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TV Rewind: Felicity, “Blackout” & “The Break-Up Kit”

Felicity, Episodes 3.13 & 3.14
“Blackout” & “The Break-Up Kit”
Original Air Dates: Apr. 25, 2001 & May, 2, 2001

Julie: I wish I had watched these episodes immediately following the previous two, because my feelings about Noel and Ben have flip-flopped. Suddenly Noel is the perfect guy, and Ben is a stupid moron who can’t say no to Avery.

Maybe I have selective memory or maybe the TV writers expect us to only remember what’s happening right in front of us, but Noel was a complete dill weed for most of this season. He eloped. He tried to get an annulment. He STALKED TYRA BANKS. He has been a complete creeper. But now, he’s the sweet guy who kissed Felicity over a game of Boggle back in Season One.

My feelings are very messy here. I have distinct Team Noel feelings right now. He honestly cares about Felicity. They work well together. They fit on an emotional and intellectual level. Perhaps Noel was being so crazy during the beginning of the season (and a little bit of last season) because he felt lost. Now that he and Felicity are back on sold friendship ground, he’s finally able to recapture the Noel we fell in love with three years ago.

But I can’t forget the fact that he STALKED TYRA BANKS.

Of course, maybe Noel is looking so appealing because Ben is being such a boob. This whole thing was so gut-wrenching to watch, and Keri Russell did a fabulous job (and I really liked her low pony throughout these two episodes; much better than the topknot). I just felt for her. She did the “mature” thing and let him go, let him try to figure it out; and then, when she realized that he was figuring it out in the Hamptons with Avery. she ran to him to tell him that she loves him and she wants to figure things out together.

All of this would’ve been completely tragic, if not for her good friend Noel, and his break-up kit. Every step of his was perfect, until he almost told her his feelings and Ben walked in to reclaim his woman. And Noel was left alone again. Hopefully he won’t go full STALKING TYRA BANKS crazy Noel.

Which team are you on after these episodes?

Emma: No other show has tested my shipper feelings as much as this one and while I am still Team Ben (even though he is being the biggest dumb dumb) the show is doing a very good job of reminding us why Noel was who I was championing in season 1. And yeah it’s funny that last time both of us wondered how they could make Noel a viable option after a) the stalking of Tyra Banks (which I’m still confused was a thing as it hasn’t been mentioned since) and b) how good Felicity and Ben are together. It turns out all it takes is an Avery.

Ben has played the overwhelmed card before and here is what Julie said to him back in S1 just before they broke up and this is “where you act all confused but you actually know what you’re thinking.” Ben does confused face well and this is definitely a very different situation to the Julie breakup, which was a long time coming. It is still just as frustrating and I also find it hard to believe that with everything we know about Ben and Felicity as a couple that he would end up in the Hamptons with Avery knowing full well how Felicity feels about her, but whatever the writers clearly do.

The groundwork has been laid, particularly in the Christmas episode with Ben feeling inferior to Felicity when it comes to ambition/academic ability. She has helped him in the past with essays, but I guess this is a whole new level of shame for Ben and while it is far from Felicity’s fault he clearly has a bit of a chip on how shoulder about her brain smarts.

With Avery, her persistence only adds to this frustration and because they shared something profound (I’m rolling my eyes at this because Avery is the worst) Ben is turning to her instead of Felicity with his test problems. Avery just also happens to be everywhere Ben is taking over Noel’s stalker mantle and this girl is not subtle. What I want to know is how long was she going to hang outside Felicity’s apartment waiting for Ben to leave? She’s also the kind of person who mentions something so much the other person ends up thinking it is a smart idea. See Ben with the Hamptons, the watch, the test.

Back to the Noel of it all and yeah at the moment he is doing everything right, but I have one reservation and that is his overall motivation. Yes I think he is being a good friend, however when he was about to tell Felicity something important I can’t be alone in thinking that he was about to declare his love for her and this is the worst timing for this; don’t tell someone you love them when they have only maybe been broken up for one hot minute. Noel has been mostly supportive including finding the video of Ben – when Noel mentions the whole Hannah thing this was another case when a guy was confused – and sticking to friend like behavior and yet he was about to cross the line. Luckily Ben comes in and stops Noel from making this mistake. What did you make of this?

Julie: Noel declaring his feelings would’ve been quite tragic, so thank goodness Ben came in at that moment. It fits Noel’s schtick, though, doesn’t it? He’s impulsive. He’s the guy that seems so level-headed and responsible on the surface, but he’s a quick mover. He jumps into things. He gets married on a whim. He falls head-over-heels in love with Tyra Banks after seeing her one time. Of course he’d want to pounce on Felicity the second she found herself single again. Noel needs to slow his roll.

Besides, even though Noel didn’t get the chance to say it, I think Felicity got the message loud and clear.

I’m wondering where they’ll go with Avery now, if they’ll go anywhere. Ben finally seems to get it. She’s not the girl for him. She doesn’t get “him.” She doesn’t understand who he is and what’s important to him. Felicity gets him. Felicity sees him for who he is. Now that Ben is hip to Avery’s shallowness and lack of understanding him, will she make one more desperate attempt to win him over? Will she try to recreate the extreme situation that brought them together? My mind keeps jumping to a suicide attempt, but I’m not sure if that’s really where the show goes or if I’m writing my own Felicity fan fiction. You know that’s not even a spoiler because I have very little recollection of this season.

I love that you brought up that Julie quote. That is SO Ben and I think it completely applies to him in this situation. He’s not a moron. He knows that going to the Hamptons is wrong, but he does it anyway. And he expects that his cute confused face is going to get him out of it, because that’s what his cute confused face does best. It’s his secret weapon. He knows, I think deep down, that Felicity will forgive him for being stupid, and they’ll get back together, easy-peasy. He’s so frustrating, and I still really want him to make a decision about what to do with his live, even just in the interim.

As far as these two episodes go, the first one centered around a blackout in New York during a storm. I couldn’t help but think about the time NBC did blackout themes in all of their Thursday night comedies (except Seinfeld) back in the day. This is a trope that’s used in a lot of shows to create tension. What did you think of the blackout revelations (Elena wants boobs! Meghan kissed a girl! Avery loves Ben — duh doy!)? And is it believable that the girls would have that may candles on hand?

Emma: Noel is not the most subtle when it comes to his puppy dog eyes and Felicity gazing. It remains unspoken for now, but as you mention Felicity clearly knows this is more than platonic feelings and I think this is why she goes to tell Noel how important and special he is. Not because she is trying to be a tease or oblivious to it all, instead she wants him to know what his friendship – particularly over the past few days – means to her. Noel has had a lot of self doubt this season and I also think she wants to ensure that he doesn’t sink back into whatever crazy led to the Tyra stalking. This show might be able to ignore that ever happened, I don’t think either of us can. And Noel’s impulsiveness matches Felicity’s in this respect and it is why they are both perfect and terrible for each other.

I think Avery is going to cause a whole heap of problems all because of that kiss as there is no way she is going to let that go. If she was more than happy to pursue a dude who seemed to be in a happy relationship then she is not going to give up now they have smooched. Ugh and the way it happened was so awful and casual, plus her comment about how she wanted to kiss him at the party before she was shot. So she wanted to kiss a guy who was barely at the party while she was there and was with his girlfriend dancing for the brief moment before Tag came in. Avery, you are the worst. I think Felicity sums up all my Avery feelings in that one curled lip disgusted expression when Noel is talking about her in the blackout episode (sadly there is no screeencap as it happens so fast). She is clearly someone who has got everything she wants her entire life, even if some of those things have been bought and Ben is not going to get away that easily. I wouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t elaborate on what actually happened either.

In the same way Felicity should have told Ben about the frat party before he found out via an email, I think Ben should have confessed all to Felicity about what happened in the Hamptons. Instead he spins it into something which is probably true – how it made him realize how much he missed her – but misses out the vital info. I don’t know if she would be able to forgive him for the kiss, however I think they are more likely to get through it if he did tell her rather than if/when she finds out in the future. She is definitely going to find out.

Avery’s white turtle neck is like the over the top opulent version of every sweater Felicity owns and this outfit perfectly encapsulates everything I dislike about Avery. I love that Felicity points out that Avery looks like Ruby, which she does but she is so much worse.

The excessive amount of candles is a constant TV peeve of mine, but on this occasion I just shrugged and figured they were Meghan’s. And yeah all I could think about with the blackout theme was Chandler stuck in the ATM vestibule. It is one of those heightened situations which allows for any potential conflict/hookup to become more fraught/tense as seen by Ben/Avery and Meghan/Chris. Also a quick IMDb check to see where I know the actress who plays Chris from tells me that she is Catherine Keener’s younger sister and that is definitely why she is familiar to me.

The Chris/Meghan story was interesting on the one hand as it gave Meghan something more to do beyond just being the comic relief and it was good to hear about her past. I’m still bored of the Sean/Meghan fighting/breaking up/getting back together cycle and so this aspect made me roll my eyes. Plus Sean’s reaction to finding out that Meghan had been involved with a woman was as piggish as I might expect. In true Sean and Meghan fashion it is all fine and jokey by the end. I don’t even know what to make of the seance shenanigans in the second episode except I guess it was a way to lighten the tense mood of the Felicity/Ben drama.

What I did like about this story was seeing Felicity and Meghan’s friendship in action as Felicity knows all about Chris thanks to a previous drunken confession from Meghan – I am picturing many night when Meghan gets in wasted where she spills everything to Felicity. The evolution of Meghan and Felicity’s relationship is one of my favorites on this show and I also appreciated Meghan’s “if you hurt her, I will kill you” speech to Ben.

And someone returned! And you can tell how much I dislike Avery because I wasn’t even that bothered that Molly is back. Molly straight away gets involved in a big plot contrivance by temporarily blinding Elena. What do you make of the breakup causing Elena to focus on looks as a reason why they split?

Julie: Oh, Felicity will find out. You just know Avery is dying to tell her about the kiss, that strumpet.

I’m not sure what it is, but everything Avery wears reminds me of an early aughts Gwyneth Paltrow, which is sacrilege, probably. Goop would never be so gauche as to pursue an under-achieving barista, no matter how cute his smile may be.

As far as the other folks go, I’m with you on wanting to break up with Meghan and Sean breaking up. It’s like the writers have no idea where to go their storyline anymore. I feel like Meghan’s dalliance with Chris wasn’t given the weight it deserved. It would’ve been interesting to explore Meghan’s potential bisexuality, but she brushed off the whole thing pretty quickly, without seeming too conflicted. And Sean’s gross reaction to catching Meghan and Chris together seemed lazy. Maybe it was because this was a B plot that the writers kept everything on the surface, which is kind of a shame. This was something that could’ve feasibly been dragged out for a few episodes. And it would’ve kept the writers away from the perpetual break-up/reunion cycle, for a few weeks anyway.

Molly’s back in town! Goody. And she’s brought with her a terrible face mask that blinds people. She’s a walking disaster, with her bindis and her drugs and her dangerous cosmetics. She really only existed to pop up here and there in other people’s stories this week. She was present for the seance and, yes, she blinded Elena, who is obsessed with her looks all of a sudden.

I’m not a fan of this development. I mean, I get it, and maybe the writers are trying to say, “Hey look! A gorgeous, successful, intelligent women can also become an insecure basket case when her boyfriend dumps her,” but I just feel like Elena’s better than that. She’s better than us mere mortals. She took self-defense classes after she was shot. She knows her worth as a student.

Or maybe she doesn’t? She did feel insecure about her grades after the whole Dr. Chris Sarandon thing. Maybe this is carrying over into other aspects of her life. She’s always been so self-assured, but now she’s having to examine where she’s lacking — and she landed on boobs. Richard and Noel both proved her point when they couldn’t stop looking at her Kleenex enhanced chest. She’s looking so hard for answers to why Tracy left her, and it’s easier to blame small boobs than to look deeper.

Hopefully whatever’s happening with her and DeForest (Kenan Thompson) will help. He seems very sweet. And though she didn’t seem too jazzed when she finally got a look at him and realized he wasn’t Tracy meets Tyson Beckford, she did still take him up on dinner and the two of them looked like they were having a great time.

What did you think of Elena’s looks crisis?

Emma: The Elena thing is so random but also makes sense in how she is dealing with the Tracy breakup as it is a pretty much out of the blue thing. Even though I doubt that Elena really believes that it was her boobs that let her down, by fixating on something that she can change (by very drastic means) it gives her something to focus all her energy on to. It’s partially ridiculous because it all starts with a joke by Noel as he tries to get her out of her funk, but quite often it is this things that people joke about that we worry about.

I weirdly got the sense that there was some Richard flirtation before she kicked him the face for touching her boobs (I gotta say he deserved it for stepping over the line) and one other thing that has not been mentioned since Tyra’s last appearance is his relationship with her. It is like Tyra was never on the show.

In the second episode we get more from Elena’s sudden obsession with looks and when Molly temporarily blinds her it goes from worrying about her own looks to trying to get away from being superficial in how she sees other people. I’m not sure if this thing with DeForest will go anywhere but it sure was nice to see Elena in this happier frame of mind. And also these guys forgive Molly way to easily. Okay maybe the James gun thing wasn’t her fault but I’d definitely be pissed off about the temporary blindness. Elena likes a challenge so I guess this is a way for her to experience something that might come in useful for when she is a doctor. Plus this way she doesn’t have to look at Felicity’s angsty art. And she gets to make fun of Noel, which is always fun.

What did you make of Noel’s potential Seattle job that we know he definitely won’t be taking and if he does take it he will definitely be back in New York for season 4?

Julie: I thought about Tyra as well when Richard popped up during the blackout. Where is she? Was it all a dream? Is that why no one mentions the stalking or deflowering?

Haha! Don’t you love the “character might move to another city” schtick? It’s a very good way to suck all the tension out of a storyline. Ross was never moving to London. Kramer wasn’t going to stay in LA. And Noel isn’t going to Seattle. Or, yeah, he’s not staying there. I guess it serves to make the people around the potential leaver (in this case, Felicity) see what she’ll be missing if he goes. What do you think is the primary motive behind Noel leaving? Is it that he really wants the job or is it to escape having to watch Felicity’s lovey-dovey-ness with Ben or is it all a ploy to force Felicity to imagine life without him? That last scenario seems to fit the Noel of late. Shifty.

How much did you love Felicity’s art, which is so edgy because of the splatter paint and the WORDS. (Random words on art or clothing is one of my pet peeves. Story time: Back when I was a kid, there were splatter paint T-shirt stores. I went to a birthday party at one once, and picked out a black T-shirt, splattered it with neon paint, and wrote the word “Rap.” So much edge.)

