Family and Faith: Chicago PD "Don't Read the News"/"You Wish"/"Sanctuary"

"Don't Read the News"

When a dead girl's body is found on a school football field, it's not the first time this has happened in the neighborhood.

I thought this episode was excellent. Meam is interested in the case that the Intelligence Unit was trying to solve. When a photo of a teen girl is found dead at a school field, the unit learns that it's not the first time this has happened and that a serial killer is out there.

Voight and the team find there have been over nine murders over the past ten years, and none of them have been solved by the district unit, even though their excuse was that they had moved around a lot.

The suspect looked to be the boyfriend of the victim b, but there was a twist when the team found out the victim survived. They talked to her and had her look through some photos and found the guy who turned out to be the victim's boyfriend's stepfather—twisted, right?

The guy was a real prick when interviewed by Voight and Al, who tried to tell them that he didn't do it and that he knew the guy who gave the photos of the victims. Thank god he's locked up.

Other things: Erin gets to meet her father. They had an excellent meeting and carried on with a couple of dates later on. Of course, Jay, being the boyfriend and protector he can be, looks into the guy's background and past with flying colors.

And Adam Ruzek is gone for a while, undercover, that is. So that introduces us to Kenny, a detective who's previously worked with Voight. He didn't fit in at first, but he adjusted well.  

As I said, this episode was excellent. The writing was strong enough to keep my interest in the episode. Attacks played the best to their strengths. I wonder if this guy, who says to be Erin's father, is the real deal. I'm not so sure. That one thing I've learned from the past three and a half seasons: Never trust Bunny. Overall, I give this episode an 8/10.

"You Wish"

When a dead body turns up in an alley, it seems to be a hate crime, but it's somehow not what it seems.

"You Wish" had a good case of the week's storyline, but it wasn't the most interesting. When the Unit gets a call of a dead male body in an alley, they find that the victim lost a body part that's most valuable to him.

The search for answers went all the way to a runaway, who had an encounter with the victim, who tried attacking her sexually, but she got away by stabbing him with a knife, which was left inside a bush. Burgess gets into her first interview session, which is okay, but she falls for the suspect's lies.

After not coming up with anything else, they'd decided to look into the victim's past, which led to his ex-girlfriend. Atwater and Kenny interview the lady and tell her that she saw him a couple of nights ago (the night of the murder) but didn't let him in as she tells them he was hurting and banging on the door for help. But she called the special police (police for the apartment complexes) and gave the officer's name. That led to them interviewing the officer, and after leaving him alone to talk to the ADA, the officer tried to hang himself. That led to the lead officer coming in and talking to Voight about their history in another city, for which their boss misled them.

That might have been a good case of the week, but it was the story of Erin finding out that Jimmy isn't her father. That can be attributed to Halstead, who took his DNA from a cup and ran it. I don't know which was more difficult, that Jay was right or that Bunny once again pushed Erinn. I don't blame her for thinking he was her father; he had everything from the photos, but Bunny was being Bunny and thought he was her dad.

The scene when Erin tells Bunny about the DNA was the best location in the episode when Bunny tells her that she shouldn't tell him, and Erin pushes her breakfast out of the table. That's how I felt, too, not to mention yelled at the television. But there's a thinker in this episode; when Bunny comes to the station to talk to Hank, thinking that he ran the DNA, he tells him that he won. There was at that point where she told him to run a DNA on him to see if he was her father. That's something I consider looking into as much as I would never think Hank and Bunny having a one-night stand (EW! Hard to think about it!).

This episode had a good case of the week story but was overshadowed by the Erin/Bunny/Jimmy story. Sophia Bush is excellent with her character dealing with this father issue. Overall, I give this episode an 8.5/10.

"Sanctuary"

When the Intelligence Unit chases two suspects to a neighborhood church, faith and support get in the way of their investigation.

"Sanctuary" might be one of the most exciting episodes when it starts, but also satisfying when it ends.

