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We catch you up on this week’s episodes of your favorite programs!
By Wade Gum |
Posted June 1, 2007 11:35 AM |
EDITOR’S NOTE: There’s a lot of good programming out there these days, and here at Wizard Universe, we want to make sure you don’t miss a moment of any of it. In the interest of keeping you up to speed with your favorite series, we’ve recruited our resident pop culture critic, Wade Gum, to run down the past week’s slate of programming and tell us what went down and, in some cases, what blew up in each episode of the hottest shows this week. Check back every Friday for a new installment of our TV roundup.—RM
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 House M.D.—“Human Error”
It’s season finale week for Dr. Gregory House? Why is he having his season finale this week instead of last, when every other show ended? Because he’s a maverick doctor who refuses to play by the rules, that’s why! A few Coast Guard members rescue some civilians from freezing ocean water. One of the men being rescued gives the Coast Guard a hard time about it because he’s so unwilling to let go of his floating luggage. Listen, we all know good quality luggage is expensive, but it’s not that important. Let it go. You can always get yourself some cheap Samsonite to replace it.
It turns out the couple being rescued are from Cuba. The luggage contained the medical records of the man’s wife. He journeyed all the way to America just to find Dr. House and cure his sick wife! Who knew a bearded, surly doctor had such a world-famous reputation? Dr. House might be too busy to help this poor man and his wife, as he’s too busy spying on Dr. Foreman to see if he jumps ship to another hospital.
The wife has a myriad of symptoms, which means it’s up to House to pawn off various tests to his subordinates and then make wild guesses that will be way off the mark until he experiences a moment of clarity in the last 10 minutes. It’s probably super lupus. The rest of House’s staff continue in their futile effort to make House retain the services of Foreman, no matter what it takes.
If you’re keeping track of disease diagnoses, the first attempt is multiple sclerosis while the second guess is cancer. Neither turns out to be right. However, House does figure out that change is good and decides that Foreman leaving is a good thing. He likes change so much that he even fires Chase since he’s been there the longest. Doctors Cuddy and Wilson rush in to confront House about it but he refuses to relent.
House’s awesome plan backfires for a bit when his patient’s heart stops, forcing Foreman and Cameron to perform CPR. It sure would be nice to have Chase around to help out, huh? He stalls for three hours, but eventually he’s forced to put the patient on bypass. No matter what the doctors do, the woman’s heart refuses to start. Can House solve this crazy conundrum?
Everyone else pressures House to pull the plug on the woman since he’s done everything he can do, but House refuses once again. He can’t take a chance on letting the woman die and then discovering the mystery behind her illness during the autopsy. House eventually comes around and tells the husband to pull the plug. House…loses? That’s twice this season! That’s two times too many! Thankfully, the husband discovers that his wife’s heart is still beating even after the machines are turned off. She even regains consciousness! Dr. House’s expect diagnosis is “Holy crap.” Indeed.
All the woman’s symptoms have vanished, but House is weary. Just because she’s fine now doesn’t mean the symptoms won’t return. House theorizes that she has a congenital defect in one of her arteries that led to her total meltdown. Of course, to do that requires repeating the same procedure that made the woman’s heart stop in the first place. She does indeed have a defect but it’s a relatively easy one for a man of House’s stature to fix. As if you needed a happier and sappier ending, Cameron finally breaks down after Chase’s repeated proclamations of love and visits him after hours.
Dr. House finally tells Foreman that he’s an important part of the team and should stay on at the hospital. Foreman says he can’t stay because he doesn’t want to turn into Dr. House. House calls Foreman the selfish one because of his motives when it comes to saving patients. Who cares if House just does it for the thrill of the chase? The patients certainly don’t. The last-minute attempt doesn’t work and Foreman leaves. To complete the trifecta, Cameron also resigns from her job. If you don’t want to change the show’s formula, you might as well change the people in it. Who will House get to berate next season with witty quips?
