What I Bought 12/26/2025

Almost as obnoxious as all the ads for these sports betting apps I see on the rare occasions I watch TV, are the ads for this stupid Taylor Sheridan show. I'm tired of seeing Billy Bob Thornton, looking like a rotting cloth sack leaking cow shit, informing us that his wife owns the business, but he runs it. Yeah, that's what any sensible person would be concerned about. I wouldn't trust him to order a combo meal in the drive thru, let alone run an oil company, or whatever the hell the "business" is.

In other news, this is the last new comic of 2025. So next week, is Comics in Review.

Hector Plasm: Hunt for Bigfoot #3, by Benito Cereno (writer), Derek Hunter (artist/letterer), Spencer Holt (colorist) - Did Hector steal the live boar cloak from Bigfoot? Hope he washed it, that thing can't smell good.

Hector and the sheriff confront Jervaise in his office, where the instructor, sorry, professor, is only too eager to monologue about how he's communed with the spirit of some tribe of people that traveled here through subterranean tunnels. Not to prove how smart he is, but because he hopes to find the gold they used to make statues and idols and such.

Despite the sheriff's best efforts, Jervaise summons the ghost, eager for it to feed on Hector's blood for a boost. The caveman-ghost proving immune to bullets, it's a swordfight between him and Hector, while Jervaise goes increasingly loony on the sidelines, like some delirious sports fan. He's ranting and gesticulating wildly enough he tears the armpits out of his shirt (nice touch by Hunter there), not that it spares him the ghost's wrath.

Hector ends up beating the ghost, and the sheriff seems to deal with what's left of Jervaise. Which means, once Hector tells Lip all this, it's time to leave, Hector confident there are no Bigfoots around. Because, as he explains in a page behind some author notes by Cereno, the various subspecies were hunted to extinction during dedicated campaigns in the 1800s.

I'm left wondering about the witch and the ghost that Hector initially fought. Jervaise notified him about that as a lure, hoping to feed Hector to his caveman-ghost, but I'm not sure if the initial threat was something else Jervaise summoned, or a pre-existing situation. The ghost daughter said her mother bewitched her father to kill her fiance to protect their bloodline. Which makes me wonder if "Ferdie" (the fiance) was part of the same bloodline as the caveman-ghost (and Jervaise), or if that was just unrelated weirdness.

Robocop: Dark Justice (2001)

Alex asked me to check out at least the first five minutes of this. He thought it was a crappy movie, a 'turd covered in burnt hair,' to use his description. It's actually the first episode (90 minutes?) of a very short-lived TV show, Robocop: Prime Directives. Be that as it may, I watched it, so I have to at least salvage a blog post out of the experience.

Set 15 years after the first movie, Robocop's still active on the streets, but may be starting to break down. There's only one technician assigned to look after him, and she admits some of his parts aren't even made any longer.

More than that, Murphy is struggling to understand why he's there. As in, why were they able to successfully revive him when all other attempts failed? Could be something in that, a spiritual crisis as Murphy concludes there was no higher power or purpose behind his survival, just him as a weapon in a dick-measuring contest between execs.

The main conflict, however, was a big lunatic with high-powered weaponry calling himself Bone Machine, who is causing the major portion of crime in "Delta City", if the pie chart shown during a news clip can be believed.

(Supposedly the city is much more peaceful thanks to Robocop, but with the way it's shot, it looks like a deserted slum, and the episode opens on a bunch of guys calling themselves "The Bombs" who are threatening to kill themselves and a bunch of hostages.)

Robocop teams up with a hotshot cop with the last name Cable, who was Murphy's partner before he transferred to Metro West and got shot to pieces by Red Foreman like a dumbass. The episode keeps doing these flashbacks of Cable being used as a human shield by someone, before finally revealing the guy was some kind of cannibal, and that Cable shot him after he was disarmed because they entered the house without a warrant, so the guy would have walked.

Except they found a live woman duct-taped in the guy's basement freezer who presumably could have testified he kidnapped her, so yeah, whatever. But part of the plot revolves around someone adding another directive to Robo's system, and him not being able to either delete it (as he did in the second and third movies) or find a clever workaround like in the first movie. He just succumbs to the directive, so the story can have him be guilty about it.

There's a thread about Murphy's son being a new hotshot in OCP's executive class, and being offered the chance to join some secret cabal (which also includes Cable's ex-wife) within the company dedicated to doing whatever it takes to save OCP. Also, it hints he's going to learn what really happened to his dad at some point. Which, if any of these people could act, might be fun.

There's so many strange pauses before people start talking. The conversation between Murphy's kid and Cable is like that the whole way through. I can't tell if it was edited poorly, so there's an extra second or two of footage before the person was supposed to talk that shouldn't be there, or if these folks just thought everyone needs to wait two seconds before responding to the most innocuous questions, but it's really noticeable. No piece of media needs that many dramatic pauses.

The effects are as bad as you'd expect from early-2000s TV. Poorly edited in fire, gratuitous us of slo-mo, ugly blur around people who are supposed to be speaking in front of a screen. If the idea was Delta City was doing alright, but the secret cabal are prepared to burn it to the ground to improve OCP's stock price, the visuals we get don't back it up.

A Town Ripped Like a Wet Fart

I wasn't expecting to review another game so soon, but I hit the end of South Park: The Fractured But Whole quite by surprise. I got through a deliberately frustrating battle, which leads into a cut scene. Within a few minutes, Butters' dad is reminding the rest of the townspeople they can go buy clean drugs and alcohol from the next town and boom! Credits roll. It's Chaos!

Abrupt end aside, what do we got? This is a sequel to Stick of Truth, which I reviewed, oh god, almost nine years ago?! Or maybe it's a prequel, because the kids have abandoned superheroes to return to playing Tolkeinesque fantasy after disagreements about franchising their cinematic universe caused a split of the heroes into rival camps.  Coon and Friends versus the Freedom Pals.

You're the New Kid (or ButtLord), whose look can be customized about as much as is possible within the confines on what South Park characters look like. You get involved when Cartman pulls his team together to find a missing cat with a $100 reward that could boost the franchise, but quickly learn the whole thing goes much deeper than just missing cats.

There are missions related to that plot, which is ridiculous enough on its own, and has you fighting cops, the homeless, strippers, and Lovecraftian horrors, not to mention Professor Chaos (until he makes a face turn.) Then you have the occasional mission helping out one of the other heroes. Like Mosquito needing to get back his dad's credit card from the Raisins' girls, or attending couples' therapy with Craig and Tweek.Or keeping Stan's dad from driving drunk. There's also smaller fetch-it quests like finding all of Big Gay Al's cats, or getting people to follow you on "Coonstagram".

Some of the stuff in this game is the dumbest shit imaginable, but it cracked me up more times than I could count. I'm sitting there trying to play and bent over double laughing at what I'm asked to do. The battle against Butters' dad, where you prove impossible to ground, to the amazement of adult and child alike. 

The combat is largely the same turn-based, grid battleground approach as Stick of Truth, but with superpowers instead of medieval magic and swords. You start out as only one class of hero, but as you improve (and your origin gets more convoluted) you unlock more options for types of powers you can mix-and-match. So you can probably find something that fits your preferred style. Likewise, which other heroes are available to work with you varies, but you can usually find a trio that'll help get you through.

I feel as though I took more advantage of the status effects attacks could do to enemies here than in the earlier game, but this game also tends to have those as add-ons to an attack. You use something that hurts the enemy, but then also causes Bleeding damage, or Gross Out, after their next turn. You can stack those, where someone might have 3 status effects on them at once. Not so fun when it happens to you, but how often does someone reap what they sow, really?

Stick of Truth had elements of "fart magic", but I don't remember using it, except when the game required it. Fractured But Whole makes it a much bigger mechanic. Much of the plot hinges on the incredible powers your butt can unlock. Presenting obstacles or puzzles that require you to combine your flatulence with the other characters' powers. Lava (barriers of red lego blocks) that you clear by hooking Toolshed's dad's sandblaster up to your butt. Or temporarily stopping time so you can cross a hazard and turn off the power to the security system. Things like that.

Fortunately, the controls to use them aren't that complicated, so I never reached the level of frustration with that stuff the way I did occasionally in the first game. The frustrating parts were later boss fights, with too many enemies on the field, or you had to do something very specific to win. In one, you have to knock the henchmen in range of the monster, so it'll eat them and get sick. Which means you need characters in your team with Knockback attacks. So if you didn't put them in the line-up, or select powers for your character that do that, it's kind of a pain in the ass.

But for the most part, the battles that are frustrating are, as I mentioned up top, by design. Because these are kids playing a game, so some of them (read: Cartman) are going to cheat or make-up rules to help themselves win. So it's at least character appropriate irritation. Which makes it OK. I guess. Mostly.