Emma: The whole Seattle thing definitely felt like a bit of a fishing expedition on Noel’s behalf and while I’m sure there’s a tiny part of him that might consider going, I don’t think he actually believes his time in New York is over and part of this is Felicity related.

You’ve already mentioned Keri Russell’s performance but I want to talk about it briefly again because she is SO good at showing her sadness over these two episodes. There’s hope and rage at times and it is entirely believable that she is also lost and confused, without being as lame as Ben. The moment where she comes up and just puts her head against the wall is heartbreaking and I don’t talk about it enough but she possesses the same Claire Danes chin quiver/glassy eyes power. While I think the plot points that have got us to this fractured Ben/Felicity relationship are somewhat forced, everything that Russell and Scott Speedman do in these scenes nails these difficult moments. Scott Foley should also get a shout-out for playing sad and pining while also doing the friend thing so well. And for not mentioning the sun.

I want to go to a splatter paint store.

Julie Hammerle is, according to Klout, an expert in the areas of both Morgan Freeman and glasses. Her writing can be found at chicagonow.com/hammervision and you can holler at her on Twitter as well.

Tags: Amanda Foreman, college, Felicity, Keri Russell, Scott Foley, Scott Speedman, Tangi Miller, Teen TV

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Categories Felicity, TV Team-Up
Author Julie Hammerle

Behind the Insta-Scenes: Photos from the Set

4 Dec

Welcome once again to Behind the Insta-Scenes! Bringing you a roundup of the best behind the scenes photos posted on Instagram from a variety of TV show and personal accounts from the people who are on them. This includes anything from future episode sneak peeks, what’s airing this week, flashing back to the past and general on set (and sometimes off) antics.

In the last edition we did something slightly different and basked in the brilliance of Diane Kruger; regular service resumes this week and we’ve got a whole bunch of photos from various shows. This includes festive decorations, birthday celebrations, future guest stars and a scary figure. Plus a few off set interactions that made us a little giddy.

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A post shared by Kat Dennings (@katdenningsss)

“We are both clearly doing the Edith Piaf here.” Kat Dennings captures her last appearance on Craig Ferguson in style. I’m really going to miss his very special way of talk show hosting/interviewing.

http://instagram.com/p/wHVgDOgVCy/?modal=true

Spy Daddy! Yep feeling pretty excited about Victor Garber guest appearing on The Flash. A+ coat, sweater, shirt layering from both Gustin and Garber.

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A post shared by Comedy Central (@comedycentral)

Happy Holidays from Comedy Central with Abbi and Ilana in festive sweater vests. The Broad City ladies dish out some helpful party tips in this very funny video and not only is season one now out on DVD, but the show is back in just over a month!

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A post shared by Lyndie Greenwood (@lyndiegreenwood)

I saw Lyndie Greenwood’s photo before watching the Sleepy Hollow mid-season finale and wondered why Jenny would be carrying so much rope forgetting how much this show loves tree branches. Moloch would totally fit in over at Hannibal.

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A post shared by jonny lee miller (@jonnylmiller)

Birthday cake and another excellent Joan dress for Lucy Liu on Elementary.

http://instagram.com/p/v7UaOupQ12/?modal=true

An offset photo and one from over Thanksgiving. Scott Speedman playing ping pong with Ike Barinholtz. Good white shirt action.

http://instagram.com/p/wKNsMrP48n/?modal=true

A super close up on New Girl’s Max Greenfield pulling the Schmidtist of faces.

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A post shared by Orphan Black (@orphanblacktv)

How to decorate your tree Orphan Black style with angel wings, trucker hats of beaus past, a doll that resembles a certain clone, mini portraits a la Felix’s creations and some all important DNA double helix strands.

http://instagram.com/p/wKPrDSnqnV/?modal=true

Another off set encounter, but I wasn’t going to leave off this adorable Stark sister reunion from the super smiley Sophie Turner and Maisie Williams. Very much digging Williams’ lipstick color too.

Tags: Abbi Jacobson, Broad City, Craig Ferguson, Elementary, Game of Thrones, Grant Gustin, Ike Barinholtz, Ilana Glazer, Jake Johnson, Jonny Lee Miller, Kat Dennings, Lamorne Morris, Lucy Liu, Lyndie Greenwood, Maisie Williams, Max Greenfield, Mindy Kaling, New Girl, Orphan Black, Scott Speedman, Sleepy Hollow, Sophie Turner, Spy Daddy, The Flash, Victor Garber

TV Rewind: Felicity, “And to All a Good Night” and “Girlfight”

4 Dec

Felicity, Episodes 3.11 & 3.12
“And to All a Good Night” & “Girlfight”
Original Air Dates: Dec. 13, 2000 & April. 18, 2001

Emma: Last time I hoped some holiday cheer would be coming our way and yes this is a festive episode, however the cheer levels are variable and Tag’s gun finally goes off (that Chekhov is a smart fella). The time hop between the two episodes is unnerving, but quick research revealed that the two episodes aired 4 months apart and that is a lot of time to find out who had been shot and also explains why they opted to leap that far ahead. I am jumping further than I want to and I’m guessing we both have thoughts on this amount of time passing, first let’s talk about what led to this event.

Felicity’s mom Barbara has come to say and because there has been so much back and forth with her parents relationship status I couldn’t remember if her singledom was brand new information. What I am very aware of is how often her parents put their own shit onto her and once again her mom uses her past relationship experiences and transfers it onto Felicity. Felicity isn’t entirely blameless in how her mom becomes yet another obstacle in the continuing ‘who/what is going to break up Felicity and Ben?’ guessing game as she hasn’t told her that she has plans to drive to Florida with Ben for Christmas, this is bad form Felicity. In her typical not really thinking things through way Felicity tells Ben that she might change these set plans and spend the holiday with her mom instead. Ben is rightly pissed off about this and this is further compounded by the awful dinner experience with Felicity’s mom fawning over Noel and being super judgmental of Ben’s lack of future plans (he doesn’t have a major! Whaaaaaat?!).

Of course Felicity’s mom is totally into Noel as Noel is great for boyfriend material – he’s charming in a slightly dorky way, he has ambition and he doesn’t beat people up – and Barbara is smitten. If only she knew about his marriage status (which we are reminded of in this episode) and his email stalking behavior. With Ben all she can see is this unambitious and dangerous guy she dated before Felicity’s dad. Ben’s position as the ‘bad boy’ is how he was positioned from the first episode, but they’ve done a really good job of subverting this trope since then. Yes he gets into fights and has some anger issues, however he is also beyond adorable at times and this season has positioned him in a way to get beyond these things that make him ‘bad.’

Bad timing means Ben gets viewed in a negative light as he’s late/forgetful when it comes to the theatre (he’s helping Sean out thanks to some emotional blackmail) and he is ranting about what a dick Tag is when her mom shows up. Gun and drugs are also mentioned in this awkwardly timed, but accurate diatribe. Ben does meet up with Barbara to try and clear the air and it works. He is adorable and charming in his explanation of how much he cares about Felicity and he pretty much quotes that Baz Luhrmann song to demonstrate why his lack of career ideas isn’t so bad. Once again everything is smoothed over and despite the fight they have been in they end the episode happy and dancing.

Some seeds of doubt have been sown and Felicity reacts in a slightly sad way when Noel claims the parrot is Ruby (it is clearly Felicity). What did you make of this moment?

Julie: I’m with you that the time jump seems…odd. It’s like a lot has changed, but also not a lot has changed. I don’t know if that’s realistic or what, but it’s what we have.

In the second episode, Felicity and Ben appear to be unchanged (as a couple) in the months after the gun goes off. They’re still together. He still has no life plan. And I thought she’d be further along in her collaboration with Noel than she seems to be. After all the rushing to get the project handed to Scott Adsit, the time table of Loser Pet Shop has really slowed down. Noel is in the middle of (yet another) emotional meltdown. Last time he went rogue, he ended up married to Doritos girl. This time he’s ruminating on the meaning of life and hooking up with a girl who’s obsessed with Ben. Elena has taken to self-defense, and Molly is gone (yay!).

I find the Ben stuff most frustrating in these episodes. He’s a lovely guy and I’m rooting for him to succeed, but it’s like what Gwyneth said about Ben Affleck — he gets in his own way. He should’ve told Sean to fuck off with the tree thing. Ben knew he was meeting Felicity and her mom at the theatre, he knew that her mom wasn’t completely sold on their relationship, and he just should of simply told Sean that he wasn’t going to help. So what if Sean threatened to kick Ben out. It’s not like Sean would really have the balls (er…ball) to do that.

Also, I’m a little with Felicity’s mom here. Ben doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life. Felicity barely knows what she wants to do. I thought that the experience in the ambulance would’ve knocked some sense into Ben, but apparently it hasn’t. He’s still very much the Brad Pitt here, only defined by the women (Felicity, Molly, rich girl), and not by who he truly is. Ben needs to figure out his identity separate from the girls.

But his speech to her mom, totally cute and charming, but also something a dick might do just to get in good with his girlfriend’s mom. But we know Ben’s not a dick, even if he does say dick a lot. It’s this show’s favorite word.

You asked about Felicity’s reaction to Noel saying the parrot was Ruby. She did look sad, but I kind of don’t get it at this point. What is she seeing in Noel? If Noel were walking around, graphic designing like a boss, not lying on the couch fretting about his existence, I could see it. But Noel as he is now is not worth it. He’s not worth screwing things up with Ben.

You mentioned on Twitter that you feel rage toward a character who’s not Molly. Is it the mom or is it Rich Girl Whose Name I Forget?

Emma: Other than imprinting her own life onto Felicity’s I didn’t actually mind her mom too much. Even her hideous blouses were nowhere near as bad Avery who has quickly overtaken Molly for character who gives me instant rage. So two people got shot – Elena in the arm and it wasn’t too serious, scary but not life threatening. The other is rich girl Avery and it is still unclear why she was at the party in the first place as it seems like no one knows who the fuck she is even though she’s a big deal (or at least her family is in the publishing world). Avery almost dies, well she technically dies and we see this moment in the ambulance with Ben there holding her hand. Cue an instant infatuation with Ben thanks to the connection and being able to hear his unspoken thoughts ‘please stay’ isn’t exactly an unusual thing to be thinking when something is flat lining in front of you, but Avery sees this as an invite to pursue Ben.

And she is totally upfront about it and admitting to Felicity when she confronts her that she believes she is meant for Ben and vice versa, screw the girl he has been dating for a year and is in love with. The way Avery goes about this is with expensive gifts and court side basketball seats. She even gets a present for Felicity which is pretty much the perfect Felicity sweater and even though she doesn’t want to take it she ends up wearing it anyway (it is a nice sweater/color). This is after Avery has been underhand and not added Felicity and Noel to a club guest list which Noel rectifies by using his Leon magic (so paying the doorman) and later sleeping with Avery, because an existential crisis or something.

I’m glad Felicity confronted Avery about her suspicions and like Ben I couldn’t stop smiling when she was having a major rant about Avery’s behavior because a) I also hate her, b) it is fun seeing Felicity disliking someone. There is a super cute reassuring moment and they once again seem fine, though I am concerned that Avery is going to be a nuisance. Also who owns that many halter tops especially ones for exercise and going out?

Your observation about how Ben is defined by his relationships is so spot on and quite often there has been some element of helping a person out and it goes back to Julie even. Maybe he should look into being a counsellor or something like that as he is very good at it. He stays very calm post shooting as he did when Tag was being super aggressive before. And yeah like Goop Ben Affleck remark he really does get in his own way. Also so many of these communication issues would have been rectified if everyone at this point had a cell phone, but at this point only a few did – I was ahead of the Felicity curve and got my first one in 1999. Ben really does have to learn how to prioritize and sometimes it is fine to tell Sean to find someone else to help. Ben is still one of the most fascinating characters in terms of how he is presented, what you expect from a character like this and how he isn’t really any of these things. I still want to do an in-depth analysis of who is Ben Covington?

What did you make of Avery? Did you get similar rage levels to me? And I know you mentioned on Twitter how you thought Tracy was going to be one of the shooting victims – what did you make of this cliffhanger and how it panned out?

Julie: You can’t trust a trick in one halter top, let alone many halter tops.

The funny thing about the cliffhanger was that I’ve seen these episodes already. I watched all of Season 3 of Felicity. I just didn’t retain any of it, apparently.

I knew they were going to dispose of Tracy sooner or later (Scrubs started right after this season, actually), and the way they were talking about how he was going to Africa to help AIDS patients and how he and Elena were doing so well and making it work, I figured he’d be a goner. He lifts right out. I kind of wish they had done that. It would’ve been more interesting than introducing this completely new character who has very few redeeming qualities (other than her checkbook). Her getting shot was kind of like the “live” Arrested Development episode where one. of. these. people. will. die. by. the end. of. this episode. And then it was, of course, that random old lady in the promo.

If Tracy had died, Elena would be dealing with something much more major than self-defense and — oh — my boyfriend’s met a new girl and maybe he’s having sex with her too, that religious jerk. Noel could still be having his (recurring) existential crisis, though probably he wouldn’t also sleep with Tracy. And Ben could still be Ben, trying to figure out what he’s doing with his life. I thought that the incident in the ambulance would lead him to believe becoming an EMT is what he should be doing with his life. Ben is very susceptible to what’s going on around him. I suppose that could still happen. Maybe it actually does happen and that’s why I jumped to this conclusion. Sorry, spoiler? Maybe not, though. I’ve already proved here how little I remember about Season 3.

As far as rage levels, I didn’t quite get there with Avery because I never saw her as a real threat. I mean, Ben didn’t seem interested in her at all, despite her obvious advances. I think he’s very solidly in love with Felicity right now and she should feel good about that.

What did you make of Elena’s story? What did you think about the condom in the wallet revelation?

Emma: In my notes for the self-defense class scenes other than hating on the halter I did ask for some Americans like moves from Keri Russell and they pretty much gave me some (she really does kick some serious ass on that show). The reason Felicity is at the class is because Elena has been regaining her sense of empowerment through learning how to protect herself. Elena has been showing off her new skills on Felicity and when it is Felicity’s turn to return the favor Elena is having none of it as her heart has been stomped all over.

It was very jarring to see Elena and Tracy going from loved up and sorting out whatever having sex has done to their relationship to him coming back loved up with someone else. I do wonder if the condom is in his wallet for just in case purposes, but I can also see why Elena is so upset by this discovery. Sex was their major obstacle and it got even more complicated after they slept together. It impacted Tracy’s entire belief system and no matter how hard Elena argues about what she feels in her heart, there is something much bigger at work here for Tracy. I’m not sure where this leaves Elena now, but I’m worried she is going to blame herself and her attitude towards sex (which is not at fault).

