees Lorne, who notices him in time and calls his boss requesting "a package". Grimly does the right thing and arrests the killer. "You're making a mistake - that's what you're gonna say a couple of hours from now," says Malvo as they drive to the police station. Gus calls Molly and says he's arrested the guy. She reports this to Bill, who goes to Duluth without her. 

Molly receives Lester's phone records and sees that he made a call to the motel on the night of the murder. She speaks to the staff and they recognize Lorne as one of their visitors from the photo that she shows them. The motel owner gives Molly the name he wrote in her book and her assistant mentions he found tokens from over the Lucky Penny, when he was cleaning the room where the killer stayed. Molly passes the name to Gus.

As Bemidji chief of police arrives, Lorne begins lying his way out - he pretends to be the minister and his alibi checks out. As he is being released, Gus yells "you're making a mistake" to his colleagues, and Malvo turns and smiles at him, as if saying "told ya". Grimly stops him on his way out of the station and asks: "How can you do that... just lie like that?" At first the killer just says some minister billshit and turns his back on the deputy. But when Gus yells "Lorne Malvo" at him, he smiles, like he wants to mess with the policeman, and turns with the strange look on his face. "Did you know the human eye can see more shades of green than any other color? Why?" he asks. "When you figure out the answer to my question, then you'll have the answer to yours," he concludes and leaves.

Lester gets abducted by Fargo guys. They bring him to the lake in the trunk of a car and as Mr. Wrench is drilling the ice, Mr. Numbers tries to make Lester admit he killed Hess. However, Lester's already on his way on becoming the predator, so he uses electroshocker on the guy and runs away. He sees a policeman and asks for a ride, and when the policeman refuses, he punches him and gets arrested and is driven away.

Gus comes to Bemidji to speak with Molly. He tells her about Malvo's riddle and she gives an answer to it - we see more shades of green, because back in the day we needed to notice predators hiding in the green bushes.

Wrench and Numbers pick up a fight with each other in a bar, get detained and brought to the same cell where Lester is kept. Awkward!

PENNY DREADFUL - REVIEW

A penny dreadful was a type of British fiction publication in the 19th century that usually featured lurid serial stories appearing in parts over a number of weeks, each part costing one (old) penny. The term, however, soon came to encompass a variety of publications that featured cheap sensational fiction, such as story papers and booklet "libraries". The penny dreadfuls were printed on cheap pulp paper and were aimed primarily at working class adolescents.

So I have now watched the first episode of Penny Dreadful, which has been released to the Internet by Showtime weeks before the official premiere date. The premise is very simple: a bunch of scary literature characters are put to London, to the year 1891 (surely, the audience is already exhausted from Victorian London, but any other place and time would hardly work just as well). If American Horror Story citated various horror movies, Penny Dreadful is referring to English literature, although the creators of the latter seem to interpret the classical characters quite freely, for example, I felt some strong gay vibes between Dr. Frankenstein and his monster.

Many of the newer series are loosely based on well known books, characters or movies, like Hannibal, Once Upon A Time or Fargo, so I guess the idea of creating a weird fanfic about Dracula, Dorian Gray and Dr. Frankenstein was on the surface. 

Anyway, I have mixed feelings about this show, so I'll break my review into two parts.

Firstly, here are the things that I did like:

Visuals and audio. The series is very beautifully shot, the picture is mesmerizing at times, there don't seem to be any cheesy special effects, such as oozy substance coming out of trees, like in Salem. There is extreme amount of fake blood everywhere, of course, but that is to be expected. The soundtrack is also awesomely dark and intense, the music definitely suits whatever's on the screen and helps creating the proper mood.

It is actually quite scary. A great deal of tension is created by making you anticipate something bad happening long before it actually happens. Although only about 10-15% of the episode is devoted to frightening stuff, in the aftermath you do feel a little scared.

The acting. This is one of the series where the cast does save the day. Eva Green, who's playing one of the key roles - a psychic Vanessa Ives -  is definitely the star of Penny Dreadful, and on top of being absolutely gorgeous, she shows how one reveals great passion and suffering underneath the cold surface. Some of the other actors (the cast is predominantly male, of course) have enunciation issues, so I really had to listen carefully to what they were saying, but in general, all are strong, and they do get everything they can from the mediocre material.

Sex scenes, though surely present (otherwise Showtime wouldn't go for it, I gather), are not particularly graphic or overwhelming. The series wouldn't be any worse if they weren't there, but luckily, it doesn't suffer from them being present either, like some of the other TV shows.

Now about the things that I did not enjoy.

After having watched the first episode, I can say that Penny Dreadful has a hectic storyline, although, to be fair, it is a very widespread issue with pilots. It requires great deal of talent to properly introduce complicated characters and a mystery that would make the viewer want to watch the second episode within just one hour. So there's a good chance the narration might improve as the series goes along. However, the fact that they don't mention anything related to the actual plot on the official page of the show, makes me suspect that it is because they have nothing to say about it.

