The Name of the Game: The Blacklist "The Director No. 24"

The Blacklist is back and the name of the game is to keep Liz Keen alive. This was the most intense episode so far and it was done was well.

Liz awaits for Ressler as she's being moved to the Post Office until the U.S, Marshall get there to take her to her hearing. She tells Ressler that she won't make it to that hearing alive.

The Director and Hitchin go over the plan on how to make Liz not make it to her hearing. It would be under the Director himself taking her to a unknown location and make her run and then shoot her. Making it look like she was getting away.

Ressler gets a call from Red and has hard headed he is sometimes. Red tells him that his protection won't keep Liz alive for long and that he has a plan. Ressler declines Red's offer.

As Ressler and Liz get to the Post, Liz gets put into the same box cell that Red was put in in the series premiere. Then the Director make's his appearance with his men and want to take Liz to her hearing. Ressler doesn't approve and talks to Hitchin about it. Also asking the whereabouts of Wright.

Hitchin tells Ressler she doesn't know but tells him a name that she told her and it triggered that Hitchin is also working for the Cabul. Ressler then calls Red back and tells him that he's needs help. Red tells him that Harold and Tom have the one major piece of the puzzle to help Liz free from this mess. But Ressler needs to get to Tom and Harold.

But just before leaving, Ressler tells Aram to change the codes on the doors and don't let the Director or anyone until he or the Marshalls get there. Ressler drives to the cabin where Tom is at trying to warn him that the Cabul are coming.

When Ressler gets there, Tom wasn't too pleased but when he was informed that they need to get out it was too late. It turned into a real Bunny and Clyde situation but smart as they are, they got out alive and also arrested Solomon too.

As for Red and Samar, they try to get their hands on the package that him and Liz were trying to take. Red certainly had a plan using drugs to lure the evidence truck to the scene and take the package and leave. Smart and who knew that Red had so much drugs and even the best meat in the world in his storage. Amazing!

With all of this going on, I believe that the most intense and outstanding performance came when Aram trying to keep Liz alive and within the Post. As both of them talked, Liz starts to have trouble breathing. Losing air in the her cell, Aram has to make a choice to either give the codes or let Liz die and in this situation he had to do what he had to do, he gave them the codes.

As the Director and team taking Liz, Aram did the most bravest thing ever in the three seasons of the show, pulled a gun and aimed it towards the Director. Hell, I wanted to blow his head off too. Liz had to clam Aram down and told him that it was okay. He was pushed aside but just in time the U.S. Marshalls came and told the Director and Hitchin to back off because they don't have orders to take Liz anywhere.

Liz is saved, Solomon is in jail (for now) and Red had a really nice chat with Aram that even my own mother thought wasn't going to end well.

Aram meets Red at a grave that was dug up. Red tells a story and just for a second you would think that he was going to shoot Aram, he doesn't it. Red tells Aram that if it wasn't for him keeping Liz alive that this grave would have been filled and for that he will be deeply in debut under Reddington.

Hell, I was both scared and emotional after that scene. But this episode doesn't end here as Jan. 14th will be the second part of the episode. The Director will be getting what's coming and from what the promo gave, it looks like it's Blacklist meets Ocean's 11 type of situation. I literally can't wait for the concussion of the episode.

Overall, I give this episode a 9/10.

You can catch The Blacklist Thursday nights at 9/8c on NBC.

Chicago Fire/Chicago Med/Chicago PD Crossover: "The Beating Heart"/"Maligant"/"Now I'm God"

In this two night crossover event, one firefighter fights for his life as another one hunts for the man who did it. A doctor's decision of treatment is being questioned but soon a pattern occurs when three cancer patients comes in with a bazaar news and we get dive into one cop's personal life as the case gets very personal.

As we left off, Freddie stabs Herrmann and leaves him to bleed out. Dawson and Otis finds him and Dawson goes with Herrmann to Med for support and also getting him stable. Cruz takes it very personal and tries to do everything he can to find Freddie.

And it doesn't help with big brother Severide chopping at the bite on him either and you can tell that he's making Cruz feeling like the worst person in the world. As soon as Herrmann gets into Med, Rhodes the first doctor to treat him and decides to give him blood transfuses and chest tube to help him breath and give him enough blood that can stop the bleeding on it's own.

As Herrmann is stable, the 51 gang gets back to work and gets a call of a fire that's started with a gas leak. But when Casey and Dawson checked the basement to shut the gas off and spots a lady covering her face with a plastic bag.