Like you I also think it would have been better to have his exit tied to the shooting in a more permanent manner. Instead the shooting ends up being really low stakes for everyone involved and if I had to wait four months to see the outcome of this story I think I would have been very pissed off with the results. The shot being fired when the screen turns to black is a very typical TV move because it does leave you in a state of uncertainty and coupled with the intercutting between smiling dancing characters it does imply that one of them has been hit. Yes Elena is shot, but that is also a cop out with how minor it is (not that I want Elena to get hurt at all). The whole resolution made me feel short changed in fact and I really did think it was effective how this sequence was shot even if I don’t find Tag all that believable in his drugged out angry state. Kudos Steven Gyllenhaal for the way he shot this scene (also completely unrelated but kudos for those excellent actor kids of yours).

Felicity wears a super slinky sparkly outfit to the holiday party which makes both Ben and Noel’s faces light up; this is her best dressed up look since the red dress at the start of season 2. Elena also wears a gorgeous metallic frock and it is a winner for the ladies and their festive attire. Suits were still for some reason on the baggier side in the year 2000 and how good would Ben look in slim fit suit with a skinny tie?! Alas baggy was a thing still.

After the Scott Foley awkward dance sequence in Scandal and the end of the Christmas episode I think I can declare that Noel is a better dancer than Jake. Still awkward, but with less elbows. Noel and Ben interactions are still some of my favorites for Ben’s deadpan responses as with when Noel asks Ben if he wants to dance. Ben does not and Noel claims he was joking (I don’t think he was).

I’m not sure if I see Avery as a threat, but for some reason her actions just really bugged me in that ‘sad rich girl who thinks she can do whatever kind of way’ and like Felicity I want her to back the fuck off. Too much? I wonder if now that she has slept with Noel whether she will be hanging around even more now.

What did you make of more Meghan and Sean bickering? Should he have given her a cut of the trees?

Julie: Wow, you’re right. I would’ve been so pissed if I had waited four months for that shooting cliffhanger to be resolved. How lame. Someone we’ve hardly even met nearly dies and Elena is grazed in the shoulder. Also, how soon did Tracy leave after the shooting? You’d think Elena getting hit would’ve given him a moment of holy shit I almost lost this girl. Though, as Elena has concluded, maybe he never really loved her all that much. Sad.

Felicity’s outfit at the party is my everything. Especially as we’re going into the holiday sparkle season, I’m jonesing for some sequins. The early aughts were a good time for sequins. There just aren’t as many these days. Also sad.

If we can thank Tag for anything in all of this, it’s for giving us a great example of why we need better gun control in the US. If a cracked-out, derpy-looking mess like Tag can get a gun, then anyone can get a gun and we all need to reevaluate how things are done in this country.

The Meghan and Sean misunderstanding nonsense needs to stop. For the past few episodes it’s been all about them breaking up and getting back together. I guess after the shooting (when Sean called Meghan out for not taking her job at the school seriously or going about working there the right way) they didn’t actually break up, so, progress? I guess that’s how the shooting changed the two of them. They’re less likely to knee-jerk dump each other.

The tree thing was ridiculous. And I was a little squicky about Meghan calling out Sean for being cheap, after much had been made in the last few episodes about his Jewish heritage. I don’t know. I don’t think she really meant it *that* way, but still. Also, he was right, some of that money was going to be spent on her anyway and he was the one who was doing the legwork. I don’t think he really owed her anything, though if it actually were her idea, he should’ve just copped to it. This whole thing was just tired, from the fight down to Sean coercing Ben to help him move the trees.

I was a little more interested in Meghan as a teacher. I think that could work, if she gives the job the right amount of respect. She had a rough childhood and she likes telling people what to do and she does seem to have a good rapport with kids, even if she doesn’t think she does. She can be there for the kids who were different, like she was. I like it.

What did you think of Meghan and Sean?

Emma: The constant bickering and breaking up is getting tiresome at this point and Sean did have some valid points when it came to splitting the money earned. Meghan was doing none of the work and she was still going to end up doing well out of this venture. Except it is pretty dumb to invest in this many trees this close to Christmas and instead of making a fortune Sean ended up seeing beyond money and gave them away for free. Felicity was very touched by this whole thing and made sure she told Meghan what an idiot she was being about this whole thing.

Meghan’s teaching story further explored who Meghan is and while I find it hard to believe that this character would a) turn up to school wearing a sheer shirt and b) teach a kid witchcraft it did show her softer side. Meghan and Sean tend to be the comedic pairing of the show so I’m glad to see the writers developing them beyond being here to be funny. As long as they can move past the whole breaking up/getting together thing. It was good to see her focusing on the kid who was being excluded and as you mention it sounds like she had a crappy time when she was younger so it makes sense for her to relate to this situation. Meghan still responds to things in a relatively immature manner so it will interesting to see if they pursue this new path.

So Noel’s existential crisis is caused by the near miss at the party – he bent down to tie his shoelace when the gun went off hitting Avery – and now all he can think about is how nothing matters. Noel has been flailing all year really and this is an extension what happened to him at the start of the season. Instead of clubbing Noel is reading nihilistic texts and eating a lot of spray cheese (I love cheese but even this might be going too far). Felicity tries to get him out of his funk and maybe sleeping with Avery is what he needed. Hey Felicity’s mom is this the kind of guy you want your daughter to be with?

Oh and I definitely agree with you on the sequins thing, you don’t know how happy I am that it is glitter eye makeup season.

Julie: The spray cheese thing was the first time I really identified with Noel all season.

Also I’m with you on Meghan dressing like that for school didn’t jibe with what we already know about her. This is a girl who would put on a Laura Ashley dress to fool her parents. She knows how to dress in every situation.

And, yeah, if only Felicity’s mom could’ve seen this side of Noel. I guess it’s a lot of seeing what she wants to see. Also, she remembers Noel from when he was the responsible, dweeby RA. She does not know married stalker cheese crisis Noel. She also doesn’t know that Ben generally acts out of concern for others. He gets in fights, yes, but usually it’s because he’s been protecting someone and his face just gets in the way (except for the time he hit Sean, but, come on, Sean had it coming).

I’m hoping Noel’s romp with Avery will lead him to a better place because we only have a few episodes left in this season and that’s not a lot of time to compel me to jump back on the Team Noel bandwagon.

What else do you have to add?

Emma: I’m struggling to see how they will get me to jump back aboard the Noel ship too, Ben will have to monumentally fuck up to get me near that point. I’m also wondering how this time jump will impact how I see this season as a whole. It also occurred to me that the first season of Alias has a crossover period with Felicity and I wonder what that means for both Greg Grunberg as a Agent Weiss is in it from the start right? And also for the creative aspect of the show.

Julie: Wow, both Alias and Scrubs started in the fall of 2001 (not to mention 24 and Smallville). What a good time for television.

Julie Hammerle is, according to Klout, an expert in the areas of both Morgan Freeman and glasses. Her writing can be found at chicagonow.com/hammervision and you can holler at her on Twitter as well.

Tags: Amanda Foreman, college, Donald Faison, Felicity, Festive TV, Greg Grungberg, Keri Russell, Scott Foley, Scott Speedman, Tangi Miller, Teen TV

Comments 2 Comments
Categories Felicity, TV Team-Up
Author Julie Hammerle

TV Rewind: Felicity, “James and The Giant Piece” and “Let’s Get It On”

20 Nov

Felicity, Episodes 3.9 & 3.10
“James and the Giant Piece” & “Let’s Get It On”
Original Air Dates: Nov. 29 & Dec. 6, 2000

Emma: Molly’s drug addict boyfriend James who she has never mentioned prior to the last episode is real! And he’s Tag from Friends so I can’t take his bad boy thing seriously at all or that this is a relationship that has been going on the entire time Molly has been living with them. Felicity is also bewildered by this fact acting as the audience with her huh this is weird reactions. It is like they realised they needed a reason for Molly to be there and to add some drugs are bad drama to the situation.

What Molly is really here for is to show growth in Ben and it’s hard to feel much sympathy for her when she’s not been developed in a believable manner. Yes the drugs made an appearance earlier in the season, which could suggest that this storyline had been planned all along and it might have been but the plotting is way off. Instead what this does is give Ben a cipher for his dad – maybe he can help reach someone in a way he couldn’t with his dad. And it looks like it is working as Molly agrees to go to rehab and maybe ditch James, except she doesn’t and James is moving in. Whaaaaaat?

Yep and Ben is rightly pissed at this whole situation and Molly insisting that he can’t tell Felicity a single thing about it. It’s impressive that Ben keeps it in as long as he does and I thought he would spill as soon as Molly mentioned James moving in, instead he waits until Molly’s hair is all over the bathroom floor and a gun falls out of James’ bag before he tells Felicity all about James and Molly’s habit. At this point it’s beyond fair game as yes there is the confidentiality aspect, but there’s also the safety of everyone else who lives there to think about.

Felicity gives excellent shocked face at this revelation and when Molly returns with her banging new haircut – how did it end up looking good considering how blunt those scissors are and how high the person cutting it was? – and then gets all pissy at Felicity and Ben when they confront her. I get that I should maybe feel some sympathy but urgh at this ‘James is my addiction’ blah blah blahing and being all kinds of “this is the kind of people you are” as both Ben (and especially Ben) and Felicity have been there for Molly. Am I being too harsh?

Julie: Yes, Tag. I couldn’t see anything else.

And I don’t think you’re being too harsh. This character is grating.

Also, this relationship is ridiculous. I’m sorry, but I have no patience for Molly and her “I want to leave him, but I can’t.” She’s the classic drama queen and just get over it already, Molly. Ben is right on for tolerating none of her shit. She wants help; she doesn’t want help. She’s going to leave him; she’s not going to leave him. Ben, Felicity, and the rest are not good enough friends with Molly at this point to be so deep into her nonsense. If it were Elena going through this, or Julie, I’d say, yes, give her your help. Lend her your ear. Be there for her. But as this is Molly, someone we and they barely know, I have a hard time giving one single fuck.

She does do good things for Ben’s character, so there’s that. Felicity was very turned on by the way he dealt with Tag, and rightly so. Ben has shown waaay more patience for this whole situation than anyone should feel obligated to do.

And Ben being so cool in dealing with Molly makes the whole sting of what’s coming even more painful — Felicity and Noel. His stalker ways have been forgotten, and he and Felicity are working together (all night) on some kind of really lame sounding cartoon called “Loser Pet Shop” for Pete Hornberger. Felicity and Noel work well together. They’re on a similar intellectual plane. This is how they’ll bring them back together.

What say you?

Emma: Noel the stalker is now Noel the brat and urgh I’m so not on board with the direction this is going in. They do work well together and Noel is definitely looking at Felicity as if she is this shiny object that he’s into, which he definitely is. Even though he lives with her boyfriend. There are a couple of Ben/Noel moments over the two episodes where Ben has zero time for Noel – the first is when there is Molly dramaz and he pretty much shuts the door on Noel, it made me chuckle for some reason, the second is when Noel is bitching to Ben about how shit Felicity is being. What the fuck Noel? This is not the dude you complain to.

Knowing where the narrative is going means looking for cracks in the Felicity/Ben relationship and aside from the frat party incident it’s all been pretty good between them, well aside from that time Ben’s dad neck nuzzled her. But we know it’s coming as this whole cartoon thing is going to lead to late nights, laughs and rekindled romance. Is Ben going to do something to push Felicity closer to Noel? Or is going to continue down this path of self improvement and it’s going to be something else entirely?

After the whole James/Molly confrontation there’s the super cute Ben/Felicity moment in which as you mention she’s pretty turned on by how he handled the situation, I also think it’s not an accident that Noel is hovering like a third wheel before getting shooed away.

So Noel goes all cartoon crazy and he’s completely focused on that and that alone so when Felicity is unfocused and sleepy he thinks it’s because she’s a shitty friend and not because she has a lot on. In this moment he is the shitty friend. Wow I really sound like I’m hating on Noel and at the moment they’re not giving me a lot of reasons to be on his side. Be better Noel. He does help Felicity with her impossible revision task but that only gets him so many points.

There’s a lot of other relationship conflicts going on over these two episodes and Meghan and Sean continue to experience problems. What are your thoughts on this?

Julie: Such a good point about the cracks in Felicity and Ben’s relationship. There aren’t any right now. They’re very happy with each other. I thought maybe Molly was going to be a problem, but I don’t think so. Felicity’s not jealous of the help he’s been giving her and I think Ben’s over that whole “I can fix this hot mess of a woman” thing.

I’m banking on what draws Felicity and Noel together is that he’s a bit cheerier than Ben right now. I love Ben, but he has to be exhausting to be around. There’s always drama surrounding him, even if it’s not his drama. Noel’s easier. He knows what he wants. And he also loves and cares for Felicity, which is not nothing. I just wish it didn’t take him stalking Tyra Banks to get to this point. Was that really necessary? I suppose they needed to give Noel something to do…? Maybe we should’ve seen more of him trying to get into the whole graphic designer comics thing? Why did it have to be girl focused? Or if it had to be girl focused, why did Noel have to be such an unredeemable twat during the whole thing?

These are questions we’ll never know the answer to.

Also, Felicity should’ve told Noel right from the get-go what was on her plate. That one’s on her.

As far as Meghan and Sean go, their journey seems to be simply figuring out that they’re 100% right for each other. It’s usually the guy who has the “holy shit I’m in a relationship and my old life is ending” panic attack, but this time it’s Meghan. She had this whole freaky, who knows what she was up to, personal life before Sean and before becoming better friends with Felicity and Elena, but now she’s been domesticated. Sean is older, he likes staying in, and he has cancer. That is a thing he’s dealing with.

Her running into Earl and heading out for a night on the town at the fetish ball was really just a way to juxtapose her old life with her new and to prove to Meghan that she’s really over that nonsense. Also, it gave Sean a chance to step up and try to be more like Meghan, to be more exciting. They’re meeting each other in the middle. Love.

In the second episode, Sean is trying to get his groove back. Meghan thinks he’s just not that into her anymore. Sean is worried she’s going to leave him for a hot piece with two balls. In the end, they realize that they’re both idiots and they’re perfect for each other.

Bonus, we got to see Donald Faison without his shirt on. What did you think of Sean and Meghan and also (since I’ve already starting going there) Tracy and Elena?

Emma: I also wonder whether Molly is enjoying the Ben attention in that he’s this good guy who is trying to help while her actual beau just wants to get high and cut her hair. It’s super suspect that she’s been with him this long AND he’s the reason she came to New York in the first place. So ready to move on from this storyline/character.

Still so many references to their unlocked front door.

Yeah it definitely feels like they’ve been spinning their wheels with Noel this season with his marriage and stalking ways. This ambitious version is a whole lot more enjoyable to watch and doesn’t come across as an imposter version of Noel. He’s fun and I just wish the writers would remember that his comedic side shouldn’t come with a side order of crazy.

