Episode Report Card Cindy McLennan: A | 1374 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Live Alone; Die Together
By Cindy McLennan | Season 5 | Episode 16 | Aired on 2009.05.13
As Esau takes his leave; the camera zooms out and gives us a full profile look at Four-Toes. From this angle, I can't tell if its snout is supposed to be that of a hippo or a crocodile. The Alphabet Network confirms the statue is of Taweret just about the time I (thanks to many of the lovely and talented readers who e-mailed me) decide it can't be Tawaret, and must be Sobek. Sigh.
First you cancel Pushing Daisies and make us wait months for the last few episodes, while you air the insipid Cupid, then you screw up my readers' Lost speculation, even though they have to keep themselves busy until 20-fricking-10. How like you, ABC. How like you.
Iowa; Sometime In the 1980s: I give a standing O to the casting director for putting Emily Rae Argenti in the part of wee Kate, because I knew who she was supposed to be before she said a word. The already freckled "Katie" and her model-airplane-owning friend Tom Brennan (played here by Tanner Maguire) plan a shoplifting caper as they lean against the bumper of a pick-up truck. I try to shoo wee Tom away from the license plate, but I never get a good look at it. It does, however, end in 023.
Tom's a wussy...er...a good boy trying to resist Katie's siren song composed to lure him into an all-too-short-life of crime, so he won't help. He'll just stand lookout as Katie tries out her newly sticky fingers. From behind and in profile, Katie looks so much like my own daughter that I want to grab her ponytail and pull her out of that store before she steals the New Kids on the Block lunchbox she's about to slip into her backpack. I can't, so I don't. The kids make the rookie mistake of trying to book it out of the store as soon as the heist is complete, so the shop owner nabs them. Are you tough enough? He recognizes our girl as Diane Austen's daughter and is set to call the police and her mother, but frickin' JACOB appears in the store, and offers in a seemingly Christ-like way to pay for the lunchbox. The grocer accepts the money, hands Jacob the lunchbox and lets Kate off the hook with a warning never to return without her parents. After he disappears, Jacob gives the lunchbox to Katie, and squats so he can look her in the eye. "You're not going to steal anymore, are you?" Katie doesn't look like she believes herself as she shakes her head no. Jacob then boops her on the nose with his index finger and says, "Be good, Katie." She smiles and watches him as he walks off. Did Jacob do the right thing? Is he redeemer or enabler? And if he's an enabler, what are his motives? You be the judge, while we jump to...