Don't Downplay the Value of Revenge

So I watched the Loki series as it was coming out last couple of months. It's enjoyable enough. I actually finished all of it, unlike Falcon and Winter Soldier, where I never watched the last episode. OK, SPOILER warning thing for the end of Loki, even though it's just the jumping off point.

Final episode, Loki and Sylvie confront Kang, the one behind the TVA, the organization that decided they both needed to be erased to preserve some Sacred Timeline, which Kang just so happens to be in control of. Blah blah, greater good, blah blah, avoid multiversal war, blah blah. Since they've moved past some critical point where Kang no longer knows what's going to happen, Sylvie takes her revenge and kills the guy responsible for saying she needed to be imprisoned or erased, rather than accepting his offer for her and Loki to run the TVA in his place. The latter being what Loki wanted, but she booted his butt backed to the TVA so she could take care of business.

Sylvie is then shown alone in the citadel looking forlorn after killing Kang, so at least a couple of different reviews I saw comment how it's showing revenge is a hollow pursuit, and, you know, let's just hold on there a second.

I'm not going to claim revenge cures all ills, but I don't think getting payback on someone who wrongs them (and I'm speaking of revenge on a specific person who actually harmed them, not just lashing out at everyone) is without merit. The notion one isn't just a powerless pawn, who can be fucked with or tormented by some joker who thinks he's got the right, that's got some value. That they can push back, even if nobody is on their side. Revenge doesn't have to be killing them. It can be financial ruin, or simple public humiliation or exposure. Appropriate to the level of the wrong committed.

Yeah, yeah, I hear you. "Two wrongs don't make a right, Calvin." First off, stop wagging your finger in my face like you're Marge Simpson and show me the math behind that statement. Secondly, that's the beauty of revenge. You're not worrying about "right" necessarily. At least not any objective form of the term. It's like in space, right or left is relative to your position.

The argument seems to be that if you devote your life to revenge and you get it, what's left? The answer is usually presented as "nothing," but I think it's actually, "the opportunity to figure out what comes next." If someone is fixated on revenge to begin with, they probably aren't open to seeing anything else anyway. They've been hurt, and in all likelihood, the person or persons responsible skated scot-free for any number of reasons. Until that's addressed, there isn't anything else for them anyway. They could try to pick up the pieces and go forward, but if their life was turned upside-down, and seemingly no one cares, is there a point? Couldn't it just happen again, especially if the one responsible is out there? You have to deal with the instability in the ground before you can build anything new.

The mistake is I think people figure if revenge is really meant to be worth something, the person should be immediately fulfilled, joyous at the culmination of their struggle. And maybe they should, but if it's been a long, difficult time, they may need to process. For me, with things I've spent a long time trying to accomplish or complete, the moment they're done isn't always one where I celebrate ecstatically. Sometimes I'm stunned it's over, sometimes I'm just relieved. That's for things far less serious than trying to take revenge on someone.

It's fine to have stories where the character achieves their revenge and feels lost or empty after. But sometimes people are going to be happy after they get their revenge, or at least finally able to move on.

Punisher Season 2

Out of boredom as much as anything, I watched Season 2 of The Punisher on Netflix a couple of weeks ago. Probably spoilers because who cares? It's a Punisher series, you know how things end. People get shot in large numbers.

It was OK. I didn't exactly like that the season starts with the girl on the run and mysterious religious guy who kills a lot of people, which I was interested in, only to be sidetracked onto the whole mess with Billy Russo, Agent Midani, and Billy's extremely unprofessional therapist/psychologist Dr. Dumont. There are points you almost forget the "pilgrim" is supposed to be out there, somewhere, hunting them down. The urgency he showed in killing a crapload of people, in staging an Assault of Precinct 13 on some podunk-ass sheriff station, vanishes like a fart in the wind the moment things move to New York City.

Also, the way Pilgrim never answers anyone's questions gets really irritating. Mostly because no one ever calls him on it. They ask his name, or where he's from, and he just walks away or asks a question of his own. You think someone would point out how rude that is.

I was intrigued by the idea Billy didn't remember exactly what happened to him or why. In fact, I'm not sure he ever actually remembers that Frank smashed his face into glass because Billy was responsible for killing Frank's family. That could have been an emotional scene. Or a hilarious one, depending. Billy just being gobsmacked to learn he did that.

Agent Midani seems marginally more competent than she did in Season 1. I mean, she eventually figures out something is up with Dr. Dumont, and manages to not die against a furious Billy Russo. I'm not sure what to make of her decision to switch from Homeland Security to the CIA at the end of the season. A decision made apparently because she hated having to play by rules and laws. 

I know that in a Punisher story, there's going to be a certain amount of support for ignoring laws and human rights, given that the main character is a mass murderer. Like that saying about how all war movies are pro-war (which I don't think I agree with, necessarily). The characters that should ostensibly object - Midani, Detective Mahoney, probably Karen Page who shows up again in one episode - all come up with some convoluted reason or another not to. 

(Well, Mahoney may not have excused it, so much as he was too beat to shit to stop Frank escaping, and he didn't want to just shoot a man in the back. Surprising turn from a cop.)

Not sure you want a situation where Frank's success doing whatever he wants in turn encourages other characters to behave similarly. At least, not when that involves joining the CIA, with its history of destabilizing governments, assassinations, abducting people and throwing them in hidden prisons.

At least Curtis, Frank and Billy's old Marine friend, has a valid reason to work with Frank. He's terrified of Billy, and doesn't appreciate Billy gathering up disgruntled veterans and convincing them to pull heists.

Scams for Everyone!

I meant to post this last Wednesday, but things came up. Anyway, I haven't done one of these hypothetical teams in over a year, so what the hell. Got to post something. This go-round is focus on sneaky characters that like to pull cons. So figure they're going to pull some sort of heist or scheme to bamboozle and rip-off some rich scumbag.

The Leader: Stan Pines, aka Mr. Mystery (Gravity Falls) - Stan spent years traveling from state-to-state, selling cheap, fraudulent products to gullible saps, who then ran him out of town once they realized the products were garbage. He eventually wound up running a "Mystery Shack", house of oddities and cheap junk in a weird town to pay the bills while he spent 30 years figuring out how fix a busted transdimensional portal his twin brother created, then subsequently fell through. Which means he taught himself whatever science, math, and engineering skills you'd need to accomplish something like that.

Stan is your typical guy who hides his softer feelings under the gruff asshole veneer. The guy who may do something nice for another person, but acts as though he's doing it just to shut them up. He's pretty good at improvising on the fly, and he understands people well enough to get them to shell out money to look at a trout he superglued to a rabbit.  He will encourage the youngest member of the team's interest in scamming people, while also trying to protect them if things go wrong. Probably won't be necessary, but he'll do it.

He knows about the supernatural and the weird, even if he pretends not to, so the odder members of this group won't phase him too much. He's also committed a wide array of actual crimes, from stealing nuclear waste, to smuggling pugs across national borders, to tax fraud. Lots of tax fraud.

The Rogue: Darien Fawkes, aka the Invisible Man (The Invisible Man) - Darien was a cat burglar even before he got a biosynthetic gland in his brain that lets him turn invisible. Even once he had the gland, he didn't stop criminal activities entirely. Gotta scratch that itch, even if there's not much challenge to it. And he was totally on board with the Official's plan to rob Arnaud's casino by having Darien invisibly rig the games for the rest of the Agency.

Of course, Darien then proceeded to go and straight up rob the vault to scratch that itch - and flip Arnaud the bird - then wouldn't give the money to the Official when he demanded it, even if it meant Darien went into Quicksilver Madness. Which happened, because Darien wouldn't back down, either. So Darien is: sneaky, willful, stubborn, and doesn't always think things through.

Fortunately, I don't think Stan is going to dissuade Darien from stealing to his heart's content, as long as it isn't from Stan. Actually, Stan's biggest objection might be if Darien tries to help him win at a casino. Stan might take that as slander against his skills. This would probably have to take place after the end of the series, when Darien doesn't have to worry about Quicksilver Madness, since there's no one on this group that's going to be able to fix that for him. Unless he's moonlighting with this bunch while still working for the Agency, but he's not careful enough to pull that off without Hobbes or the Official figuring it out.

