Second. I’m finally caught up with Gossip Girl. WTF is up with all the partner-swapping?!? GRRR.

Third. Another WTF to tonight’s episode of 90210. Silver is a whole new brand of kerrrazy.

Fourth. I just LOVE the tagline for the new Fast and Furious movie. NEW MODEL. ORIGINAL PARTS. Hehe, that is awesome.

Now. I started this part of the entry waaaaayyyyy back in November and never finished it. Oopsie. I had already written half of it so I figure better late than never.

So I finally finished the last 2 books in the Twilight series. Some thoughts (possible spoilers)…

Eclipse
I think this might be my favorite of the 4 books. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I ended up enjoying this book. I still don’t like Bella much (I just do not find her relatable) and I’m not a huge fan of love triangles in general but this book was different. In New Moon, I was irritated by her relationship with Jacob. How she could manipulate and use him the way she did. I didn’t feel that here. There was something more. There was a real push and pull in her feelings for Edward and Jacob. I saw that in her stubborn intent to face immortality (because she knew how it felt to live without Edward) but also in her reciprocation of Jacob’s kiss (a reminder of the human life she was leaving behind). But what I’m most happy about is that she made a choice. A final one at that. (There’s nothing worse than a waffling character – I’m looking at you, Joey Potter).

Apart from the love triangle, there was much more happening with the other characters, which is probably why I liked this book so much — discovering Rosalie and Jasper’s pasts, learning about the werewolves as individuals and as a pack (imprinting, how the pack developed over the years), and the joint effort between the vampires and the werewolves to fight Victoria and the newborns. All good stuff.

Also, remember how I said that Jacob was possibly my favorite character in an earlier blog entry? Yeah, I take that back. Still like him but he got on my nerves in this book.

Breaking Dawn
After liking Eclipse so much, I was disappointed in the final book. My memory is a little hazy now but the beginning (wedding/honeymoon) and end (the battle, Jacob/Renesmee) were just too perfect. Bella made her choice but never experienced any of the consequences of making that decision. Instead, she gets everything she ever wanted… to be a vampire, Edward as her husband, Jacob as part of her family, a newborn baby, etc. Ehhh. Everything felt forced, almost unrelated to the previous three. The series should have ended with Eclipse.

Random: I just realized that Twilight is on its way to me from Netflix. It should be here tomorrow. I may not be a huge fan of the books but the movie exists on a whole different level (mostly because of Robert Pattinson). Hee. I’m excited to watch it.

Anyway, had a very lazy 4-day weekend. My back hurt (have no idea why – I haven’t been to the gym since before the wedding) so I lay in bed and watched a lot of CSI. (What’s new, right?)

Is it just me or did Entertainment Weekly not have their annual Fall TV preview issue this year? I LOVE that issue. It’s like my new TV season bible. Seriously. I always read it from cover to cover trying to figure out my TV schedule for the new year. It never arrived and all of a sudden the season started this past Monday. I was not prepared.

I haven’t watched Gossip Girl or One Tree Hill yet but I did catch the new 90210 (terrible) and Prison Break (interesting) so of course I have a few comments (beware of spoilers).

90210
I wanted to like this show (the original is one of my favorite shows ever) but I didn’t. It dragged. The dialogue was awful. The characters were mostly unlikable. The only things I enjoyed were the references to the original show… like Kelly and Brenda’s guest appearances, Nat and the Peach Pit (it looks like a coffee shop now, blah), the teacher joking that Hannah Zuckerman-Vazquez (Andrea’s daughter!) looks 30… everything else was pretty “meh.”
I was not feeling Annie and Dixon, aka the new Brenda and Brandon. Dixon is tolerable. Annie is incredibly annoying. I don’t know if Shenae Grimes always acts like that but she was too… over the top. She needed to tone it down. A lot. Just like the Grandma. I didn’t like her at all. The parents are okay (Rob Estes is still pretty cute but why oh why did they have to give his character that ridiculous adoption storyline with his old girlfriend — ugh). I’m still undecided on Naomi, Adrianna and Ethan (he seems like a decent guy and I did like his interaction with Annie) but I really enjoyed Navid and Silver (Kelly and David’s sister!).

I’ll probably check out a few more episodes but I don’t know… I loved the original show and this new version just doesn’t have the same appeal to me so far.

Prison Break
I didn’t watch Prison Break at all last season but when I heard Sarah Wayne Callies was coming back, I had to check it out. And I liked it. They seemed to explain away the previous season very quickly, which I didn’t mind since I didn’t watch it. Hee. And of course, it was all too convenient that each of the main characters somehow found themselves arrested again only to find out that the key to get out of jail is participation in a scheme to steal information about The Company. I love that I always have to suspend belief when watching this show.

I also loved the Michael and Sara reunion. But you probably already knew that. They were just the right balance of happy, relieved, anxious, hesitant. Mmm.

A couple of laugh out loud moments…
– Bellick screaming and throwing up his arms when his mom picked him up
– “I actually had to slow down not to catch you.” — Mahone to Bellick after their fake purse snatch
– “Did you have some bad Mexican?” — Random guy to T-Bags. EWWW. Can T-Bags GO AWAY???

Anyway, I’m back on board. WOOT.

Some observations: It was weird that they seated Shannen, Luke and Jennie in the middle couch. I know they were like the original love triangle and all (Dylan/Brenda forever! *ahem*) but I always thought that Brandon and Brenda were the “main” characters. Ooooh, I’ve heard rumors that Shannen and Jennie don’t like each other and I never really believed it until today — throughout the entire special, they never once looked directly at the other. And in the beginning, when everyone first arrived and they were all hugging, the two of them hugged for like 2 seconds without making eye contact at all. Gotta love real life drama. And not to be completely shallow or anything, but gawd, Jennie Garth looks so much better now than she ever did on the show — in all the clips they showed of her as Kelly, she was so pale, it was scary.

So now I have this 90210 itch — too bad FX only shows the reruns on Saturday mornings from 7-10am. And I think they’re showing the season when Donna is auditioning for the Tournament of Roses parade. Yawn. I’ll have to start taping the episodes when they’re in high school — those are classic.