Peter Serafinowicz's sketch show has been on for a few weeks now — as the Admiral explained earlier, our damnable semi-broken Sky+ box (the closest you can get to TiVo in this country) deleted the second episode on a whim (and yet has kept several movies the Admiral keeps trying to get me to watch even though I don't want to — why have you turned against me so, Sky+ box?). We attempted to get the second episode from the equally-damnable-but-not-redeemably-awesome BBC iPlayer, but that failed too, and apparently it's not worth repeating a brilliant sketch show when you can show Car Booty on an endless loop instead (I found out through hard experience that that show is not nearly as interesting as the title suggests).
Anyway...the show is full of very funny sketches (amid a few real clunkers) and tons of brilliant impressions, including Michael Caine, Kevin Spacey (couldn't find any YouTube clips, I'm afraid, though this is a pretty meta impression, as Spacey is a genius impressionist himself) and Alan Alda, the latter so eerily accurate it's not even really funny so much as like actually listening to Alan Alda. If you're not in the UK, it's definitely worth seeking out (though it's hard to find whole episodes online, there are quite a few sketches on YouTube -- the Butterfield and Darth Vader sketches are particularly worth watching).
During the latest episode, there was a song parody that made the Admiral laugh so hard that his forehead turned red and some scary veins stood out on his temple. Come to think of it, he may have been having a stroke. I give you Ringo Starr's "Goldfinger":
And speaking of excellent song parodies, I can't go without mentioning Chris Morris's dead-on Jarvis Cocker impression. If you, like me, were largely ignorant of Pulp, because your pathetically inept musical education in the mid-90s consisted of hastily learning the lyrics to "Motown Philly" so you could know a "cool" band's songs, I invite you to watch this video of the insanely catchy and altogether wonderful "Common People", to know and love Jarvis Cocker like a proper British muso.
So now you're familiar with Jarvis Cocker's strangely charming Elaine Benes-esque dancing, as well as his propensity for overly literal hand gestures (the fallback of many a bad male dancer) and writhing around in large novelty shopping carts. But though it seems impossible to love anyone more than Jarvis Cocker after that, I give you Chris Morris's parody from Brass Eye, a groundbreaking news-parody show. If you don't know who Myra Hindley is, Wikipedia is happy to provide you with some of their usual conspiracy-theory-based liberal claptrap.
Come back, Chris Morris, and we'll even forgive you Nathan Barley. Not the part where a cat got a pair of scissors stuck in its head, though. Thanks for searing that image into my brain for the next 50 years. If you're not satisfied with that Pulp reimagining, though, I leave you with the unholy alliance of William Shatner, Ben Folds, and Joe Jackson. You're welcome.
Showing posts with label general ridiculousness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label general ridiculousness. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
The Glorious Fruity Caramel Nubbliness of Nigella
A few weeks ago the BBC started airing Nigella Express -- as if our favorite naughty kitchen doyenne was a microwave pizza or a 7/11. Apparently she was not suitably chastened by her failed attempt to enter the daytime talk show arena, which was obviously doomed from the start, since only sexless women are allowed on our screens before 6 pm, and we all know that as soon as Nigella spots a phallic object, she is incapable of not shoving it into her mouth and giving her viewers a naughty wink. (I hope Val Kilmer fared better than that pastry.)
Don't get me wrong, though; Nigella's naughtiness is what we love most about her. She is a true hedonist, in the best sense of the word -- she loves to touch and smell and eat, she revels in the physical realm, and she is absolutely unapologetic about enjoying food, delighting in its luscious, carnal pleasures. It's hard not to join in with her enthusiasm; it's sexy and inviting and inclusive. That is what is so awesome (and also, sadly, unique) about her, even when she takes her rapture to ridiculous extremes. She also -- I don't know if you've noticed -- has very big boobs.