The Muscle: Toph Beifong, aka the Blind Bandit, aka the Runaway (Avatar: The Last Airbender) - The greatest earthbender in the entire world. Can bend metal with a little more effort. Blind since birth, mostly doesn't let it bother her, will make jokes about it when the opportunity presents itself. Ran a series of scams taking advantage of people pitying or underestimating her because she's blind. Sees by sensing vibrations through the ground. Which does leave her a little vulnerable if she's not on solid ground. Extremely stubborn and headstrong. On the other hand, her ability means Darien is never going to be invisible to her, which will be a lot of fun for her, and extremely humiliating for him. She can also use the ability like a lie detector, which ought to be fun for annoying at least a couple of the other people on the team.

When Toph gets it in her head to do something, or not do something, almost no one has any chance of changing her mind. Like Stan, kind of a gruff asshole. The kind of person who shows affection by punching you in the shoulder. it took her a while to get the hang of being a team player with Team Avatar. Which means it's either going to be a struggle in the early stages with this group as well, or she's learned from her experiences and will embrace teamwork more readily. The rest of the team is adults (more or less), and she hasn't always had the best of luck with adults. Once she demonstrates she can take care of herself, it should be fine. At some point, Stan will ask her to create and animate some stone statues he can market as "terrible rock people" for another attraction. It'll work great until Toph makes them start attacking and fake eating people.

For all that she can be sneaky when she feels like it, Toph usually likes to settle things more directly and loudly. Pick a fight, hit people with rocks, that kind of thing. She and the next member of the team ought to get along like a house on fire.

The Lady of Mystery: Fiona Glenanne, aka More Aliases Than I Care to List (Burn Notice) - Granted, Fi frequently didn't have patience for Michael's elaborate schemes to hoodwink people, preferring the direct approach of just shooting or blowing them up. That doesn't mean she wasn't any good at playing a role to get something from them. Play on their libido, play on their stupidity, their sympathy. Get them to underestimate her, or just scare the crap out of them.

But, if you can frame it as making bad people miserable by taking the things they cherish most - money - she can probably get into the spirit of it. Especially if she's allowed to incorporate explosions. Between Darien and Stan, I'm not sure which of the two is going to be better able to recognize how dangerous she is. Stan fancies himself a bit of a ladykiller, and while Darien definitely thinks he's charming, I think he's worked with enough dangerous ladies he's not going to make the mistake of underestimating her.

Like I said, though, she and Toph should get along great. Probably hit the limits of their patience for the sneaky stuff or playing nice about the same time. Then it'll be time to break stuff, since no one is going to be able to rein in the two of them at once. Although Fiona might try to rein herself in a little bit with a pre-teen involved. Maybe.

The Guy with a Boat: Jimmy James, aka Macho Business Donkey Wrestler (Newsradio) - Technically, I only know the Mr. James has a news helicopter that he uses to fly back to his mansion for lunch, but he's loaded, I'm sure he has a yacht somewhere.

He's a successful businessman, so probably not unaccustomed to questionable practices. He also kept D.B. Cooper's duffel bag full of money after the guy parachuted into his camp, and kept that secret, plus the secret of who Cooper actually was, for decades until he was hauled into court. There's also the fact that he was apparently unfazed by a guy parachuting into his camp and asking to borrow his truck in exchange for a duffel bag full of money.

Totally willing to make wagers with other wealthy men, which is the sort of thing that encourages underhanded tactics. And he's not above being sneaky himself, like when he got his radio station back from Johnny by picking Johnny as the one employee he got to take with him. Anytime you can get your opponent to say, "Well played," you know you made a slick move. Or so I've been taught by popular culture. I'm not sure I've ever gotten someone to tell me that. Perhaps one day.

I'd expect he might want to take the reins, since he might be the richest person on the team - depending on whether Toph has access to her family's fortune. And Jimmy can be intimidating at times, but he's also savvy enough to know when that's a lost cause. So he might be smart enough to realize trying to order around this bunch is a terrible idea. That lets him stay in the background, make his own plans, and he can offer some insights when he thinks it would be helpful. That can be a fun job, to be the one who helps finalize plans, rather than having to come up with them from scratch or make decisions. So much less stressful.

The Last Thing Through Lex' Mind, Other Than Heat Vision

For some reason, I was thinking about "Divided We Fall", the episode in the second season of Justice League Unlimited when the Flash takes down the weird Luthor/Brainiac fusion. Flash runs really fast, separates the two by vibrating, then temporarily fades out of existence, as Flashes do.

While the rest of League is busy being sad, Luthor has a chuckle about how he did manage to kill the Flash after all. At which point Superman grabs him by the throat and his eyes start glowing red. Supes doesn't end up killing Luthor as Lex expects (and as the Question feared), but I wonder what Luthor was thinking in those few seconds.

Part of me thinks Lex would be pleased in a way. He's always contended Superman's do-gooder routine is an act. Does he think that his being murdered like this will finally prove it to everyone else?

But that really feels like more of a Joker thing, to claim your death as the ultimate win because you got the hero to break his principles. Plus, that version of the DCU already lost faith in Superman once, when he was bent to Darkseid's will and spearheaded an invasion of Earth. I'm not sure how much the average person's perception of him would change at that point.

Actually, it's difficult for me to picture Luthor accepting that he's about to die. Even if he did remark, 'I think this is the part where you kill me.' in a calm and resigned voice right before Supes grabbed him. Even when none of the Justice Leaguers are stepping in to stop this (Wonder Woman starts to, but let's face it, Batman putting an arm in her way doesn't stop her unless she lets it). Even though he not only doesn't have a weapon of any sort, he doesn't even have pants at the moment.

I feel like he's got to be trying to figure something out. He's Lex Luthor, he can't let this alien get the best of him. There's only one of them going to be standing at the very end, and he'd be determined to make sure it was him. I guess there's always the possibility he doesn't think Superman will go through with it, even though he knows it's happened before, in an alternate timeline, or possible future, or whatever the Justice Lords were. But again, I can't see Luthor admitting, even in the privacy of his own mind, that he's reliant on someone else to save him. Especially Superman.

Black Spot

The pandemic is definitely giving me more time to watch TV shows I'd been meaning to get to. Black Spot (or Zone Blanche) is a French mystery/paranormal series I found on Netflix. There's two seasons there so far, 8 episodes each. Set in an isolated part of France, where the murder rate is 6 times the national average.

The ranking gendarme is Major Laurene Weiss, who most of the town believes suffered a hunting accident in the woods 20 years ago. What actually happened is she was abducted and shackled to the wall of a canyon for several days, only escaping when she cut off two of her fingers. Two decades later, she still stalks the woods at night, trying to find the place she was held and the person who did it.

The new prosecutor is trying to redeem himself after a bad foul-up in his previous appointment, and has set his sights on the Steiner family, who are the local bigwigs. The son, Bernard, is the mayor, and had a thing with Laurene back in the day. Still does, actually, despite being married. His father is the real mover and shaker, making all kinds of deals, using goons to get people to sell their land, illegally dumping toxic waste in an old quarry, and the prosecutor is trying to nail him for that, among other crimes.

There's an eco-terrorist group the Major's daughter Cora gets mixed up with while trying to locate the mayor's missing daughter. Nature seems to be going nuts, from random swarms of bees, to crows hanging around all the time. Mysterious wolves, and of course, the nutjob in the forest with the stag horns who makes Predator noises. Everyone in town seems to have some sort of sordid history that comes out eventually. Except maybe the Major's friend and right hand man, Teddy Bear. He seemed like a level-headed fellow.

There's usually a murder of the week, so to speak, some of which play off events set up earlier in the season, and sometimes not. The answer is usually not what it first appears, although solving the crime seems to frequently boil down to Laurene getting some sort of hunch that she's ultimately able to prove is correct. Not always, but more than once.

Meanwhile the other wheels move in the background. Whether that's Prosecutor Siriani against the Steiners, the mayor against his wife, the mayor against his father, Cora and the eco-terrorists, Cora against her mom, the Major against the prosecutor, whatever. There aren't really any relationships in the series where you feel as though you can 100% count on a particular character to have another character's back. Maybe Teddy Bear and Laurene, but even that goes through stretches where he outright tells her she's nuts for focusing on this creepy guy in the woods she's hunting. Which might explain why she doesn't share what happened actually to her for quite some time. The mayor and Laurene might be another, but the mayor's always got something else going in the background, and you can't really trust him to actually put what Laurene thinks is most important ahead of what he thinks is most important. Honestly, both their priorities seem a little cock-eyed, so maybe it's a wash.

One of my issues was that, if the nutjob in the woods either is, or believes he is, a spirit of the forest, meant to protect it, why the hell hadn't he killed the Steiner patriarch yet? He targets some farmer that was using some kind of fertilizer on his fields, even after the guy quits using it, but he's not doing anything to the fucker dumping toxic waste? OK, granted, I just really hated that old man, strutting around like he's hot shit because he's got this one rinky-dink ass economically decaying village in his hands, and would have been satisfied with anyone killing him, but friggin' Cernunnos needs to get his priorities straight.

