“Aliens In America” — Purple Heart
Cool, filtered, smooth.
You know what’s funny? Smoking! And yet there is so little of it going on these days — almost like it’s some sort of national health risk or something. Honestly, seeing anyone smoke on television these days is strangely shocking — which is one small part of what made Mad Men work so well. No gives a second thought to sex and violence these days. But smoking will turn heads. Why? Well because it looks so damn cool! (And because it will, y’know, kill you) More after the jump…
This week’s Aliens in America, which has been consistently awesome since premiering a couple months back, had two brilliant ideas at play. The first is the whole smoking thing, acknowledging that yes, people in other parts of the world smoke a hell of a lot more than we do in America but that despite our recent demonizing of inhaled tobacco, a large chunk of the populace was at one time hooked. Here, the family sees Raja enjoying a cigarette with breakfast and is promptly scolded by the parents, only to set off a series of nic-fits as they scamper around bumming cigarettes and trying not be caught by the other. Ten years ago this would make for a moderately amusing storyline, but today it comes off as cutting edge. It’s funny how things work out, no?
The second item, and arguably the one that has pushed the high school satire to it’s furthest point to date is how the students at the high school celebrate Veteran’s Day: it started out where students could buy “purple hearts” and send them to people who had fought for the country, but that the day slowly morphed into the students sending the hearts to each other as a measure of popularity. This led up to one my favorite exchanges of the season when the guy who was dating Claire comes up to her at a big party and says something along the lines of, “What if we got back together, just for tonight?” She replies with a no and walks away to which he yells, “But it’s Veteran’s Day!” Ba-dum-bum. I love the absurdity, and yet find the whole thing oddly realistic.
I should also add that in the category of edgy things done on network television the repercussions of some incomplete locker graffiti reading ASSHO comes off as particularly line-straddling when spoken aloud by an angry football player. Combine that with cigarettes and an idiotic student body and you plenty of reasons why Aliens in America is the most consistently funny show on television.
Tags: Alience In America, The CW