So we were very much looking forward to seeing Nigella's new show, even though it had the "Express" bit tacked on, as if the BBC producers got nervous about just having a "regular" cooking show in the face of The F-Word and Hell's Kitchen and that woman who's supposedly the new Indian Nigella (I have seen that show, and you, ma'am, are no Indian Nigella). Apparently "express" is the word of the zeitgeist (I prefer "x-treeeeeeeme" myself, but there's no accounting for taste), so Nigella's weekly introduction goes something like, "I love eating and I love cooking. But with our busy lives, who has time anymore? I have a solution, and that solution is: express." It sets a sour note (pun regretted) for the tone of the series: it's obviously read off a prompter, and Nigella visibly has a hard time saying the word "express," for she is not of this workaday world that you and I inhabit, and "express" is a concept I'd wager she was befuddled by until it was pitched to her by BBC execs. Usually her shows start off with her rambling about some old recipe for mousse deep-fried in lard and topped with cream that her mother used to make, but now she's swanning about London in a black cab, because she is Nigella! Express!
We’re a few episodes in now, and the changes have become apparent. Nigella is...different. She talks about time-management now, not just because she’s lazy (more on that later), but because you’re a working parent and you don’t have time to slow-cook a lamb joint drenched in five cups of butter. She says things like, “Saves time on washing up — anything to make life easier!” And weirdest of all, she’s started gurning at the camera like a voluptuous English Jim Carrey. I don’t have a shot of her crossing her eyes at the camera, but she does it repeatedly in the second and third episodes. What the...? What? What is going on?
Another strange development is her constant self-deprecation. In her old shows, when she talked about not measuring something exactly because she didn’t feel like it, or how she used full-fat cream in every dish (which I was sure would culminate in a recipe called Lard Salad), it was an endearing admission — it made you feel better about being lazy with your recipes, and feel more relaxed about making things, knowing that not every step had to be absolutely perfect. And you knew she enjoyed herself and didn’t apologize for it — she’d eat fat with abandon and gusto, just like she’d gobble, um, cucumbers.
But in the last few episodes, she’s been putting herself down more than usual, and now the deprecation is starting to verge on outright insults. Is she a food addict? Will she soon be rolling herself around the kitchen in a Segway so that she doesn’t have to walk all the way to the sink? Is she just trying to make everyone else feel better? “I may look like a raven-haired goddess, but I’m really just a lazy fat pig like the rest of you. And my horrible father, who brushes his teeth with soot, named me after him.”
A few examples of Nigella’s recent insanity:
Corniness:
"I'm gonna get dealing with my squidlies." (Since when is Nigella cutesy? She needs to dip those squidlies in chocolate and then eat them ravenously, pronto.)
“I’m going to teach you how to make perfect pasta pronto So, avanti! It's the Italian express, and how could you not?”
“Speedy, speedy!”; “Last one, baby! That's it!” (and other assorted Rachael Ray-isms/double entendres)
“These are glorious. Yum yum!”
Gluttony:
"Some people can't face thinking about food early in the morning. Not me!"
"For me the evening meal is really important -- not just because I'm always hungry."
“Fit for angels to eat on their clouds. Though they would have to be quite weight-bearing clouds, obviously.”
“I'm just using half the packet [of cream, it should be noted]. Moderation itself.”
"Now when some people go on holiday, they engage in cultural activities. Not me! I go food shopping."
“Just the smell of bacon frying makes my tummy rumble. Not that it takes a lot, it has to be said.”
“I hardly ever go out, but when I do, I have to be bolstered in the knowledge that I have something quick and easy to eat at home.” (That last one I find especially sad/amusing. It sums up a lifetime of crushing depression in one breezy, dashed-off sentence.)
Laziness/incompetence:
“I can't be bothered to go to the sink.” (She says this several times, as she pours nasty leftover water from her kettle into her recipes. Where is your sink, Nigella? In Tibet?)
(Explaining why she uses whole mushrooms instead of cutting them up) “I think they look fabulous like this, kind of woodsy. But really I'm just lazy.”
"If I could get this kettle working properly...This goes to show that you can be clumsy -- I am clumsy -- and cook."
"I use lime juice from this sort of luridly green plastic container from the supermarket." (Nigella’s toffness cannot ever be fully expunged. “Plastic? How amusing! And vile!”)
“I can't be bothered to peel and chop a proper onion.” (and later...) “I mean, I know chopping and peeling an onion isn't hard, but it can feel tiring at times.”
Still, even the mighty evil PC brigade of the Beeb can’t ruin Nigella’s spirit entirely. In some segments she was back to her old self — sliding objects into her mouth with alarming expertise, and never using one adjective to describe something when she could use five. Some classic Nigella-speak:
"lovely silkiness"
"crispy perfection"
“Tumble the berries over the cream” (She loves using “tumble” as a verb.)
