With a limited number of band members (only 6 on stage tonight), TMV moved away slightly from their jam-band tendencies to play a fantastic set, albeit a relatively short one.

All in all, it was a wonderful evening with the kids from El Paso.

With the addition of Johnny Marr, the band seems to have matured quite a bit. At times, Guitarist/Singer Ryan Jarman sounds like he’s impersonating Kurt Cobain with his screeching vocals (see “Cheat on Me” or “Nothing”). Other times, you feel like you’re listening to a British version of a song from Green Day’s American Idiot. After you’re done listening to the entire thing, you realize that this doesn’t sound like New Fellas or even Men’s Needs, Women’s Needs, Whatever
at all – it sounds grown up. Listen to “Cheat on Me” and a sample of “Nothing” after the jump.

“Nothing”

“Cheat on Me”

Season 4 of Dexter started off with a lot of yawning, a Trinity Serial killer, some more yawning, and a lot of romantic intrigue. Oh, and Dexter knocked off a dude also. Let’s take a look at what went down:

Hello Daddy!
Dexter’s baby boy, not surprisingly named Harrison (Harry was Dexter’s daddy), likes to cry a lot. This keeps Rita and Dexter up at night and, as a result of not getting all the sleep a serial killer Blood Spatter Analyst requires, Dexter messes up in court, thus letting a murderer walk. Do you think the show made it abundantly clear that fatherhood is messing with Dexter?

A Certain Romance
Where did all of this romance come from? It almost feels like an R rated version of The Office. LaGuerda and Sgt. Garcia hook up (gross!). Little Sis and Anton are living together, but wait – Old Man from Oregon, aka Lundy, shows up for a freelance gig (of boning or crime fighting?). Out of all that romance, the part that intrigued me the most was seeing Rita flirt with their neighbor. I have a feeling Rita’s not going to live past Season 4. How awesome would it be if Dexter killed her?!

Trinity
John Lithgow is this season’s serial killer. Special Agent Lundy is in town to help hunt him down. What Lundy knows is that Lithgow’s character, Arthur Mitchell, likes to kill in 3’s. We witness one of these three as the episode opens. Mitchell kills a woman while forcing her to bathe with him (yes, a bloodbath). Dexter and Masuka (he’s so awesome, that Masuka) discover that 30 years ago, the same crime occurred in the same house (possibly the same bathtub?). Looks like they might have a head start of the next two murders. Hopefully, they aren’t bathtub murders, because, really, I’m tired of seeing naked old men on Dexter.

I Kill, Therefore I Am
The sleep deprived Dexter still needed to get his kill on, so he did it, but was interrupted several times. First, he fell asleep in his car outside of a bar where he was awaiting his prey – got a cop in his face and was accused of being under the influence. Then, once captured, he was interrupted by Rita’s phone call to ask him to pick up baby medicine for Harrison’s ear infection. In a rush, he finished off the kill, but didn’t get to savor it. As he was driving home, he fell asleep at the wheel and flipped the car. Body parts in trunk. Yikes!

All in all, it was an entertaining premiere. A lot went down, and it setup a season that looks to be promising. I just hope that we don’t have to see Michael C. Hall yawn as often as we did in the premiere (he’s not very good at it). We get it, you’re tired, get past it. Or do something about it (like kill Rita!).

De-Loused in the Comatorium

Check Out: “Copernicus,” ” With Twilight as my Guide & “Since We’ve Been Wrong”

Once again, way too much happened last night for me to be able to write a decent recap, so I’ll just talk about some burning questions…

Hurley: We’re dead and in Heaven

OK, so he may be a little crazy, but he’s got a good point. From Kate looking “airbrushed” to things just being too good to be true – maybe they are in some sort of otherworld? Very 6th Sense.

Kate working for Sawyer?

I don’t know if I believe her. I have a feeling she lied to Jack about Sawyer. I was totally expecting her to say Ben when Jack forced her to admit what it was that she was doing. Could it be that Ben is manipulating her emotions for Jack and Sawyer and as such forcing her to lie. I find it interesting that we haven’t seen Ben in the Jack/Kate/Hurley flash forwards, but we have seen him with Sayid. Surely, he’s going to be manipulating all of the Losties in the future.

Jack’s Sickness

The only thing interesting I found about Jack’s sickness was what Rose said: This Island is supposed to heal. I haven’t yet figured out what the connection between healing and hurting is on the Island, but I want to say that it’s got something to do with what I saw in a Family Guy episode: Peter is on a golf course on the day of his anniversary and he gets knocked unconscious. Death shows up and won’t let him wake up until he comes to some sort of profound realization (that it’s his anniversary and he should do something for his wife). Maybe Jack needs to have this light switch moment before he can really be healed (emotionally and physically) by the Island? Oh, and what happened to Jack’s appendix surgery scar in the future? That leads me back to my first question: is Hurley right?

In other news: do you trust Faraday? What about Charlotte? Yes, Danielle and Karl are really dead…and what’s up with Myles? We know that Faraday and Lewis are here for scientific purposes, but Miles’ “this isn’t waht I signed up for.” was also intriguing. I love it when Juliette becomes bossy and manipulative. “I know you’re awake” – that was great. If more than one person is seeing Christian Shepherd, then there’s something more to him than we know. Maybe he is Jacob? Or maybe he’s a thrid part of the Ben vs. Widmore battle?

Can’t wait for the final few episodes!

I feel like I’ve said this so often with Lost: it came roaring back last night. Literally. We got to see smokey the monster (apparently manipulated by Ben…or is it Jacob?). There was time-traveling, flash-forwards into October of 2005, hints from Hurley (Australia is the key to this game, huh?), Sawyer’s sudden turnaround into a compassionate hero who risked his life to save Claire, and so much more that I will never get to because the episode was overwhelming. But the one standout performace was that of Michael Emerson: Benjamin Linus. I cannot say enough about how wonderful he is to watch on this show. Last night was a prime example. The Shape of THings to Come cahnged the rules.

So where do we begin? Time Travel! Again!

It seems as if Ben has the ability to travel time, at least that’s what we’re led to believe. He transports himself into October of 2005. Location: Sahara Desert. He lies to Sayid about how he got there, but we’ll get to that. My question is, what was Ben’s starting point? We saw him arrive in the desert, but we didn’t see where/when he departed. Relative to Island time, was it before, during or after the Island present? My guess is that we’ll find out it was before. Does anyone remember if Ben had a cut on his arm at some point in the past?

It’s too late for me to try and recap the whole episode, so let’s just talk about the best parts:
He Changed the Rules

Not only did Charles Widmore change the rules of whatever game it is that he was playing with Ben, Lost changed the rules of hollywood storytelling. They let a hostage be murdered in cold blood. And they let the hostage’s father witness it and take the responsibility for it! I think we were all shocked by that because that’s something you almost never see on TV or even in movies, but my twisted mind loved every bit of it.

…ok, I’ve spent all day trying to write this and this is as far as I’ve gotten. Sorry folks, you’ll just need to discuss amongst yourselves.

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