Barely recovered from last week’s Shocking Character Death, the heroes of the Revolution are allowed to dawdle in mourning for all of half an hour before action hero Miles Matheson decides that grief is over and it’s time for everyone to move on. As soon as they cross the next set of bushes without benefit of jump-cut or montage, presto! They’re in Noblesville. Keeping in mind that Indiana Beach is 85 miles northwest of Noblesville, I infer from this instant arrival that our intrepid remainders — Miles, Charlie, Aaron, and “willing” “prisoner” “Nate” — graciously carried their fallen comrade’s body all eighty-five of those miles before deciding that the time and place were right for a proper funeral service, right next door to our villains’ current location. If you ask me, the Indiana Beach area is much prettier and farther away from evil. On the other hand, Noblesville has a large concert venue, the Deer Creek Verizon Wireless Klipsch now presumably sponsorless Music Center. Maybe music fans of the future would love a final resting place near that.
Tag Archives: spoilers
“Revolution” 10/8/2012 (spoilers): Charlie vs. Old Man Witherby at the Abandoned Amusement Park
Viewers have had a week since last week’s episode of Revolution to write down their guesses as to which character would die tonight. Would it be Aaron, the softest of Our Heroes, whose death would take all sense of comic relief with him? Would it be Miles, the main character? Would it be Charlie, the character that the show keeps telling us is the main character? Would it be “Nate”, sacrificing himself to atone for his nebulous militia past? Would it be Neville, executed for the crime of being too interesting a villain?
Before that moment of tragedy, we saw at least one victory in tonight’s new episode, “The Plague Dogs”, named after the Richard Adams novel about a pair of lab-experiment dogs on the run, like our heroes except with stranger side effects. Our cast finally reunites in the ghost town of Lowell, Indiana, as previously promised, fifty miles south-by-southeast of Chicago. (One empty business sports a sign reading “G. Stein Furniture Company”, the name of a real business in North Carolina. But never mind that.) As they merge and move along, their old buddy “Nate” also stumbles out of the shadows and joins them as a willing prisoner. We’re told that his last encounter with Charlie from episode 2 (“Chained Heat”) happened someplace called Pontiac. Presumably this is Pontiac, Illinois, one hundred miles southwest of Chicago and less than thirty miles away from Chatsworth, the recently raided town that the Rebel Alliance name-checked last week. (Pontiac, Indiana, is even more out of the way, hours south of Lowell. Obviously the larger city of Pontiac, Michigan, also won’t do.)
Their objective is to catch up with Neville’s entourage, en route with Charlie’s brother Danny to Noblesville, Indiana, which is thirty miles from where I’m now sitting and typing. Lowell to Noblesville is 120+ miles beyond what they’ve already walked from Chicago to Lowell. The bulk of the episode detours them into an abandoned amusement park, which in our reality would most likely mean a ten-mile digression off I-65 to Indiana Beach in scenic Monticello. It’s not a ride-for-ride carbon copy, but the show captures the basic essence of roller coaster, water slide, Ferris wheel with extra-wide gondolas, and plastic beach chairs. The show version has more water towers, its 1950s diner looks more like a place I know at Ohio’s Kings Island, and the giant-size guitar in the background of one shot gives away its true identity as the Hard Rock Amusement Park in Myrtle Beach, SC. As a single-episode stand-in, I guess it’ll do.
Also different from Indiana Beach: the attack dogs and their unhinged master, who sics his minions on Our Heroes and then vows revenge when they kill one in self-defense. How dare they! His poor, innocent, feral dogs were minding their own business and just going about their bloodthirsty day, and then that happens! Clearly the humans are at fault and must pay. Instead of haunting them with a fake ghost like most amusement park caretakers would, this grizzled stalker attacks from the shadows and even designs a primitive deathtrap for Charlie. Luckily for her the fixtures are authentically rickety and her day is saved. Ah, if only everyone’s day could be saved…
Meanwhile on the road to Noblesville, Danny does his own bit of heroic lifesaving after finding himself trapped with Neville in a storm cellar during a genuine Indiana tornado. The twister seemingly passes; Neville shouts “Amen!”; and I couldn’t help laughing as the ceiling collapsed on him. That’s our unpredictable Indiana weather in a nutshell, folks. If nothing else, Revolution nailed that part. Alas, Danny and Neville re-enact the old fable about the scorpion and the fox, as Danny conscientiously saves Neville’s life, only to be stung by him in return. Points to Danny for moral superiority in the face of a CG storm, at least.