“glorious muskiness”
“sublime spikiness”
“All the meaty juices are getting drawn into my pond of cider.” (That’s what she said.)
“This helps keep the chops juicy. And I want them juicy juicy juicy.”
"It has a wonderful sweetness" (said of a sweet potato)
"vivid pepperiness"
“sharpness of the lemon and the depth of the olive oil”
“It's an insidious game, this game of favorites -- in food and children -- but I think thyme is my favorite.” (?!?!?!)
“Its gorgeous saltiness will meld with the garlicky oil.”
“add a note of leafy grassiness” (Glassiness? The closed captioning didn’t even attempt it.)
“luscious, smooth, flowing caramel”
“beautiful boskiness”
“mounding spoonfuls of my ivory cream” (snerk)
“crumble gold dust on top”
“bouncily yielding”
“wonderfully resiny rosemary”
“I love the rather sombre darker brown of the outline and the bright paleness of the interior. It's a painting on a plate.” (Bright paleness!! I had fun thinking of other Nigella-esque possibilities: “Rigid fluffiness.” “Spiky softness.” “Layered oneness.” “Feathered baldness.” “Black whiteness.” “Abstract concreteness.” “Foamy pile of nothingness.” “Hegemonic chaos.”)
“Leave a good amount of clumpage because if it's all too fine and sandy, it won't have the right nubbliness that a good crumble needs.” (This nearly made my head explode.)
“generous wodge”
“snuffle up small slices”
“The contrast between the scorched, caramelized fruitiness with the saltiness of the gorgonzola is frankly just rapturous.”
“I always like a bit of impaling.” (I bet you do, Nigella. I bet you do.)
“sudden hit of grassy green”
“Into each glass, a luscious pile.”
“jumbleberry crumble” (A recipe. Dear God.)
(And my personal favorite, because I am immature.) “I love it when people can smell the welcome when they come in.”
I was thinking of doing a sort of “create your own Nigella expression” thing, but I think you get the idea. Phrases so purple they would embarrass fanfic angst writers. But at least she’s got her spark back in those moments, and for that I am gloriously rapturous.
Don't get me wrong, though; Nigella's naughtiness is what we love most about her. She is a true hedonist, in the best sense of the word -- she loves to touch and smell and eat, she revels in the physical realm, and she is absolutely unapologetic about enjoying food, delighting in its luscious, carnal pleasures. It's hard not to join in with her enthusiasm; it's sexy and inviting and inclusive. That is what is so awesome (and also, sadly, unique) about her, even when she takes her rapture to ridiculous extremes. She also -- I don't know if you've noticed -- has very big boobs.
So we were very much looking forward to seeing Nigella's new show, even though it had the "Express" bit tacked on, as if the BBC producers got nervous about just having a "regular" cooking show in the face of The F-Word and Hell's Kitchen and that woman who's supposedly the new Indian Nigella (I have seen that show, and you, ma'am, are no Indian Nigella). Apparently "express" is the word of the zeitgeist (I prefer "x-treeeeeeeme" myself, but there's no accounting for taste), so Nigella's weekly introduction goes something like, "I love eating and I love cooking. But with our busy lives, who has time anymore? I have a solution, and that solution is: express." It sets a sour note (pun regretted) for the tone of the series: it's obviously read off a prompter, and Nigella visibly has a hard time saying the word "express," for she is not of this workaday world that you and I inhabit, and "express" is a concept I'd wager she was befuddled by until it was pitched to her by BBC execs. Usually her shows start off with her rambling about some old recipe for mousse deep-fried in lard and topped with cream that her mother used to make, but now she's swanning about London in a black cab, because she is Nigella! Express!
We’re a few episodes in now, and the changes have become apparent. Nigella is...different. She talks about time-management now, not just because she’s lazy (more on that later), but because you’re a working parent and you don’t have time to slow-cook a lamb joint drenched in five cups of butter. She says things like, “Saves time on washing up — anything to make life easier!” And weirdest of all, she’s started gurning at the camera like a voluptuous English Jim Carrey. I don’t have a shot of her crossing her eyes at the camera, but she does it repeatedly in the second and third episodes. What the...? What? What is going on?
