This Week on My TV: January 4, 2014

Disclaimer: Some shows I watch live and with others, I tend to be fairly behind on my tv watching. Even so, consider the fact that there could be spoilers ahead. All I can do is lead in with the show and episode. You read at your own risk!



**(Grey's Anatomy, S10E11 "Man on the Moon") Eww, Cristina and Shane. More bed-hopping. -- Wow. April's sisters. -- The Bailey/OCD/being trailed by a psychiatrist thing? Annoying story line. -- Mer: Progress looks like a bunch of failures. ... If that doesn't show how far Mer's come since season one, nothing does. -- Not sure what to make of that Cristina-and-Shane victory dance. -- Because of course Alex was going to have to save Jo from his detoxing father. -- The scene where the paralyzed patient finally was able to move the robotic hand in Derek's study made me cry. It's been a long time since Grey's moved me to tears.

**(Grey's Anatomy, S10E12 "Get Up, Stand Up") I really hate what Mer and Cristina are becoming. It makes me sad. Maybe because it's hitting me a little too personally. -- When do I get to reach through my television and smack Leah? -- Shane *is* baby Cristina. Yikes. -- Oh man. What is that phone call going to mean for Derek? The President of the United States? -- That version of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" was haunting. -- Holy crap. Jackson. Professing his love. To April. In the middle of her wedding. And it ends on a gasp from April??? Aaaaahhhhhh!!!

**(Parenthood, S5E6 "The M Word") I could not campaign for someone, no matter how much I loved them. All that interaction and confrontation and rejection gives me hives just thinking about it. -- Amber and Sarah arguments are among the most believable on television. -- I'm all for male-female friendship, but Julia, you are treading a fine line right now. -- Crosby is so predictable. Something nudges him further into adulthood and he has to regress before he can move forward. -- Something about Kristina's campaign manager reminds me of the character Jennifer Hudson played in the first "Sex and the City" movie, Carrie's personal assistant, Louise from St Louis. -- And tears at minute fifty as Kristina connects with a mother of a special needs student during the mayoral candidate debate.

**(Dexter, S8E6 "A Little Reflection") I didn't think it was possible for scenes with Masuka to be any more weird. And then he hugged Deb. Without being a perv. -- That was a pretty cool shot, looking up through the puzzle that Dexter and Harrison are building. -- Funny watching Dexter's date ask what he does for fun on his boat. If you only knew, lady! -- What game is Dr Vogel playing? There has to be more to her story. Could *she* be a psychopath?? -- Deb has looked so scrubby for so long, I forgot she could clean up well. Even if she walks like a man. -- Hannah???

**(Dexter, S8E7 "Dress Code") What is Hannah's goal here? Head games? Toying with Dexter and Deb, like a cat with mice before the kill? -- Dexter is juggling a lot of balls at once: Deb's recovery. Work. Fatherhood. Dr Vogel. Hannah. Zach. Which one is he going to drop? -- It is certainly karmic humor that Masuka's daughter is working at a topless "sports" bar. Even more amusing: how uncomfortable he actually was. But how was it not awkward for *her*?? -- So Hannah killed her husband and Zach killed Cassie and the tangled webs just keep twisting around themselves.

**(The Big Bang Theory, S7E12 "The Hesitation Ramification") The best part about Sheldon not being funny, but thinking he's hilarious, is that he actually is. -- Poor Penny. I can't believe they cut her scene. -- Amy: Do you know how hard it is to laugh at a knock-knock joke that starts 'knock-knock-knock-Amy, knock-knock-knock-Amy, knock-knock-knock-Amy?" -- Leonard and I had the exact same reaction when Penny proposed to him: What...? -- So, are Penny and Leonard going to make up and stay together or is this it for them?

**(Top Chef, S11E12 "Mississippi Mud Bugs") I'm ready for Nina to pack her knives. -- Yikes. A shellfish allergy and a crawfish Quick Fire? Sounds like a recipe for disaster for Stephanie. -- When Nick was cleaning his knife after Carlos borrowed it and left fish drying on it, it looked like he was contemplating a little stabbiness! I am getting a little sick of the sniping between Carlos and Nick, though. -- Yay! A win for Stephanie! We thought it would be Brian. -- Oh-fer-two this episode: we thought it would be Carlos leaving, but it was Carrie. Not that I'm sad about that. -- Louis still going strong in Last Chance Kitchen!

**(Dexter, S8E8 "Are We There Yet?") Not sure how I feel yet about the connection between Hannah and Dexter. Or if I entirely trust that she feels what she claims to feel. -- I know it's Miami and all, but I don't think most guys could pull off a watermelon pink shirt quite as successfully as Dexter. -- Zach (about Hannah): Dude. Dexter: Do *not* 'dude' me. -- That whole scene in the hotel room in the Keys, between Deb, Dexter, Hannah and Zach made me laugh out loud, it was so ridiculous. -- Deb: I don't want to know anything else, EVER. -- Ok, so it's looking like maybe Zach didn't kill Caddie. Someone is setting Zach up for Cassie's murder though. But who? -- Dr Vogel's invitation to dinner when she saw Hannah waiting in the car was...weird. And the longer dinner went, the more I wonder what it *was*, that "old family recipe," especially when Dr Vogel wouldn't answer Hannah's question about how she got interested in her field to begin with. -- Does Hannah ever wear a bra? -- O. M. G. Zach. Dead. In Dexter's apartment. WITH A GIANT CROSS SECTION MISSING FROM HIS HEAD. And cut to Dr Vogel's house with the brain sample in a jar. Holy crap. Holy crap. What is going *on*??

**(Dexter, S8E9 "Make Your Own Kind of Music") So it wasn't Vogel who killed Zach. (I'll admit I thought it was for more than a minute.) It was her supposedly-dead psychopathic son, who faked his own death as a teen in a mental institution in England and is now trying to reconnect with her?! -- The scene where Deb starts laughing because she can't believe she's eating a dinner Hannah cooked was pretty priceless. -- I totally called it: Vogel's son was already in the house with her when Dexter came back to check on her. Somehow, I don't imagine this ending well for her. Or potentially Dexter, who blabbed to her about his plan to leave Miami with Hannah and Harrison.