Once upon a time, I chose Hellcats as one of the shows I'd review weekly without actually watching a single episode. I figured my musings on Hellcats would help increase hits to the blog. It didn't work. I actually watched two episodes and discovered that I didn't actually enjoy anything about the show besides Ashley Tisdale's performance and Aly Michalka's great body. During this time, Terriers also aired an hour after Hellcats. Obviously, Terriers blew my mind with awesome storytelling, awesome acting, awesome writing and directing. Plus, I wrote wordy pieces about Man Vs. Wild and the NFL regular season during the time frame. It was a rather fun period of constant writing for a few hours but Hellcats had to be cut after Terriers destroyed it each and every week--watching Hellcats before Terriers was like watching Rocky Biddle spot start and then watching Roy Halladay pitch. I digress. Moving onto my triumphant return to Hellcats (I explained why in yesterday's Cape post).
Oh, Hellcats. It seems as if we've been separate for centuries rather than four months. Actually, that is hyperbole because nothing seemed to change on the show besides a few additions to the cast. I'd like to think The CW put together the "Previously On..." just for me once I announced that I'd return to Hellcats. Surprisingly, the "Previously On..." contained information from the first two episodes besides a dramatic plot point involving Marti, Dan, Savannah and the entire Hellcats team that threatened the team's chances to win sectionals and advance to the nationals. Does any of this make sense to anyone who hasn't seen any of Hellcats?
Hellcats remains a familiar world after all of this time. Marti remains a slightly rebellious woman while Savannah continues to be the sweet, do-gooder and Alice continues as the antagonist to the rest of the team. The inciting incident of the episode seemingly occurred in a past episode. Marti's best friend, Dan, began dating Savannah. Apparently, Savannah and Dan had a good relationship until Marti and Dan hooked up randomly. Marti may or may not have been dating Louis during this time. Savannah and Dan might've been broken up before the actual hook up between Marti and Dan. I'm not entirely sure and, frankly, I'm glad that I'm not sure of the entire backstory. The situation caused issues with team chemistry. Marti became the Lyla Garrity figure but the Marti/Dan hook up seems much less an offense than Lyla who cheated on her paralyzed boyfriend with his best friend during the first season of Friday Night Lights. The hellcats are nicer to Marti though. Marti mostly stands around without talking to anyone.
The inciting incident propels the A story which is between Marti and Savannah--specifically, how can the two co-exist after the Dan stuff especially when Alice adds nonsense drama into the mix because of her inability to tell the truth to her father? The dramatic situation is sort of non-dramatic. Savannah briefly abuses her power to remove Marti as a flier from the competition. Marti tells her coach that Dan was her's first--a defense mechanism. Among the very few things I liked about the series is the friendship between Marti and Savannah. There's a genuine friendship between the two and the emotional beats are sort of subtle for Hellcats. Savannah's a quiet, selfless girl who'd rather be hurt than hurt anyone that she loves. The girls make up near the end of the episode and Marti begins mending the fence by offering her flier spot to Savannah (after Savannah's blackmailed by Alice to give up her spot). Marti acknowledges that the act is small compared to what she did to Savannah but she wants to do something for her best friend. Ashley Tisdale and Aly Michalka played those scenes of forgiveness very well. Those two girls are, by far, the strongest part of Hellcats.
Meanwhile, Mario Van Peebles guest stars as Alice's alpha male and sexist father. Yes, the same Mario Van Peebles who directed the second best episode of LOST's final season. A year ago, he's prepping for "Dr. Linus" and now he portrays a bland father. The father character at least provides insight into why Alice behaves the way she does. She strives to impress her father because he hates failure but as she strives to impress her father he always lets her down when it matters most. Only a talk with her new step mom helped Alice gain the courage to stand up to her father.
You know, the women in the show are written quite well. For instance, in many other series, the story with the new step mom would've been a predictable tale of shallow women interested in man for his money and resentful of the younger daughter. The step mom of Alice's, Kelly, has plenty of personality and I really liked the character by the end of the episode. I think Hellcats is a good show for young women to watch because of the writing for the female characters.
Hellcats won't earn its spot back in the weekly review rotation. I most likely won't return to the series until the season finale to see if the team wins nationals (i have a feeling that they will win nationals) but I didn't mind watching Aly Michalka shake her ass for portions of the episode.
Kevin Murphy and Jennifer Schuur wrote "Papa, Oh Papa." Andy Wolk directed it.
THE YOUTUBE CLIP OF THE WEEK
1 comment:
you know what i like about hellcats? the show has the option to go all Hannah Montana on its viewers at any given second. if either one of those two leading ladies gets a big head and demands more money, all they need to do is throw a wig on the other one and have her play both characters.
in fact, im not all that certain they haven't already done that already. a couple of camera tricks here, some smoke and mirrors there and BAM! you've got two leads for the price of one. someone needs to get this cost saving technique to the newspaper industry. just throw a moustache on seravalli and tell him to have a bad attitude and you've got two beat writers.
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