Another strange development is her constant self-deprecation. In her old shows, when she talked about not measuring something exactly because she didn’t feel like it, or how she used full-fat cream in every dish (which I was sure would culminate in a recipe called Lard Salad), it was an endearing admission — it made you feel better about being lazy with your recipes, and feel more relaxed about making things, knowing that not every step had to be absolutely perfect. And you knew she enjoyed herself and didn’t apologize for it — she’d eat fat with abandon and gusto, just like she’d gobble, um, cucumbers.
But in the last few episodes, she’s been putting herself down more than usual, and now the deprecation is starting to verge on outright insults. Is she a food addict? Will she soon be rolling herself around the kitchen in a Segway so that she doesn’t have to walk all the way to the sink? Is she just trying to make everyone else feel better? “I may look like a raven-haired goddess, but I’m really just a lazy fat pig like the rest of you. And my horrible father, who brushes his teeth with soot, named me after him.”
A few examples of Nigella’s recent insanity:
Corniness:
"I'm gonna get dealing with my squidlies." (Since when is Nigella cutesy? She needs to dip those squidlies in chocolate and then eat them ravenously, pronto.)
“I’m going to teach you how to make perfect pasta pronto So, avanti! It's the Italian express, and how could you not?”
“Speedy, speedy!”; “Last one, baby! That's it!” (and other assorted Rachael Ray-isms/double entendres)
“These are glorious. Yum yum!”
Gluttony:
"Some people can't face thinking about food early in the morning. Not me!"
"For me the evening meal is really important -- not just because I'm always hungry."
“Fit for angels to eat on their clouds. Though they would have to be quite weight-bearing clouds, obviously.”
“I'm just using half the packet [of cream, it should be noted]. Moderation itself.”
"Now when some people go on holiday, they engage in cultural activities. Not me! I go food shopping."
“Just the smell of bacon frying makes my tummy rumble. Not that it takes a lot, it has to be said.”
“I hardly ever go out, but when I do, I have to be bolstered in the knowledge that I have something quick and easy to eat at home.” (That last one I find especially sad/amusing. It sums up a lifetime of crushing depression in one breezy, dashed-off sentence.)
Laziness/incompetence:
“I can't be bothered to go to the sink.” (She says this several times, as she pours nasty leftover water from her kettle into her recipes. Where is your sink, Nigella? In Tibet?)
(Explaining why she uses whole mushrooms instead of cutting them up) “I think they look fabulous like this, kind of woodsy. But really I'm just lazy.”
"If I could get this kettle working properly...This goes to show that you can be clumsy -- I am clumsy -- and cook."
"I use lime juice from this sort of luridly green plastic container from the supermarket." (Nigella’s toffness cannot ever be fully expunged. “Plastic? How amusing! And vile!”)
“I can't be bothered to peel and chop a proper onion.” (and later...) “I mean, I know chopping and peeling an onion isn't hard, but it can feel tiring at times.”
Still, even the mighty evil PC brigade of the Beeb can’t ruin Nigella’s spirit entirely. In some segments she was back to her old self — sliding objects into her mouth with alarming expertise, and never using one adjective to describe something when she could use five. Some classic Nigella-speak:
"lovely silkiness"
"crispy perfection"
“Tumble the berries over the cream” (She loves using “tumble” as a verb.)
“glorious muskiness”
“sublime spikiness”
“All the meaty juices are getting drawn into my pond of cider.” (That’s what she said.)
“This helps keep the chops juicy. And I want them juicy juicy juicy.”
"It has a wonderful sweetness" (said of a sweet potato)
"vivid pepperiness"
“sharpness of the lemon and the depth of the olive oil”
“It's an insidious game, this game of favorites -- in food and children -- but I think thyme is my favorite.” (?!?!?!)
“Its gorgeous saltiness will meld with the garlicky oil.”
“add a note of leafy grassiness” (Glassiness? The closed captioning didn’t even attempt it.)
“luscious, smooth, flowing caramel”
“beautiful boskiness”
“mounding spoonfuls of my ivory cream” (snerk)
“crumble gold dust on top”
“bouncily yielding”
“wonderfully resiny rosemary”
“I love the rather sombre darker brown of the outline and the bright paleness of the interior. It's a painting on a plate.” (Bright paleness!! I had fun thinking of other Nigella-esque possibilities: “Rigid fluffiness.” “Spiky softness.” “Layered oneness.” “Feathered baldness.” “Black whiteness.” “Abstract concreteness.” “Foamy pile of nothingness.” “Hegemonic chaos.”)