I think you’re spot on about Meghan and Sean as they’re definitely still in the transitional stage of their relationship and as they’ve just dealt with a huge life changing event it’s not surprising that Meghan needs to blow off some steam. Bumping into her old friends gives her this reason and it’s also a reaction to them calling her out about her recent domesticity. No one wants to feel old before their time and getting into a comfortable routine can make you worry that you’re losing your fun old life. But her old life isn’t as much as she remembered and her friends sneering doesn’t make them very good friends at all. Although Kevin Weisman is always a welcome sight. I’m pretty sure Scott Foley’s reaction to those assless chaps was 100% natural.

The second episodes bickering was maybe a bit more annoying and I was very much with Richard and his telling them to figure their shit out reaction. Hopefully this will be the last of the Meghan/Sean disagreements for a while even of splitting up is their thing.

I’m going to start at the end of “Let’s Get it On” and the reveal of Elena and Tracy in bed together (he’s also shirtless in this scene, so much shirtless Donald Faison) and they’ve done the deed. This is a big way for them to mark getting back together again and I’m worried it’s going to cause more friction between them considering his relationship with God and all. There’s also part of me that’s wondering if Tracy slept with anyone else post Elena breakup, but I think that’s unlikely. What did you think of this big moment?

It was really good to see the flirty banter as well as the support he provided while Elena was going through her existential crisis about her academic achievements and Professor McGrath. This ended up coming across as a really organic way to revisit this season one story and I’d forgotten that only Noel knew about the affair.

Elena maintained that she was the one who did the pursuing and she was fully consenting with this relationship. Even so there was manipulation at work with the story of his sick wife (apparently all BS) and he was in a position of authority which he abused. There’s also a consistent pattern so he definitely deserved to lose his job.

The other thing Elena worries about is that everything good that has happened since he bumped up her grade was based on a lie – the classes, meeting Tracy – and I can understand why she feels the need to retake the class, but also I’m with the Dean on this one as she really doesn’t need to. What did you think about this?

Julie: I’m also confused about the Molly/James timeline. She came here for him, but they’ve only been together for two months? Her obsession is unreal. She had said that she wants to leave him and get clean, and then she doesn’t. I apparently have very little patience for people with addiction, or maybe just “ad-dick-tion,” because this girl is at Level 10 Dickmazation. She needs to get a grip.

And now I’m wondering if they named him James just to make the “James and the Giant Peach” joke.

I hope you’re getting a screenshot of Noel seeing those assless pants. 🙂

As far as Elena and Tracy go, this whole storyline makes me sad. That look on his face at the end of the episode says it all: He has regrets. If only they had met each other ten years down the line, when they could just get married and be together and have the sex and it would be fine.

Because I’m pretty sure this isn’t going to end well. From now until forever, she’s the girl he broke his vow for, and he’s never not going to look at her that way. She is never going to live up to everything that means. I’m sure he thought maybe he could “keep” Elena if he just gave in and gave her his flower, but will she be able to “keep” him after this? I don’t know.

The thing that makes me really sad is that, yeah, the two of them are so adorable together. The flirting, the mutual respect and admiration. They are equals, intellectually. And the really dumb thing is, I think Elena would’ve been fine with the no sex thing if they had gotten back together without it. Sex has only gotten her in trouble at this point, with school and with Tracy. She’s sowed her oats and she realizes that being with Tracy is more important than getting her rocks off with someone else. If they had just gotten back together and reverted to the way things were, maybe they would’ve been fine? What do you think?

Emma: Still laughing at that episode title, I think mostly for that reason. I shouldn’t find it this funny, but here we are. Also the shot above is product placement central.

Regret is definitely going to be on the menu and like you I’m left feeling sad by this story. Even though Felicity is rather tame in comparison to other teen shows that have come after it, the manner in which it deals with various sex related story is something I am continually impressed with. They’ve covered a lot of ground in the past two and a half seasons and it never feels like they’re making a value judgement with the characters and sex. Yes they portray some of the relationships as messy and complicated, but I don’t get the impression that we’re meant to look down on these characters for making these choices. Hopefully this will continue with Elena and Tracy as I don’t want to see Elena beating herself up if Tracy does regret this moment.

I think the Christmas episode is coming up and considering how heavy some the recent storylines have been I wonder if it is too much to ask for some holiday cheer.

Julie Hammerle is, according to Klout, an expert in the areas of both Morgan Freeman and glasses. Her writing can be found at chicagonow.com/hammervision and you can holler at her on Twitter as well.

Tags: "James and the Giant Piece", "Let's Get it On", college, Donald Fasion, Felicity, Keri Russell, Scott Foley, Scott Speedman, Tangi Miller, Teen TV

Comments 1 Comment
Categories Felicity, TV Team-Up
Author Julie Hammerle

TV Rewind: Felicity, “Kissing Mr. Covington” and “A Good Egg”

6 Nov

Felicity, Episodes 3.7 & 3.8
“Kissing Mr. Covington” & “A Good Egg”
Original Air Dates: Nov. 15 & 22, 2000

Julie: Two weeks ago was all about testicles. Now Felicity has moved on to ovaries.

We were worried about Ben and Felicity’s relationship last we spoke, but it turns out there was no reason to fret. Ben’s frat guy beat down knocked all the rage out of him and now he and Felicity are totes fine. She’s taking care of him while he convalesces (he doesn’t look too bad considering the pummeling he took) and the two of them are happy as clams.

Except of course not, because it’s Felicity.

Bad dad John Ritter is back and he wants to make sure Ben’s okay. He comes to Felicity for help because obviously Felicity is responsible for repairing all of her friends’ relationships with their parents. John Ritter wants Ben to go to Al-Anon for help. Felicity thinks he sounds sincere, so she broaches the subject with Ben. He balks. Mr. Covington returns to Felicity’s apartment and, in a moment of despair, he nuzzles her neck and leans in to kiss her. She is, obviously, freaked and rightly so.

But that kiss wasn’t even the worst thing to come out of Mr. Covington’s return. That distinction belongs to Felicity’s “alone in the house” dancing to some generic disco track that was probably Jamiroquai or something when the show aired, but, due to rights, is something I could play for you right now on my Casio keyboard.

Ben eventually finds out about the almost kiss (after trying to get Felicity to hang out with his dad more, whoops), and he goes after Mr. Covington. They are done. Father/son no more. But the good that does come out of it is that he decides to go to an Al-Anon meeting. And he’s not the only member of the crew there — whimsical Brit, Molly, also has a person in her life who is a addicted to drugs and alcohol, her heretofore unmentioned boyfriend…we still don’t know his name. This reeks of the “my Canadian girlfriend” lie. Methinks Molly is just showing up at Al-Alon to meet people with a tendency to fall into co-dependent relationships who can score her some drugs.

(Related, didn’t she mention a brother who was into drugs before? Or her mom? This girl is shady.)

And now we know who the closet meth belongs to for sure.

How sad did you feel watching John Ritter the lech?

Emma: So sad to see John Ritter as a lech and the neck nuzzle was even skeezier than leaning in for a kiss as it feels a whole lot more intimate, the look of horror on Felicity’s face pretty much mirrors my own. And yeah what is it with all the parents asking a lot from Felicity? The list now includes her own, Julie’s mom and Ben’s dad. Back off guys she is only 20 years old and not here to save you or your relationship with your child.

There have been many references to the not locking of their apartment door of late and this is very much a friend hangout trope (including Friends) and considering Sean’s place got robbed in season 1 you would think they would take this more seriously, but I guess this is what all those nods are acknowledging. And it means Ben’s dad can walk in on Felicity dancing to herself and this scene itself felt out of place as has Felicity ever had a solo dance moment like this? Maybe it was intended as a Felicity dances away all her problems moment but it was still odd. John Ritter walks in on her and it’s all kinds of awkward, not as awkward as later but still it’s a little uneasy between the pair. This terrible generic music definitely feels like replacement music – the episode of Beverley Hills 90210 that I saw the other day also sounded like it had been scored by a Casio keyboard for these very reasons – and it sucks when they can’t get the rights for DVD.

Felicity attempts to not rock the boat further between Ben and his dad, but this is not something she should keep to herself and my notes are peppered with TELL HIM. It’s a super shitty position she has been put in and after the recent friction between Ben and Felicity caused by withholding information I was worried Ben would take his anger out on Felicity. I was surprised then when he did no such thing as even though it was not Felicity’s fault in the slightest, I still thought Ben might equate it to what happened with Randy and I was getting ready to yell at Ben through the screen. Instead Ben saw who was at fault and I can see why he is dunzo with papa. This is one too many fucks up in a huge list of fuck ups.

Ben’s dad tries to explain his actions by saying how hopeful Felicity made him feel, but that is not a reason to neck nuzzle your son’s twenty year old girlfriend. Felicity later wears the biggest neck cover turtle neck later on and never has a sweater choice made more sense.

There is a callback in this episode to the season 1 Halloween outing (which I watched/wrote about last week) and this conversation about his dad was spurred on by their experience of being robbed with guns in their faces. So much has changed since then and while Ben does still shut down emotionally going to that meeting is a huge step. Shame about the Molly.

I don’t really know what to make of this development as she’s never mentioned a boyfriend before (and she smooched Richard last week) and it doesn’t match up with her methhead brother cover story – also crystal meth is pretty rare in the UK – and basically I think she is full of shit. This is a strange direction to take this character in and makes me like her even less (which is saying something) and I hate that she is creating more secrets between Ben and Felicity.

There are plenty of other relationship dramas and what about the Noel is a huge creeper development?! I thought his behavior was a little off in the last episode but this is downright sketchy shenanigans. What did you make of the Tyra stalking antics?

Julie: I find it interesting that you thought Ben might go off on Felicity for the kiss thing. I never even considered that. I always figured that Ben would immediately shut it down between himself and his father. He’s been looking for an excuse and his dad gives him one. A big one.

The turtle neck was genius, both because of the covering the neck thing and because it was so on trend for 2000. Let’s bring back big turtle necks, but especially big turtle necks with no sleeves. Those are for when your arms think it’s summer, but your neck thinks it’s twenty degrees out.

As far as Noel goes, what the fuck? I’m not sure where this guy came from. We have never seen Noel act like this before. I mean, he went a little nutso when he started dating Natalie, whom he, of course, married, but I thought Noel was supposed to be getting back on track. And chasing after an adventurous hot girl who likes you back is on a completely different level of crazy than cyberstalking and actual stalking. If they’re trying to set up a future Noel vs. Ben thing for Felicity’s affections, this is a good way to make sure no one’s on Team Noel. It’s hard to come back from this level of crazy.

The only good thing to come out of this, I suppose, was the reveal that Richard was “Tricky” and that he got to play hide the salami with Tyra Banks. That’s quite a step up from Meth Head Molly. I also love that Richard and Noel almost became eskimo brothers, linked by Miss Tyra.

Speaking of eskimo brothers, Tracy has one in Finn (or, well, he would have one in Finn if Tracy had ever done the deed with Elena). She and Finn did officially sleep together, and now the secret’s out. What did you make of their whole situation? And now that someone (Noel?) has referred to Finn as a Tom Cruise wannabe, it’s all I can see.

Emma: Maybe I should have given Ben more credit than thinking he would be mad at Felicity, I was just worried it would constitute another lie. Although this time at least she was the one who came clean rather than finding out via email.

And yes a nice email segue and hacking into someone’s email seems so out of character for Noel. Like how did he even consider this was a good idea?! It’s so monumentally fucked up and crosses so many lines and I’m surprised his friends don’t react with more horror. And shouldn’t he get fired from his computer job for this major infraction? Because he’s cute and Felicity tells him that he’s the one guy who doesn’t resort to tactics like this are we supposed to just shrug or shoulders and forget about it? This is new creeper levels and yeah firmly on Team Ben right now.

The making love line was bad, the reading books, getting lines about art and volunteering at the old people’s (oh hey Leonard from Community) were all things that he ended up enjoying but that is beside the point even if the closing montage showed him playing chess with Leonard. And he told Tyra about what he did before sleeping with her which I guess is meant to redeem him slightly and yet it’s still pretty skeezy that it even got this far through manipulation and creeping. The Richard twist was good and yes Tyra > Molly. Oh and once again I was rather impressed with Tyra, she’s not an amazing actress but she’s not terrible either.

To the other semi eskimo brothers and bringing up Professor Creepy and his indiscretions with students – it’s not surprising Elena wasn’t the only one – is a bit of a contrivance. It does bring up a couple of insecurities about the lack of sex in this relationship but they work through it. That is until they do the second Tracy “I know the truth” mixup and Finn cops to sleeping with Elena. For some reason I thought they’d only kissed, maybe I wasn’t paying attention but yeah they totally did it and now Tracy can’t forgive her.

Elena talks to Felicity about whether Ben could have gotten over it if Felicity had slept with Randy and even though Felicity gives a vague you can’t predict what will happen answer, from his reaction I’m leaning towards no. But hey I could be wrong. Elena does the old school thing and writes Tracy a letter and it’s not enough. I’m sad about this break up as I really liked them together and does this mean the end for Donald Faison on this show?

Another couple has break up dramas as Sean goes on a religious kick after surviving surgery and Meghan is pissed at this turn of events. This very much feels like a Sean fad and he likes to throw himself into whatever project he is into on that week. Luckily he gets some wise words from his Rabbi hospital roommate, well maybe not entirely wise as he tells him to propose which is a gesture that is too big. What did you think of the Meghan and Sean temporary break up?

And what about Javier’s big question?

Julie: Oh, my god! That was Leonard? I totally missed that. I’m off my TV recognition game lately because it took me three weeks to realize Rawls was McNulty’s father-in-law on The Affair.

I hope it’s not the end for Donald Faison. He needs a bigger goodbye, at least, or maybe he should move into the loft with everyone because that’s where exes go to die. He and Noel could be wingmen out on the town, stalking ladies and not having sex with them. Maybe this could be a spinoff.

I’m still peeved at Elena for sexing Finn. I guess she wanted to see if she could have her cake and eat it, too, but then you don’t pick the dude who lives across the hall and is your boyfriend’s sociology partner. Amateur mistake. I really don’t blame Tracy if he can’t forgive her for this.

As far as the Sean stuff goes, the show is venturing into religious territory again with Sean’s new devotion to his Jewish roots. You’re right, it screams of being a Sean fad and it won’t last. I’m glad the rabbi noticed this and set Sean straight. I suppose the biggest point of this whole story was to show just how much Meghan cares for Sean. She’s willing to go along with his shabbas plans, procuring all the food for him while he’s in the hospital. And then she’s pissed (but really hurt) when he dumps her because she won’t convert. And, yeah, it was a bit hasty of Sean to jump from break up to engagement, but, again, that’s Sean. Meghan doesn’t seem too fazed by it.

