Scandal Review: “A Few Good Women” (4×21)

It wasn’t until after I had already watched this week’s episode of Scandal that I learned the episode was titled “A Few Good Women,” a play on, of course, Aaron Sorkin’s A Few Good Men, an altogether superior tale of abuse in the military. Of course, Scandal is dealing with a different type of abuse—rape, here, as…

Shameless Review: “South Side Rules” (5×10)

There’s really no way to even begin talking about “South Side Rules” without mentioning that knockout of an ending. Looking back on it, it’s a classic bait-and-switch. Ian and Mickey are too happy—seriously, how adorable is their drunken “Love Is a Battlefield” sing along—and that should be the first sign that something is about to…

Shameless Review: “Drugs Actually” (5×11)

Well, wouldn’t you know it? It’s another great episode of Shameless! The show isn’t necessarily firing on all cylinders even now, but in all honesty, even at the heights of the fourth season there were still missteps here and there (and one pretty big misstep named Matty…). So while not everything in “Drugs Actually” is…

Scandal Review: “No More Blood” (4×13)

By the end of “No More Blood,” Olivia Pope is back in Washington where she belongs, and everything has changed. Or at least this is the note on which Scandal would like to leave us at the end of this long ordeal. “No More Blood” brings the kidnapping of Olivia Pope to a somewhat natural,…

Scandal Review: “Gladiators Don’t Run” (4×12)

It could just be that I watched Scandal late this week, and after a stellar night for HBO’s dramas, but color me underwhelmed by “Gladiators Don’t Run,” which is a scattered, confusing mess of an episode, one that twists and contorts the plots into braided pretzels so intricate that even the writers themselves seem to…

Play Review: “The Pied Pipers of the Lower East Side”

It may be almost 40 years now since “The Age of Aquarius” dawned on Broadway, but the theatre’s love affair with all things alternative is still going strong. Its latest send up to the freedom and inhibition that comes with living “La Vie Bohéme” arrives in the form of The Pied Pipers of the Lower East Side, now rocking Los Angeles’…

Album Review: Jeff Rosenstock – “We Cool?”

Like any subculture, punk rock relies on the spark of youth to propel it forward. Yet there comes a time in every young punk's life when he or she must face an enemy more terrifying than the threat of conformity could ever be: getting old. Perhaps no one knows this better than Jeff Rosenstock, former…

Track Review: “Glass & Patron” – FKA Twigs

FKA Twigs recently released a music video for her track “Glass & Patron” earlier this past week for the YouTube Music Awards (YTMAs). I will start this review by stating something that I found to be overtly obvious – this song and more importantly this video are not for every viewer. This alternative music video…