Postmortem: Covert Affairs 1×06

Covert Affairs continues to be both fun to watch and completely predictable, which is to say, a USA show.  It’s quickly rising near to the top of the pack for me (except for Psych, which I will love forever for the nicknames alone, and White Collar when Bomer’s shirtless).  This week’s episode was pretty fun, with a nice fight scene, a solid b-plot, and Annie getting to do some honest-to-goodness spying (although I would hope that it’s significantly harder to spy on the US Senate than just hanging around a bit).  And, again, we got a super easy to guess baddie.

Postmortem: Covert Affairs 1×02

Sorry for the delay—life got in the way.  This will be short, as I must get it up before the next episode airs, lest I be a Bad Blogger.  So, Covert Affairs, episode 2: The Legend of Walter’s Gold.  Opinions first:  I found this episode to be much weaker than the pilot, mostly because of the introduction of two new elements, both of which kind of sucked.  I’m finding Mohinder the Spy to be both totally pointless and a complete charisma vacuum, although I’ve never thought Sendhil Ramamurthy was particularly charismatic.  That being said, he was better on Heroes, and if something is better on Heroes you know you’re in trouble.  Also, my comment last week about how I wish Christopher Gorham was playing the Sendhil Ramamurthy role while a visually impaired actor plays Auggie goes double now.  Christopher Gorham is one of the few actors who could make that role interesting.

But the disappointingness of the new cast member is nothing compared the utter shit that is the credit sequence.  Holy crap, it is embarrassing.  Just watch:

UGH. UGH. You know what it reminds me of? A much worse version of the credit sequence on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.  That aired 10 years ago, and looks technologically advanced next to this crap.  Ugh.

But opinions aren’t what you’re reading this blog for, you want predictions!  The baddie was particularly easy to guess this week…

Predictions: Rubicon

AMC’s new original series, Rubicon, is admittedly not in my wheelhouse.  I know that some weird shit is gonna go down, but the thing about weird shit going down is it doesn’t really matter what the shit is, just that it’s weird (and going down).  I will probably know more once the series begins in earnest, but after only watching the pilot (which is available here on amc.tv), my only observations were either immediate and obvious (obviously Miranda Richardson’s father was going to shoot himself after he saw the four-leaf clover–do I really need to explain why?), or too vague to bother.  Regardless, here are a few predictions I do feel safe making:

• Whatever the organization is, it has a supernatural bent.  It will also be weirdly old-timey.
• The guy who got killed in the train wreck knew that the train was going to crash, because the Shadowy Organization was going to make it crash.
• Will’s moods will swing wildly from mopey to really fucking mopey.
• Miranda Richardson will be vastly underused.
• Names will pop up that look meaningful, but are probably just the writers being clever for no reason (Katherine Rhumor, Tanya MacGuffin, etc).
• James Badge Dale will be constantly compared to Matthew Morrison, even though they look nothing alike besides their hair.
• The main character will develop a relationship with his secretary, but probably not until late in the season at the earliest, possibly next season.  There’s a chance he’ll go for the new girl instead, but since her last name is MacGuffin I’m guessing she’ll play another role.

This brings me to a Rule of TV, in this case a Rule of Love Interests/Gender Dynamics:  If the guy is super smart, the love interest will not be.  She’ll just be super nurturing.  Actually, this applies even without a love interest situation–women are never geniuses, unless she’s unattractive and she can be a comedic nerd, or she’s super hot and is a spy, or a secondary character who is “quirky”, ala Garcia from Criminal Minds or Abby from NCIS.  Other than that, men are smart, women are caring and hot.  Occasionally they can be intuitive, but that’s very different from being purely smart.  Although maybe I should give AMC more credit here, seeing as Mad Men is one of the more consistently feminist shows on TV.

What are your theories?  Sound off below.