“Leave a good amount of clumpage because if it's all too fine and sandy, it won't have the right nubbliness that a good crumble needs.” (This nearly made my head explode.)
“generous wodge”
“snuffle up small slices”
“The contrast between the scorched, caramelized fruitiness with the saltiness of the gorgonzola is frankly just rapturous.”
“I always like a bit of impaling.” (I bet you do, Nigella. I bet you do.)
“sudden hit of grassy green”
“Into each glass, a luscious pile.”
“jumbleberry crumble” (A recipe. Dear God.)
(And my personal favorite, because I am immature.) “I love it when people can smell the welcome when they come in.”
I was thinking of doing a sort of “create your own Nigella expression” thing, but I think you get the idea. Phrases so purple they would embarrass fanfic angst writers. But at least she’s got her spark back in those moments, and for that I am gloriously rapturous.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Just added to Amazon Wish List...
I hadn't heard of the phenomenon of book trailers until a couple days ago, and only then thanks to Doppelganger at one of my favorite blogs, 50 Books. Only just now did I discover what may be the best book trailer -- nay, the best advertisement -- ever.
I can't decide what I love most about this. The fact that the book is called a "new erotic vision"? Sephera Giron's (does she have accents in her name or not? The ad hedges its bets) vampire-dominatrix outfit? The terrible abuses of English? ("Groveling the streets of London"; "Giving moments of flesh to hungry men"; "pleasure her every need.") The FunCam pictures obviously taken during someone's house party, randomly interspersed with famous paintings? The dramatic classical music? The cheap Helvetica text? The angry, angry tiger? Bird lady with the giant boobs?
The ad is so unbelievably cheap that I dearly hope whatever unpaid intern made it on PowerPoint was fired from London. Nevertheless, I am intrigued.
Dance with your gypsies, Hester! Dance away!
I can't decide what I love most about this. The fact that the book is called a "new erotic vision"? Sephera Giron's (does she have accents in her name or not? The ad hedges its bets) vampire-dominatrix outfit? The terrible abuses of English? ("Groveling the streets of London"; "Giving moments of flesh to hungry men"; "pleasure her every need.") The FunCam pictures obviously taken during someone's house party, randomly interspersed with famous paintings? The dramatic classical music? The cheap Helvetica text? The angry, angry tiger? Bird lady with the giant boobs?
The ad is so unbelievably cheap that I dearly hope whatever unpaid intern made it on PowerPoint was fired from London. Nevertheless, I am intrigued.
Dance with your gypsies, Hester! Dance away!
Thursday, August 23, 2007
CSI: Miami Watch: "Curse of the Coffin"
Though I realize we're a few years late to start recapping this marvel of a show, it's never too late to begin. The UK has just begun showing season five, which is a year behind the US schedule – not that it matters, I suppose, because I've never met anyone who will admit to watching it. (Someone is, for Christ's sake! It's the most popular show in the world – even more popular than Baywatch, and we can only thank mighty Thor that the Miami location does not persuade Horatio to blind us with his mole-inflected, saggy cheese torso.) But the Admiral has provided a helpful primer, so any objections you have can be as easily dismissed as one of Horatio's shifty perps.
Synopsis: Have you heard of Santeria? (No, it's not a bowel disease or a fruity tropical drink. It's voodoo! Actually it's an Afro-Caribbean religion, but leave it to this show to reduce a complex religion into simplistic ridiculousness for its own purposes.) Can you pronounce it like Delko, with that slightly rolled "r" and singsong inflection that shows the viewer how authentically Cuban(/Russian) our inept frogman is? I bet you can't. Were you aware that, according to CSI: Miami, it involves putting spells on chintzy pieces of woodwork, selling drugs that cause temporary paralysis, and stowing the bloody, dismembered heads of goats in your closet? And yet it's apparently not affiliated with Scientology? Somewhere in L.A., John Travolta is taking notes.
