This week in the recap, we're just throwing it all in a pot and mixing it up to give you a tasty culture mélange. For the most part, we found success with the classic ingredients: PatStew, Godzilla, Andy Samberg, Modern Family, but a few young guns like John Oliver (well, fame-young, at least) and St. Vincent stepped up to add a little spice to the lineup. You'll laugh a little, you'll cry a little, you'll probably even shake your head in disbelief—we're looking at you, "Lie Witness News!"—but at least you can say you felt something. So here is the week in television, served up hot.
When Miley Cyrus has to tell you to check yourself at a ritzy Oscar party because you threw up on the porch, it's time to ... take five and go do the press rounds for your new movie. The Jennifer Lawrence Charm Offensive continues as the X-Men: Days of Future Past heads to theaters, and this week she's sitting down with Seth Meyers to show how universally adored super stars with vast sums of money and style teams following them are, in fact, just like us ... when there's an open bar! Party on, J. Law.
Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent, is not a newcomer. She got her start in the music industry as a band member for Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens, and since dropping her debut album Marry Me in 2007, has been kicking around making critically praised, weird-cool art pop. She's worked with Bon Iver, released a collaborative album with David Byrne, been sampled by Kid Cudi, and opened shows for acts like Arcade Fire, Grizzly Bear and Death Cab for Cutie. Now, with a fresh shock of white hair and a self-titled fourth studio album, St. Vincent has brought her spaceship to 30 Rockefeller Center to convert the vanilla masses! The Village Voice calls her "Our Lady of Shred and Silver," and after this performance we're thinking more people will realize what the fuss is all about (and major bonus points for the micro-choreography throughout the song).
You don't have to drop molly and rage to the sonic stylings of Tiësto or Wolfgang Gartner to empathize with the strange anguish produced by this sketch. Look. We all jam out to "Wake Me Up" in our cars, even if on the regular we're more into White Denim or The National. Somewhere, on some level, we all respond to that pulsating "ung tic ung tic ung tic" beat. So when it comes to waiting on that all important bass drop, some sort of basic human instinct kicks in and you crave the release, you need it—even if it's just Samberg's DJ Davvincii at the electronic altar. Also, "This is music!" LoL!
We can't think of any better way to celebrate 10 years of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts than by seeing some of our most beloved Nintendo characters consummate the relationships they've been asked for too long to keep hidden in the shadows of giant mushrooms and stone castles (we really did shed a tear when Bowser lost Donkey Kong)! As Oliver points out in this segment, although we've come a long way since The Bay State gave gay marriage its rightful legal designation, we still face many challenges—some in the digital gaming sphere. Nintendo's new game Tomodachi Life lets players do all manner of activities with their avatars, but having a same-sex marriage is not one of them. To its credit, the OG gaming company apologized for this oversight, and promised to be more inclusive and promote "virtual equality" in later versions of the game. That's a good sign of progress, and gives us hope that one day, PBS will get its act together and let Bert and Ernie be free to live their lives openly in love.
Speaking of X-Men: Days of Future Past and incredibly charming, universally adored pop culture figures, Sir Patrick Stewart showed up on The Colbert Report this week to demonstrate for the infinity-ith time why he is the man all men should aspire to be. All right, maybe that's an exaggeration, but it's probably not. Dashing accent, ageless visage, youthful heart, best friends with other World's Greatest Person, Sir Ian McKellen, the former captain of the Starship Enterprise, and current psionic leader of the world's elite noble defense squad, the X-Men. All this, and he still wasn't asked to be in Harry Potter! Injustice!
We've been with Modern Family's Cam and Mitchell for a long time now—five years and 120 episodes—and so seeing TV's Al Bundy walk arm-in-arm with his gay son down the aisle in this week's fifth season finale was every bit as sweet and sentimental as we needed it to be. Sue us. It was adorable.
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"I worry about a lot of things, but I don't worry about you." If we were having a minor quarter-life crisis like Peggy is in this clip, and Don Draper said that to us, all of our troubles would suddenly wash away. And the slow dance to Frank Sinatra's "May Way" really does make you feel like it all could be OK in the end. Matthew Weiner, how do you make it hurt so good?!
One Night Only: An All-Star Comedy Tribute to Don Rickles
On May 28, Spike is set to air a tribute to one of comedy's all-time greats, Don Rickles, and it's written somewhere in the bylaws of the universe that you can't celebrate a comic without giving him a good roasting. This is a snippet of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler taking shots at the evening's honored guest, and with Martin Scorsese, Tracy Morgan, and Rickles himself set to speak, we're looking forward to seeing the program in full.