Locke & Key

I watched the first half of this last month, when I went up to Alex' one Sunday and we ate a ridiculous amount of chicken wings. I finally watched the second half last week.

It's pretty good. Watching the Locke kids flail and try to make plans while "Well Lady" is running around making plans and putting things in motion is kind of fun. The fact the kids actually try to get help, from their parents, their friends, any other adults they think might be able to help. The ending of the final episode caught me off guard. I knew there were going to be shenanigans involving the key that changes your appearance, but there ended up being an additional layer to it I didn't expect.

Although I thought the reveal was going to be Dodge had switched places with Kinsey after the shadows ambushed her in the basement, but it was someone else that got swapped. I'm still unclear on how you can change how someone else looks using the key on them, but I guess if they aren't thinking of an appearance, someone else's intent can drive it.

I really like the way they represent how the Head Key works, with each person having some sort of door that leads into their mind. The difference in how things play out with Kinsey's fear as a result of the difference is a nice touch. It added a different element to things. I'm not sure about the episode where the kids realize that relapsing into alcoholism is causing their mother to actually remember the weird magic shit. Granting that the kids make some dumb decisions, I didn't think there was much suspense about whether they'd encourage her drinking for the sake of having an (inebriated) ally. This isn't Family Guy.

I guess there wouldn't be much suspense about it on Family Guy either. The answer would definitely be "yes".

I think Laysla De Oliveira gives a good performance as Dodge/Well Lady, especially in how good she is at being cruel or threatening. Her final words to Sam Lesser, the way she toys with Bodie when he sets the trap. She's playful, but the way she advances on him and looms over him, it was worrying. I was pretty sure they wouldn't kill Bodie that soon, but on the other hand, couldn't rule it out.

Aggretsuko

I haven't had much luck finding movies I particularly want to watch on Netflix recently, and going to the theater is, for obvious reasons, not an option at the moment (even if there was something I really wanted to see). I have three or four TV series saved to watch, but instead skipped past all of them to watch an animated show about an accountant who deals with stress by doing death metal karaoke.

That's pretty much what the show is. Retsuko works in the Accounting Division of some company. Her boss is a sexist (literal) pig, her mom is trying to make her get married, she's not sure if she even likes her job or what she wants to do with her life. She struggles with asserting herself, so she stops at a karaoke place after work and screams out her frustration and all the things she wants to say to people there.

Definitely not an impulse I'm familiar with or anything. I don't even like death metal.

Both seasons involve Retsuko falling head over heels for a guy (different guy, not the same guy twice), before coming to the conclusion they don't mesh well with her. One doesn't put anywhere near as much into the relationship as she does, and the other is doing too much, or devalues the things that are important to her. There's a best friend character at her job that's clearly got a crush, and is I think supposed to have a little Punk in him, judging by glimpses we see of him outside work, but nothing's happened on that front so far.

That's the common theme, is how many of the characters are hiding something behind their professional facade. Retsuko ultimately befriends two women who are pretty far up there in the company hierarchy. Almost every time we see Retsuko see them at work, they're striding down the hall together confidently, entirely composed. Then they go around the corner and Director Gori admits walking like that is really painful, or she breaks down sobbing because Retsuko turned them down when they invited her for a post-yoga meal. Retsuko might be hiding a whirlwind of fury, but everyone's got something hidden for one reason or another.

(Now that I've typed that out, I'm really curious what Retsuko's friend Fennuko is hiding. We haven't seen much of her outside work.)

I spent a lot of time eagerly anticipating when Retsuko would actually cut loose on her boss or his ass-kissing lackey, or whoever it was that gave her grief. Which is why my favorite episode was the 7th episode of season 1, when she gets into a face off karaoke battle against her boss after he figures out she filed a power harassment complaint against him. Who hasn't had a boss they wanted to tell off brutally at least once? I've been pretty fortunate in regards to bosses, but even so, there are times I would like to scream at them until they were blown through a wall.

A Prophesied One's Work is Never Done. Says so In the Prophecy.

Ash vs Evil Dead Season 3 popped up on Netflix in the last month, so I made a point to watch that. The season came out a year ago, but SPOILERS, I guess.

The addition of the previously unknown teenage daughter, Brandy (played by Arielle Carver-O'Neill) was an interesting choice. I guess by that point Kelly and Pablo are used to Ash's lazy, immature, disgusting ways, so you need someone else to react with fresh eyes. And it made a counterpoint to the awestruck Knights of Sumeria, with all their kneeling and pledging allegiance to the Prophesied One.

I feel like that one Knight, Dalton, was supposed to be a mockery of those brothers from Supernatural. He has the same haircut as one of them. The more scowly one, as opposed to the blonde with the "Leon Kennedy in Resident Evil 4" Memorial Dumb Haircut. I don't watch the show, and I'm not wasting time looking up their names.

Given how much of the season seemed to be spent undoing the rehabilitation to Ash's rep in Elk Grove that the conclusion to Season 2 brought, I wonder if they regretted that move. It makes sense not everyone would just automatically forget about all the years they thought Ash was some deranged serial killer, and it probably made it easier to show Brandy as having a lot of doubts about him. Still, it reminded me of all the times we see the regular citizens in the Marvel Universe turn on the Avengers or Spider-Man at the drop of a hat.

I was mostly just annoyed by the mind games Ruby was using and how that was playing out. Ash would try to do something to prove to Brandy her counselor was actually evil, and it would naturally just push her closer to "Mrs. Prevett". It's all supposed to build to the big moment when Brandy has to decide whether to kill Ash or not, and I was actually surprised at how that played out, but all the build-up felt like annoying filler.

One thing that I was curious about was, Ruby had her weird demon kid with the idea that if she could kill Brandy, then Ash, her son would inherit his power as Prophesied One and protect her from the Dark Ones. The son ended up dying before either of the other two, but they did die. So what happened with the powers? If Ash and his kid were both dead at the same time, did he get the powers back when he came back to life? Brandy technically returned first, so should they have gone to her instead?

Plus, it didn't seem like being Prophesied One did Ash much good when the Dark Ones made the scene. They tossed his ass aside and took the Necronomicon like he was as much trouble as a loose candy bar wrapper.

I liked them going back to Pablo's past with his uncle the brujo, even if in practice it mostly meant Pablo had whatever weird mystical powers were necessary to advance the plot. Although I can't shake the thought Pablo chose the wrong bowl during the test, and he isn't El Brujo Especial. His uncle certainly didn't seem invisible to Deadites.

On the other hand, it felt like they weren't sure what to do with Kelly. She was off somewhere else to start the season, showed up with Dalton, then got killed trying a revenge thing on Ruby, and spent most of the remainder of the season dead. I could see there being some point in there about Kelly needing to get past the reflexive anger and hatred still lingering from her parents' deaths, that drove her to try something stupid like kill Ruby, but then fuck around and talk a lot instead of just doing it. But that never materialized. My favorite exchange of the season came near the end of that fight.

Ruby: Charging in here like this, it wasn't a bad plan.
Kelly: You handing out gold stars now, teach?
Ruby: It was a terrible plan.

The end of the season was oddly paced. They go to the trouble of seemingly getting Pablo and Kelly together. Ash faces down some Kandarian demon with the help of a tank, and then he gets cryogenically preserved for some indeterminate amount of time. I admit I was curious about the alternate end to Army of Darkness (where he sleeps too long and wakes in the future), but it seemed like a strange move to spring here, at the very last moment in the season. Why would the Knights expect Ash to do any better X number of years in the future?

Then again, the Knights didn't have a great track record of knowing what they were up against. Or being able to handle even relatively minor tasks successfully, for that matter. Them putting a bad plan in motion and thinking it's a good plan would not be a surprise.

You Don't Normally Build Giant Monsters To Use Once

Back to Steven Universe for a minute. At some point during the original war between the Crystal Gems and Homeworld, the Diamonds began a project for a massive weapon called the Cluster. They forcibly fused millions of shards of shattered gems into one immense being, shards with just enough awareness to remember they were someone once, but unable to recall or regain that, and left it to gestate deep beneath the Earth's crust. The idea being, when it was ready, the gem shards would create a huge fusion creature that would tear the Earth apart as it emerged.

Before things ever got that far, the Diamonds decided to cut their losses and basically nuke the planet from orbit. They weren't trying to destroy the world, just every gem still on the planet after they ordered their forces to withdraw. It didn't work - the gems in question wound up corrupted with greatly altered forms and little sign they remember who they were - but as far as the Diamonds seemed to know, they'd killed all the rebels and that was that. By that point, the Cluster was basically a final "Fuck you," to a planet that had given them a lot of trouble, and gotten one of their one killed.

