The Walking Dead S7 E10: New Best Friends

I really liked both of this week’s storylines and thought that was a solid episode of The Walking Dead.

I was very intrigued and entertained by the new community in the junkyard. The leader Jadis spoke slowly and in fragmented sentences, giving the impression that this group was feral and almost alien, having fallen off the grid much sooner than the rest of the world and developing their own language and culture. They moved silently, almost like cats over the debris. I would very much like to see more of these alien survivors. It was just a fun, Star Trek-esque scene.

The whole fight with Rick and the zombie had a sci-fi/gladiator movie quality and I really enjoyed it. The idea of the fight plus the way it was shot was just very well done. This was the most traditionally comic book-y I’ve ever seen the show.  

I also liked the “say her name” scene with Darryl and Richard from the Kingdom who wanted to use Carol as bait. Darryl’s anger was well-earned and the line about “Why don’t you die for it” was a very good point. Why doesn’t this guy sacrifice himself to defeat the Saviors rather than use Carol?

The reunion between Carol and Darryl was a long time in coming and the emotion was earned. I hadn’t realized that she doesn’t know Glenn and Abraham are dead. At first I didn’t understand why he would lie to her and tell her everyone was alive but later they explained it: Because if Carol knew, she’d come running and she really needs a break from the warrior life. She will eventually find out, of course, since that’s the type of lie you can’t keep going for long.

This is two episodes in a row that have been pretty good. Maybe I’ll be optimistic that this half-season will be better than the beginning.

Turnover

Alright, people, it’s time to mobilize. We already wasted a whole day yesterday and the Easter candy and decorations are still not on the shelves. I don’t even want to think about how many thousands of dollars in sales that this supermarket lost. We need to get all this Valentine’s Day merch off the shelves NOW.

Those of you who worked here last year know the drill: Half of us pull down the Valentine’s Day stuff and the other half put up the Easter stuff. For the Valentine’s team, put on your latex gloves before handling those chocolate candies in the heart boxes because that candy went irredeemably rancid in the early hours of February 15 so it shouldn’t be handled. The cardboard boxes are also expired and cannot be recycled.

Just throw all of the candy in the wood chipper parked outside. We’ll be sued into oblivion if we try to sell this poison, even at a discount. And get rid of those red flowers, too. They are now toxic, even the ribbons. Into the wood chipper they go.

The rest of you, grab a handful of candy, plastic eggs and fake grass and stock those shelves as fast as you physically can. I want these six aisles to be overflowing with as much jelly beans, Peeps and chocolate bunnies as logistically possible. We really need to move! As it is, people have just two months from today to get ready for Easter. If we waste even one more day, nobody will have everything together in time and the holiday will be ruined.

One last thing: If I see any red in these aisles after today, you’re fired. It’s all pastel until April.

Now let’s move! Move! MOVE!

The Walking Dead S7 E9: Rock in the Road

Anybody still reading? Anybody still watching? That actually wasn’t bad. The Walking Dead was a slog in its first half with too many unjustified extra-long episodes but last night’s first episode after the break was more engaging.

It was worth it just for the great set piece of the gang dismantling all those explosives, which added some real tension and turned an episode that had been quiet up to that point into more of a fun heist movie. Dragging that cable across the road to slice up the zombies like a cheese slicer was amusing and efficient. All it was missing was Michonne honking the horn and screaming “USA! USA!”

Rosita took charge in an impressive way, having the group not defuse the one explosive, which ended up blowing up after they left and could have killed one of them. She certainly seemed more proactive but snippy, shooting down Sasha’s attempts at small talk (of course, Abraham did shoot down Rosita in a nasty way for no reason, so maybe she’s paying it forward).

So are people playing along that Ezekiel is the king just because he owns that tiger and nobody wants to piss him off? He doesn’t believe in his own delusions but it seems like some of his assistants do so I’m not getting the dynamic in the Kingdom.

This episode was mercifully free of Negan except for a voice over on the walkie-talkie. I badly needed a break from him. There was a little bit of Carol but I’m not terribly interested. They seem to just be having her do a tapdance in the woods while we wait for her to come to the rescue so I’m not that invested. Wake me up when she returns to the main cast.

