Entertainment News - TV

THIS ISSUE: The Night Of, Ray Donovan, BrainDead, Power, Big Brother TOP MOMENT OF THE NIGHT The Night Of Plays the Laugh Track HBO BECAUSE: In between prison alliances and mystery cats and creepy underground chases in New York City, The Night Of took a little detour into the land of humor. Thanks to his eczema treatment, John Stone is faced with a lack of libido and heads to the drugstore for Viagra. Unfortunately, New York City is in shortage, so mid-murder case, Stone is forced to go on the black market hunt for the little blue pills. His libido dealer's (guest star/Night Ofwriter, Richard Price) advice on an erection lasting over five hours? "Call the Guinness Book of Records."

Ray Donovan Showtime WHAT HAPPENED: On Ray Donovan, the clean-up of one mess comes the creation of another. To get Mickey out of prison and safe from the Russians -- mind you, keeping the other Donovans safe from the Russians is what got Mickey in prison -- Ray is begrudgingly teaming up with Ed Cochran. See, slimy Ed has the evidence that proves TV star Sherman Radley killed his young co-star for not having sex with him, which, if handed over to Holt by Ray, would get her to let Mickey out of prison. All Ray has to do is find "The Texan" who hid the murder victim's body. Easy peasy. In the meantime, Mickey attempts to get transferred to the wing for homosexual inmates for protection from the Russians, which starts with a simple interview and ends with him pretending to have sex with his cellmate who is, in fact, dying from eating the poisoned food intended for Mickey. On the outside, Ray does find The Texan, and also finds out that Ed was trying to pull one over on him just in time to put The Texan and Ed in a room together with a few guns, a problem, and the body Ray needs. WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING: Of course Ray gets the body, gets it to Holt, and Mickey's transfer is approved just as his new roommate is revealed to be the hulking man who attempted to poison his food. That's a lot of work to get Mickey out of prison, a place he willingly went to save Ray and his family. As a reminder, Ray kind of hates his dad, so why would he go through so much trouble to save him from one of the few good things he's ever done? As YahooTV explains it, "If there's one thing Ray cannot bear, it's any suggestion of decent humanity in his con-man father." True. And with his rescue, Ray undoes Mickey's good deed, and as YahooTV says, "the show gets better and better, even as Liev Schreiber's Ray gets deeper and deeper into the dirtiest muck of life."

BrainDead CBS WHAT HAPPENED: Last week's BrainDead may have been all chocolate, salami, and sex, but in Sunday's episode the series balanced the scales with... torture. Red orchestrates a plan to get Laurel taken into FBI custody by having the queen alien bug that's apparently been living in his cranium lay eggs on a cherry blossom. He then gives that cherry blossom to intern Mike, has infected intern Mike work out until his head explodes in front of the FBI director, and strongly encourages the FBI director to crack down on investigating these Catastrophic Head Injuries. First stop: Laurel's office, where the creepily named Mr. Cornish does, at least, apologize for tasing her. After Luke accidentally signs off on the torture of his own sister, Gustav and Rochelle come to the rescue, not only by figuring out that Laurel is missing, but also by discovering that the infected can be controlled by high-frequency sounds. WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING: So that's Humans: 1; Alien Bugs: uh, a couple thousand? But still -- controlling the infected's movements is at least something! And all thanks to Gustav and Rochelle of course, bringing Vulture to point out that "Johnny Ray Gill and Nikki M. James are proving to be the unsung MVPs of the series." That plot advancement alone though isn't enough to make Vulture look past the fact that most of Sunday's episode revolves around the fear that Laurel might be tortured: "Yes, it's just television, and yes, Laurel's friends rescue her, and, yes, it's not outside the realm of the probable for an innocent American citizen to be tortured," they say. "But there are ways to build suspense that don't involve strapping a female character to a table, dropping a washcloth over her mouth, and threatening to waterboard her." And certainly so when there are brain-exploding alien bugs at play.

Power Starz WHAT HAPPENED: Nobody is safe on Sunday's episode of Power. Holly is concerned that Tommy still hasn't gone through with Lobos' orders to kill Ghost and suggests that he should use a hitman. Tommy says no, he has to do it, but Holly has other factors to take into account: Mainly, that she's pregnant with Tommy's baby. But Ghost -- in between mounting a kind of hilarious social media campaign that appropriately captures the mystery of James St. Patrick -- still counts Tommy as one of his besties, so when Andre tells him Jae Shin's son has put a hit out on Tommy, he shows up to the targeted church just in time to save his friend's life. Of course, Tommy doesn't know Ghost is his savior, and Holly doesn't know either; she thinks, as Tommy does, that the hit was Lobos' attempt to make good on his promise... so she heads to the Jamaicans' restaurant and coughs up enough cash to get one of them to kill Ghost. Uh oh. WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING: Sunday's hour is the first Power episode written by Heather Zuhlke and directed by Larysa Kondracki. In her behind-the-scenes blog for EW, actress Lela Loren said, "In an industry still dominated by men, working with a female director on an episode written by a woman, helmed by a female showrunner, all while doing scenes with your screen sister [Elizabeth Rodriguez who plays Paz] is like getting to see the big five at the wild animal park." We couldn't have described Power's perfect storm of female talent better ourselves. Loren added that working with the lady crew from Sunday's episode was "awesome," and pointed out that beyond Larysa Kondracki's talent, "her stoic wit, had me in stitches daily." Awesome, indeed.

One More Thing...

Big Brother Lets It All Out CBS SWING, SWING: Victor may have given the darkest nomination speech of the season on Sunday's Big Brother, but we have to give Worst Moment of the Night to Michelle who vomited mid-spin while trying to score Head of Household.