That seems like a lot of trouble to go to for just that. Once the Earth is destroyed, they're still left with the planet-destroying fusion monster roaming the cosmos. Maybe they didn't think that far ahead, or they don't have any worlds anywhere near Earth, so the Cluster would never pose a threat to their interests. Still, they sent Peridot to Earth to check on its progress. Maybe that was impatience, although the Gems' lifespans mean they consider centuries to be hardly any time at all. That they'd bother to monitor it suggests they had an interest in the success of the project beyond simply destroying Earth. So what is the end goal?

There's no evidence currently Homeworld has experienced further rebellions since that darn Rose Quartz. The Cluster isn't a pacification weapon, anyway, unless you operate on the same wavelength as Emperor Palpatine, where the sheer scale of the weapon wipes away any hope of resistance just by showing up. That would require the Diamonds to control the Cluster, and be able to transport it through space. Having succeeded once, they could create more, but if it's going to destroy the world when it emerges, again, not a great pacification technique. It kind of ruins the world as a source of resources, which Peridot said Homeworld is running low on, anyway. How far are the Diamonds willing to go for spite?

Up to this point, the only two intelligent species we've seen in the show are the Gems, and humans (assuming you count us as intelligent). We've seen the remains of another colony, when Stevonnie was stranded on it, but whatever civilization we saw seemed to be Gem-related. This doesn't mean there wasn't a preexisting civilization there, or that there isn't one on another world they colonized. Or maybe a world they tried to colonize, and were rebuffed. Because it was already being run by another species, and the Diamonds want something to cope with them. Just because Gems and humans are the only species we've seen so far, doesn't mean they're the only ones out there.

(In this, my mind keeps going to the Next Generation episode where Q decides to make a point by throwing the Enterprise in the path of the Borg. Although it could really be any number of Star Trek episodes. They are constantly running into terrifying new shit in that universe.)

The major flaw in this is we've never heard a Homeworld gem make reference to any sort of conflict, other than the rebellion for Earth. But we also know the Diamonds tend to withhold or distort a lot of information. The various Fusions Steven and Lars encountered on Homeworld all thought Earth had been destroyed thousands of years ago. Pink Diamond and Pearl had no idea two different types of Gems could fuse until they saw Ruby and Sapphire form Garnet. Peridot (and I'd imagine most other Homeworld gems) had no idea there were "unauthorized"fusions on Homeworld at all.

It's possible that, other than the Diamonds, the only gems that would know there was any sort of a conflict, would be the ones fighting in it. If the Diamonds ordered any survivors to keep their mouths shut about it, they most likely would. Although I doubt Gem soldiers get leave. They probably fight until they're not able to, and then they're cast aside. Or their pieces are combined into a new Cluster.

Steven's "Hugs and Talking" Strategy Is Going To Be Tested This Time

I feel like discussing something related to the Steven Universe episodes that came out last week. If you haven't seen them, and you don't want them SPOILED, consider this your time to head to another web page. Or you could take a stroll through my older posts. Whatever works.

(Let's give them a minute. Doo-de-doo-doo. OK, I'm impatient, let's go.)

So Diamonds Blue and Yellow know Steven is Pink Diamond, or has her gem in his stomach. And they know or will soon find out the reason Pink wasn't shattered by Rose Quartz is because Pink and Rose were the same person. Pink Diamond was secretly the leader of the rebellion against her rule of the colony they'd established on Earth. That seems like that's going to cause some upset, particularly with Blue, who has been in very vocal mourning for over 5,000 years now over Pink's death. That Pink was never really gone, that she was, in a sense, playing a trick on the other Diamonds, might not go well.

Pearl could try explaining that Pink tried telling them she didn't want to sap the Earth of all life in the process of producing more Gems for Homeworld, and Blue and Yellow dismissed her concerns. But I'm not sure the Diamonds will listen to a Pearl. Both of them have their own Pearl, and they treat them like smartphones, essentially. Play music for me, store my stuff, sit around and wait for me to need you for something. Pearls are slaves, although I've seen good arguments that all Gem classes other than Diamonds are basically slaves. Each class is supposed to have a specific function, and deviating from that function, or being unable to carry it out, is not acceptable. But Pearls are specifically mentioned as "belonging" to someone.

Point being, if Pearl tries talking to them first, I'm worried they'd try destroying her for such impudence.

One thing that comes up frequently is Gems don't understand what Steven is. Understandable; children as we think of them don't exist for Homeworld. Most Gems - or at least Jasper and Amethysts - pop out of the Earth fully formed and ready for their task. They can shapeshift or alter their forms, but they don't age and develop the same as humans. Gems can fuse, to produce a being who is parts of each, but also its own being. But they can break that fusion and return to their original selves. Garnet can go back to being Ruby and Sapphire, two separate Gems. Garnet believed baby Steven was some odd fusion of Rose and Greg (where Greg still existed as a separate entity), and the fusion simply couldn't recall how to split back into two.

Most Gems assume Steven simply is Rose Quartz. He has her Gem, her shield, her powers (mostly). Jasper was certain Steven was Rose in disguise, though she couldn't understand why Rose would keep challenging her in this puny form. That isn't too unusual. Gems tend to barely notice Stephen until they see the gem, or he summons Rose's shield, but once those things happen, they think he's Rose. I'm not sure the Diamonds are going to think much differently.

Granted, they've met Steven before, when he went to Homeworld to stand trial for Rose's "crimes". Where it became clear that he didn't know anything about how Pink was supposedly shattered. Because he doesn't have his mother's memories, though he gets some of them now and then in dreams. And there was a bit in the promo at the end of the last episode where he tells them outright he doesn't have Pink's memories. The concern I have is, Blue and Yellow know Steven has Pink's gem. They may not grasp that this does not make Steven Pink Diamond. They know or are going to know Pink was actually Rose all along. That she lied to them, tricked them. Given that, are they going to wonder if Steven was playing a game when he was on trial, just pretending to not have Rose's memories? If Pink lied to them once. . .

Not All The Jokes Are Gonna Land

A friend of mine has been rather insistent that I watch Parks & Recreation. I had to skip half of the very short Season 1, and there were a few episodes in Seasons 2 I skipped after a few minutes. Actually I skipped almost all of Leslie's campaign for city council. Seeing her struggle in an election against a complete moron who was totally reliant on money from his daddy was too unpleasant to watch. But overall, halfway through Season 6, it's been good. Adding Chris and Ben late in Season 2 helped. Even if most episodes have one subplot I can't stand, the other two or three are funny.

The one thing that hasn't work is Jerry/Gary/Larry Gergich. Nothing against the actor, just the function he plays on the show, the character everybody else craps on constantly. His attempts to help or express genuine enthusiasm are dismissed or ridiculed. The show seems to encourage us to go along with it. Ha ha, April stole his inhaler and is giving it to Ron to buy his cabin! Sucks for you, Jerry! Tom loses the stupid tiny horse, blames Jerry, and everyone just goes with it.

The show hasn't done anything to make me want to see him constantly humiliated. When Ron suffers because his stupid pride won't let him go to a hospital or ask for help, yeah, I laugh. He's created the problem, and refuses to take steps to solve it. Same when Tom's mouth writes a check he can't cash, or when Leslie tries to just steamroll everyone into doing what she wants, only for it to blow up in her face.

Jerry's flaw is. . . he's not a good public speaker? He's kind of clumsy? He has bad timing? Even Chris, who is this endlessly positive character, outwardly at least, treats Jerry as though he's worthless. Which is the joke, I know. The guy who is friendly and upbeat to everyone, even the reprehensible Councilman Jamm, can't be bothered to pretend he gives a shit about Jerry Gergich. Ha ha. But the show failed utterly to give me a reason go along with it.

I was happy when Jerry retired, because that meant all this was over. Then they contrived reasons for him to come back so it could continue. I know Jerry explained once to Leslie that he didn't mind that his career hadn't turned out as he dreamed because he has a wonderful family to come home to every night, and the nature of his work meant he could be home with them every night. So I assume we're meant to take it as the joke is on all the others, because Jerry is content and happy with his life. That would probably work better if the others were actually miserable in their lives, but they aren't. We know the treatment bothers him because of that episode where he pretended he got mugged, because he was afraid of the constant jokes the others would make if they knew the truth.

Throw Something A Little Crazy At The Defenders in Season 2

TNT's been showing Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance occasionally in recent weeks. It's still an interesting mess of a movie. Some parts are crazy fun, just embrace the absurdity of a demon stunt biker with a flaming skull, and other parts are just dull or a mess (most of these are the parts when Nicholas Cage's head isn't on fire).