Meanwhile down in Noblesville, now revealed as Monroe Militia HQ, Evil Dictator “Bass” Monroe continues holding Charlie’s mom Rachel captive, perpetuating what must be a years-long tradition of interrogating her unsuccessfully, even with sadistic lackey involvement. A flashback reveals that not only did Rachel turn herself in to save her family, but that her original captor…was Miles himself! DUN DUN DUUUUUN! I suppose this should be shocking, but it’s kind of not. Now that we know the Monroe Republic is half Monroe’s fault and half Miles’, I expect we’re in for a long parade of stunning revelations about the evil Miles committed before he realized what a series of grave mistakes he’d made, like My Name is Earl with more bloodletting.
To his credit, Miles corrects one important wrong in this episode. After two acts’ worth of wishy-washy quitter angst once again, he finally takes a leap of faith into the waiting arms of family commitment, officially deciding to stay with his niece and help see her quest through to the doubtlessly heroic end. The impetus that inspires this decision is tonight’s Shocking Character Death…which would be a lot more shocking if I hadn’t totally called it last week.
Alas, poor Maggie, we knew you slightly. Your flashbacks reveal a little more history, of your children separated from you in England, of your epic one-woman journey from Seattle to Buffalo, and of your unbelievable discovery that large boats capable of sailing to England are now extinct because of wars that demolished them all and, I suppose, resulted in the deaths of every boatwright and every boating company in America. Never mind that Christopher Columbus and several centuries of pirates managed just fine without today’s boat construction technology. Were all those Carnival Cruise liners drafted into the wars and sunk during fierce naval conflicts, too?
Sorry, where were we? Yes, Maggie, then — Charlie’s de facto stepmother passes away due to femoral artery damage from one vicious stab wound courtesy of the Phantom of Indiana Beach. A sad ending to her story, after being rescued from suicidal thoughts by Charlie’s dad Ben, made a part of the family, and now…this. In her final flashback, Maggie reads to her kids from yet another classic road-trip tale, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a copy of which she leaves behind with Our Heroes, perhaps serving as a reminder to keep following that yellow brick road. Or a reminder of a more innocent time when adorable dogs like Toto were the norm and not the exception.
“Looper”: Five-Film Sci-Fi Mash-Up is Terrifying, Tear-Jerking, Terrific
The short, spoiler-free version of my impression of Looper: the film is a knotty but ingenious cat-and-mouse thriller that moves from urban squalor to rural tranquility with an enviable dexterity while contemplating the effects of poor choices on our lives (our own as well as others’), the things we’ll sacrifice to stay true to our selfish nature, and what we’re willing to sacrifice if we think harder about what’s most important in the grand scheme. Other reviews have already noted the effectiveness of the makeup, the subtlety of the near-future visual designs, and the fun of watching Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing different versions of the same character. Consider those thoughts seconded here, since I can’t think of a good reason to retype them in my own redundant words.
However, I wouldn’t go so far as to grade it A+++++. I recognized more than a few moving parts from other films, albeit parts that are shuffled together skillfully, retooled for improved functionality, and kept as far removed from the trailers as possible.
Before proceeding, I brake here for COURTESY SPOILER ALERT for those who plan to see it but have been too busy or who avoid theaters. Now is your moment to escape for the sake of your future moviegoing experience, and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.
“Revolution” 10/1/2012 (spoilers): Educating Charlie, the Secret of Miles, and 10,000 Sniper Bullets
Action heroine class is now in session.