When the unit got a call about a dead body found at a park, the suspects spotted a few blocks down. They chase them to a neighborhood church, but the unit can't get in until the priest tells them they can't come in because they believe they're innocent.

Things heat up when news gets around, causing people to demand those boys to come out. It gets so dicey that the victim's boyfriend throws a fire bottle in there, but Voight and the team get them out and into the station. They would be in there til they found the real suspect, who happened to be one of the interviewers who said it was those boys.

When the team checked the suspect's place, it looked abnormal. They found the suspect's roommate's head and hands in the freezer. After waiting, the suspect returns to his home but gets spooked and drives off. Crashing into a tree, Burgess and Al search for him in the woods til he has a gun aiming at Al, but with a tackle that's worthy of being called better than any tackles the Chicago Bears has done all season, he takes the guy down, breaking the guy's arm.

In the interview room, the suspect kept blaming the kids for the murder, but Voight told him that in his many years protecting and serving Chicago, listening to that has gotten tiresome and forced him to tell the truth by pulling on his broken arm. Ouch, right?

As I said, this episode had everything an attack could have: enjoyable, motivational, and satisfying. This was an excellent episode. The story was so good that I was moved by characters like Al, Burgess, and even Voight. After going through a lot of mixed emotions and burning a church, everyone from #OneChicago helped to rebuild the church, which was a moving moment that came at the end of this episode. Overall, I give this episode an 8/10.

You can catch Chicago PD when they return with a new episode on e Wednesday, February 8th at 10/9c on NBC.

Powerless (S1E1) Preview "Wayne of Lose"

"Wayne or Lose" 

In the series premiere of Powerless, In a world where humanity must cope with the collateral damge of Super Heroes and Super-Villains, Emily Locke (Vanessa Hudgens) begins her first day as Director of Research and Development for Wayne Security, a subsidiary of Wayne Enerprises that specializes in products that will help defenseless bystanders feel a little safer. Full of confidence with big ideas, Emily quickly learns that her expectations are far exceed those of her new boss, Van Wayne (Alan Tudyk) and office coworkers, so it will be up to her to lead this team toward their full potential and the realization that you don't  need superpowers to be a hero. Also starring are Danny Pudi, Christina Kirk and Ron Funches.

Here are some clips behind the scenes and interviews with cast members:

Sounds that Thrill: The Blacklist "The Forecaster (No. 163)"

When a calling card comes at the door of a murder happening, does Liz take the case? Of course she does!!!

"The Forecaster" might be one of the most thrilling episodes so far with the way it has been told. Liz and Tom are in their new apartment with Agnus and when Liz is about to leave for work and an collage of someone dead is laying in front of her door. Liz takes it to work and shows it and figures that a judge has been murdered and tries to see if Red knows anything about, for which he could only be brief about it. But for what we all know is that this collage predicted a murder would happen an hour before it happened. Spooky, right?

Meanwhile, while Tom and Agnus has a little daddy-daughter sing off and cleaning up, he sees someone walking up the door and dropping off another collage and this time he ran after the person. But as he runs off, he stops and runs back to attend Agnus because he doesn't want to lose that Father of the Week award.

That collage gives a clue about where the killing will take place, so Liz and the team stacked out. Liz got word about a finger print of the suspect that has been placing those collages at her front door. Soon someone on a bike appears, thinking that it might be him, until someone on a motorbike comes up and turns out that's the shooter and Liz saves the victim from getting killed.

Liz and Ressler interviews Fiona Driscoll about the collages and tells them that they are visions predicting these murders. Fiona shows them more of them, those that had happen and when she tells them that it's not her that's doing it but her daughter, Maggie. Maggie has some special disorders and apparently can hear things from other frequencies for which she has heard two men talking about the murders.

So Aram had the idea to use the frequencies that she hears in her hearing aid to their advantage on where that conversation she's been hearing from. It turns out the calls would be calling from the same apartment place as both the suspect and Liz spotted each other. The suspect makes his move quickly and grabbed the girl while Liz and Ressler got to the guy's apartment. Chasing the girl they got her back when turning up the frequencies all the way up to find her (screaming due to being so painful).