I enjoy how odd the Rider acts. The odd swaying, the gestures, the unpredictability. Looking at it from the outside, you're left wondering (like the people around him) what the hell is going on. It plays up the idea this something not human, reacts and thinks and moves differently from us. To the extent Johnny's still an active presence in there at all, hell he's half-crazy from dealing with this thing, which doesn't help matter. Dude with a flaming skull for a head who appears unaffected by bullets is strange enough without him acting so weird. It would have to be unnerving to encounter.

With that in mind, I'd like it, assuming Marvel does a second season of Defenders, if Ghost Rider could show up. He can be a threat, an ally, first one then the other, total wild card, whatever. I'm not sure what brings him to town. I'd like it to be something specific, rather than a general "there's a lot of sinners to take vengeance on" approach. That risks veering too close to Matt's struggles with the Punisher in Season 2 of Daredevil. That can be a side angle, a swath the Rider is cutting through town as he pursues his primary goal, and what gets some members of the team involved. I could see Iron Fist jumping at investigating reports of a guy with a flaming skull. Maybe Daredevil, if he gets out of that convent. Luke and Jessica, probably not.

Mephisto might be a bit out of this group's weight class. Maybe something related to the Book of the Darkhold? Or bring the Hood in, as an initially small-timer moving up with strange powers. He's being used by some darker force in exchange for power, not that he knows he's a pawn necessarily. Not a guy who made a deal with the Devil like Johnny, but maybe not too far off. . .

I think of the Defenders as a group that deals with weird shit, even by superhero comic standards. Usually due to proximity to Dr. Strange, but even when he isn't around, they encounter some bizarre things. Luke and Jessica seemed so reluctant to believe in immortal ninjas, dragons, and people coming back from the dead, it'd be fun to watch them try to wrap their heads around this. Think about how many times Jessica can roll her eyes in aggravation about how stupid this is! Or see Danny run out in the street and try to stop the Rider with one punch (maybe if Luke's behind him helping to brace him he won't end up a smear on the road). Let good Catholic boy Matt Murdock meet an actual demon (or fallen angel, whatever).

I think they had the Robbie Reyes Ghost Rider on Agents of SHIELD. I don't know how that played out, or how he was presented, so I don't know if that would give me what I'm looking for. If it would, sure go with Robbie. Although it's probably easier to drive a motorcycle around New York than a car, even a really awesome car with flaming tires.

A Play's The Thing, To Provide Cover For Covert Ops

I said in December I intended to keep doing these hypothetical 5-character teams every other month. Then I didn't do one in December, when it was scheduled. Now I almost missed January. Almost.

For this team, I went with the idea of assembling a team to put on a play, based on my extremely vague and probably incorrect understanding of what a theater group might consist of, if you pared it down to a core five people. I figured I should explain that up front. Also, the characters are from some different time periods, and I am not going to vaguely handwave how they are all together.

The Director: Albert Eberts (Michael McCafferty, The Invisible Man) - The person behind this theater group, because it is naturally not just a theater group, is Eberts' boss, The Official. But he's not going to waste time directing a play. Not when he can assign it to his loyal subordinate, who will make certain the project does not go over what is certain to be an extremely tight budget.

Eberts is an expert on bureaucracy, which means he should be able to navigate whatever permits are required, and find ways to get by with some wiring and effects that are not exactly up to code (more on that further down). He's practical-minded, conscious of deadlines, and worst comes to worst, he at least sort of knows how to use firearms.

Beyond that, I figure Eberts has a creative side that he mostly suppresses. Maybe he didn't receive encouragement at a young age, maybe he lacked confidence, maybe his knack for organization got him fast-tracked in other directions. The opportunity to actually be creative as part of his job might be quite appealing. The Official is no doubt going to have notes, and Eberts is going to have to struggle through his loyalty to his boss, and sudden desire to spread his artistic wings, no matter how much Fawkes and Hobbes mock him for it (and they will, especially Hobbes, who is probably miffed he was asked to be involved).

The Effects Guy: Joe Garelli (Joe Rogan, Newsradio) - I have no idea what play, exactly, this group is putting on, other than it has to involve singing, based on the people I chose as leads. Again, because I know nothing about theater. Whatever it is, rest assured Joe is going to give it some bang-up effects, emphasis on "bang". In the explosions sense, not the intercourse sense, you perverts.

Joe is always tinkering, always messing with things, but he is extremely skilled when it comes to most things electrical or technical, whether he's trying to recover Dave's crashed hard drive, or repair a radio transmitter. Whether anyone asked him to do those things, and how dangerous his repairs are to himself and everyone around him is another matter. Eberts and the Official will no doubt appreciate Joe's ability to cobble together workable equipment from whatever he can scrounge or steal, assuming they can get him to use the parts for what they tell him to do. He's an avid conspiracy truther, and given some of the weirdos that are going to be hanging around this group, he may get a lot of evidence to corroborate his beliefs in alien autopsy videos or whatever.

I had originally pegged Joe as The Muscle in the old categories, since he fancied himself a physical specimen (and Joe Rogan is an announcer for UFC still, I think). But he'd also be an effective Rogue. At the moment the purpose of all this becomes clear, I'm not sure which way he'll go. I can't imagine he'd be excited to work with the government, but they're going to be doing something not entirely legal, so that might interest him. It's going to involve weird stuff, which will definitely interest him, if for no other reason than to make money telling everyone about the government trying to hide stuff. Still, he should be able to create some really impressive lighting and smoke effects. Until things inevitably catch on fire.

The Lead Actress: Dixie Cousins (Kelly Rutherford, Adventures of Brisco County Jr.) - I'm not sure how Dixie got from the late 1890s to the late 20th-early 21st Century. Because I don't know. The Orb, did it maybe.

Dixie was a traveling singer in the West, of a fair amount of renown. People in towns all through the country knew of her and looked forward to her shows. Some of which may have been down to her costuming, but she seemed like a solid singer to my untrained ear, and she knew how to work an audience. So if there's singing and dancing involved, and there almost certainly will be, she should be more than capable on those fronts.

As for acting, Dixie has assumed disguises and identities at times, has played at being interested in a man to get information from him, which suggests some acting ability. However, the disguises weren't great (when she went into hiding, she just dyed her hair and continued singing in clubs and saloons), and she always seems to drop her act at a bad moment. Admittedly, that's usually because Brisco County Jr. showed up, but if the Orb sent Dixie a century into the future, it's a sure bet Brisco is trying to find some way to reach her. Which means, in typical fashion, he'll appear at the most inconvenient time. Still, until then, I think she can handle it. Singing, dancing, romance, intrigue, she's good at all that stuff.

The Lead Actor: Diego de la Vega (Guy Williams, Zorro) - Will the Orb work as an explanation a second time? It will? You're cool with that? Awesome. Diego's going to want to find a way back home, and he's doing the acting thing as a way to stay in southern California in the meantime.

Diego was quite the skilled musician, with both guitar and piano. He had a good baritone singing voice (or his IMdb bio says it was a baritone, I couldn't tell you). There certainly were no complaints on that score from the ladies he sang to, whether as Diego or Zorro. Not to mention he'll be a natural when it comes to stunts. Since he's been propelled into the future, and nobody would know him here, he doesn't have to worry about maintaining the pretense of Diego being a clumsy scholar, which was proving more of a strain as time went on. If he's playing at being an actor, his skill in tumbling and flashy swordfighting would only be considered an asset. Plus, someone with his reflexes could come in handy if people on stage are endangered by Joe's pyrotechnics.

When things start to go off-script, Diego is naturally going to involve himself. Maybe he'll throw on the costume, maybe not. I'd vote for acting as Zorro, simply because the costume is very cool, but there might not be time. I could see him trying to protect Dixie first, regardless, which she might appreciate. Depends on whether she feels she had things under control at the moment. Either way, I'd expect she and Diego to have some natural chemistry. I'd also expect Diego and Joe to butt heads regularly, since Joe is certain to make remarks, probably about Dixie, that Diego finds out of line. His Old World sense of propriety, or chauvinism, or whatever you want to call it. But if he kicks Joe's butt cleanly, Joe would probably respect him for it, which might make it the best way for things to go.

The Costumer/Designer: Jane Lane (voiced by Wendy Hoopes, Daria) - I wasn't sure how to define Jane's job. Maybe creative consultant? She's an artist, mostly paints, but also pencil work, sculpture, pretty much whatever medium she feels like working in. I figured scenery and backdrops at a minimum, costuming designs maybe. I imagine she'd have some ideas about appropriate or cool lighting, which may or may not agree with what Eberts or Joe have in mind (for that matter, I see Eberts and Joe having a lot of disagreements about stuff like that).