Miles’ shady past may never have come to light if Nora hadn’t introduced us to her friends in the Rebel Alliance, including their leader, Nicholas (Derek Webster from Damages and Harry’s Law), labeled a Catholic priest but struggling to walk the walk in a world turned topsy-turvy. More credit for the rebels’ survival may be owed to their nameless sniper who has the pleasure of mercilessly wielding the precious M40A rifle that Our Heroes acquired last week. (If they distinguished which of the three kinds of M40As it was, then I missed the last digit.) While everyone else hides in the basement of a former restaurant called Harrigan’s that resembled a Bennigan’s except of course totally different, the noble sniper mowed down the onslaught of evil cannon fodder as quickly as they could be ushered out of hiding by their leader, Jeremy (Mark Pellegrino from Supernatural, playing quite the remarkable villain here). Fortunately for the sniper, either Nora also lifted a gigantic box of M40Ax rounds along the way back to Harrigan’s, or the rebels stole the bullets previously and kept lugging the dead weight around until they could locate a weapon to match with them.
Driveway Tunnelers Fail to Find Hoffa, But Recover My Lost “Cabin in the Woods” Review
My daily MCC followers may recall a recent entry in which I eulogized one of my oldest entries, a review of The Cabin in the Woods that somehow vanished from this blog without malice aforethought or explanation forthcoming. Originally posted on May 6th, I tried to return to it months later to double-check something I’d written (I don’t even recall exactly what), only to discover a large hole in my history where once it had existed. The software left a trail of another post that I intentionally deleted a few weeks later, but not the Cabin piece.
Wanna hear a funny story about a forgetful old man?
“Revolution” 9/24/2012 (spoilers): Mitigating Morality and Fussing Over Flags
Last week’s premiere of the new JJ Abrams series Revolution achieved encouraging Nielsen ratings. Then again, so did the pilots for The Event and FlashForward. We’ll have to wait until Tuesday morning to discover how episode two fared. I’m sticking with it for now with some form of curiosity, but I can’t say the show is firing on all cylinders yet.
The interesting sword-fighting scenes in this week’s episode, “Chained Heat”, are mostly between Miles and special guest C. Thomas Howell as a generic bounty hunter. Unfortunately for Miles, all his other party members lack key adventuring skills. If they were Dungeons & Dragons characters, their class would be Hostage. Worse still in Miles’ mind, head hostage Charlie still adheres to old-fashioned, inconvenient, old-world beliefs such as Killing Is Wrong and Slavery Must Be Stopped. Through the course of the hour, Uncle Miles has to teach his niece that (1) life in the new world is basically a constant state of war, so killing is mandatory until someone reinvents the American legal and penal systems; and (2) they have better things to do than become a traveling abolition squad. The validity of either lesson remains open to debate.
At first Miles abandons his dead-weight companions and tries to carry the series solo, but Charlie refuses to let him because she believes she’s the main character, and also she wants to fight by his side with her crossbow that she’ll willingly use to wound animals or shield herself from swinging swords. Despite her inexperience and naivete, despite Miles’ considerable head start, and despite a scene where she plods around a playground for a while and has an intense childhood flashback, somehow she catches up with him anyway. One has to wonder if perhaps she possesses innate tracking skills not yet mentioned, if Miles somehow got lost, or if he was just testing her to see if she would follow him, and had been hiding in the bushes all this time.
Miles wouldn’t be alone in using shrubbery as camouflage. That’s exactly where “Nate” spent this episode, keeping himself, his conflicting motives, and his general brooding hidden but never far from the action. Basically he’s set up as a season 1 Angel to Charlie’s Buffy. Those are some big shoes to fill, “Nate”.
Of course, in order to follow Miles in the name of “only trying to help”, Charlie had to let Aaron and Maggie stay abandoned and fending for themselves. The duo reacts to this by not staying put, instead venturing forth armed only with the late Ben Matheson’s potentially world-saving flash-drive MacGuffin amulet, a dead iPhone that hopefully doesn’t experience memory degradation issues, and Aaron’s magic glasses that have survived fifteen years or more without collecting scratches all over the lenses. Maybe I shop at all the wrong optometrists, but after two or three years with the same pair of glasses, I’m usually half-blind and having to learn how to focus through the few clear spots.
Thus do Aaron and Maggie throw caution to the wind and advance in the direction of Grant Park, the hometown of Grace, the mysterious lady from last week that Danny met by pure happenstance, who then threw him to the wolves, and who for some reason has a working computer with a 56K modem with the old dial-up squawks and everything. We know little else about her so far except she had/has an asthmatic son whose inhaler had no expiration date; she’s not afraid to throw innocents to the wolves for the sake of saving her own skin or cause (too early to tell which of those means more to her); and her subplot ends in a cliffhanger involving a rude home invader named Randall. I like to think that a character with that name just has to be awesome, so I’m sure there was a perfectly courteous reason for him to smash her door down.