Of course, this is all in a day's work for CSI: Miami – if it's not cannibalism and pirates (see season three's "Pirated"), it's voodoo curses and random explosions. Our intrepid team finds out that our corpse of the week was an aficionado of the religion, which Delko is immediately spooked by (as he professes that he is Catholic and therefore cannot come into contact with befouled objects – something he should have thought about before Sex Quest '05, perhaps). How do they find this out? They discover a goat's head, infested with maggots and dripping blood, in a coat closet. It's a minor shock that the inept crimefighters even bothered to look in a closet in the first place, but Horatio was probably searching for a small child to patronize (see episodes passim).
Since CSI: Miami writers like to cut out the burdensome step of the writing process called "coming up with ideas," something like this probably did happen in real life. What probably didn't happen in real life? This:
OMG the corpse isn't dead at all! When Ryan attempts to explain this to Alexx, she shows him the corpse and tells him that there's no way it could sit up, as it has a stomach wound. Ryan tells her that the corpse she's showing him is a different dead guy. Excuse me? Alexxx didn't notice this?? A corpse WALKS OUT OF HER MORGUE and Mr. Wolfe, of all people, has to tell her that it's missing. Alexxxx's response? "My staff isn't trained to watch the living." First of all, what staff? Alexxxxx is the only one who's ever in the morgue. Apparently she's begun talking not just to corpses but to imaginary employees as well. Secondly, what? Is your "staff" even trained to watch the dead? Shouldn't they have noticed that a body was missing? Imaginary morgue attendants just aren't what they used to be.
And then we come to the glorious, and gloriously ridiculous, denouement of the episode. It turns out Horatio discovers and has to defuse a car bomb – this is only glancingly related to the plot of the episode and comes out of nowhere, by the way, but no matter. The bomb has four minutes until it explodes. "Can you defuse it?" asks useless-as-usual Tripp. "Not in four minutes," purrs Horatio, the former bomb expert (you didn't know that? Oh, my friend, you have so much to learn).
The next shot we see? Horatio DRIVING OVER A BRIDGE WITH A BOMB IN THE CAR.
How did he even get out of the parking lot in four minutes? How did he know he wouldn't get stuck in traffic? What is his mode of transportation after the car explodes? Why is he driving over a freaking bridge? Is this even legal?? (I know what H. would say: "Justice knows no laws, my friend. It knows. No. Laws.") These are questions only the foolish would consider. For now we have this, the crowning glory of the season, the very reason this show exists (namely, to blow stuff up, and to promote the color orange):
Notice how H. removes his sunglasses as he languidly exits the car that surely should have exploded twenty minutes ago, then surveys the landscape majestically, as only a crusading albino lawman can, and then, for the final iconic shot, puts the sunglasses back on. Shades of Caruso, man. You can't beat that.
Curse of the Coffin Stats:
Horatio's Send-Off Into Credits (how awesome is Channel 5 for appropriating the YouTube clips?): a bit lackluster this time:
Alexx: [referring to a tiny cursed coffin] "Maybe it's a message. Someone trying to scare us off the case."
Horatio: "Maybe. But we don't scare that easy, do we, Alexx?"
Roger Daltrey: "YEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!"
Ripped-off Plot of the Week: The Serpent and the Rainbow
Horatio's Most Patronizing Line:
Random Perp: "Can I have my clothes back?"
Horatio: "I'd say that would be...unlikely."
Number of Caruso Two-Steps: 4
Snottiest Behavior From Ryan: mocking Delko for being scared of the Santeria objects (hilariously, he later becomes convinced that the curses are real)
Most Ineptitude From Delko: slamming an axe down on a glass table so hard that the table later shatters (we later see poor hapless Boa Vista, in the lab room when the table breaks, emerging from an inexplicable cloud of smoke, her hair mussed and covered in glass, as if the table had actually exploded)
Number of Perps Dispatched by Horatio: only one: a bomb-filled car
Number of Pointless Split-Screen Shots: countless
Synopsis: Have you heard of Santeria? (No, it's not a bowel disease or a fruity tropical drink. It's voodoo! Actually it's an Afro-Caribbean religion, but leave it to this show to reduce a complex religion into simplistic ridiculousness for its own purposes.) Can you pronounce it like Delko, with that slightly rolled "r" and singsong inflection that shows the viewer how authentically Cuban(/Russian) our inept frogman is? I bet you can't. Were you aware that, according to CSI: Miami, it involves putting spells on chintzy pieces of woodwork, selling drugs that cause temporary paralysis, and stowing the bloody, dismembered heads of goats in your closet? And yet it's apparently not affiliated with Scientology? Somewhere in L.A., John Travolta is taking notes.