The dialogues that tend to turn into monologues are rather weak and sort of pathetical. Mainly they remind of the painful lines from cheap novels. This may be because the creators are going for resemblance with the penny dreadful genre, which requires long painful dialogues, although in this case I would prefer a bit more elegance in execution of this idea. 

I don't think I am going to watch this show, 'cause I'm not into scary movies in general and there's not much in it for me to compensate for all the time that needs to be spent on  looking away whenever something is about to jump out of darkness. But overall it is definitely a solid piece of work and I'm sure many people with brave hearts would actually find it very enjoyable, especially if they improve the plot.

ORPHAN BLACK SEASON 2 EPISODE 3 RECAP

The third episode was rather uneventful, so the recap will be short.

Delphine shows Cosima a video diary of yet another clone, Jennifer, who was the first one to get sick from the unknown clone disease. She died three days before that, so they perform an autopsy on her body and realize that the polyps have spread from her uterus. They suspect that this is what caused her (and other clones') infertility.

Sarah, Felix and Kira are on the run. They steal some food from a small shop and break into one of the cabins in the woods. When the owner of the place, Cal (GoT and Nashville's Michiel Huisman), gets back during the night, it becomes apparent that Sarah chose the cabin intentionally. Cal was one of the guys she robbed years ago, and he happens to be Kira's father (or so she says). Felix realizes his sis plans to leave the girl with her dad, gets upset and returns to the city in tears. 

Alison is under a lot of pressure. Angie, who pretends to be a new suburbia neighbor, doesn't make it any easier for her to relax - the housewife thinks she's her new monitor. She confronts the cop and says she knows everything, so Angie tells her the truth. Alison doesn't seem to believe her and demands that she leaves her alone. All of this seems to have taken its toll on her, so she swallows far too many pills and alcohol, which leads to her falling off the stage and collapsing during the grand premiere of the musical.

Daniel, the guy who does DYAD's dirty work, finds out where Sarah and Kira stay and tries to abduct the little girl. Eventually, he has to be content with having Sarah instead, and her daughter remains with Cal. As Sarah and Daniel drive along the road, a track hits their car from the side.

Oh, and Helena is now seemingly married to Henrik Johanssen, while Neolutionists find out about that old photo with Mrs. S that Sarah's birthmother provided.

I felt like this episode was a little poorly scripted; I do realize that they had to to take Kira out of action again, 'cause she'd only be in the way, and I do understand that they needed Felix back in suburbia, but the whole Kira's father story, including Fee's hysterical demarche, is not very believable. 

FARGO - A MUDDY ROAD - RECAP

We finally get to see how the half naked man from the opening scene got to the trunk of Malvo's car. Lorne just entered the office where the man worked as an accountant and literally dragged him by the neck tie to the parking lot, cut his clothes off with a knife and put him to the car. He did not really care for the other workers, who saw him, or the cameras, so Molly, who's on the frozen man case now, got his vague photo.

Lester's wound condition is deteriorating. He gets back to work and his first assignment is to visit the widow of Sam Hess and get her to sign some forms. During the meeting, the lady uses her strip-dancer charms to get the insurance money faster. The Fargo guys see Gina on top of Lester through the window and this raises their suspicion.

They visit Lester at work and ask questions about his involvement with Hess' murder. Luckily for the insurance agent, Molly appears at the door, and the guys leave, but promise to return. Molly says she wants to hear about insurance plans and "accidentally" drops her papers, so that Lester would see Malvo's photo. And of course, he starts acting very suspiciously and asks her to leave.

Malvo confronts Don about the blackmail note and finds out that the coach doesn't really know the story behind Stavros' starting funds, so he decides to take over the blackmail. He kills Stavros' dog and replaces his meds with some drugs and also leaves a new note, asking for a million dollars this time. Milos calls Lorne and demands that he catches the blackmailer at once. Malvo convinces him he must stay in his house and the businessman agrees. Later, when Stavros is under the drugs influence, Malvo arranges for him to take a blood shower.

Molly tells Bill how Lester reacted to Malvo's photo, but he doesn't want to listen to her. Right about this time Gus comes to Bemidji and confesses in letting a criminal go. Turns out the car Lorne was driving that night in Duluth belonged to Lester. This leaves Molly wondering, why Mr. Nygaard did not report the car theft, and told her it was in the shop. Also, Gus recognized Malvo on the photo from video surveillance. 

ORPHAN BLACK SEASON 2 EPISODE 2 - RECAP

Cosima accepts Leekie's offer after all and gets the remote lab, but first she has to convince him she had nothing to do with Sarah's appearance at the recent party. Rachel, who takes insults very personally, introduces herself by walking into the lab. She breaks the ice by stating the obvious: "So, you're gay". She reveals that she knows about Cosima's illness and provides some materials that could help find what's causing it, however, she declines showing the original DNA, which, according to her words, "was robust" and could not have possibly caused this sickness. She also supplies the limited data on Sarah's upbringing and orders Cosima to identify, why from all the clones, only Sarah is not childless.