Funny thing about Grant Park, though: it’s fifty miles south of Chicago. That wouldn’t be a cakewalk for the Fellowship of the Ring, let alone for casual pedestrians. I can’t wait to see how that goes for Maggie and Aaron, who’s not exactly built like a cross-country runner. I also look forward to finding out how Charlie’s brother Danny, who was taken captive many miles west of Chicago in the pilot, somehow beat them to Grant Park by a full episode — accidentally and with asthma, at that. They do have one thing in their favor: Miles told everyone to meet in two weeks in Lowell, Indiana, which lies a measly fifteen miles east of Grant Park. That leg of their trip should be a breeze compared to the Chicago-to-Grant-Park marathon.
Miles’ side quest, as it turns out, is to recruit the last cast member, Nora (Daniella Alonso), who can hold her own in a fight, can allegedly blow stuff up, is willing to steal herself better weapons, and has a Rebel Alliance tattoo on her back, in the form of an eleven-star American flag. Apparently the rebels are so hardcore, they think North Carolina and Rhode Island don’t count as Original Colonies because they were too slow to get ratified. 11-OC in full effect, y’all.
Meanwhile, Giancarlo Esposito’s Neville, the most interesting evildoer in the show, saw reduced screen time, but taught us two key lessons: he’s some kind of religious (for me, the most eye-rolling revelation this week), and the original fifty-star American flag has been renamed the “rebel flag”. With the series taking place in northeast Illinois, it may be years before the characters walk far enough south for us to learn what a Confederate flag is now called. His superior, Sebastian Monroe, presidential monarch of the Monroe Republic, had even less screen time with only two scenes to call his own: one demonstrating that he’s against torture but not murder; and one revealing that Charlie’s mom is alive and captive.
Hopefully the future doesn’t see Charlie following her mom’s lead in every other episode. I’d like to see her grow as a character, preferably sooner rather than later. It was sad to see her innocence die a little when she experienced her first kill (and, seconds later, her second kill) while helping Nora steal the cool sniper rifle from the copter-hoarding Imperial forces. She doubtlessly has more trials ahead of her, so she’ll need to keep working on her backbone development, stop letting strong men back her into helpless positions, and start owning the fact that this entire journey was her idea.
If she keeps insisting on retreating to the background, I would recommend the show change focus ASAP so that Miles really is the one true main character. Along those lines, they’d do well to change the name of the show as well. My suggestions for a new name would include Miles to Go; Miles Down the Road; Crossing Miles; Miles and Nora’s Infinite Hit List; or We’re Walking, We’re Walking, We’re Walking.
The “Falling Skies” Season 2 Finales You Won’t See on TV in Our Reality
The first nine episodes of Falling Skies‘ second season have been a tense thrill ride, except arguably the one episode that was devoted entirely to people chatting in cars. And, granted, fans of special effects may also noticed to their chagrin that last week’s episode, “The Price of Greatness”, didn’t feature a single live Skitter. I also find it immensely distracting every time two characters ostensibly hundreds of miles apart just happen to bump into each other. Otherwise, thrills have been a-poppin’ and tension has been mounting.
The addition of special guest stars Terry O’Quinn (Lost) as the first post-apocalyptic politician and Matt Frewer (forever Max Headroom in my heart) as an unthinking military man was certainly a step in the right direction away from staleness. Based on the promo for the season finale (enclosed below), it’s safe to say we can expect great, hopefully unpredictable things are in store for us. So far, I’ve been pretty satisfied with where the show has been steered of late, thanks in large part to season 2 showrunner Remi Aubuchon, whose previous work on NBC’s Persons Unknown was a big hit in our household and apparently nowhere else. (I still think of the show every time I’ve seen Reggie Lee pop up in other things like Grimm and The Dark Knight Rises. Seeing our heroes undergo Level 2 would’ve been a real treat.)