As they bring the victims to Med, the gang goes back to check on Herrmann. Meanwhile Choi takes a look at the lady that was trying to commit suicide. He's puzzled and gets help from Halstead and Charlies for help.

Meanwhile, being treated for smoke inhalation, Cruz leaves and tries to find Freddie on his own. He stops in a bad part of the neighborhood where he forces his way up but gets stopped by a member with a gun. Just in time, Severide gets there and Cruz leaves with the rest of the Squad. In a Severide way, telling him that he doesn't want to have another person in the hospital, I take that as an apologize.

As everyone waiting news from Rhodes, Rhodes told everyone that it's going to take time and that surgery is in store if something goes wrong. Herrmann asked for Cruz to come in alone and in one of the best scenes of the episode, Cruz gives his fullest apologize of what had happen with Freddie and that he wanted to kill him.

Herrmann tells him that he doesn't blame him for anything that he did, but appreciates for what hes done to help Freddie. And Herrmann won't forgive Freddie and soon crashes and Rhodes takes him to the OR and opens up to Med.

Rhodes tries to get things going to save Herrmann. He calls for Zanetti for help and as she comes in, she gives him crap about the decision he made of course of treatment for Herrmann and that he could have save a lot of blood.

The case of the suicide patient gets looked at and Reese has an idea for a test to give her, and it as the test results came, it showed that this patient doesn't have cancer.

Later on, Will's brother Jay asked him about his opinion about Herrmann's treatment. Will says that he didn't see what was going on but he probably would have done it differently. Severide make sure Rhodes knows that and the two gives the dirty look that they're about to rumble.

Soon Rhodes gets called to a trauma along with Halstead and they treat a lady who suffered a seizure and got hit by a car. She died right there and soon gets called from Charlies and Goodwin about the case and asked to autopsy the body to help prove his theory.

Manning gets a elderly patient who seems to be not there when communicating with her. She's a cancer patient, with a high fever and going into kidney failure. After making some progress, Manning gets called from Halstead and talks to Charlies about the case and advise to do a test and it proves that Manning's patient didn't have cancer.

Charlies and Goodwin talks to Manning and get the CPD to come. CPD opens up with Voight and the crew going through what they know about the three patients. As they were going to look through records, Manning comes in and gives them a  patient's purse so they could look through and save some time.

Soon, the name Dean Reybold is called and Voight makes a sudden stop and so does Erin and Al. Reybold was the doctor who treated Voight's late wife. Now it's gotten personal for Voight and Erin and Jay went to interview Reybold, until Erin's emotion gets the best of her.

The assistant state's attorney Shelby comes in taking the case, but it doesn't get any easy for to get this guy in jail, like Voight and everyone wanted. After two failed tries, Voight comes to Shelby for help and she tells him that she needs the names of Reybold's patients back in the trail. Voight will do that with only one request that he gets on the stand and he did.

Voight takes the stand, gets questioned by Shelby with no results, but when Reybold's attorney questioned Voight, the final question got the door open for the other patients that the doctor treated thanks to Voight admitting that he say Reybold poison his wife with chemo.

With Voight's word, Reybold was found guilty of all charges and sent to jail. As Reybold was taken away, Erin holds Voight's hand as both felt with an emotional toll has been lifted. And at the end of the episode was a video recording of Voight, Justin and Voight's wife back when they looked so so happy.

This was one of it's best crossovers, the emotions were set high and it ended high too. I can't get enough from performances from Jason Beghe, Randy Flagler, Monica Raymund, Oliver Pratt and Colin Donnell.

With each crossover, it just gets better and better. I just can't wait to see the four show crossover with SVU.

Overall, I give this crossover event 9/10.

You can catch Chicago Med Tuesdays at 9/8c and Chicago Fire Tuesdays at 10/9c and Chicago PD Wednesday nights at 10/9c on NBC.

12 Monkeys Season 2 Trailer (HD)

The new season of 12 Monkeys is almost here. Here's a trailer for the new season.



The new season of 12 Monkeys will return this April on SyFy.

Two Comedies Worth Watching

Tonight is the series premiere of two new comedies on NBC, Superstore and Telenovela.

Two workplace comedies staring two hilarious actresses, Eva Longoria and America Ferrera. Both series are a workplace comedy.