Then we’re back to the tale as old as time: Javier needs a really intrusive favor and he needs Felicity to do it. Back in season 1, he asked her to green card marry him and now in season 3, he wants her baby making eggs. Probably next season he’ll be asking for a kidney. Oh wait, the show already did that one.

Felicity, of course, says immediately that she’ll donate her eggs for Javier and his husband. Why they’re doing it this way is beyond me. Wouldn’t it be easier (at least for the whole baby-making process) if they just artificially inseminated Felicity and then let her carry the baby for 9 months instead of transferring embryos into Samuel’s 49-year-old aunt’s uterus? I mean, it wouldn’t be easier for Felicity, but who cares about her needs at this point? She’s apt to agree to whatever.

Anyway, she agrees to do it and then freaks out because she realizes she’ll still see this kid who will be one half biologically hers. That is weird. So she has to pretend to be Javier’s wife again to get a girl from Brown to carry the baby. The girl falls for it, until she walks in on the most randomly deployed baby shower in the history of time. There’s no baby to shower yet, morons!

The girl realizes that Javier is a gay and she does not want to carry a gay couple’s baby. So, Javier managed to find the only conservative girl at Brown to carry his child.

What did you think of this ridiculousness?

Emma: Have you seen the trailer for Let’s Kill Ward’s Wife? It looks as bad (and misogynistic) as the title would suggest and I bring it up as it’s a Felicity reunion with Scott Foley, Donald Faison and Greg Grunberg. I’m sad it’s for this film and while the trailer might be misrepresenting the film I don’t think I’ve ever heard the theory that everyone gets one murder.

This new movie is not the Felicity spinoff we deserve.

Javier asking Felicity to provide an egg is yet another in a long list of adults asking Felicity to do something selfless. I understand why Javier and Samuel think Felicity would be a good match, but this is a HUGE favor and Ben’s uncomfortable reaction is understandable. He’s also concerned that she has a habit of making impulsive decisions, particularly if it will help someone who is close to her. Ben explains later on that he was so against it at first as she always puts the needs of others first. He also gives a good example of how this might end up with the kid feeling some trauma in the same way Julie did – her adoptive parents raised her in a loving home but she still felt like something was missing.

For Ben this isn’t about Javier and Samuel, but how Felicity will deal with knowing that this child is biologically half hers. By the end of the episode Ben says he’ll support whatever she chooses and she ends up coming down on the side of saying no. I’m glad they’ve addressed Javier and Samuel’s desire to have a family, but the bigot egg donor and them pretending to be a couple just comes across a retreading old ground. And yeah that baby shower was WAY premature.

At the moment it’s hard to see entirely where this season is going exactly and I think that’s why some of these stories come across as filler rather than anything substantial. I’d still like to see more of how Sean is dealing with having cancer and I hope they don’t just ignore this now that he has had surgery. The Elena/Tracy story has come to a head and I’m intrigued to see where Elena will go from here as I think this could be the shows longest on screen romantic relationship so far.

Molly is making me uneasy and it’s not just because this character has always put my nerves on edge. Something will come between Felicity and Ben at some point this season and I have a sneaking suspicion it could be her. Not that I’m suggesting there will be a hookup, but she definitely comes across as threatening when she reminds Ben that he can’t spill anything that gets said during those meetings. Can’t Ben just go to another one? This is New York so I’m guessing there is more than one option.

Oh and random observation but the concentration on Ben’s face as he played PlayStation one handed was such a delight.

Also are we ever going to see Sean’s Docuventary on TV?

Julie: Yeah, pretty sure “everyone gets one murder” is not a thing. Also, that movie looks terrible. It makes The Wedding Ringer look like high art.

I think the whole Felicity saying yes to everything is so perfect for her character (and I also see why it’s so frustrating for Ben). She always wants to do the adult thing, without really thinking it through. She’s a very impulsive person, secretly. She comes across as this prudish, do-gooder, but she’s really kind of big on the knee-jerk reactions. You need a green card wife? On it. Egg? Sure. You’re going to New York for school, Ben? Good. Me too. She rarely thinks things through. For being such a smart person, she’s kind of an idiot.

Ugh. Yeah about Molly and coming between Felicity and Ben. I definitely don’t think it will be a hook up situation, but since Ben has been so insistent that the two of them tell each other everything, his keeping Al-Anon secrets from Felicity could be a problem, just because she’s directly affected by them. Molly’s going to wind up getting in trouble and he’s going to have to come to her rescue and Felicity will have a hard time with that. That’s just my prediction.

I’m also hoping they don’t drop Sean’s ball story and I’m wondering how they’re ever going to get Noel back to the place where we’re rooting for him and Felicity to hook up again. The writers have certainly made it difficult for themselves.

Julie Hammerle is, according to Klout, an expert in the areas of both Morgan Freeman and glasses. Her writing can be found at chicagonow.com/hammervision and you can holler at her on Twitter as well.

Tags: college, Donald Faison, Felicity, Keri Russell, Scott Foley, Scott Speedman, Tangi Miller, Teen TV, Tyra Banks

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Categories Felicity, TV Team-Up
Author Julie Hammerle

Halloween Costume Tips from Felicity

29 Oct

Halloween is fast approaching and as the 90s revival is still very much a thing we are going to look to another teen show for costume ideas. Last year My So-Called Life provided the inspiration and now it is the turn of Felicity and the season 1 episode “Spooked.” It is an episode full of real life horror, dating dramas and an array of costume choices going way beyond sticking the word ‘sexy’ in front of whatever they are supposed to be.

1) Pick a current(ish) pop culture figure

This episode is from 1998 and while Michelle Pfeiffer hadn’t worn the slinky Catwoman suit since Batman Returns in 1992 it is an iconic look and character that has been through several costume iterations. By picking a pop culture figure from a few years previous rather than whatever is hot right now, there is far less risk of being one of many people dressed in the same costume; 2008 was a sea of Jokers, 2014 there might be a lot less. This also manages to be sexy without revealing any skin. Going to the bathroom might prove challenging.

2) Go classic

A vintage horror movie character doesn’t go out of style, but you might have to spend all evening explaining who you are or get mistaken for someone who is currently in the public eye – Felicity gets mistaken for Courtney Love, it is 1998 – rather than the Bride of Frankenstein. It is a bonus if you have a Felicity amount of hair for this costume and there is definitely a DIY approach as she’s wearing a white dress rather than an actual wedding gown (sadly lacking the cape train of the original Bride).

Also if you plan on wearing a costume that is part of a duo make sure the other person isn’t going to be a total flake. In Felicity’s case the dude is who she is crushing on and his indifference leads to comfort drinking followed by this:

A classic costume with a classic post “I’m so sorry I just vommed on you” face. More on this later.

3) The no effort part of a group costume using stuff you probably have in your wardrobe

Ben is especially flaky during the early Felicity days and nothing sums this up more than his Halloween costume as instead of being the Frankenstein (Ben makes the common mistake or maybe he was going to go as the Doctor rather than monster, we will never know) to Felicity’s bride he is instead swayed by Sean’s idea to go as the Rat Pack. Ben thinks he might be Peter Lawford, he’s not sure and is totally whatever about the whole thing; he’s just happy he gets to look hot in a suit and later hook up with the Pink Power Ranger:

Another no skin revealing, but super tight costume. Felicity goes all meta for a moment as the real former Pink Power Ranger is someone Ben has already kissed on the show. In Ben’s slight defense he hadn’t fully committed to the doubles costume with Felicity, working against Ben is the many hot/cold signals he is giving Felicity like late night intimate chats and then pretty much ignoring her at the party. Be less terrible, Ben.

4) Make sure you have plenty of pumpkins

The perfect time for low light and intimate chats comes with party prep. Be prepared for later disappointment (see numbers 3 and 4).

5) The “I thought it was funny” option

Noel told Elena he would sort out costumes, he gets Subway uniforms (almost seamless product placement points +10) because he thinks it is funny. Elena is less sure and while this is very much the anti-Halloween sexy she does hook up with a dude dressed as the Tin Man (the Tin Man does end up cheating on Elena with her BFF at a later date so maybe that’s a con too). Negatives include many requests for sandwiches all night. And wearing plastic gloves.

However, plastic gloves will come in handy if someone throws up on you. May change your opinion of said person you have just given an epic pep talk to/have a huge crush on. If it doesn’t it must be love or something like that.

For more on Halloween and 90s teen TV check out posts on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Freaks and Geeks.

Tags: Amy Jo Johnson, college, Felicity, Halloween, Keri Russell, Power Rangers, Scott Foley, Scott Speedman, Tangi Miller, Teen TV

Comments 3 Comments
Categories Felicity, Halloween
Author Emma Fraser

Behind the Insta-Scenes: Photos from the Set

16 Oct

Welcome once again to Behind the Insta-Scenes! A new feature offering a roundup of the best behind the scenes photos posted on Instagram from a variety of TV show and personal accounts from the people who are on them. This includes anything from future episode sneak peeks, what’s airing this week, flashing back to the past and general on set (and sometimes off set) antics.

This week we have a range of shows and behind the scenes frolicking such as snack loving from the Orange is the New Black ladies, a double Thanksgiving celebration on New Girl and a contender for best Gina sweater on Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

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A post shared by Samira Wiley (@whododatlikedat)

First up is Samira Wiley in full OITNB Poussey grey sweatshirt goodness and a cookie with love.

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A post shared by emmacat (@emmacat)

A lot more snacks and possible sugar induced happiness from Emma Myles (Leanne) and Kimiko Glenn (Soso) also on the set of OITNB. It’s as if Trick-or-Treating has come early to Litchfield this year.

http://instagram.com/p/uG02b2NM7B/?modal=true

Canadian Thanksgiving was on Monday and Hannah Simone celebrated on the set of New Girl as they shot their American Thanksgiving episode. Digging the super 90s dress and cute Heidi braid on Zooey Deschanel.

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A post shared by Chelsea Peretti (@chelsanity)

Wolfie sweater! And from the same Risto collection as the one I suggested for Gina a couple of weeks ago.

http://instagram.com/p/uG98-yDaab/?modal=true

Nicole Beharie isn’t out of the woods on the set of Sleepy Hollow and that dude in the tri-corner hat in the background suggests some time warping shenanigans are afoot.

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A post shared by Kerry Washington (@kerrywashington)

Kerry Washington’s shot doesn’t reveal anything that’s going to happen in the episode of Scandal they are at the table read for, but this goofy selfie might please Fitz and Jake fans alike.

http://instagram.com/p/t97qKCvaUf/?modal=true

I watched the first three episodes of Selfie yesterday and in spite of that name it has the components to be a very fun show. Karen Gillan’s charm factor is a big reason why this it could really work, plus I did laugh a bunch which is kind of what you want from a sitcom. We’ll see, but at the moment I am sold on Selfie. And here is what appears to be a selfie of Gillan, so hey it’s easy to tie in the title with an Instagram post.

Tags: Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Chelsea Peretti, Emma Myles, Hannah Simone, Karen Gillan, Kerry Washington, Kimiko Glenn, New Girl, Nicole Beharie, Samira Wiley, Scandal, Scott Speedman, Selfie, Sleepy Hollow, Tony Goldwyn, Zooey Deschanel

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Categories Behind the Insta-Scenes
Author Emma Fraser

TV Rewind: Felicity, “Hello, I Must Be Going” & “Greeks and Geeks”

9 Oct

Felicity, Episodes 3.3 & 3.4
“Hello, I Must Be Going” & “Greeks and Geeks”
Original Air Dates: Oct. 18 & 25, 2000

Julie: We were right that Julie was hiding the whole truth about her biological dad’s death. She was tested, that was true, but she was a match. She told her mom and dad, however, that she was not. And as a result, her dad died.

That’s heavy. That’s a lot to deal with. It explains why her behavior has been so erratic. She’s been hooking up with random dudes and trying to shoehorn her way back into Ben’s inner circle. And then there was the crystal meth left behind in her closet. I don’t know if I believe Julie when she says it wasn’t hers. What do you think?

Yes, Julie is gone. She took off out of the blue without telling anyone, just leaving a video of her goodbye. She says a personal goodbye to everyone, leaving Felicity for last, telling us that she believes they were better friends than the last fight they had. I still don’t know if I buy that. Felicity was her first friend at college, but I don’t believe they were best friends. Julie was much closer to Ben and Sean than she ever was to Felicity. And Felicity seems much more attached to Noel and Elena.

Before leaving and in the aftermath, Julie was given the opportunity to mess things up for everyone else. She meddled in Ben’s affairs when she called in a missing person’s report on Ben’s dad (still John Ritter). She started to latch on to Ben, trying to rekindle their friendship (and, hopefully, not their romance, because that would be a really awful thing to do to her supposed “best friend”). She got mad at everyone and blurted out the truth about her father. And then she was gone.

But in the second episode, Felicity and friends were still cleaning up Julie’s mess. She never called her parents to tell them about dropping out of school, so Felicity had to do it for her. And then, because Felicity was so distraught over Julie leaving and her mom blaming Felicity for it, Felicity went out and got drunk and maybe banged another dude.

Before we get into that, what’s your take on Julie leaving?

Emma: So that went from fun and light to super angsty pretty quickly then. Maybe we need the black and white credits back to reflect the tone?

As you mention Julie has a lot of heavy shit to deal with and by bottling it all up she comes across as a Grade A bitch and at first it is incredibly hard to sympathize with her until she drops the kidney match bombshell. I figured that maybe when they found out she wasn’t a match her biological parents turned their backs on her, instead she’s the one who in a way turned her back on them (not that I think she should be blamed for this reaction) and the guilt is eating her alive.

With Ben and her attempts to help with his dad it’s like she is trying to get back that connection and bond she previously had with him while also finding an outlet for her own guilt – if she can fix Ben and his dad then it goes some way to make up for what she didn’t do with her own father. It’s incredibly messy and I’m kinda mad about how the show ended up treating this character as the one who had far too much emotional baggage.

What I do want to know (and have yet to look up as I don’t want to see spoilers) is the details of Amy Jo Johnson’s departure – was it because she wanted off the show? Is she coming back? I understand why the character wants to leave New York as it represents a whole lot of pain for her, but like you I also find the ‘Felicity is my BFF’ talk to be a load of baloney. The episode that sums it up best is from last seasonwhen they were stuck on the subway and ended up hashing out their friendship; theirs was and has always been a best-friendship of convenience. If Felicity really were her best friend she would have reached out to her over the summer about this huge thing that was going on in her life.