Alison attends Aynsley's funeral and happens to hold her husband's coat the very moment when text messages come to the phone in its pocket. From what the messages say Alison figures out that Donnie was the monitor all along! This discovery ends her sober life. She tells Felix about it as well as about how poor Aynsley died. He advises her to set a trap for Donnie, so she speaks on the phone mentioning Sarah's name in her husband's presence and goes to her late friend's grave. There she meets her new buddy from the musical, also named Sarah, who spots Donnie, speaking on the phone with Leekie and hiding behind gravestones and trees. As Alison confronts him, he says he followed her 'cause he was worried. Right.

Sarah is reunited with Kira. Turns out Mrs. S. made it look like a kidnapping. She drove the girl out of the city to the house of her old friends and arranged for Sarah's comfortable delivery in the trunk of weird man's car. She plans to take Kira to the UK, while Sarah is supposed to stay in Canada and wait. Mrs. S denies she knows anything, when Sarah shows her the photo her birthmother gave her. Later, Kira tells her mom that she saw S. looking through Sarah's birthmother's stuff, so Sarah decides to run. Right about this time Siobhan discovers that her so called friends sold her out to the Proletheans and kills them, but lets Sarah and Kira drive away.

Felix, together with his foster-sister and her daughter, is on his way out of the city, when Alison calls him and tells that Donnie fell into a trap. Fee has too much on his mind, so he leaves her to deal with her problems on her own. Poor Alison.

And a few words about the Proletheans. We meet a cowboy Henrik Johanssen, a representative of the New Order, a leader of Prolethean Amish-like village. He provides shelter for Tomas and has Helena stolen from the hospital. Turns out, she's a mirror-girl, meaning that her heart is on the right side -  a condition sometimes developed in one of the identical twins. He thinks it would be amazing if Helena could conceive, while Tomas believes such child would be a monster. So the cowboy kills him. He seems to believe that science is not unholy.

In my opinion, the episode was slightly weaker than the first one, although my favorite clone Alison, is amazingly funny as always. My heart literally broke when Felix abandoned her at the time like this. I also think the freshly introduced fat Sarah may be Alison's new monitor. I still understand literally nothing about Mrs S. and I didn't like seeing the process of cow insemination along with the talks of whether Helena could conceive. Yikes. 

BLACK BOX

Since the moment House has ended, every channel seemed to have been looking for a new hit medical drama with an extraordinary and superarrogant doctor to fill the void. Moreover, now that bipolar Carrie from Homeland  had such a great impact on the audience and TV critics (for no apparent reason, in my opinion), it would be strange if we would not see any new female characters with this condition. And so meet ABC's Catherine Black (Kelly Reilly) - a secretly bipolar neurologist, who weirdly enjoys her disorder. If Gregory House had problems as a result of his drug abuse, Catherine's issues begin when she is not taking the pills, which she seems to not do quite often. For her "normal" means "mediocre", even though she does not actually say it out loud. She enjoys her maniacal phase, she feels her condition makes her incredible, although judging by how she is portrayed, her extraordinariness is only in her head, just like the music she dances to during her breakdowns.

The title of the show, Black Box, refers to the mysterious human brain, the subject of Catherine's studies. Trivially, it also contains last name of the heroine. Unlike House, she experiences no epiphany, she just does her job relatively thoroughly, but nothing really gives away why would anyone call her "Marco Polo of the brain", which is, apparently, her nickname in the industry. Apart from family, only her psychiatrist, Dr. Helen Hartramph (Vanessa Redgrave) knows about her condition. Evidently, all her co-workers are idiots, as she manages to fool them for so many years, despite occasional dancing in the hospital stairwell.

Her personal life is definitely far from normal. She has an illegitimate daughter, adopted by her brother Josh (David Chisum) and his wife Regan (Laura Fraser). The girl doesn't know the truth, obviously, but adores her irresponsible "auntie". Catherine's relationship with her boyfriend/fiancee Will (David Ajala) is complicated, of course. To summarize her actions during the episode, she just torments him. Ms. Black seems to lean towards self-destruction despite the tragic example from her past: her own mother ended her life by walking into the ocean, with her pockets full of rocks, when her kids were very young.

All this Nashville style (typical for any ABC show, really) melodramatic bulls**t with multiple break ups, several instances of cheating and two suicide attempts, on top of painful dialogues, makes the series look cheap and soapy.

The idea of normality being the best state for any person is challenged by this show, though the arguments are not particularly compelling. And by the way, comparing your character with Hemingway, Van Gogh et cetera, is never a good move - her actions should prove her genius and her right to be arrogant, otherwise it's just laughable.