Superstore, which premieres first, follows a group of workers in a parody Costco store called Cloud 9. Ferrera plays Amy, a 10 year veteran at Cloud 9 and is the floor supervisor. She deals with some very dysfunctional and diverse employees.

The series has a really sold cast, from Ben Feldman, Lauren Ash, Nicole Bloom and Mark McKinney as the store's manager. It's kind of like The Office meets Costco. NBC has already aired three episodes as for preview.

Telenovela is a comedy that's about the daily life of a telenovela star, Ana Sofia Calderon (played by Longoria), who doesn't speak Spanish even though she is the center of attention from her co-stars and the crew that's around her.

The series has such a great ensemble cast with Jencarlos Canela as Ana's ex-husband Xavier, Diana-Maria Riva as Mimi, Ava's best friend and the show's clothing designer, Amaury Nolasco as Rodrigo, the co-star who plays the show's villain and Alex Meneses as Isabela, former leading lady and Ana's rival.

The series is like if a telenovela and 30 Rock had a baby it would be just like this. Just like Superstore, Telenovela also previewed three episodes online and on broadcasting.

You can catch the series premiere of Superstore (8/7c) and Telenovela (8:30/7:30c) on NBC.

The Quiet Writer will be Renamed

As of  Monday, January 4th, The Quiet Writer will be renamed The Quiet Corner. 

I had another blog named The Quiet Corner (which was created back in March of 2014). With posting on two different blogs (with the same content) and other things going on right now, I felt that the decision had to be made and thought mashing them together would be the best. 

The idea for both titles came to reflect on me. If anyone knows me, I'm a quiet and shy in person. I use to or still  at times sit in the corner of rooms (a lot during high school and in college).  

I appreciate everyone who views the site and hope you still continue to with the slight change. Nothing else has change, there will still be TV recaps, reviews and The Newspaper will return soon after some retooling and much more stuff I hope would be good. 

Thank you,

Adam Baker

Chicago Fire "Sharp Elbows"/"When Tortoises Fly"/"Short and Fat"

In this short three episode recap, Bowden's facing charges, Severide and Patterson gets heated up but soon something will come to one of there senses.

The main storyline throughout these episodes was Bowden being accused of assaulting his neighbor. The detective on the case has been getting into Bowden's grilled and back off when Voight came in during an interview. Voight leaves an offer to help on the table, but Bowden takes it in his own way.

That leaves Donna going up to the accused and confronting her about what's going on. Things get heated and the next day, the accused is missing and leaving Bowden the lead suspect. Bowden's life has turned upside down and while talking to Dawson, Casey, Severide and others about the situation, Dawson gives him her input that it has to be Riddle.

That would be the case, but it turns out that it's not him. It's the billionaire restate Roger Maddox, who has a thing for getting his way to make money. Bowden gets to see Maddox face to face, which lead Bowden to sent to jail

But things come around when clues come around as Severide gets a clue from his study buddy friend, who works for Maddox, on the whereabouts of the accused. Ruzek and Atwater to the place and hotel and find the accused. She's being questioned and talks. That lead to Maddox arrested and dropping charges for Bowden as he is a free man.

Patterson, who's been a pain in the ass since the beginning, tries being in charge by suspending Severide because of not following his directions. But Severide gets some dirt from his father on him but doesn't use it. Instead turns it in to Patterson to let him know that there's a file on him still.

After Bowden gets arrested, Patterson took control of House 51, something that no one agrees, but deals with it for a short while. Patterson makes some tough choices from telling Cruz that Freddie can't hang around and Connie can't make her Christmas ornaments, but the gang of 51 step up and helped her along with Freddie too as he gets a job at Molly's thanks to Herrmann and Otis.

Other things, Johnny and Chili become the high school couple of 51, which isn't a bad thing, its cute. But Casey thinks that Johnny should dial it down a bit, and he does suffer the punishment from Patterson by doing trash duty with Chili because of their relationship and lateness.

Britt and Otis go to the CFD party together and Otis enjoyed it and so did Britt but during a call Britt saves a victim and so comes back to thank her by asking her out. Otis is jealous and seems to might be losing out in this small love triangle.

And as for Freddie, trying to get out of the gang community, he gets a job at Molly's but doesn't like the jokes that Herrmann gives him like calling him fat and short as Freddie was looking for some glasses. But Freddie gets mad and as Herrmann won't apologize for it, Freddie stabs him in the side and leaves him in the back room to bleed out.