Liz wants to use the girl one more time and this time just before she's done with her arts and crafts, they know where the suspect was going to hit. Trying to warn security, too late for that Cooper! But as Liz and team goes in, Ressler goes across the street and spots the suspect cutting the cable of the elevator and soon shots the guy (dead). But Liz save the victim when the elevator was coming down fast.

That was a more interesting case of the week but I think it got a bit overshadow from Red's story plot when he rents an apartment of a former friend, who was shot to death. He meets with an associates of Iniko, Geoffrey, who he asked to invest in his business. It gets to be a cat and mouse type of game at the end when he brings in both Iniko and Geoffrey (who tries to kill his boss but fails). Iniko kills Geoffrey and Red kills Iniko after what he has done for the mining business and killing his good friend. And not to mention that he also took Iniko's cleaning crew, Sakiya and Fudo, who are now working for Red as Mr. Kaplan's replacement.

The one person concern about this is Dembe and he tries to talk to Red about it but he's not really paying attention. Dembe goes behind his back and tells Liz about it and tells her that Kaplan is died, for which we all know is not true as she's alive and somewhere on a mysterious truck ride with someone after a creepy weekend with some woodsman.

This was a lot better episode than last week. This episode has a lot of real interest from this week's case to Red's seeking revenge and Kate's replacement, for which as of now I've with Dembe concerning about Red. Also when Red asked Liz to see the new apartment he had a disappointing look on his face. The scene with Tom and Agnus was hilarious and fun. The writing was great and the cast performed very good. That actress who played Maggie were stole the show. Overall, I give this episode a 9/10.

You can catch The Blacklist Thursday nights at 10/9c on NBC.

Rise of the Queen: Victoria on Masterpiece Classice "Doll 123" Series Premiere

(Note: I will not compare this show to The Crown (Netflix) in any way because I haven't seen ALL of it yet. I'm reviewing/recapping it as I see it.)

When we last saw Jenna Coleman, we said goodbye to her as Clara Oswald over a year ago on Doctor Who in one of the most heart-wrenching goodbyes on the show. But now she has returned to television in a royal and dramatic role, Victoria, on Masterpiece Theater.

In the series premiere, "Doll 123," we come to the late night/early morning of the death of King William IV (Victoria's uncle) and travel to Victoria's home about it. Ther,e he can't sleep; Victoria gets the news and proceeds of the Royal exchange of power at 18.

Throughout the episode, she holds and plays with one doll that she got from her mother at the age of 11 and didn't put a crown on it til she learned about her taking over from her uncle at the age of 13. But at the end of the episode, she does put her doll away and moves on into business by signing papers. Throughout the episode, she tries to take things independently, including not having her mom and dad with her during some critical business.

She makes one of the biggest mistakes, accusing Lady Flora of having a child from her stepfather. That was proven wrong after she was ordered to have an exam by Flora's doctor, and when the news came, it wasn't a pregnancy but a tumor of massive size, too. She took a backlash from it from her family to even the press (that was leaked from her own family).

There are perfect moments, one of which is the relationship between Victoria and Lord Melbourne. At first, the two might seem to be a fit for a couple if Victoria had the idea, but I believe or can tell that they'll have an excellent working relationship like the classics of Jack and Liz (even though this isn't a comedy).

The episode displays a lot of beautiful scenery, even though some might have been CGI at times. The music score throughout the episode was stunning, and at times, when the score was during the scene of Victoria's crowning or Coronation, I couldn't stop humming it out of my head.

Coleman shines in this episode. I can feel through her eyes of her and her character's emotions. Also, the cast is impressive as well. Rufus Sewell is excellent and shows chemistry with Coleman—the writing of this episode intensifies. Overall, I give this episode an 8.5/10.

You can catch Victoria Masterpiece Theater (in the United States) at 9/8c on PBS.

Chicago Fire/Chicago PD: "Some Make It, Some Don't"/"Don't Bury This Case"

It's #OneChicago! Do I need to say more? Okay, maybe just buckle up for the ride.