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 The Shield—“Recoil”
Vic Mackey is in serious danger of getting fired thanks to the efforts of Claudette. Vic called in a few favors with people he knows to try and save his job. Vic has so many enemies in the department these days that even blackmailing top-level officials doesn’t seem to be working. Vic decides to crack down and solve the San Marcos murders, making his contribution to the quarterly crime statistics too significant for the department to can him.
David Aceveda pays Vic and his strike team a visit with a tip about the San Marcos murders. Aceveda’s political buddy has a source within one of the gangs involved, allowing him to feed Vic a new suspect for the murders. Aceveda needs these murders cleared up so he’ll have a chance at being elected mayor in the upcoming elections. Isn’t that always the way with politicians?
Shane is busy ingratiating himself with the daughter of an invalid mobster, trying to make himself too powerful for Vic to take down. He agrees to act as her muscle to make sure rival gangs don’t try to push her out of town. Shane brings her in to meet Claudette but introduces her as a simple waitress in a restaurant being used as mafia cover. Of course, Shane is just using this cover as a reason to take down rebel mobsters in the girl’s mafia. Claudette gives her approval for Shane to pursue the “investigation” but reminds him he needs to focus on San Marcos.
Vic’s no stranger to this game and immediately suspects that Shane knows the girl “informant.” While Vic and the rest of the strike team follow up their San Marcos leads, Ronnie tags along with Shane to spy on his activities. The strike team picks up the suspect, but he denies his involvement with the massacre of 12 Biz Lat gang members. Vic threatens to drop the suspect off in Biz Lat territory and leave him for dead, but Detective Hiatt squashes that plan on the spot. Not every detective can afford to be so reckless and hope to keep their jobs. The suspect ends up getting brought back to the Barn for questioning.
When Hiatt fails to persuade the suspect to squeal, Vic takes charge yet again. In exchange for convincing the Biz Lats and the other gangs that the suspect didn’t actually kill those people, the suspect will slip him the names of the other people involved. Vic goes to have a few heart-to-heart conversations with various gang members and convince them that the suspect was just running his mouth and didn’t really participate in the San Marcos murders. The suspect gives him the names in return and warns Vic that something big is coming up on the streets.
Elsewhere, Shane’s operation against the mob goes off without a hitch and the smugglers are quickly subdued and brought to justice. He picks up the mob boss’s daughter from her home later. She tells him that she was sure that someone was inside her house. Shane goes to investigate and discovers that the house was broken into. He also finds and subdues another one of the rebel mobsters. Shane tells him that his bosses are in jail now and he better start obeying the orders of the daughter. Shane lets him go so that he can spread the word to his flunkies.
The Strike Team goes out on the streets to round up their new suspects for the San Marcos killings. Vic rounds them up and then lets the Biz Lats know that he was only lying about that whole “suspect not being the actual killer” jazz. He lets the Biz Lats have their way with the other men involved in the murders and Vic picks up their dead bodies later that night. Case closed!
Shane can’t let well enough alone and brings the daughter back to the barn that night. Ronnie learns from the arrested rebel mobsters the extent of the daughter’s involvement with her father’s mafia businesses. He warns her not to get involved with Shane, given his penchant for screwing all his illegal relationships up. Antwon Mitchell, anyone? He gives her his number for when things inevitably screw up. She leaves the Barn in a hurry and lets Shane know that their partnership is over. In retaliation, Shane pulls his request for a transfer out of Farmington. After all, Vic will be the one leaving in a week’s time. Why shouldn’t Shane stay around?
Despite Vic’s heroics today, Claudette tells him he’s still out of a job at the end of the week. Even Aceveda comes by to rub Vic’s nose in his failure. Corin stops by the next day to say how sorry she is about the firing and to give Vic some information about jobs he can do after he gets snuffed. When Aceveda’s political ally hears that Vic, the man who solved the San Marcos case, is getting fired, he’s a bit upset and fears what the community will think of it. Later that day, the friend delivers the infamous picture of Aceveda being uh, forced to service a criminal at gunpoint. With this incredible leverage, can Vic be saved? Find out in next week’s season finale!