That's where we're left off until January 5th with the two night crossover event. Chicago Fire will start out the event at an early time at 9/8c and Med at 10/9c on Tuesday and PD will end the event at it's regular time 10/9c Wednesday.

Top 10 of 2015

We're only a day away til saying goodbye to 2015 and saying hello to 2016. A lot has happen this year and this year in entertainment there was just no doubt a mind-blowing year. I thought I give my top 10 list of this year's television, movies and what to look into for next year.

Television:
Top 10 Comedies:

1. Parks and Recreation, NBC: It was the final season of what I call the greatest comedy series to hit the airwaves. Once again the writing on the series was another home run, with amazing performances from this great ensemble cast. The series really gave us so much to laugh about and more important so much to tear up about as well.

2. Veep, HBO:
3. Transparent, Amazon
4. Girls, HBO
5. Inside Amy Schumer, Comedy Central
6. Brooklyn Nine-Nine, FOX
7. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Netflix
8. The Big Bang Theory, CBS
9.  Orange is the New Black, Netflix
10. Bo Jack Horseman, Netflix


Top 10 Dramas:


1. The Americans, FX: I can't find another show that had such a great season than this one. Keri Russell and Mathew Rhys gave a stunning performance in the third season. The show has gotten better since it premiered. Season Four comes in March.

2. Homeland, Showtime
3. The Blacklist, NBC
4. Chicago Fire/PD, NBC
5. Mad Men, AMC
6. Parenthood, NBC
7. Doctor Who, BBC America
8. Hannibal, NBC
9. The Walking Dead, AMC
10. Game of Thrones, HBO


Top 10 New Shows of 2015:


1. Jessica Jones, Netflix: The latest Netflix comic book series is another home run for the streaming service. I never heard of the character before or read the comics for that matter. This series dives into such dark realistic issues from PTSD, abuse and rape. Krysten Ritter and David Tennant gives a perfect performance and has such great chemistry. I'm so looking forward to a second season.

2. Chicago Med, NBC
3. iZombie, The CW
4. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Netflix
5. Blindspot, NBC
6. Supergirl, CBS
7. The Carmichael Show, NBC
8. Daredevil, Netflix
9. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, The CW
10. The Expense, SyFy


Movies:

Top 10 Movies of 2015:


1. Jurassic World, Universal: After being in Guardian's of the Galaxy in 2014, Chris Pratt comes out swinging in another blockbuster movie. I had so much exception for this film that it full filled it. I felt like a kid again when I first saw Jurassic Park and The Lost World. Nothing but perfection!

2. Inside Out, Pixar 
3. Minions, Universal
4. Furious 7, Universal
5. Sisters, Universal
6. Trainwreck, Universal
7. Pitch Perfect 2, Universal
8. Star Wars The Force Awakens, Disney
9. Vacation, Warner Bros.
10. Spectre, Sony


2016:

Top 10 Shows to Watch in 2016:


1. The X-Files, FOX: I think this is the one that we're all waiting for to premiere. With where television is at right now this is the perfect way get older shows to return. The return of Mulder and Scully is at the level of the return of Star Wars for television (not movies). This show's on my must see list when it premiere's Sunday, Jan 24th after the NFL NFC Championship and Monday, January 25th at 8/7c on FOX.

2. Marvel's Luke Cage, Netflix
3. Colony, USA Network
4. Angie Tribeca, TBS
5. Sherlock The Abominable Bride, PBS
6. The Magician, SyFy
7. The People vs OJ Simpson: American Crime Story, FX
8. Westworld, HBO
9. Legends of Tomorrow, The CW
10. Shades of Blue, NBC

Top 10 Films of 2016:


1. Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, Warner Bros.: It's one of the most anticipated comic book film of the 2016 year. Ever since the news about Batman and Superman facing each other, the world was buzzing times 10 and after the full trailer was released a month ago, the expectations can't be any higher than what it is. Ben Affleck looks great as an older Batman, who's been around the block more than Superman. This will probably will be the Top 5 film of the year.

2. Captain America: Civil War
3. Ghostbusters
4. How to be Single
5. Neighbors 2
6. Bridget Jones's Baby
7. Untitled Jason Bourne film 
8. Suicide Squad
9. Star Trek Beyond
10. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2

After a monstrous year in television and films, I hope that 2016 will come close to that level. Here's to 2016 and I wish everyone the happiest of new year.