The crossover event between Chicago Fire and Chicago PD has always been one of the better part of great television viewing, or in this case, like a great TV movie.

For the first part, "Some Make It, Some Don't," Casey and Dawson meets with DCFS about Louie's father coming back and wanting to take his son back. Of course, this doesn't get any easier for them, when news came that the guy is Louie's biological father, it struck hard for Dawson. The two went to a lawyer but they know that going forward that it's going to be a gamble.

Dawson and Casey decided to meet face to face with him and the two talked. Apparently he didn't know that he had a son til he got back from overseas. After that Dawson agreed to let him see him. That didn't quite workout when they were waiting at the meeting place and the guy didn't show up.

Meanwhile, Severide, who agreed to give bone morrow, meets the person that he's given it to and it may turn into a special relationship down the road. After a couple of meetings, Jeff informs him that the chemo isn't helping her and that they had to take her off of it. Severide was down and not only took the next day off but went drinking.

Let's hold Severide's story a little but and talk about one of the funniest story plots in the episode, ping-pong table. After a call of a student trying to take a barrow of beer and gets his arm stuck, the guys on 81 sees and takes a ping-pong table. It becomes one ping-pong 2017 with Otis, Herrmann and other playing like kids and busting things from doors to windows. It gets so bad that they come in during their off shift and play. Let me just say Miss. Connie wasn't liking it at all and at the end the staff of 81 took the table back. But soon gets a call about a car accident for which they took.

Truck 81 gets to the scene of a car hitting a van of a mother and daughter. Turns out that the car belongs to Severide and after taking care of the daughter and mother, the officers got word on who the car belongs to and Herrmann ask for the Intelligence Unit take care of it.

Severide wakes up in his living room with bottles of alcohol around and answers the door, turns out to be Erin and Voight. They ask him to get his jacket and to come down with them to the station with them. Severide has no clue what's going on and Erin tells him that his car was found at an accident.

After talking to Severide, word gets out that the mother is pulling through but the daughter had died. They charged Severide and puts him in the holding cell.

As the team investigates, already some of them think that he has done it (Halstead!) and others (Erin) think he deserves the benefit of the doubt to figure it out. After tracing Severide's steps, it seems that every points to that Severide had done it, but after interviewing him again, he remembers a few more things like after getting in his car, he stops and gets out because he had way too much and gets home with a spare key he had hidden. Also a tracker was found underneath the car.

That lead the team back to the bar that Erin and Halstead where at and spotted one of the valet guys taken the car and placing a tracker on it. That lead to grabbing him and setting up a sting, but that backfired when he got spooked  and that lead to one of the best car chases on CPD in a while that just left me on the edge of my seat. But soon they lost the guys but found the car.

There were some personal moments through this episode from Casey talking to Voight about Severide and even Severide and Erin having a moment that kind of really set the tone for the rest of the episode and that was to get Kelly out of there fast.

Atwater knows someone that could help, when they go there apparently he knows what they're talking about and helps take them there. Arresting the leader of the group, Voight has a nice talk with the guy and tells him that if he talks he'll walk out with his business in hand. That lead to a name but the guy apparently he's in hiding from what he has done but demands money from him. So to get him out of hiding, they took the suspect's mother and takes a photo of her in the truck of the car for proof to be here. He comes and get ambushed by Halstead and is taken into the station. The suspect's friend talks about how it all went down and that it wasn't Severide that caused the accident. Severide got released and walks with Erin out of the prison gates, hoping that things between them would be okay and thanked her.

This was one hell of a two hour event that still after almost two weeks it still holds up. As always Fire played with the emotions and humor while PD settles not only with emotion and mystery but on the edge of your seat action like the car chase scene that's one of my favorites. I think Severide will probably get a bit too close to that patient that he's helping. I really think that Burgess is going to have a tough time at first being with Al on the team, but I think she can make it. That was kind of funny on Al's reaction about Burgess partnering up with him. Great writing from both shows and great performances from the cast too. Overall, I give this crossover a 9/10.