What if things had gone differently? What if Aubuchon hadn’t been available to helm Falling Skies because he was too busy wrapping up Persons Unknown season 3 after it magically found an audience? Imagine infinite versions of the show by infinite showrunners, perhaps in worlds where the fates of many a TV creator ran along a much different career track than they have in the reality we know and love.
In some of those alt-Earths, the Falling Skies season 2 finale, titled “A More Perfect Union” in our present reality, might be reimagined by those alt-producers like so:
Joss Whedon: One of the Overlords is finally given a name and a distinct, engaging personality. Season 2’s Big Bad is revealed at last, and happens to be the CEO of an evil galactic corporation. The season concludes not with another cliffhanger, but with a satisfying firefight that looks really expensive but was done on a shockingly modest budget, while at the same time offering deep-rooted closure to the season’s ongoing themes of distrust between allies and compromised freedoms. Also, because Tom has a happy relationship with Anne and is a great father to his boys, he obviously has to die quickly and brutally at the end. Season 3 will see the show renamed Maggie the Skitter Stomper, and Hal coping with his grief by developing unhealthy addictions to black clothing and expensive hair care products.
Chris Carter: Tom and Anne’s relationship is immediately downgraded back to irritating will-they-or-won’t-they status. The finale introduces four new kinds of aliens, six new supporting characters, and eight new conspiracies, ending after much sound and fury with an alien-war cliffhanger and a “To Be Concluded” placard. It is a placard of lies.
Amy Sherman-Palladino: After nineteen straight episodes of near-flawless heroism, Tom spends some time revealing all his fatal flaws and making sure we know he’s no hero to be praised or followed. This culminates in a harsh argument with Weaver in which both characters are required to recite entire speeches’ worth of dialogue at each other, longer than the Declaration of Independence and at 400 wpm. Weaver eventually convinces Tom about his wrongness just in enough time for the two of them to nab a pair of empty front-row seats at the Charleston Elementary production of My Fair Lady, in which li’l Matt closes the show with a heartbreaking rendition of “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face”. Eliza Doolittle is played by his new harnessed girl-pal from two episodes ago, who’s seen the error of her ways and begrudgingly joined the 2nd Mass after all. Forgiveness and healing are all but certain, as are countless tossed-away joke references to hip, erudite topics such as The Fantasticks, Secrets and Lies, Tamagotchi, The Decameron, and Steve Urkel.
Shonda Rhimes: Fifteen minutes of relationship angst and forty-five minutes of sex scenes. Noah Wyle will glisten and preen like he’s never glistened and preened before. Every female character will become insufferable.
Dick Wolf: The finale is a fully self-contained episode, except half the cast die or quit the rebellion. Their replacements in season 3 will be played by desperate but totally terrific Broadway actors at half the cost.
Alfred Gough and Miles Millar: Hal suddenly realized he’s still in love with Karen, was meant to be with Karen, and will never give up waiting for Karen, even though the best viewers will waste countless hours disagreeing with him via the Internet. All other characters will moan, groan, and keep pointing him toward Maggie in vain. Pope’s chaotic-good repartee will become three times zingier, and Pa Mason will spout more aphorisms than ever. Frustrating cliffhanger ending is mandatory, and won’t see full closure until eight episodes into season 3.
Vince Gilligan: Tom goes underground to meet the dregs of what’s left of American society. He discovers a way to destroy the invaders from within once and for all, but it may require him to sacrifice the life of one of his sons. He goes forward with it anyway, as the darkness begins to form slowly in his once-pure heart. Anne is strangely on board with every bizarre decision he makes. The Noah Wyle that America once knew and loved as the benevolent Dr. John Carter gets really scary to watch.
Frank Darabont: The first fifty-eight minutes will be the characters standing around wreckage, staring into space meaningfully, pausing to reflect and mourn at length, holding conversations about compromised freedoms, and ending every other sentence with, “…but at what price?” The final two minutes are super awesome alien wartime nonstop explosion cinema extravaganza that blows the fans away, costs $60 million to film, and requires a now-penniless TNT to cancel all its other original series except Franklin & Bash, whose two stars are willing to forgo paychecks and work for vending machine snacks.