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 WWE Monday Night Raw
“Raw” comes to you from Toronto this week and begins with a very somber video package celebrating the sacrifices of soldiers on Memorial Day. Immediately after that, we segue into a Memorial Day Divas bikini bash. That’s probably exactly how the fallen soldiers would like to be honored. It’s also probably one of the reasons the terrorists hate us.
Candice Michelle, Maria, Mickie James, Jillian, Michelle McCool, Kristal, Melina and the girls of Extreme Expose all take part. The girls beat on each other with fun noodles and rafts and then spray water guns all over the place. It’s truly one of the greatest events to ever take place in the squared circle. Lou Thesz would be proud.
After a hard-fought battle, Michelle McCool eliminated Melina to claim victory and the admiration of wrestling fans everywhere. Even with a botched ending in which Melina failed to properly get kicked out of the ring, this still has to be an early Match of the Year contender! A ***** bout for sure.
After Jim Ross concludes his weekly Skittles-induced hysteria, Shane McMahon comes to the ring for an earthshaking announcement! It’s another brand draft! You know what that means—everyone good will be stolen from Smackdown yet again to help Raw out. Smackdown just can’t catch a break. Who the heck will be picking for ECW? They don’t have a GM! Sure, Paul Heyman is still under contract, but there’s no way he’s coming back. Kelly Kelly will probably be put in charge of the draft decisions.
Up next is an eight-man tag team battle featuring the Hardys joining forces with Cade and Murdoch against the World’s Greatest Tag Team, Nitro and Kenny Dykstra. The compelling storyline here is the relationship the Hardys have with Cade and Murdoch based on sportsmanship. Will their amicable relationship continue? Murdoch pulls off a flying splash to the outside from the top turnbuckle, prompting J.R. to make a “git r done” reference and delight the Southern viewers.
The teams work well together and the Hardys win the bout after finishing Kenny off with the twist of fate and the swanton bomb. An angry Shelton Benjamin takes the microphone after the match and berates the Hardys into accepting a match at WWE One Night Stand. The Hardys will put their titles on the line against the World’s Greatest Tag Team in a ladder match. Cade and Murdoch, ever the good sports, seem kind of miffed at being passed over for a title shot, but they’re much too nice to do their inevitable heel turn yet.
Backstage, John Cena gives a interview amidst the boos of the Canadian crowd. He takes a lot of time and intensity to basically say “I will beat the Great Khali at One Night Stand.” On the plus side, by putting the interview backstage, Cena didn’t get booed as loudly as he would have in the ring! Good thinking, WWE.
The next match sees Rob Van Dam squaring off against Randy Orton. Since RVD doesn’t seem very long for the WWE, the legend killer winning seems like a given. The match is a standard back-and-forth battle until Randy unleashes a devastating snap DDT on RVD, giving him a “concussion” just like with Shawn Michaels. The ref is forced to stop the match to protect RVD’s wellbeing. Orton’s legend-killing antics continue for another week.
The angle that refuses to die continues in the next match as Ric Flair and Torrie Wilson face off against Carlito and Victoria in a mixed-gender tag team bout. The intergender nature of the match allows Victoria to face off against Ric Flair and for Carlito to beat up on Torrie Wilson. Carlito tries to make love instead of war by kissing Torrie, but she slaps him for his troubles. Hurt by her rejection of his forcible assault, Carlito gives Torrie the backcracker and wins the match.
Chris Masters (he’s still employed?) comes out to the ring to challenge intercontinental champion Santino to take the masterlock challenge. Santino comes out, but he doesn’t take part in any challenge. He just beats the crap out of Masters. Eventually, gets the master lock, er, locked in and beats down Santino. All the Italians in attendance are bummed out.
In the night’s main event, John Cena and Bobby Lashley combine their forces in a handicap match to take on Shane McMahon, the Great Khali and Umaga. Lashley isn’t as accomplished when it comes to overcoming the odds, so he ends up losing to Shane McMahon. If only Cena had been the legal man, he would have found a way to improbably win. Stay tuned for “Law and Order: Sexual Assault Strike Force”!
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