Of course, this is all in a day's work for CSI: Miami – if it's not cannibalism and pirates (see season three's "Pirated"), it's voodoo curses and random explosions. Our intrepid team finds out that our corpse of the week was an aficionado of the religion, which Delko is immediately spooked by (as he professes that he is Catholic and therefore cannot come into contact with befouled objects – something he should have thought about before Sex Quest '05, perhaps). How do they find this out? They discover a goat's head, infested with maggots and dripping blood, in a coat closet. It's a minor shock that the inept crimefighters even bothered to look in a closet in the first place, but Horatio was probably searching for a small child to patronize (see episodes passim).
Since CSI: Miami writers like to cut out the burdensome step of the writing process called "coming up with ideas," something like this probably did happen in real life. What probably didn't happen in real life? This:
OMG the corpse isn't dead at all! When Ryan attempts to explain this to Alexx, she shows him the corpse and tells him that there's no way it could sit up, as it has a stomach wound. Ryan tells her that the corpse she's showing him is a different dead guy. Excuse me? Alexxx didn't notice this?? A corpse WALKS OUT OF HER MORGUE and Mr. Wolfe, of all people, has to tell her that it's missing. Alexxxx's response? "My staff isn't trained to watch the living." First of all, what staff? Alexxxxx is the only one who's ever in the morgue. Apparently she's begun talking not just to corpses but to imaginary employees as well. Secondly, what? Is your "staff" even trained to watch the dead? Shouldn't they have noticed that a body was missing? Imaginary morgue attendants just aren't what they used to be.
And then we come to the glorious, and gloriously ridiculous, denouement of the episode. It turns out Horatio discovers and has to defuse a car bomb – this is only glancingly related to the plot of the episode and comes out of nowhere, by the way, but no matter. The bomb has four minutes until it explodes. "Can you defuse it?" asks useless-as-usual Tripp. "Not in four minutes," purrs Horatio, the former bomb expert (you didn't know that? Oh, my friend, you have so much to learn).
The next shot we see? Horatio DRIVING OVER A BRIDGE WITH A BOMB IN THE CAR.
How did he even get out of the parking lot in four minutes? How did he know he wouldn't get stuck in traffic? What is his mode of transportation after the car explodes? Why is he driving over a freaking bridge? Is this even legal?? (I know what H. would say: "Justice knows no laws, my friend. It knows. No. Laws.") These are questions only the foolish would consider. For now we have this, the crowning glory of the season, the very reason this show exists (namely, to blow stuff up, and to promote the color orange):
Notice how H. removes his sunglasses as he languidly exits the car that surely should have exploded twenty minutes ago, then surveys the landscape majestically, as only a crusading albino lawman can, and then, for the final iconic shot, puts the sunglasses back on. Shades of Caruso, man. You can't beat that.
Curse of the Coffin Stats:
Horatio's Send-Off Into Credits (how awesome is Channel 5 for appropriating the YouTube clips?): a bit lackluster this time:
Alexx: [referring to a tiny cursed coffin] "Maybe it's a message. Someone trying to scare us off the case."
Horatio: "Maybe. But we don't scare that easy, do we, Alexx?"
Roger Daltrey: "YEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!"
Ripped-off Plot of the Week: The Serpent and the Rainbow
Horatio's Most Patronizing Line:
Random Perp: "Can I have my clothes back?"
Horatio: "I'd say that would be...unlikely."
Number of Caruso Two-Steps: 4
Snottiest Behavior From Ryan: mocking Delko for being scared of the Santeria objects (hilariously, he later becomes convinced that the curses are real)
Most Ineptitude From Delko: slamming an axe down on a glass table so hard that the table later shatters (we later see poor hapless Boa Vista, in the lab room when the table breaks, emerging from an inexplicable cloud of smoke, her hair mussed and covered in glass, as if the table had actually exploded)Number of Perps Dispatched by Horatio: only one: a bomb-filled car
Number of Pointless Split-Screen Shots: countless
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