Indecent proposals on 'Big Shots'

There were a lot of offers thrown around this week's episode of Big Shots and, fortunately for us, none of them had to do with transsexual call girls or little black books. Hooray!

Spoilers below!

The A-Plot:
Duncan's still making a push for Lizzie but she tells him she's exclusively with Terrence now and asks if they can just be friends. He dodges the question. He then buys her a sports car to replace the car that died (the car Cam was conceived in, apparently) the next day. She storms into Duncan's office to tell him to stop. He tells her if she says she doesn't love him anymore, he'll leave her alone. And man, does Lizzie tell him. She also tells him not to come to her birthday party. Ouch. Later that night, after drowning his sorrows with the guys and being put in a cab by Karl, Super Drunk Duncan goes to Lizzie's house and decides he's going to take his sports car back. He finds the keys and, after going through a few of her vacation pictures and drawing horns and a goatee on Terrence's face, goes into the garage. Now, driving while intoxicated is a bad idea, but he lucks out and doesn't kill anyone...well, almost anyone. See, Super Drunk Duncan passes out right after he starts the car. While it's still in the garage. With the doors closed. Don't you just hate it when that happens? When Lizzie comes home some time later and is unable to wake him, she calls an ambulance and tells them her ex just tried to kill himself. When Duncan wakes up in the hospital, Lizzie tells him how foolish he was and lavishes him with affection...until he tells her the truth. She gets ticked and leaves as James, Karl and Brody come in. They ask why he seems so happy and it's because he now knows that, despite what Lizzie says, she still loves him. Cut to the party she uninvited him to (that, of course, he crashes). Terrence goes on stage to give a toast as Lizzie sees Duncan out of the corner of her eye. When she goes to talk to him, he says he understands what the problem was - that he was hesitant - and assures her there is no problem anymore...and proposes, ring in hand. Elizabeth laments their bad timing and stops speaking just in time for Duncan to hear Terrence's announcement - he proposed on they way there and she accepted. Bad timing indeed.

The B-Plot:
At a media mixer designed to foster good publicity and therefore get more Board members on James and Katie's side, James catches Alex Mason (Elizabeth Rohm - Law & Order, Angel) - the host of cable's most watched financial show - snooping in his office. James asks her out to dinner and she accepts. Only problem is that night on her show she advises everyone to dump their AmeriMart stock and then has the nerve to call him afterward to confirm their date. She tells him that she's good at separating business and pleasure and hits on him overtly...of course he caves, but he says he'll only go if he can defend the decisions she was just bashing. They go to dinner, he sells his concepts and she says she'll recant her doomsday call if her research confirms his claims and flirt...and end up back at one of their places, making out on the couch. Alex interrupts to tell him that if they sleep together, she won't be able to voice a retraction on her show - it's a fuzzy ethical line she won't cross. Part of James doesn't care, but the part of him that's smart says that he "owes the board a vote." Being the smart cookie she is, Alex offers him a chance to appear and explain his side of things personally so they can both have their cake and and sleep together too. The next morning at the office, Ed (who I assume is the head of Public Relations or something - he's the one who set up the media mixer) comes into Katie's office in a panic as he's just heard James is going to be on Alex's show. Ed explains that Alex has a history of tricking big business dudes on her show and submarining them, so Katie better track James down and yank him off that set. Only it's too late - Katie calls James as the twenty-second countdown to air starts. Once the show begins, naturally Alex goes for his jugular as Katie and Ed watch. James sits there silently for a moment and then says the name of a company. He then goes on to list several more and how Alex told everyone to sell their shares right before they made big gains, all this from a supposed market expert. The not-so-subtly implied meaning being that AmeriMart's stocks are currently down but they'll turn around quickly. Alex glowers at him a bit and, after the show when he asks her to dinner again, James gets to throw her business/pleasure line back at her. Alex isn't the only smart cookie. And a note to the producers/writers: We all know that James isn't going to get a steady girlfriend, he's not even divorced yet and is still healing from his whorey, back-stabbing wife's betrayal (plus there's the whole Katie thing). I get it, I understand. But if you're going to have him traipsing about with a different woman every week, at least show him without his shirt on. Michael Vartan is a fine and talented actor...and the majority of us want to see the goods. We've seen everybody else's several times and fair is fair. Thanks.

Other Highlights & Tidbits:

• Wendy wants to have a baby but she and Karl have had problems conceiving (they tried 5 years prior with no luck and a lot of heartache). They visit a fertility doctor (Marla included) and their prospects are just as grim. Wendy and Marla later present Karl with a plan - Marla of the Crazy Eyes  will be their surrogate. When Wendy finds out her "eggs aren't viable," she decides that she wants the baby to be at least part theirs and tells Karl to impregnate Marla. Wow. Really? Wouldn't adoption be...less creepy? Now we know Karl has a track record for falling for the loonies. They really are squeezing as much as they can from this whole situation.
• Brody wasn't in the episode much. Boo! I'm actually surprised how much I like him given he is the potentially most one-dimensional character on the show (Karl seems to have inherited that mantle). But I gotta give props to Christopher Titus. He's really working what the writers are giving him.
• Quote of the Night: "This is who you hired? Where'd you find him, Facebook?" - Duncan to Cam upon meeting Zack, the assistant she hired on last week's episode
• Speaking of Zack (who's name I don't recall hearing this episode - or am I wrong? - thank goodness for IMDB), he exhibited some scary stalker like behavior by remembering a suit he saw Duncan wear in an issue of Vanity Fair months ago and the woman he was with when Duncan asked Cam which suit he should crash Lizzie's party in. Between that, and Zack volunteering to stock Duncan's empty aquarium and partially for not kissing her the night before when they went out, Cam fired him. The next morning Zack came in to explain himself. Turns out he is/may be Duncan illegitimate son. Ah, yes. The good old illegitimate son. I should've known. That's a good addition to Duncan's web of storylines. So much better than that whole solicitation thing which I'm incredibly thankful hasn't even been a blip on the radar tonight. Let's hope they keep that nasty bit of business resolved.
• Zack's presence could mean a whole new set of complications in Duncan's quest to win back Lizzie as Zack and Cam seem to be very close in age. Oops. Bad Duncan, bad!
• Duncan's supposed suicide attempt isn't good publicity for Reveal and the Board isn't too happy about it. I expect this to pop up in a much bigger way sometime soon.
• I like Paul Blackthorne. He's talented and pretty. It's a shame The Dresden Files wasn't a better show.

What do we think of this whole Duncan/Lizzie/Terrence triangle? How icky must Cam feel now that she knows she wanted to make out with a guy that's potentially her brother? Why can't Brody get his own storyline? And did I forget to mention something awesome?

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