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

Be Kind Go: The Good Place "Chapter 11: What's My Motivation"

Maybe instead of Pokemon Go, this would be a better version called Be Kind Go (yeah that didn't sound good but it was a thought).

When we last left, Tahani had an idea to make sure Eleanor stayed in The Good Place she can earn enough points back so that her points made sure she can stay. But that would come to an issue when looking at the points, the (fake) Eleanor actually has over -4,000 points but the average is over 1.2 million. Yeah, seems impossible right?

Tahani helped (Fake) Eleanor by doing kindness like holding doors open and saying kind things like have a nice day and such. But that seem to backfire after saying those nice things, those gave her the stink eye and nothing goes up in the points meter.

So Tahani had the idea to have a town hall kind of meeting with the people of the Good Place about Eleanor. There were a few that didn't like her because of what she has done. So Tahani had another idea to throw a party to lighten everyone to like Eleanor.

Meanwhile, (real) Eleanor and Chidi had breakfast together and she had a hidden message for him inside a poached egg, that read "I Love You." But to Chidi, he thought it was from the egg and realized that she was the one that loved him, putting him in an awkward spot and asked (fake) Eleanor for advice. That advice seemed to help in the points because it bump up a bit.

Michael figures out about Jianyu is really Jason Mendoza, who happens to be like Eleanor and also learned that he and Janet are married. Michael interviews Jason again like Eleanor but this time, it seemed that he was a lot worst than she was and literally gave Michael chest pains (Jianyu broke Michael!!!). We also learn how he died and that it was mistaken when the real Jianyu was in a meta state of mind and got crossed with Jason. Also the two have the same IQ: a seven year old mind.

At the party, Tahani and Eleanor hopes that this would work, but after a disappointing Michael gave a disappoint speech, Eleanor gave a speech about how sorry she was about the stuff she has caused. But it seemed that it just wasn't working until she made a joke with Pobody's Nerfect and got a lot of laughs, but it just didn't seem to work in earning points. But it gave Eleanor the reason why it wasn't working and went off to do what she thought was best...leaving The Good Place for good.

As she wait for the train, Janet and Jason try to leave too, because they love one another (it's so humorist Ex-Machina, right?). There a train rolls in, it's Sean, the judge, and as he gets off, the three get on and take off. As Michael tells Sean about Eleanor thinking he has a strong case, Sean tells him about them leaving on his train and we see Eleanor out the window saying sorry to everyone.

This was another superb episode that had a lot of great moments from Janet and Jason of their love for one another (especially the scene about her having many tongues) to Michael and Jason having their interview, which was second funniest behind the tongue bit. Manny Jacinto really stole this episode. Bell and Jamil work so well in this one as well. There's still a bit inside me that hopes Chidi and (fake) Eleanor might have strong feelings for one another, but I think that's just my reaction hopes from last week's episode. The writing was really good. Overall, I give this episode a 9/10.

You can catch the one hour Judgement Day season finale of The Good Place this Thursday night at 8/7c on NBC.

Powerless: New DC Universe Comedy

Coming to NBC Thursdays this February, a new team of heroes helping those from superheroes.

Powerless takes place in the DC Universe and follows the adventures of Emily Locke (Vanessa Hudgens) as the director of Research and Development at Wayne Security (a subsidiary of Wayne Enterprises that's run by Bruce Wayne's cousin), that specializes on products to help ordinary humans who are victims of the battle between superheros and supervillians.

Along with Hudgens, Danny Pudi (Community), Alan Tudyk (Zootopia), Christina Kirk (A to Z), Ron Funches (Undateable), Kate Micucci (Garkfunkel and Oates and Ducktails) and Josh Fadem (30 Rock and Key & Peel) stars in the show. Developed by Ben Queen, creator of A to Z and co creator of Drive, this is the first sitcom comedy series set within the DC Universe.

Here's a couple of promos:

The series premiere of Powerless begins February 2 at 8:30/7:30c after Superstore o NBC.