I expect Jane to be the least interested in what's actually going on. She'll be suspicious and curious, but if she's left to create, and Eberts is willing and able to incorporate what she comes up with into the show (and pay her), I'm not sure she's going to worry too much otherwise. Jane, like me, enjoys making smartass remarks and asking uncomfortable questions to mess with people, but I don't see her trying to throw a spanner in the works.

It occurred to me halfway through typing this there needs to be music. I had Jane in mind as The Lady with a Boat, in this case her brother Trent's van. So maybe Trent's band can be the music. Or Diego could play some pieces Joe can record and play back during the performance. Or Bernardo, Sergeant Garcia and Corporal Reyes got pulled through time as well, and Diego gets them to play. If that's the case, Garcia is absolutely going to end up on stage at some point during the show, and wow the crowd with his impressive singing voice. Because the applause will bring a big smile to the sergeant's face, and a happy Sergeant Garcia makes me smile, too.

As for the goal of all this, I figure the Agency is using this play as a smokescreen to get at Arnaud de Ferhn's vaults. He's gotten his hands on some extremely early prototype of the Orb. I mean, really early, since that thing isn't supposed to be created for a few centuries yet. This one probably isn't capable of time travel on its own, yet. But as a potential power source, maybe. It might be the quantum computer introduced in episode 1.8 of The Invisible Man, in a new and improved (evolved?) version.

It seems more likely to be the sort of thing the Chrysalis Group would have stored somewhere, but I can't see the theater troupe scam working on them. Arnaud on the other hand, owns a casino, and is both pretentious enough to want to have a theater putting on plays there, and cheap enough to hire some half-assed, shoestring budget group. He's probably paying them in free, leftover buffet shrimp.

Figure Darien and Hobbes are lurking somewhere among the stagehands, pretending to just be regular workers. But Darien takes such a half-assed approach to playing any sort of a role that he's far too casual and friendly with Eberts for the others on the troupe not to notice. Plus, he and Hobbes are probably trying to wander around surreptitiously and figure out where Arnaud is hiding the MacGuffin, something Diego would almost certainly notice and investigate, and likely Dixie, Joe, and Jane, either separately or as a group.

Arnaud is either eventually going to notice them, or has known all along what was going on, and this was all part of another of his overly complicated plans to get Darien. Expect Diego (or Zorro) to make a key last-minute save, possibly alongside Brisco if he does show up. Jane could be an effective distraction, especially if her brother is there providing the music for the show. I don't know if that would involve some kind of demonstration or crazy public performance, or if they'd just light something on fire. Either one is good. Dixie and Joe are the ones who actually get the MacGuffin, forming an effective, if uneasy duo. They're both naturally curious, they both like to bluff, they'll both hit people if they feel like it, what more do you need?

I expect poor Eberts is going to be crestfallen if all this happens on Opening Night. Maybe they'll get to do a couple of actual shows first, to help sell their cover to Arnaud? Because I think Eberts will get into it, and I actually don't think this crew will give him much trouble. He may have to rein in some of Jane and Joe's excesses, and Diego will tease him a bit, because that's what Diego does, but Eberts is going to be taking this seriously, and try to do his best. And I think everyone else on the team takes enough pride in their work they will, too. Dixie and Diego have too much pride to turn in a poor performance, and Joe and Jane would have too high an opinion of their work to half-ass it.

An Ambivalent Punisher Review

I watched all of Netflix' Punisher series over the last two weeks. Originally, I hadn't thought I would. I wasn't sure I would be up for a guy with guns just running around killing whoever he deems to deserve it over a broad class of people. As it turned out, the series stuck to a more narrow revenge theme, rather than some "war on crime" story. Let's pause for stations identification, and for a SPOILER warning, here on the RML Network. SPOILERS, they'll ruin your day if you want to watch this show free of someone else's notions (which I was mostly able to do).

The Punisher is presumed dead. Frank has settled into a life as a mostly silent construction worker under an assumed identity, believing he's killed everyone involved in his family's murder. Wrong! And those people were also involved in ruining the life of David Lieberman, who has gone into hiding under the alias "Micro", and wants Frank's help to stop these people so he can rejoin his family. There's also Homeland Security agent Dinah Midani, back from Afghanistan, trying to track down the U.S. soldiers responsible for murdering a friend and contact of hers there, a murder Frank Castle might know something about, if only he weren't dead. . .

Like the second season of Daredevil, there were almost enough plates spinning to keep me from noticing pacing issues. That said, around episode 10, when they do that old bit where they show the same event in flashback from multiple characters' perspectives, I started to get impatient.

There is a lot of time spent on Micro spying on his family through cameras installed in their house, and Frank spending time with them, initially in a power struggle with Micro, later because he cares about them, and it's probably pleasant for him to recapture a sense of domesticity. It's a good idea if you want the audience to care about Frank, rather than him living alone in some basement, just eating beans all the time, stepping out periodically to kill some drug dealers. Show more of the mostly good person he was before, don't show him executing people so much. And it mostly solved my concern about watching this man run around killing whoever he deems a criminal whenever he feels like it, because that barely happens. Outside of him killing a few guys at the very beginning - who we're told were involved in his family's murder - I think everyone Frank kills is, at the moment of their deaths, trying to kill him or some other innocent person.

Still, there came a point I was sitting there wondering when I was going to see Frank Castle kill some of these bad guys. I kept thinking of Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park. "Now eventually, you are going to have some punishing in your Punisher series, correct? Hello?"

That said, Jon Bernthal as Castle and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Micro have decent chemistry. Micro has this sad-eyed hangdog air to him, while Frank is gruff and awkward, frequently resorting to a raspy scoff when he doesn't know how else to react. Bernthal's Frank Castle can still care about people, he hasn't buried that part of him, but he tries to, and no longer seems to know how to react. I do like that he acknowledges that his family life wasn't always sweetness and rainbows. Even if it makes sense those are the memories that would keep coming back to him.

There's a series of threads running through about other soldiers and how they've adjusted or are struggling to adjust since they left the service. Frank has an old corpsman friend (played by Jason R. Moore) who has a discussion help group going, and his old Marine buddy Billy is a big shot running a private security firm. One of the people in Curtis' group is a young man who feels like he misses being in combat, and feels abandoned here. That ends badly.

It was interesting as contrast with Frank, not just in terms of what he lost once he returned home, but the sense he has that he left something behind on those tours of duty. There are parts of him he couldn't get back, and so he's never felt whole, even once he was back with his family. He left something behind, and something else followed him home. All these people suffered in some way or the other, and many of them continue to suffer after. Frank seems to have given up really trying to go forward with his life at the start of the show, he's just existing. Some of the people in the group are lost, others are trying to move ahead if they can, but aren't sure they're getting anywhere.

That said, the point at which Lewis decides to start striking back violently at society was a mistake. It felt too cliched, another soldier striking back at an entire subset of people he holds responsible for the dislocation he feels. Another mirror to play off Frank. But by the time it reached that point, I was invested in seeing Frank get the people he was after. Frank taking time to deal with Lewis was an irritating diversion. He was on one plotline, which I wanted to reach the conclusion of, and then was wrenched onto a different plot for two episodes. I preferred Curtis' discussions with his group serving as a parallel to Frank's story.

I couldn't decide if Dinah Midani (Amber Rose Revah) was unlucky, in over her head, or just incompetent. She's driven, but it seems as though everything she tries fails. Every clever scheme or attempt to get the upper hand backfires, often with people dying as a result. I thought she'd make the big save at the end, but couldn't even manage that. She mirrors Castle, someone out to avenge lost loved ones, but also too caught up in it, charging ahead blind to other dangers. Castle has Micro to at least try to pull him back, Midani didn't have anyone effective at that, only people who were good at telling her what she did wrong after the fact. I think she's also meant to make Frank face the things he did (under orders that he didn't know were actually bullshit), but I thought that got lost in the shuffle much of the time. So is she a different cautionary tale for Frank, like Lewis, or am I giving the show too much credit?

When the show does decide it's time for violence, it goes for it. People's faces gets beaten into bloody pulp, eyes are gouged out, a lot of people get stabbed multiple times. Definitely felt like another level from the violence in the other Marvel Netflix shows. Which, if you are going to do a show about a guy whose whole shtick is he violently kills lots of criminals, I guess you shouldn't hold back on said violence. Credit on that score.

Paul Schulze plays a pretty contemptible, arrogant villain in Rawlins. The kind of guy who was handed everything and believes that was his birthright. When things stop going how he wants, he loses all composure, maybe too much. Scenery chewing going a bit far. I can make explanations for him acting like that, but again, I'm not sure I'm not giving the show too much credit.