I don’t mind Julie leaving for now, but I would like to see her return at some point in a much healthier state of mind. What she leaves behind is maybe a baggy of crystal meth (which she claims isn’t hers) and a whole lot of guilty feelings for Felicity that leads to something that makes her feel even more terrible. First I want to talk about the drug MacGuffin and I figured someone would end up taking it by accident by the end of the episode in A Very Special way as, so far, Felicity hasn’t really done that much with drugs, which is unusual for a teen show. I also thought that maybe it would come into play at the frat party and instead all they did was a lot of jello shots. The only alcohol is bad message they gave was a) you might fall down and hurt your wrist and b) you might wake up next to a random dude and have to do the walk of shame the following day, including a bin/vom situation.

Okay the second part is particularly bad and I’m mad that the sequel to the girls’ night out from last year yielded some very terrible results. For this I blame Julie’s mom and Molly. Mostly Molly. Instead of staying with Felicity who was clearly in an incredibly emotional vulnerable state Molly fucked off and didn’t even check the frat house it would seem for her friend. Yes I could argue that Molly doesn’t really know Felicity all that well yet so she doesn’t have a responsibility to her, but she should still have checked on her. Ugh, I think Molly might be my new Ruby. What do you make of the new addition?

Blaming Felicity for the Julie shenanigans is a low blow from Julie’s mom and even though she’s only reacting out of anger and fear, it’s a totally bullshit thing to lay the blame at the feet of a 19/20 year old. Maybe Felicity should have opted for the low blow and questioned her parenting skills. This whole storyline makes me really mad.

So do you think Felicity did anything with that dude?

Julie: I was wondering about your take on the new British gal. How about her ’90s bindis? So Gwen Stefani.

It’s sort of the gun-in-the-play thing. If there’s a baggie of drugs in the first act, a character must take them (or take responsibility for them) in the third act. Since Julie claims the meth is not hers (and, oh, how I wish it were blue meth), who does the meth belong to? What’s the point of having it show up in this episode, if it has no bearing on the plot. It’s still in their apartment. Maybe someone will take it in the future. I vote for Elena. She’s due for a life mess-up.

I did a little digging into the Amy Jo Johnson departure thing, and it looks like she was let go for budgetary reasons (which doesn’t explain the addition of Molly). Both she and JJ Abrams felt like Julie wasn’t getting enough to do on the show and it was a “mutual decision.” I don’t know. If I were Johnson, I probably would’ve been looking for an out at this point. The writers had no idea what to do with Julie.

The frat party was all kinds of scary for me, mostly because I have children and someday these are the parties they’ll be attending. Not that I didn’t go to those parties, but it just seems so terrifying looking at it from the parent point of view. I was terrified that those Jello shots were going to be laced with something or I don’t know. I think Molly was a complete dick for leaving Felicity like that. You take care of your girlfriends first, lady. Queens before peens. Or something. I remember my friends and I running across a college campus one night looking for another girlfriend who had wandered off on her own. We didn’t stop until we found her (in some random dude’s bed at the Sigma Chi house). Leave no (wo)man behind!

It did look like Felicity was having a fun time playing strip ping-pong, so good for her on that. I am concerned that she and ping-pong partner did do “things” in his bed and I’m wondering if she’ll take one of the morning after pills she worked so hard to bring to campus just in case. What was your take on her random hook up and how do you think Ben will react?

On the other end of the drama spectrum is Noel, who was dealing with alternately the dissolution of his marriage to Natalie and trying to get a job fixing computers on campus. What did you think of the Natalie/inheritance subplot and do you think we’ll see her again? Also, how cute was the play on “Freaks and Geeks” with “Greeks and Geeks?”

Emma: My first remark about Molly on Twitter was about how fake her accent sounds and it turns out that she’s actually British. I think I real accent is Northern, but she’s maybe trying to suppress it and do a ‘typical’ British accent and this makes it sound wonky (and Australian at times). I’m not sure if it’s because I wore a bindi in the late ’90s that she’s giving me so much second hand cringe. So far she’s hasn’t done anything to endear me to her and I’m kind of annoyed they’ve replaced Julie with her.

That’s interesting on the Amy Jo Johnson front and I can’t work out if she was pushed or wanted to leave. The reason they give sounds too neat – mutual decision always sounds a little PR to me – but I guess that could have been the case. They’re right that Julie wasn’t getting a lot to do as they were just recycling every one of her plot points. But urgh Molly.

Yeah I had similar feelings about the frat and I think we’ve been coded by all the awful frat antics that are making the news at the moment and because it’s a TV show we expect something bad to happen. I mean it’s bad for Felicity’s relationship with Ben, but like you I was expecting something so much worse. I know the show has already covered rape once, that doesn’t mean that it’s not a something that wouldn’t happen again. It sucks that this is something that wouldn’t seem like a stretch.

Queens before peens is something Molly should get stitched on a pillow. Never leave a party without finding out where all of your friends are, although I don’t think I ever had a moment like your experience with your friend (nor did we have frat houses).

Quick sidenote – speaking of peens it did make me giggle when Noel referred to the computer dude as a ‘peen.’

I don’t think Felicity did anything other than pass out – my evidence is pretty much she still had her bra on (which is how we left her during ping-pong) and I think the guilt will eat her up because she can’t remember. Even if she didn’t do anything it’s still going to cause friction if/when she tells Ben. I think he’ll be pissed off when he finds out.

They’ve had Felicity make some impulsive decisions this season (the apartment, this dude) and yes I asked for a non-flaky Felicity this is not what I meant. It’s good that she’s not getting everything right, I just feel for her, you know? Also Keri Russell does delightful drunk and hangover face so well. Maybe Felicity will be the one that takes the drugs (insert cat Home Alone face emoji). I’m not sure if they’ll ever bring up the drugs ever again, but if they do there’s plenty of candidates to become a cautionary tale.

The Noel/Natalie shenanigans is the lighter plot and while I was surprised to see that she was still around I did enjoy each time she sabotaged Noel’s attempts at annulment. But I’m not invested in this relationship at all other getting to see Scott Foley getting flustered. By the sounds of it Noel is better in bed than even Jake professes to be (ugh with this already on Scandal).

The Noel story in “Greeks and Geeks” (a nod I hadn’t figured out, but it makes me happy now you’ve pointed it out) worked for me a lot more and I’m glad that both the computer dude and Noel were proven to not be as awesome as they thought. Noel’s kind of a computer and geek snob – he’s a Mac guy and not into Star Trek – and yet he almost gets beaten by a PC. Yes it’s good to challenge the notion that geeks all like the same stuff, but you also still made a Star Trek movie JJ. Plus Noel has shown plenty of outward signs of his geekdom (camping for The Phantom Menace) in the past. What did you make of this?

Also Sean and Meghan have two episodes in a row with relationship drama over broken noses (nice one Ben) and phone sex working, are they built to last?

Julie: Thank you. I was going to defer to the real Brit in this conversation. (I consider myself an honorary Brit, like Madonna or Goop.) I thought her accent sounded fake as well, sometimes almost Scottish, but not. And the bindis need to stop. I can’t with this earth mother, spiritual girl. Even her excuse for leaving Felicity (“There’s a guy who’s really good at reading palms!”) was obnoxious.

When Felicity woke up, I was waiting for the inevitable check-under-the-covers, oops-I’m-wearing-no-underwear moment, but that didn’t happen. It’s probably likely that ping-pong dude was too drunk for any peen action anyway (let’s see how many times we can use the word peen in this post). And yeah, Ben is not going to like this. And yeah, he will find out because EVERYBODY ELSE KNOWS.

I suppose that’s what TV has taught us? Scott Foley is an A+ lover. And he’d like you to know about it. It’s in his contract.

I thought the geek guy should’ve been way more nervous around Elena. She’s a fox and he’s, well, him. But he was just a stinky little tyrant. The logistics of the whole computer war didn’t make a ton of sense to me, but I enjoyed watching it. I actually love Scott Foley and Donald Faison playing off each other. They’re the two best comedic actors on the show.

And the geek guy, who kept making Star Trek fingers (the technical term) had a lot of Star Wars characters on his desk. Don’t geeks usually favor one or the other?

As far as Meghan and Sean go, I do think they have potential to stay together. We’ve never seen Meghan give on anything. She always knows exactly what she’s doing and why and she doesn’t kowtow to anyone. But she does give with Sean. I think she really cares about him, which is lovely. I like the two of them together. We need a solid couple on this show (I guess we have Elena and Tracy), now that Ben and Felicity seem headed for a rough patch.

I think we’ve covered most of it, except Javier’s citizenship test, the most important storyline in either episode!

Emma: The spiritual character is such a cliche and I really hope Meghan whisks up a spell to undo whatever nonsense Molly has planned. It looks like Molly is here for the season sadly, which only has 17 episodes for some reason.

Yeah they didn’t really suggest one way or the other what happened with Felicity and the frat boy other than the horrible mistake she thinks she might have made. Other than her trash can street vom and hangover face, her outfit is pretty great for the walk of shame as it’s not all that indicative of a night out and she can also wrap that coat around herself. And it’s way better than her double red denim nightmare from last season. However the combination of guilt and shame is tenfold this time. I hope Felicity doesn’t beat herself up, but she definitely will and yep Ben will know it at least two episodes time (probably the next one). Will Felicity tell him before someone else does?

Like you I was very happy with the Scott Foley/Donald Faison pairing. They both give really good “oh fuck” faces and I actually think Elena was pretty calm/restrained considering how long she spent on that work and the possibility of an F grade looming over her.

Yeah I thought that too about the Star Trek/Wars fandom although maybe this was suggesting that you can be both even if it’s unlikely. In the same way Mac and PC people can co-exist or use a mixture of the two (which is even easier now there are iPhones/iPads etc and our house definitely is half and half).

I certainly hope so with Meghan and Sean – the teen photo was especially touching and now I’m wondering just how many of Meghan’s stories are actually about her and not someone else she knew. I get why she didn’t want to back down on the job front and hey money is money but one plot hole quibble as don’t you have to be on the same number not multiple phones? This is what For a Good Time Call… seemed to suggest. It’s fun to see them grow as a couple and really that was an ultimate angry dick move from Ben with his basketball bro anger.

Uggggghh I really don’t want the Ben/Felicity troubles to start already, but alas is looks like we’re here.

The Javier stuff was cute, however it came across as an excuse to get Ben out of the way so Felicity was free to fuck up. Although he did show Ben the importance of a democratic society with a nod to the 2000 election. I wonder if they will cover this any further. What did you make of this?

Julie: The 2000 election was also my first presidential election, so I did think that was kind of fun. It was right after eight years of Bill Clinton, so we had two totally “new” guys running and there was a lot of promise and excitement and then –wah-wah– George W. Bush got the job. Felicity won’t be around for the 2004 election which I remember being much more tense and angry, with good reason.

As far as Meghan’s phone sex thing, I think she had appointments set up and she was calling the guys, not the other way around? I guess that’s the only way it makes sense that she could work from different phones.

Good call on the basketball scene. Ben is always working out his feelings with ball in hand. That was not a euphemism. This time it’s anger, and it’s anger toward poor Sean, who doesn’t even have a camera in Ben’s face at this point.

And, yeah, while Meghan is kind of mystic and spiritual (in her way), her devil-may-care attitude makes it less hokey and obnoxious. Right now Molly is just too earnest to be believed. Girl gots to go.

Julie Hammerle is, according to Klout, an expert in the areas of both Morgan Freeman and glasses. Her writing can be found at chicagonow.com/hammervision and you can holler at her on Twitter as well.

Tags: Amy Jo Johnson, college, Donald Faison, Felicity, Keri Russell, Scott Foley, Scott Speedman, Teen TV

Comments 2 Comments
Categories Felicity, TV Team-Up
Author Julie Hammerle

TV Rewind: Felicity, “The Christening” & “The Anti-Natalie Intervention”

25 Sep

Felicity, Episodes 3.1 & 3.2
“The Christening” & “The Anti-Natalie Intervention”
Original Air Dates: Oct. 4 & 11, 2000

Emma: There are new opening credits with a brand new song and it totally threw me at first. In the space of 30 seconds I went from ‘ugh these are awful’ to ‘I totally love them’ which is a quick about turn. I like the cheese factor and how it captures the fun of the show with some of the farcical elements. There’s also some deep and meaningful hug/talking clips used and while the black and white credits captured that self-serious aspect of early college, I think these new ones represent the less precious aspects of college. They’re now more self-assured than they were and at least it’s not like the Alias season 3 disaster.

After complaining about how flaky Felicity is when it comes to decision making she went and did something impulsive in the season 3 premiere. Sadly it wasn’t a wise move as she ditched her Elena/Julie commitments and instead got an apartment for Ben and herself. She just went ahead and did it before consulting either her friends or Ben so they all kind of have to go along with it. Felicity is all excited about seeing a Ben again and her decision is tied to this romantic notion about both her relationship and the apartment in question. It’s in Brooklyn and what you would definitely call a fixer-upper.

Felicity is flaky, but she can also be single minded and it’s why she doesn’t really consider the consequences of this huge decision. First of all it leaves Elena and Julie down a roommate; this is covered as Meghan’s living plans have fallen through (she was meant to move in with Earl) and she needs somewhere to live. This is one development I am so happy with – Meghan is still with Sean and even though they’ve had an amazing summer together, they don’t decide to move into together, they are not Felicity. Ben doesn’t get a say, yes he could tell Felicity what a dumb idea it is, but he doesn’t want to hurt her feelings. Instead he just bitches about how much he hates it to Sean. Standard Ben behavior. Ben takes Sean’s terrible advice because, of course. This advice includes a huge screen and I don’t even understand what kind of TV that is. Pre flat screen I guess.

It’s far too early in their relationship to take this step and there’s a difference between staying over because your dorm is flooded versus actually living together. They should still very much be in the fun stage and an apartment with a bath in the front room is not the way to go. That and everything else that is wrong with it: bugs, rats, loud pipes, a hot neighbour with no boundaries and appliances that catch on fire. Felicity mentions she has experience with fire and the new opening credits helpfully show this experience. On both occasions fire interrupts a hook up.

What did you think about Felicity’s impulsive decision?

Julie: I knew the new credits were coming, but I kind of forgot about it until you mentioned them on Twitter. I remembered hating them (and the new song) on my first Felicity go-around, but this time, I’m loving them. Maybe it’s nostalgia, maybe it’s just that I love reliving all those little moments and seeing how much Felicity and her friends have grown over the first two seasons.

Felicity in the first episode of Season 3 is not the Felicity of the second episode. I don’t know what that whole “let’s move in together, Ben” thing was, but it was bad. All-around bad. She put her mister before her sisters. She didn’t consult Ben on the decision. And she was just being so “I’m Felicity and I need to feel adult.” Plus, I don’t think she considered how annoying it would be to live in Brooklyn while commuting to Manhattan for school. I am a big proponent of living as close to campus as possible, preferably on campus. There will be plenty of time for apartments and adulthood after graduation. Be a kid for as long as you can. Plus, holy geez, was the girls’ student housing AMAZING!