Veena Sud: One solid hour of everyone standing, staring, pausing, and generally hanging out on lots of dull grey sets. Smiles are forbidden. Dale Dye and all other officers above Weaver will admit they’re no closer now to understanding the aliens’ motives than they were when the invasion began two seasons ago. In the only real plot development of the entire episode, Tom is relieved of command when he admits he has no idea how to use a gun, and has just been getting really lucky all this time.
Thankfully none of these realities are ours, for we live in the greatest reality of ALL TIMES. Enclosed for posterity is that brief season finale promo that may or may not contain all the hints we need to predict what’ll happen this Sunday night.
My amateur predictions:
1. Charleston will burn.
2. A minor recurring character will die. The easy money’s on Tector.
3. The firefight will look spectacular.
4. Lourdes hopefully stops mourning and gets back to representing for the faithful.
5. Just as the battle is nearly lost, Ben returns with a veritable cavalry.
6. Pope quits and leaves for good, and then returns again, and then quits and leaves yet again, and so on.
7. My wildest prediction, most likely to be wrong — Dai will have at least three whole lines. You heard it here first.
My “Mad Men” Season 5 Finale Predictions, 100% Accurate on Some Alternate Earth
Mad Men has already thrown a plethora of unexpected twists and pivots at us this year, but has one more hour at its disposal to see if it can top itself even more outlandishly. One can only hope the season 5 finale, “The Phantom”, will join the ranks of “The Wheel” and “Shut the Door. Have a Seat” as another finale to end all finales.
I’m terrible at guessing what happens next in any given show. Like all other failed prognosticators, that never stops me from trying. I may look weird keeping a book by my side while I watch, for something to occupy my time during commercials or sex scenes, but rest assured I’m otherwise paying attention, keeping mental tabs as best I can with my aging memory, and harboring my own half-baked theories about what ought to happen next. Fortunately, whatever happens is usually much more stunning.
Momentary pause here for courtesy spoiler alert before I proceed. If you’re not caught up through the June 3rd episode “Commissions and Fees”, or if you just don’t care, your exit strategy should be executed right about now. Please allow me to have you escorted to safety by this authentic 1960s artifact, and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.
And now, on with my false prophecies about “The Phantom”:
* With Mrs. Pryce left behind in surprise financial dire straits, Pete offers to buy her green Jaguar as a gesture of charity, albeit for a song. For some reason the car starts just fine for him. Pete spends his long drive back to the suburbs with all the windows down, the radio cranked up, and imagining himself a Real Man. Halfway home he’s pulled over for doing 80 in a 25 MPH zone. The Jaguar is impounded. Pete is not happy.
* The funeral is a somber yet extravagant affair. With Lane’s overseas colleagues all declining to attend and Mrs. Pryce unable to speak, Don steps to the podium and delivers a eulogy that was written by Megan in about six minutes on the back of a funeral program. It is the Greatest Eulogy of All Time. Pete fumes with envy.
* A suddenly lucid and desperate Roger proposes to six different women: the twin models who witnessed his heart attack, Peggy’s brash friend Joyce, Don’s receptionist Dawn, his ex-wife Mona, and li’l Sally. We have to wait until next season to find out which one said yes. Pete overhears Roger’s end of the phone conversation, then stomps away muttering like an angry child about how he wishes he could go out and remarry every two years.
* Two months into her new job, Peggy is flourishing as a creative force at Cutler, Gleason & Chaough. Shockingly, Ted Chaough has proven not to be a lech. She later attends a business mixer with one of CGC’s major clients, the life insurance company that employs Pete’s commuter buddy. She has a chance encounter with Pete’s one-time fling, Mrs. Commuter Buddy, who’s attending the party dutifully with her husband. Casual small talk escalates into a tearful confession. Peggy somehow puts two and two together from the scant clues, makes a beeline for her old offices, kicks Pete right in his Campbell Soup Cans, and exchanges strained pleasantries with Don on her way out. Pete cannot breathe for the rest of the day.
* Don rehires previously laid-off copywriter Danny Siegel (Danny Strong) to handle the Jaguar account for him while he himself, emboldened by the Dow deal, decides go after a bigger fish than Jaguar: the great and powerful Rolls Royce. Don is convinced that their Phantom series (we have episode title!) is Where It’s At. By episode’s end, Don can’t close the deal without Megan’s help, but she refuses because of auditions and ambitions and such. The chase proves to be just another Dulcinea that teaches us the real “phantom” is the fleeting nature of happiness or business success or absolute manhood or whatever. Pete’s only moment of joy in the episode occurs when he realizes Danny is the first adult male he’s ever met who’s punier than he is.