What was Gabriel doing with the canned goods? Is this a heel turn from him or is there an actual plan to benefit Alexandria?

It looks like Rick finds his army at the end, although I’m not sure who they are. I liked his smile, a combination of relief at finding reinforcements and him putting on a happy face to sell his cause to the newcomers.

That wasn’t bad. I’m not as invested as I was so these reviews will be less focused and spottier but it’s worth an hour a week for now.

A list of TV characters who can get it (and some who can't)

Joan Harris from Mad Men can get it.

Rose Nylund from The Golden Girls can get it.

Philip and Elizabeth Jennings from The Americans can get it when not wearing unflattering wigs.

Frank from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia can’t get it.

Clair Huxtable from The Cosby Show can get it.

Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory can kind of get it.

Selina Meyer from Veep can always get it.

Gilly from Game of Thrones cannot get it and may not know what it is.

Peggy Olson from Mad Men can get it from about season four on.

Fitz and Simmons from Agents of SHIELD can get it.

Blanche Elizabeth Devereaux (BED) from The Golden Girls can get it whenever.

Tony Soprano from The Sopranos can’t get it.

Sue Ellen Ewing from Dallas can get it when not too drunk and falling down.

Oleg from The Americans can get it.

Luke Cage from Luke Cage can get it.

Don Draper from Mad Men can get it unless he’s hitting bottom again.

Sue Heck from The Middle can’t get it but is getting closer.

Frank Gallagher from Shameless can’t get it.

Mike Milligan from Fargo can get it.

Tyrion from Game of Thrones can totally get it.

Lucy Ricardo from I Love Lucy can get it.

Sandra Beeman and that amazing hair from The Americans can get it.

Walter White from Breaking Bad should not get it.

Travis Cobb from Cougar Town can under no circumstance get it.

Betty Draper Francis from Mad Men can get it.

Sophia Petrillo from The Golden Girls cannot get it in the ‘80s but maybe in flashbacks.

Jessica Jones from Jessica Jones can get it.

Donovan from American Horror Story: Hotel can get it right here.

Troy from Community can get it.

Marge from The Simpsons can get it.

Ross from Friends cannot at all get it.

Cliff Clavin from Cheers cannot get it.

Bobby Ewing from Dallas can get it depending on hair.

Barney from How I Met Your Mother can’t get it, sorry.

Jesus from The Walking Dead sure as hell can get it.

Cersei from Game of Thrones can get it in that black/metal dress.

Adriana from The Sopranos can get it.

Mitchell Pritchett from Modern Family can’t quite get it but Phil Dunphy can almost get it.

Nina Sergeevna Krilova from The Americans can get it.

Dorothy Zbornak from The Golden Girls can’t get it.

Eliot from Mr. Robot can get it.

Matt Murdock from Daredevil can absolutely get it.

Donna from Parks and Recreation can get it.

Who is Legion?

I haven’t done one of these comic trivia things in awhile so here we go. During the Super Bowl, there were a lot of ads for the new TV show Legion. Who or what is he? I don’t know how closely the show will hew to the comics but I can tell you who Legion was in the comics I remember.

Legion is David Charles Haller, the illegitimate son of Professor X. His mother is Gabrielle Haller, a woman Charles Xavier had an affair with in his pre-X-Men days while he and Magneto were active in Israel. Xavier was unaware of his child’s existence until David was a teenager and Gabrielle asked him to help their son in New Mutants #26 in 1985, in a story written by Chris Claremont and illustrated by the appropriately bizarre, trippy work of Bill Sienkiewicz.

As a child, David survived a terrorist attack. The trauma of the attack caused his mutant powers to arise and he defeated his attackers and absorbed the mind of the ringleader, Jemail Karami, into his own mind. His mind splintered and he developed multiple personalities, several of which had their own mutant powers. Jack Wayne appeared to be a cowboy-type all-American who had telekinesis. Cyndi was a snarky teenage girl who had pyrokinesis.