The whole time Ben kept talking to Sean about it, I was like, “You fool! This is going to be on the Sundance Channel! She’ll see it.” Ben is kind of an idiot. He’s an idiot about their downstairs neighbor who wants to use their living room tub, as well. He, apparently, has very little control when it comes to beautiful women, which hopefully won’t get him into too much trouble. Felicity doesn’t deserve that, apartment renting aside. Also, I don’t know what’s going on with his hair this season. I’m not sure if it was my TV, but it looked like a football helmet.

Anyway, no harm, no foul, because Felicity is back with the girls and Ben is back with Sean. And maybe Richard is living there now? Have they established that? Or is Richard kind of the Phoebe? Regardless, it’s good because it seems like the show is focusing more on the fun, social aspects of college, which is what we were hoping for during sophomore year.

I’m especially liking the girl dynamic. Elena and Julie are getting more to do, just by virtue of playing off each other. There’s some major girl shit happening there. Meghan is there to stir things up and provide comic relief. Julie, especially, has some deep things happening beneath the surface. She, apparently, took the kidney test, wasn’t a match for her dad, and got to know him a bit before he died. I’m not sure I believe her whole story at this point. She’s also having to serve as a buffer between Elena and the hot guy across the hall. Once Elena realizes she doesn’t want to jeopardize her relationship with Tracy, Julie steps in and hooks up with the guy. Is this the first time Julie’s really been with someone since Ben? I think so. I’m concerned Julie’s headed for more dark times.

What do you think about Julie? Oh, and Elena’s little crisis of faith?

Emma: Ben’s hair makes me way more sad than even the hideous Felicity top knot. I have no idea what they did to it. Maybe we can blame the helmet he had to wear on his construction job. The mid-length Felicity is sporting is not nearly as awkward as I expected it to be. You know who has terrible hair? That’s right, Noel. But more on him later.

The girls’ apartment is incredible and I’m guessing is one of these kinds of places that only exist on TV as none of our student housing ever looked like this. And there are also super cute dudes living across the hall, also in a TV fantasy land kind of way and this provides both the entertainment and the friction in the second episode. There is no way that dude’s towel would have stayed up and I love how disappointed they all were when the game ended.

Felicity does seem constantly torn between wanting to be an adult and doing the fun thing which is probably pretty accurate of most 19/20 year old’s. You’re right in that college is very much the time for fun, where you can stay over but go back to your own place whenever you want. Plus nobody wants a 20 minute conversation about where to put the forks. Especially when it’s not even innuendo. With Felicity moving into the apartment does this mean the English student who hasn’t turned up is shit out of luck? Or are two of them going to have to share? I’m going with the latter and I have a feeling Meghan and Felicity might end up sharing again, which probably won’t be too much of a big deal seeing as they both have their boyfriends’ (who happen to live together) apartment to sleep over at.

Also Felicity and Meghan make the most sense doubling up as I sense a lot of icy tension with Julie and Elena thanks to hooks up and persistent questions. Felicity hasn’t been around much to ask Julie about her depressing summer and like you I feel like she isn’t being completely upfront with what happened. It sounds super shitty and I can understand why she is being standoffish, but if you don’t want someone to ask how you are don’t cry in the communal space. Elena asking Julie to third wheel for her while she contemplates other options outside of Tracy is a bit of a dick move, especially as Julie is as she mentions always the third wheel so when Elena decides Tracy is all she wants (thanks to a well timed photo falling over that Elena saw as a sign from God), Julie puts that getting to know you with this pre-law guy to good use. Oh hey awkward morning after bathroom scene.

In terms of dudes post Ben wasn’t there that dread lock guy from the party at the start of last season? Obviously there was the sleazy A&R guy that resulted in Zach flashbacks and a Noel smooch, but no one else that I can think of. I want Julie to get her own story and for them to explore the lady friendships, but I hope Julie’s spiral isn’t just a series of one night stands; I hope they don’t use sex as a way to have Julie question her self worth all over again. I kind of hope this is just Julie being really passive aggressive towards Elena using her and rubbing it in that she can’t have sex with her boyfriend rather. This is also a dick move and one that I hope settles the score.

Elena also commits the dumb move of talking about her Tracy problems on camera and I think they’ve all forgotten what Sean is going to do with the footage. Cut to a few episodes time and the first episode airing. SO many arguments are on the cards.

If everyone was to write an essay about what they did on their summer vacation then Noel would certainly get a “huh?” in his comments section and he doesn’t show up until near the end of the premiere and when he is a very different looking Noel to what we are used to. Gone are the tees, sweaters and floppy hair and in are the highlights, beard and leopard print. They really did find the best worst attire and I’m pretty sure he is very stoned or at least high on something. As Javier predicted his cousin is some kind of whirlwind and Noel’s fallen head over heels for this lack of responsibility schtick. What did you think of Noel’s – or should I say Leon’s? – big news?

Julie: I think Noel’s hair gets a pass for the moment. That is deep crisis hair. That’s not real hair.

Junior year is a particularly troubling time for Felicity’s hair. She seems to have it all figured out personally, but not follicularly. I think I just made up that word. The top knot is horrible. It’s a curly man bun, and it only works on Joakim Noah.

As far as the Julie/Elena fight goes, I’m squarely on Team Julie here. Elena knew she was being an idiot. She knew she was playing with fire, and she dragged Julie into it. I’m thinking at this point Julie only slept with pre-law dude as an eff you to Elena. Like, “See, Elena, if you were single like me, this could’ve been you.” I don’t know. Good for Julie for standing up for herself…in some way.

I also want to point out, as far as pre-law dude goes, he knows WAAAAAAAY too much about New York divorce law for an undergrad. It was actually hilarious. I’m pretty sure most attorneys don’t get that far into divorce law until they actually become divorce attorneys.

OK, Noel. Or Leon. He’s a hot mess. I think this whole Natalie thing was good for him in the long run. As we’ve said, Noel has always been Mr. Responsible. He had a long-term girlfriend. He got serious with Felicity right away. When he went to Europe two summers ago, he was so hung up on Felicity, he didn’t really let himself have fun. Then he hooked up with Ruby, who went and got pregnant, and who tapped Noel as her caregiver/BFF. Noel was due for some irresponsibility.

Of course, this being television, they take it to the limit, turning Noel into some skeezy guy with cool guy tips. He even elopes. At least he didn’t get a tattoo (that we know of), so there’s that.

Noel needed to go through all this, however, because 1) now he knows he can go full-throttle with his life notebook plan to be a giant computer nerd and 2) since he never figured out his living situation before running off with Natalie, he can move into Sean’s loft. Everyone’s living together! Things are perfect! Show over!

How did you feel about the Noel/Natalie situation?

Emma: Woah that definitely tops even the Jared Leto man bun.

The middle stage of a grow out is super awkward and this is why I stick to short hair now (and I really don’t suit long hair at all). So having seen recent photos of Keri Russell has she lost the tighter curls naturally or do you think she has something done to her hair to lose the Felicity style volume? I am no hair expert so have no idea.

I am also on Team Julie on this occasion, I just don’t want this living situation to descend into bitchiness and bad feelings.

That dude definitely seemed like he was an actual lawyer posing as a student as some elaborate scheme to hook up with college girls. That or he has a photographic memory or something, Super useful having him across the hall for all law emergencies. Speaking of which – what kind of lease did Felicity get where she could move in and out of somewhere and still get all of her money back?

During the second episode I ended up writing down that Noel is the Ross of this show, which I guess is appropriately timed as it is the Friends 20th anniversary week (ahh those feeling old feelings). He ends up in these really dumb situations and gets married while drunk, there’s just something very Ross about him. I think it’s good as well that he has had this experience even if it has put a kink in his plan – it might also put Noel in the same year as the rest of the group as I guess he might have to wait until next year to do his senior year. Noel’s freak outs are also reminiscent of Ross as is his realization that their collective assets are a plate. Scott Foely once again gets to flex his comedy chops and show how good he is at this.

The initial intervention is kinda shitty and it’s similar to how they were all interfering when they found out Ruby was pregnant and they discussed it vocally while he was in the room next door. Richard has gone into overdrive and was this a high point for interventions on TV? Or did that show come later? It doesn’t go well and Ben’s the only one who doesn’t think it’s any of their business. Part of this is down to Ben’s general not wanting to get up in other people’s business kind of personality, but there must also be an element of Noel being Felicity’s ex.

In the end Noel does start to freak out about this huge life choice and Felicity’s reference to his life plan notebook basically has him shitting himself about the whole thing. It isn’t surprising that Felicity is the one that gets through to him in her Felicity way and they have a pretty sweet and open conversation about the whole thing.

Natalie discovers the intervention paperwork and she’s pissed about the whole thing; she ends up punching Noel pretty hard, but then later on she wants to get back with him. He’s still pissed but he can’t resist her pizza for breakfast moves although I am assuming this is nothing more than goodbye sex. Do women like Natalie really exist? She feels very much to me like a wild child caricature and the whole vacation every month/move every two years is far more fantasy than reality. Just how could you financially sustain this She also has some terrible clothing choices including the shirt showing her stomach thanks to an oh so classy knot and all of Noel’s hideous outfits are courtesy of Natalie. Javier’s stories about Natalie are also crazy, but hilarious particularly with the defibrillator.

More daddy issues ahoy as Ben’s dad comes into town? What did you think about the John Ritter (*sob*) guest turn?

Julie: I’ve always wondered that about Keri Russell’s curls. During senior year, after she’s gone through the awkward phase, Felicity’s hair is much more relaxed. I’m guessing Keri does something to it. I think her hair gets wet in the new Apes movie and it looks like it has maximum curl potential. Maybe she wants to stay far away from Felicity’s iconic hair. I wouldn’t really blame her, considering all the crap that came with her cutting it. That said, is she a little less recognizable without the curls? It’s not Jennifer Grey levels, of course, but she had a signature look and she ditched it.

That was a long paragraph about curls.

Aaah! Noel IS the Ross! He’s totally the guy who freaks out when things don’t go according to his plan. He just needs a pair of leather pants. Also, I could totally see Noel going Red Ross. Actually, I would love to see (you know, in honor of Friends‘ 20th — God, am I old) the entire Felicity cast get together to do an homage to friends. Or, really, just to see Scott Foley do all of Ross’s lines, because I think he’d be great. Does anyone else fit the Friends bill? Maybe Elena is Monica, because they’re both so Type A.

I think HIMYM took interventions to their height and then back down again.

While the Noel thing was unbelievable, I am glad that it gave us some nice FeliciNoel moments again. I’ve missed the two of them being friends. They were doing so well in the beginning of last season, but then he got all caught up in Ruby and she got all caught up in Greg. The two of them really do understand each other the best of everyone on this show.

John walked in the room while I was watching this episode and was all, “Aww, John Ritter.” My reaction as well. He kind of made a habit of playing deadbeat dads toward the end of his career, what with being Ben’s dad as well as J.D. Dorian’s (I guess two makes a habit?).

It was all pretty cliche, with no new ground covered on the deadbeat dad front, but I did love seeing Ritter again as well as the adorable moment between Felicity and Ben when his dad inevitably didn’t show up. They have each other. Miraculously, Felicity’s impulsive apartment hunting and moving-too-fast didn’t turn Ben off this time. It’s almost as if she was doing it as a test…

Emma: The Keri Russell curl situation makes me think of Julianna Margulies and why she didn’t want her ER curls on The Good Wife, but that’s a wig rather than her actual hair. I really like Russell’s softer wave and it looks more grownup I guess, plus I get all the hair envy at her amazing side sweep. Hmm the mystery of where her tighter curls continues I guess but I know what you mean about how it looked in Apes (I’m still so bummed out that she was essentially just the girlfriend in that movie). Moving away from iconic hairstyles is in part about differentiating from the character and also it must be a style thing to – the Rachel haircut would look like a hot mess now for example. I’m also getting images of Gillian Anderson and her Scully helmet hair from the early seasons of The X-Files. She also has amazing hair now.

This is also a long paragraph about curls and hair.

Now I definitely want to see Scott Foley doing some Ross cosplay and Noel could definitely blow up and go Red Ross. Yeah Elena as Monica works, but I’m not sure about the others. I kind of see Tracy as a Paul – the boyfriend from outside the group who manages to stick around as he is well liked. Richard is kind of a Phoebe. Julie has the aforementioned Rachel haircut four years too late.

John Ritter is so good in a role that isn’t breaking the mold of disappointing alcoholic dad, but both Ritter and Scott Speedman elevate the material they are given to make it more than just a cliche. Oh and the opposite of deadbeat dad is 8 Simple Rules so that breaks the trend a smidge, maybe it’s just when he is guest starring? John Ritter is always an excellent performer and despite only previously hearing super shitty things about Ben’s dad in the past I instantly warmed to him because it’s John Ritter. He also wears that beard well. Ritter is great, but it was actually Speedman that really impressed me with all his nervous ticks while waiting for his dad. It looked like he wasn’t going to turn up for their second arranged meet up and he looks like a little kid while he is waiting. He does show up and he has a gift – a random CD from Tower Records, how very year 2000 of him – and they share a sweet moment with his dad apologizing for being a super shitty parent. He can’t remember a single thing from Ben’s childhood and this is pretty high on the deadbeat dad chart.

Ben doesn’t want false promises, but after this display of contrition he buys into the whole thing which makes them getting stood up later on all the more devastating as he let his guard down, but as you mention at least he has Felicity to provide some form of comfort. I’m guessing we’re going to get to see more from John Ritter at some point. Every season of this show needs some daddy issues.This will provide some excellent material for our Ben Covington thesis.

Hmm I don’t think I have anything else to add – you?

Julie: Poor Julie with her gross Rachel hair.

I just want to say that I’ve only seen this season once, about ten years ago, so it’s not very fresh in my mind. I remember thinking back then that the third and fourth seasons paled in comparison to the first two; but this time around, I think I like where the latter seasons are going. There’s a pull-back from the seriousness of seasons 1 and 2. The comedy and situations are a little more heightened, a little wackier, which on the surface I shouldn’t like, but for some reason I’m finding that I do.

I love the angst, but like Chandler and Monica, I also like the silliness.

Julie Hammerle is, according to Klout, an expert in the areas of both Morgan Freeman and glasses. Her writing can be found at chicagonow.com/hammervision and you can holler at her on Twitter as well.

