Some of you may remember Jay Black from the old days of TV Squad, or maybe from the PodClack and Hungry Trolls podcasts he did for us, along with a brilliant post thrown in here and there. Or maybe you just know him as stand-up comedian Jay Black, showing up in a town near you, or even Vegas (baby)! I’ve even caught his act a couple of times, when he’s been in my neck of the woods — he’s damn funny! I love him! He’s gotten funnier every time!

And then there’s Meet My Valentine.

Airing on the ION Network Friday, February 6th — a week before Valentine’s Day — Meet My Valentine stars Scott Wolf (V, Party of Five) as artist Tom Bishop, Courtney Ford (Revenge, True Blood) as his wife, chef Valentine Bishop, and, of course, Jay Black as Tom’s best friend, stand-up comedian Mac Brown.

Now, you’re thinking, “Hey, this title sounds like it’ll be a great date movie; perfect for Valentine’s Day! I’ll cozy on up by the fire with my lady/man/cat friend and have a swell ol’ time. I mean, hey, it was written by — and stars — a comedian! What joy!” I wouldn’t blame you one bit for thinking that. Deb and I sure thought something along those lines, minus the fire part, because we’re lazy and the fireplace has books stacked in front of it.

But we’re all DEAD WRONG!

First of all, remember that good looking dude I mentioned as the main character of the movie? Right, Mac Brown — we’ll get back to him in a bit. But the other dude, Tom Bishop: it turns out he has terminal cancer, with only months to live. Still, it’s gonna be funny a funny movie, right? Because my friend Jay Black wouldn’t steer me wrong, making me think funny Jay Black would put a sad, sad movie in front of me and MY WIFE after years of convincing me he was a funny-as-hell comedian.

Alright, so what’s next? Oh yes, Mr. Bishop has an eight-year-old daughter, Phoebe, who he’d be leaving behind after he’s dead and gone. And the realization hits Tom: Valentine’s hot, and his best friend is essentially Jay Black in the flesh, except this Jay Black is single. So, “shit,” he thinks. “I’d better get a say who shacks up with my soon-to-be-widowed Valentine NOW!”

And that all sounds like it could be funny, right? Because we’ve seen Jay Black, and he’s funny. Well, it doesn’t quite go down like that. As Deb put it, this was a “five tissue-er” of a movie. At first I raised an eyebrow to this term, but then was quickly reminded that tissues were for wiping away tears sometimes.

As you begin to watch Meet My Valentine, you might be thinking this Tom is somewhat of a dick, because he barely has anything to do with his wife as it is, and now he’s muscling in to take further control of her by sneaking some new guy into her life that HE pre-approves of. Then Jay Black hits you across the face with the side effect of this: Tom — in trying to learn more about his wife that he’s since forgotten over the years — starts to pay more attention to her, causing both of them to fall back in love with each other again. Damn you, Jay Black! We were ready to just sorta despise this guy and watch him die, and now we have to care about him? That’s not funny! Crap!

I don’t want to get too much more into the plot of the movie, but you can see it for yourself Friday night (I’m told it’ll also be available on Amazon, GooglePlay, iTunes, VHX.TV, Vimeo and VUDU beginning February 7th). It’s even got part of Jay’s act, so there’s that bit of no-tissues-needed comedy to look forward to, and makes it so it’s only 99.9% of a cry-fest.

There is definitely a demographic that this movie is going to appeal to: those who LOVE a cry-fest and will not be so lazy as to keep those books stacked up in front of the fireplace, and WILL light that fire, and WILL cozy up to it with their cat friend(s). Anyone with a family and kids, though — like Deb and I — might walk away from this one wondering the same damn thing:

Mr. comedian Jay Black, why are you liking to make us cry?

2012 was not the best year for my viewing experience. Besides Community being put on hiatus, the entire DC Nation block (Young Justice, Green Lantern: The Animated Series and the animated shorts) were taken off Cartoon Network’s schedule only 12 hours before air, only to have the Cartoon Network Twitter account happily announce later that day the block was coming back in 2013. I wrote about the situation back when it happened in October, but it is disappointing that we were never given a reason for the hiatus.

Still, this Saturday marks the return of DC Nation and needless to say, I’m very happy about it. The thing is, the episodes premiering this weekend also happen to be the ones that were still sold on iTunes for about 24 hours after the hiatus started, so I’ve already seen Young Justice‘s “Before the Dawn” many times over in the last few months. So without giving away spoilers, here’s why you should watch if you’re at all a fan of the show.

So if you remember from the last episode “Darkest,” undercover operatives Aqualad and Artemis had to kidnap three of the younger team members (in particular Blue Beetle) and blow up the cave in order to keep their cover. “Before the Dawn” is entirely about the team’s multi-layered mission to get the kids back. Missions like this were the norm last season and this one gives us plenty of opportunities to highlight several of the team members while keeping the story moving. For instance, we see more of Artemis and Kaldur undercover, but we also get to see M’gann struggle with the consequences of her actions during and leading up to the mission (something speculated several times over the summer by fans, actually). We also get to find out a little bit more about the future from which Impulse escaped and how Blue Beetle ties in to all of this. In general, we’re getting a clearer picture of the invasion that the season has been leading up to while also building on character arcs.

Personally, my favorite part of the episode was the focus on Batgirl and Robin. Both Barbara Gordon and Tim Drake are characters close to my heart thanks to growing up with the DCAU, but neither have had a huge amount of focus compared to the original team members and characters like Bart and Jaime. But in this episode, we get to see both of them working together to kick alien butt. And as a lifelong Barbara Gordon fan, it made me far too happy to see her take a leadership role, going as far as confidently making a very difficult but necessary decision by the end of the episode. Yes, Batgirl is awesome during this mission. Did I mention we also get an amazing cameo from another iconic Batfamily member that could potentially be foreshadowing a future team member?

So far, season two of Young Justice has had much more focus on the overarching plot and less on the characters. “Before the Dawn” is my favorite episode so far this season because it manages to balance character moments while still having plenty of action and adding to the overall story. The only negative about watching the episode was knowing that I’d be waiting months to find out what happens next, and considering there’s a pretty huge cliffhanger to end the episode … let’s just say I’ve been a very patient fan this winter. I’m definitely going to rewatch the episode this weekend when DC Nation return, but man oh man, I can’t wait for the weekend after to find out what happens next.

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