Professor X and the New Mutants arrived at Muir Isle to help David and soon after they became drawn into his mindscape, a hellish recreation of Paris and Beirut as destroyed by terrorist attacks. The New Mutants fought to gain access to David’s mind and restore his psyche, while Jack Wayne convinced them the Arabic Jemail was their enemy. However, Wayne turned out to be the real enemy, while Jemail was working to integrate Legion’s fractured psyche and help the kid. The story ended with Legion in a somewhat better place and reunited with his father, but still disturbed. 

The combination of telepathy, telekinesis and pyrokinesis made Legion a powerful force and he challenged the New Mutants and his father on a few occasions. On one instance, he traveled back in time intending to kill Magneto to prevent some of the strife Magneto caused by instead accidentally killed Professor X, who took the figurative bullet instead. In the ensuing time paradox, Legion was never born, Professor X never formed the X-Men and it was left to Magneto to fight an ascendant Apocalypse. So it was thanks to Legion that we got the Age of Apocalypse timeline.

One constant with Legion is that he’s always depicted with black hair standing straight up in the air, as if he stuck a fork into an electrical outlet.

Why does the Internet break so often?

For something so ubiquitous and powerful in our world, the Internet sure does seem fragile.

Beyonce is the latest person to break the Internet with her flower-and-veil tableau announcing her pregnancy. Truly it broke the Internet and stopped the world in its tracks. I don’t know about you but I will never forget the moment, or the impact on my life, when I learned a woman I will never meet is having two more children. As we know, anything momentarily noteworthy on the Internet lasts forever and never falls through the leaky sieve of memory. 

Another memorable time when the Internet broke is when Kim Kardashian pulled her skirt down and posed on the cover of a magazine with her oiled ass. Remember that? I’m sure you do because the moment is as culturally indelible as Alex from Target and the “Damn, Daniel” kids — things none of us can ever forget. The Internet was down for days because of that ass. How was I supposed to order pizza?

Then the Internet broke again when Kim’s former stepmother Caitlyn Jenner came out as transgender. The Internet was just shattered in pieces all over the floors of the offices of the bored workers of America. Nothing would ever be the same.

The Internet is constantly showing these cracks. “Have you seen this? Father and daughter break the Internet,” says one headline. I don’t know what this means but it’s unforgettable. “The return of Pendulum breaks the Internet.” It sure did, whatever Pendulum is. “Kim Woodburn’s Celebrity Big Brother antics break the Internet.” Yes, I will never forget that time when Kim Woodburn did that thing that she did.

I use the Internet a lot and it just shouldn’t be so fragile. Can’t we get someone to fix it, just go in there with a wrench or something and fix the tubes so it’s not breaking all the time?

Run Into All Day

You know what, if you’re driving on the turnpike and everybody is already doing 75 mph and you come screaming up behind a car and high-beaming and tailgating and that car doesn’t move so you come screaming up behind another car going 75 and that car doesn’t move either, maybe it’s not because the drivers you’re high-beaming and tailgating are incompetent or dumb. Maybe they’re not moving out of your way because you’re driving like an inconsiderate ass and those drivers figure an ass like you doesn’t deserve to pull ahead. Maybe they’re not moving because you’re tailgating and high-beaming and not in spite of it. Maybe people just don’t like a BMW behind them when they’re speeding in the right lane and then suddenly there’s a rapid-fire BLINK BLINK BLINK BLINK BLINK in the rear-view mirror despite the fact that there are many cars in line ahead and people are already going as fast as they can. Maybe you thought the prestige of your Bavarian hood ornament would cause the Red Sea to part in front of you but nobody’s biting. Do you perhaps see this pattern as you tear up the highway and nobody moves for you? Do you sense that as the cars ahead deny your primacy and you go dramatically tearing around them, turn signal still blinking right even as you jerk back to the left, that maybe people would have let you go if you’d been more polite? Oh, we’re sorry, is 75 too slow for you? Oh, I hope you make it despite the snail-like pace of the world around you! Maybe you should ask for a police escort. And you know what else, there’s an old saying: “If you run into an asshole in the morning, you just ran into an asshole. If you run into them all day, you’re the asshole.” Psst: They’re talking about you, although you may not be who you think you are in the story.