Tags: college, Felicity, Friends, John Ritter, Keri Russell, Scott Foley, Scott Speedman, Teen TV

Comments 2 Comments
Categories Felicity, TV Team-Up
Author Julie Hammerle

TV Rewind: Felicity, “Ben Was Here” and “The Aretha Theory”

28 Aug

Felicity, Episodes 2.20 & 2.21
“Ben Was Here” & “The Aretha Theory”
Original Air Dates: May 3 & 10, 2000

Julie: Yay yay yay yay yay.

I had more fun watching these two Felicity episodes than I have for all of season two. We’ve reached the final four episodes of sophomore year, and the show is firing on all cylinders.

What’s working?

Ben. In the latter half of the season, the show has become Ben’s show (as we’ve discussed). For a season and a half, he’s been a social chameleon, changing his personality to fit whichever girl he’s dating, floating through life, not really sure about what he wants to do or who he wants to be, taking the advice of anyone who has any advice to give him. Now he’s Ben of action.

I was a little nervous when Felicity said that he was only after her for the chase. Was she right? She might still be right. Ben has this pattern of going after her whenever she finds a new boyfriend.

But this time does feel different. I do think Ben broke up with her at the beginning of the season because he was scared and not because he really wanted to. I think everything he’s gone through to win her back has been genuine. I also think he’s not entering into this lightly. He knows what it means. He knows it means a potentially long-term relationship. And he’s no longer scared. Ben is all grown up. For the most part. At the very least, he’s getting there.

Fun. The other thing that’s totally working for me is how fun these two episodes were. That’s what college was, at least for me, fun. It wasn’t all serious conversations and protests and political campaigns. In fact, it was hardly any of that. College was parties and drinking and spending time with friends. Felicity, both the show and the girl, are starting to figure that out.

These two episodes brought everyone back together again, and living under one roof. There’s a leaky pipe in the dorm and Tracy has taken it upon himself to repaint Noel and Elena’s apartment. Both places uninhabitable, Sean has taken everyone into his apartment. Everyone, including Ruby and Meghan. They’re having game nights and going out to clubs with Meghan’s crew (and how much did you love Meghan in these episodes?). Fun is being had.

The Supporting Cast. There are so many things to talk about here, but I really want to give a shout out to those folks who are not Felicity, Ben, or Noel. Everyone is pulling their weight right now. I want to spend time with all of them, from Richard to Julie to Meghan to Javier. These episodes were written by the show’s creators, JJ Abrams and Matt Reeves, and it shows. They were having a good time playing in the Felicity sandbox again.

Did you have as much fun as I did?

Emma: The second half of this season has been pretty great and I definitely agree with you in regards to how much fun these two episodes are. We spoke in detail during the first half of the season about how detached the two groups were and this was to be expected after the whole big Felicity decision at the end of season 1 which not only put a wedge between Felicity and Julie, but also made it hard to have Ben and Noel in the same room. Despite any relationship awkwardness (which there is in droves) they have now reached a point where they can all sleep under the same roof and for that I am grateful.

It’s not like Ben and Noel were even friends in season 1 and the Felicity of it all made this look like an impossibility. Philosophy classes and unplanned pregnancies have brought them together, so much so that Noel gives Ben an “I’m sorry bro” look when Ben returns from his failed grand gesture. Everyone knows where Ben has been and this is also a pretty accurate representation of any big relationship moment during college as even when you think something is secret, if you’ve told one person then pretty much everyone in your friendship groups knows.

So the Ben mission is played for laughs at first as he hides behind cabs and bushes with Sean’s stolen cell phone. Of course Sean is waiting for a call about his film and so Sean is giving romantic advice (never listen to Sean) while dishing out answering the phone etiquette. When Ben makes his move while Greg pops out for firewood (Greg is THAT guy) Ben pops up and promptly gets told to get out of Felicity’s life for forever. It’s not the reaction he was expecting, though I can see why she’s not thrilled to see him and I’m glad he didn’t win her over this easily.

This episode (and I adore the callback with the title) could easily have descended into angst and while Ben does a lot of moping, he’s also proactive pausing for s’mores and then joining in with the board games. Some of my fondest moments from college are those nights where we stayed in a played card games like Shithead (I played it so much and I can’t even remember the rules right now) and this really captured that experience. As you mention making the show fun again is part of why these episodes are so successful. This is a charming group of actors and characters; by creating a reason for them to stay under the same roof it showcases this.

Greg is not dispatched as quickly as I hoped and I honestly can’t see why he sticks around for as long as he did as it’s pretty apparent that this drama isn’t going to settle down. Maybe he just really wanted to punch Ben. I didn’t expect to see him again, but I did like the surprise Meghan twist and why she’s been mooning over him for all this time. The power of sandbox wedding ceremonies. Also how old is Greg meant to be?

I’m going to join you with praising the supporting characters (even Ruby, yep you read that right) as despite not having the strongest storylines (Elena) or cycling on previous experiences (Julie) they all feel like solid characters and this is down to both performance and the writing. It’s also good to see that both JJ Abrams and Matt Reeves (who I feel bad that I don’t mention as often) have injected some joy back into the show. More of this please.

Before I move onto the second episode and the amazing night out and Ben’s big gesture that worked, what did you think of the whole Sean/Julie smooch? I also have many thoughts on some of the fashion on display, well mostly whatever the hell Felicity was wearing to the club. Plus Javier making her wear his glasses.

Julie: Oh my GOD, Shithead. We used to play that as well, and I, too, have no idea what the rules were. I loved the game night scene on the show (though the montage with the angsty W.G. Snuffy music made it seem borderline boring). Also, Felicity playing some speed card game with Julie just illustrated to all of us what a dork she is. I’m never sure if it’s good acting on Keri Russell’s part, or if that’s just Keri’s own social awkwardness shining through.

The Sean and Julie kiss. I’m glad it finally happened. That whole thing needed to be resolved, and even though it really hasn’t been (Julie gave him a “maybe”), I’m pretty sure that “maybe” was a brushoff and Sean will be forced to move on.

In other Julie news, what kind of behind-the-scenes thing has been going on between her and Noel? It’s so weird. They went to the dance, obviously the writers were “trying them on,” and then she talks about how they’ve been spending a lot of time together and she’s pretty sure he’s over Ruby. I’m guessing this was all either A) in Julie’s head or B) a direction the writers thought they were going to go until they decided to let Ruby and Noel sleep together again WTF.

I’m not sure what happens after this, but it looks like Julie could have her heart broken again. Unless the whole Julie/Noel thing is dropped without comment, which seems likely. I mean, really, like we said last time, Noel and Julie can’t happen because it makes the group too incestuous to be believed.

The Meghan/Greg thing seemed a little far-fetched, but it gave us a nice Meghan character moment, so I’ll allow it. More Meghan, please!

Let’s talk about the fashion now. What in all holy hell was Felicity wearing. Was that a rose corduroy Texas tuxedo?

Emma: The choice of music in that scene was so bizarre and not the time to go angst. Speaking of music – I love Meghan’s Sarah McLachlan theory and how as Felicity’s roommate she has the inside knowledge. This a) sounds like something Felicity would do b) sounds like something Meghan would make up and c) is the best acknowledgment of a TV show soundtrack choice.

We got way more Meghan than we have previously done and I like how she didn’t feel out of place in this band of relationship fuck ups. I also think, despite how much she would protest the fact that she does indeed like this social circle and hanging out with these guys. At least more than the unseen Swane (who is a giant son of a bitch).

The jaw on the floor reaction to Sean kissing Julie was perfect, Ben just put his head in his hands and Noel pulled an “eek” face. I think you’re right about how Julie feels and I think she would know if she had romantic feelings. The “maybe” does come across as a cop out on Julie’s behalf, but I also understand why she doesn’t want to let him down. All round awkward.

Julie and Noel comes across as a writers’ room suggestion that they have instantly recanted, though there are crushes that are fleeting rather than Felicity style epics. Maybe this is one of those where you realize after a few days that nope this shouldn’t be a thing. Or you could be right and she’s headed for heartbreak again.

I read the Noel/Ruby stuff slightly differently in that I thought they only slept in the same bed and spooned. This I got from Noel’s head shake when Sean intimated shenanigans – also I know it’s your house Sean, but I’m not sure you know Noel well enough to ask if he just slept with his pregnant ex – I might be interpreting this wrong though. Whatever happened, this is also a very complicated situation especially now that the baby daddy is on the scene (sadly not Tom Cruise).

Moving on to fashion and the only excuse for Felicity’s outfit is that she either borrowed something from Julie (she has a terrible track record) or she packed in a hurry. I can’t believe that even in 2000 this would be considered a good choice. I love that Felicity approached Meghan in her usual “if you don’t ask” style and Meghan relented. And I love a good getting ready montage. Plus it’s worth saying again that Amanda Foreman has an incredible face, something they always highlight when they do a close up on her putting on makeup.

The goth punk club was pure TV nightclub cliche and I half expected Sydney Bristow to pop up in the background on a mission as these were a frequent location on Alias. TV can’t quite get nightclubs right and it’s hard to recreate the sweaty, drunk atmosphere and this was a valiant attempt I guess. Niggles aside, girls night out was super fun with the funny color cocktails and podium dancing – this felt like another where does Felicity end and Keri begin moment – they need to do more of these kinds of moments. Plus Marshall from Alias and Meghan’s future TV husband! I got a very big kick out of that.

One accurate drunk night out observation is the desire for snacks and I’m happy Felicity chose this ritual over leaving with Ben. So often they do these ‘can’t talk about guys’ nights out on shows only for at least one lady to leave with her love interest. Not Felicity! Even if she does end up drunk dialing Ben (on a pay phone!) and leaving a regretful voicemail.

What did you thinking about their night out?

Julie: I kind of like the Noel and Julie thing just for the fact that it shows the peripheral characters have lives going on outside of what Felicity (and we) can see. We know every minute detail of who’s dating who, who’s getting engaged, who’s a virgin, it’s neat (in an Abed delivering that baby kind of way) to think that the characters have lives going on outside the TV screen.

Though, I’m sure that’s not what the writers had in mind when they shoehorned this into the story. Or maybe they did. If so, kudos.

With Noel and Ruby, I thought Noel was shaking his head in a “Don’t ask” way, which I took to mean he regretted whatever happened between him and Ruby (again, we might never know the answer, which is frustrating, but also realistic). I’m thinking this is just a bit of a rebound (the two of them never got to say a real goodbye to their romantic relationship), and it won’t last. Especially because Wade (who is kind of a low-rent Noel-looking guy) is back in the picture, whatever that means.

Nightclub time. I think every TV show ever goes to the exact same nightclub. I do have to say that I googled “Bonsai Demon,” and it doesn’t exist. It’s probably gross anyway, since I’m sure it contains Midori.

Meghan looked absolutely stunning in these episodes. It all makes me shake my fist at the fact that Amanda Foreman doesn’t have a more successful acting career. She’s gorgeous and she’s talented. Matthew Weiner, call her for the final season of Mad Men.

The bathroom getting-ready stuff transported me right back to college. I loved those days of getting ready in the same bathroom, borrowing stuff from your roommates, giving one another makeup advice.

I so loved the going out stuff. I loved the girl time of it. My friends and I used to travel to this all-boys school once in a while (where only unspeakable things happened), and I remember us making a pact to look out for each other, that if one of us was about to make a bad decision, we were supposed to go up to the girl and tell her, “No, bitch. No.” I don’t remember if that ever worked.

I hope this is going to usher in an era of the girls hanging out more.

Also, Kevin Weisman as Earl. Earl! Whose name is Earl?

I wish they had done a Meghan spinoff after Felicity ended. What is her life?

Emma: “All of Felicity’s hair went away and so did Sarah.”

Just one of the many amazing Meghan quotes I could use and if Matt Weiner continues to cast from teen shows of the’90s then yep Amanda Foreman should be included. That or we can add her to our #SpeedmanOnScandal campaign. The thing with Meghan is that she could easily come across as cartoony and yet they manage to avoid that, part of this is definitely Foreman’s performance.

Ah yes, I can see why you interpreted the Noel head shake differently. Basically, Sean is a bit too forward in asking. I don’t think Ruby is long for this show in part because of Wade and also because they need to get the triangle back in shape. Ok, they don’t need to do this but I’m guessing the Team Noel fans were pretty antsy at this point with the developments.

Speaking of which after much yelling at the screen (from me) Ben and Felicity finally smooched after multiple bumps in the road. Ben of course heard Felicity’s post Aretha theory drunk voicemail and it looked like it was dunzo for good. First I love how this conversation with Meghan captures the grand life affirming declarations you make when you’re drunk and how Meghan and Felicity have reached BFF status in this moment. I’m sure the snark will return, but they will always have this night.

When Felicity took off to find Ben I might have written GO TO THE BASKETBALL COURT (yes in all caps) and I was wrong! Ben instead looked inward as to when Felicity stopped trusting him and realized it was the night he stood her up in Bryant Park. In cute grand gesture moments he found the Charlie Chaplin movie they were meant to see the night and the episode ends with them watching The Gold Rush on the side of a building. It’s adorable and super romantic. After a quick a Google search in 2014 you can watch it on YouTube, so Ben wouldn’t have it so hard I finding a copy now. I like the year 2000 version of this story more.

Where do they go from here? I would be more than thrilled if the last two episodes is relatively angst free for Ben and Felicity, save the drama for season 3. What do you want to see now they are together?

Julie: Obviously you know that Noel comes back into play for Felicity, and I wonder now if that’s not some kind of writer fatigue (or just not knowing where to go with things). They’ve now put Felicity and Ben back together, Noel and Felicity are doing well as “just friends,” and all seems peachy keen. But you know it can’t stay that way. They could bring in a new guy, but you know they won’t. It has to be Noel and Felicity or Felicity and Ben. That’s as far as this show can see.

(Also, they’ve had a very poor track record for bringing in new guys for her thus far.)

I’m trying to watch this show as much for the friendships as for the love interests, kind of like I did with MSCL. They seem to be finally getting there with the girls, and I think Meghan is the reason. She is the exact kind of person Felicity needs in college. Felicity and Elena are too similar (at least school-wise). Julie’s too much of a bore, and for all her love life drama, seems pretty tame. Meghan is the one to bring Felicity out of her shell and into adulthood.

For the next few episodes, I hope they echo these two. I hope we get to spend more time with the friends having fun and being college students. I want the writers to try pairing up new people. That’s when the magic starts.

Julie Hammerle is, according to Klout, an expert in the areas of both Morgan Freeman and glasses. Her writing can be found at chicagonow.com/hammervision and you can holler at her on Twitter as well.

Tags: Amanda Foreman, Felicity, Keri Russell, Scott Foley, Scott Speedman, Teen TV

Comments 4 Comments
Categories Felicity, TV Team-Up
Author Julie Hammerle

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