I don't think I ever got really fired up and excited during the show. Except near the end, when Frank gets at Rawlins, that might have been a "Fuck yeah!" moment. Otherwise, there were a lot of quieter scenes I enjoyed, conversations that were pleasant to watch, which is not what I would have expected, but that's the extent of it. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. I could watch it and have it mostly hold my attention for 50 minutes at a pop.

God, the Devil, and Bob 1.13 - Bob Gets Involved

Plot: Bob comes home to Donna rehearsing for Arsenic and Old Lace, and finds Andy's lnchbox in the trash with a profanity written across. Bob is outraged, and decides to take action against this appalling behavior. But yelling at the school (literally, he stands in the parking lot and shouts at an empty building) after hours accomplishes nothing. God's suggestion to look within whistles in and out. The Devil gets Bob to call into a radio show he's hosting, as a way to unite Bob with other like-minded imbeciles.

The group's initial attempt to keep rap music away from children runs up against the fact CDs are expensive (oh, that dates this episode). But here's the Devil again, presenting himself as a classy evil, willing to donate a check for 50 grand. Bob spends it on night vision goggles, and then his group set their sights on Donna's play. Which forces the actors to try and stage the play secretly, only for the Devil to tip off Bob's group. And just when the theater seems ready to erupt in violence, Kevin Bacon arrives to defuse the situation with dancing.

None of which solves the problem of the word scrawled on Andy's lunchbox, now also painted in big letters on the backyard fence.

Quote of the Episode: Smeck - 'What if Bob restores order and morality to Detroit?'

Smeck Smacks: 5 (32 overall).

Other: The arrival of Kevin Bacon (and subsequent quick departure) is random, but I at least enjoyed the secret of why he would continually show up to ruin the Devil's plans.

Also, Bob tries to intimidate God in the men's room at the bar to learn who wrote on Andy's lunchbox. Which takes a certain amount of chutzpah, considering God's track record towards people who defy him. Along those same lines, Bob trying to justify his taking that check from the Devil. Calling God an idealist, while describing himself as a realist, a consensus builder.

God did use the airbag to punch him, though. A week after he used a table to do the same thing. He's real fond of that plausible deniability stuff.

Although Bob was surprisingly serious about this, in his clumsy, misguided way. Even when Donna told him he was no longer invited to the cast party, and they got a keg. I thought for sure missing out on beer would get him to reconsider, but no. A man's quest to protect his son from anyone's swearing other than his own supersedes alcoholism.

Bob's pal Barry wants the schools to stop educating kids so they can't take his and Bob's jobs. Instead, the kids will do all the crappy work, and then they can stop the immigrants. Sounds like Barry's got a future in the Republican Party.

Not a strong episode to end on, but there you have it. When I started this rewatch, it had been long enough since I'd watched the show that I figured I'd enjoy one or two episodes - "The Devil's Birthday" most likely - and the rest would be a disaster. But it turned out to be more enjoyable than that. The subplots are weak, often with no resolution or one that's tossed in at some point. They come off as strictly filler, which suggests the A plot is too weak to carry the episode. But there are almost always a few decent gags or lines in each episode, so that's not too bad.

After 5+ years and 7 different shows, I'm going to take a break from the episode rundowns. Come back next Sunday to learn what's going to be taking over!

God, the Devil, and Bob 1.12 - God's Girlfriend

Plot: The Allman family is on their annual vacation to a lakeside resort. Andy's excited to swim out to the floating dock in the middle, while Megan's excited about the boys present (but not about wearing sunscreen to Donna's regret).

Unfortunately for Bob, God has shown up, and unfortunately for Him, his ex, Sarah, is there, too. God ditched her in Paris, and so things are awkward. The Devil is behind it, of course, hoping to cause mischief in Heaven while God's distracted. He's heading up there to grab some souls. But no Richard Nixon! Heaven involves a lot of paperwork, though.

And so there are two opposing, incompetent forces trying to get involved in God and Sarah's eventual, tentative rekindling. On the one side, Smeck is trying to nudge them together on the Devil's behalf. On the other, Bob is trying to break them up, because if God's busy with Sarah, who will Bob pray to for stuff? I assumed his bookie, or Donna's family, but apparently there are no other options.

Quote of the Episode: Bob - 'What kind of a god raids another man's hospitality bar? Those Cokes are 3 bucks each.' God - 'I know, I'm a wrathful God.'

Smeck Smacks: 3 (27 overall).

Other: Andy did make it out to the raft. And Megan did get sunburned. The Devil only managed to get the paperwork for one soul completed, and you can guess who they tried to foist on him.

The idea of Nixon being in Heaven was the most surprising thing in this episode, at least until the Devil mentioned he had already refused Nixon the first time around, because he ruins everything for everyone else down in Hell.

Well, maybe the idea of Heaven being such a stickler for paperwork. I'd always figured a more laissez-faire approach once people were in. I guess the relaxed atmosphere is thanks to the hard work of the many angels behind the scenes.

God took relationship advice from an episode of Mr. Ed. I've seen less qualified people touted as experts on things.

Ultimately, God's married to the job, so those two crazy kids agreed to go their separate ways. To the extent that's possible with one-half of the couple being an omniscient being. He just loves everyone too much to delete their voicemails and focus on just one person. Which I notice doesn't stop him from showing up to ultimately ruin Bob's life with stupid tests.

God, the Devil, and Bob 1.11 - Bob's Father

Plot: Bob's father is near death, but it hasn't softened him any. Which means Bob's attempt to settle unresolved issues does not go well. Bob gets frustrated, tells his father to go to Hell, and storms out. Then his father dies (after mimicking the EKG flatlining as Bob turned away). Bob asks God to bring him back, and God declines.

Back home, Bob is depressed and seeks out the Devil, hoping to be allowed to speak with his father's soul in Hell. As it turns out, his father didn't end up in Hell, though Bob does run into Che Guevara, twice. Confronted with the idea God allowed his asshole of a father into heaven, Bob declares morality to be irrelevant and embraces chaos. Disobeying traffic laws, stealing a sports car and leading the police on a merry chase, mooning nuns. He ends up in his favorite bar, where God is waiting. They chat, and God makes a somewhat questionable analogy to explain Bob's father's actions, before giving Bob a chance to speak with his father one last time.

There's also a sporadic subplot about Megan finding a dog in the park, fighting with her mother about whether she gets to keep it, and then struggling to make it mind her. It exists mostly so they can make a joke where Megan (as she details her frustrations) unwittingly describes exactly how Donna feels in dealing with Megan.

Plot: Che - 'Has Communism triumphed?' Bob - 'No, it's failed all over the world! There's a chihuahua doing an impression of you in a Taco Bell commercial!' Che - 'I live on!' 

Smeck Smacks: 2 (24 overall). Devil dropped a couple organs on him. I got the numbers on this screwed up like two episodes in, and I'm not sure whether I've straightened things out.

Other: The quote was the second time Bob encountered Che, when he was too pissed to lie. The first time, he told him that Communism had indeed triumphed. Che seemed pretty pumped either way, but I imagine after however many years of shoveling whatever he was shoveling into those furnaces, any news about the living world might have been welcome.

The Devil invented those difficult to open bags of airline peanuts. Also, he made up Purgatory. And "the light" you aren't supposed to go into is God's porch light. Which he now has to leave on all the time, and it attracts moths. Heaven has moths? I don't know. Bob's dad says the bars in Heaven are always open and you never have to go to the bathroom. So who knows what's up there.

I need to watch that episode of King of the Hill where Cotton dies, see if he was shittier to Hank than Tom Allman was to Bob here. It'd be close, but I don't think Cotton faked flatlining, and Bob didn't have Donna there to have his back (as I recall, Peggy told Cotton to hurry up and drop dead, which the old fucker deserved).

The service is a miserable affair, because the pastor giving the eulogy can't even get Tom's name right. That's the worst, get some schmuck up there doesn't know a damn thing about the person they're speaking of. That happened with one of my great uncles, my grandmother was so angry about it.

So, God's explanation about Tom is this image of a series of fathers in a line, each one passing a punch down to their sons. The idea is to pass down a softer punch, and supposedly Tom did that. I'm not super-impressed with an explanation for abusive parents that itself involves violence. It's still a punch, at least until you reach the point the father doesn't strike his child. God does acknowledge that Bob is right to be angry, though he also says it's his job, not Bob's, to forgive Tom. Which doesn't seem terribly relevant at first glance; whether God forgives Tom Allman or not doesn't resolve anything for Bob. But God does say it isn't Bob's job to forgive. Which means he isn't required to. He can choose to forgive if he wants, or not. His call. God, presumably has to forgive, in spite of Tom's actions.