* Betty and Henry have a mild argument or something. No one cares.
* Ed “the Devil from Reaper” Baxter calls Don, tells him he has some nerve!, and awards him with Dow’s business. All of it. After a series of fake meetings and fake intense arguments, Roger formally announces Ken will be handling the account under extreme duress, but totally solo due to fictional client mandates. Pete’s blood boils.
* The bigwigs at Heinz announce they’re so in love with the work that Michael Ginsberg and Stan Rizzo have done for their baked bean ads, they’re moving all of Heinz’ other accounts to the firm, including Big Catsup. Pete finds an excuse to leave the meeting abruptly with his face red and hot steam whistling out his ears, even though this subplot has virtually nothing to do with him.
* Trudy puts on the frumpiest dress she owns and announces she’s pregnant again. She wonders if perhaps they’ll need to move into a larger house even farther away from Manhattan, possibly as far as western New Jersey. Pete responds by climbing to the top of a water tower, wielding the trusty rifle that he obtained years ago in exchange for a duplicate chip-‘n’-dip set, and begins firing indiscriminately at innocent passersby. He doesn’t hit a single live target, but shatters the window of a beauty shop, where the bullet destroys a Clearasil display. Pete’s father-in-law is not happy. After he runs out of ammo, Pete throws his emptied gun at Trudy (missing by a wide margin), slips off his perch and onto the ground. The authorities toss him into a paddy wagon and wave him off. Our last sight of Pete is him clawing at the windows and frothing at the mouth. Trudy is later consoled by her new neighbors, Troy and Abed.
* The firm name is changed to Draper Sterling Cooper Harris. Pete’s head explodes.
Countdown: Four Weeks Until US Release of Last Ten Unspoiled Minutes of “Prometheus”
Ridley Scott’s newest science fiction milestone commands the cover of the May 18th issue of Entertainment Weekly, whose sidebars in previous issues about the Alien prequel/spinoff/homage/whatever may already have said too much. If the official American trailers, several international trailers, viral-marketing future DVD extras, epic-length WikiPedia entry, and half-baked rumor sites haven’t whetted your appetite for advance knowledge (true or false), EW’s article also reveals which character is not quite human, which ones are corporate toadies, and which one is our primary protagonist. Along with those Dell-logic-problem clues, factor in the Hollywood pecking order of Academy Award Winner Charlize Theron, Academy Award Nominee Young Magneto, Lisbeth Salander Prime, Stringer Bell, Leonard Shelby, two male unknowns, and one female unknown. Savvy viewers should be able to calculate their order of elimination in the finished product with a margin of error of ±1 corpse.
If you mean to save yourself for the American release date of June 8th, hiding from the Internet will not be enough. TV ads have now been unleashed to the networks so that the Midwest will finally get a look-see. Expect more magazines to follow in EW’s footsteps in the weeks ahead, including the inevitable TV Guide cover straining to cash in on the hype with the most tenuous of TV connections. I predict a showcase along the lines of “Twenty Best Movies Starring Actors from The Office: Prometheus, Bridesmaids, Get Smart, and More!” I won’t be surprised to see ancillary merchandise at the comic shop. The true danger zone begins June 1st when the movie opens early in England because of favoritism. Expect Internet hall monitors to place their sites futilely on emergency spoiler lockdown when waves of soccer-hooligan trolls begin tweeting drunken screen shots and plot-loophole complaints live from their theater seats.
I count myself among the wave of fans who saw James Cameron’s Aliens before seeing the original Alien and consequently have a hard time discussing contrary opinions with old-school fans who were marked for life when they saw the classic chest-bursting surprise on the big screen. I may rank the four films differently, but to this day I don’t hate any of them (the two crossovers are another story). I hope not to hate this one as well, but with so much time remaining for so much more to be ruined, I may need to play the hermit card and go underground like Newt till it’s safe. I can’t just nuke the Internet from orbit, so there’s no way to be sure.
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 