The Walking Dead S6 E5: Now

The Walking Dead was on a roll for awhile until it screeched on the brakes for the last two episodes. After “JSS,” probably my favorite episode ever, “Now” was one of my least favorites.

I understand the point of a table-setting installment like this one and I understand the need for a breather episode. It just would have been much better if it hadn’t followed last week’s interlude. Watching two episodes of this stuff in a row has killed the momentum for me. I couldn’t have taken any more scenes of two people talking and coming to terms with things scored to piano music or orchestral swells. I need less of that and more of Carol shooting people in the head.

It’s not as if there was no action this week. We did get some forward momentum with Maggie and Aaron searching for Glenn and then retreating in the face of terrible odds. Those skeletal zombies rising out of the mud in the sewer were terrifying and I had to look away. But then all that ends with the two of them scrubbing Glenn’s name off the memorial wall with some feel-good music.

I think Glenn is dead and they will next see him as a zombie. That explains why he hasn’t been on The Talking Dead and why the producer said we may see him or parts of him again.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, that doctor shows feelings (either genuine feelings or what-the-hell-the-world-is-ending-so-why-not feelings) toward what’s her name — Rosita? I can’t tell her apart from the other one. Rick kisses the widow. Carl, who by the way really needs a haircut, gets into a conflict with his friend. Deanna’s son teaches the Alexandrians a valuable lesson about stealing food and then steals anyway. And was that one zombie who attacked from nowhere the Wolf that Morgan let live last week? Did he die and turn?

Deanna herself walks around shellshocked, devises plans for more organized civilization inside the walls, kills a zombie and tells Rick she wants to live. Maybe there is some promise there.

I just hope things get moving again. I may be in the minority but I did not care for the last two episodes.

What alien races are running around the Marvel Universe?

The Marvel Universe has been overrun with aliens for decades. Here is a primer to tell who’s who.

The first alien race ever in Marvel is the Skrulls, introduced way back in Fantastic Four #2 in 1961. These aliens are warlike shape-changers. The Super-Skrull is like the Superman of the Skrulls and possesses all the powers of the Fantastic Four. In the first encounter with these aliens, Reed Richards hypnotized three of them (the fourth escaped) into believing they were cows. The Fantastic Four thought the aliens would live out their lives harmlessly but this came back to bite the superheroes when the cows attacked the Vision and later produced milk that turned towns surrounding the cows’ farm into a Skrull horror show.

The Skrulls have not been featured in the Marvel movies (their rights probably are with the Fantastic Four so the Chitauri are a rough analogue) but they have been a consistent part of Marvel history. For awhile, they lost their ability to shape change. Galactus once consumed the Skrull throne world, upsetting all sorts of apple carts and killing billions. A Skrull once impersonated Alicia Masters and the Human Torch married her under this false pretense. Recently, the Skrulls impersonated several heroes, such as Hank Pym, the Invisible Woman and Jarvis in the Secret Invasion story, in a plot to take over the world.

The Kree are the other major Marvel race and are more heroic, having produced the warrior Captain Marvel (Mar-Vell) and empowered human Carol Danvers to become Ms. Marvel and later Captain Marvel. They also date back to the ‘60s. The Kree come in two colors: blue skinned and white skinned. Ronan the Accuser, who appeared in the Guardians of the Galaxy, is a Kree. Another prominent Kree is the Supreme Intelligence, basically a huge, floating green head who acts as a sort of oracle.

The Kree and Skrulls hate each other, which culminated in the early ‘70s in the Kree-Skrull War in the pages of Avengers. This story is notable for being one of the early examples of cosmic Marvel and the Avengers venturing into space. It’s one of the book’s best stories ever.

The Fantastic Four have the Skrulls, the Avengers have the Kree and the X-Men are most closely associated with the Shi’ar race. Deposed Empress Lilandra had contacted Professor way back when and they soon became lovers on and off again. The Danger Room had used vastly advanced Shi’ar technology. Lilandra had been running around with the Starjammers, a band of alien pirates led by Cyclops’ father, Corsair. The Shi’ar got into a major conflict with the X-Men when Dark Phoenix destroyed a Shi’ar battle cruiser and then destroyed a planet. This led to the X-Men fighting the Imperial Guard in a trial for Jean’s life.

The Dire Wraiths were a nasty piece of work. They mostly appeared in the Rom title in the ‘80s, a comic about an alien spaceknight. The Dire Wraiths would kill people by sticking their elongated tongues into people’s brains. The people would then crumble into husks and the aliens would take on their appearances. It was disgusting and horrifying. The story was a slow burn, with the Dire Wraiths appearing more and more in Marvel titles, killing and impersonating more people, until the heroes banded together to banish them.

The Badoon are another warlike race. I vaguely remembered they had conquered 30^th century Earth and fought the future Guardians of the Galaxy in the comics but I don’t know much about them.

The Brood (nicknamed “Sleazoids”) fought the X-Men several times and look similar to the alien in Alien. They would impregnate people with Brood eggs and once did so with Professor X before the Shi’ar implanted his consciousness into a new, younger body and saved him. 

The D’Bari were a peaceful race of people who looked like broccoli. They only really appeared once in an infamous story in X-Men #135. Dark Phoenix had inadvertently destroyed their planet, killing billions of them, when she absorbed their sun for fuel. Dark Phoenix was originally supposed to survive this story in a depowered form but when editor in chief Jim Shooter found out that she destroyed an inhabited planet, he decreed that she needed to pay a price because superheroes don’t kill. Overwhelmed by guilt, Jean then killed herself to protect the universe from her power. This was an example of editorial interference actually giving a story more impact.

Amortization!

Am I a total dork for making spreadsheets showing how I can best amortize my outstanding credit card debt? *

There are at least three payoff models according to whether I want to pay off the card with the smallest balance first or the card with the lowest interest rate, etc. I basically plotted out the payment amounts for the next few months. These do not include future charges or interest charges, since I’m not that good in math.

What I am good at is making lists and engaging in busywork. I have made endless lists of all the music and comic books I own. Some people doodle when they’re bored; I make lists. I hate being in debt but there’s not much to do but pay it down over time and the busywork distracts me. I’m not good at math in the sense that I can’t do even the most basic calculations without a calculator but I think I am pretty good at managing money. It’s satisfying to see that if I stick to a plan, I’ll eventually be out of credit card debt.

Sigh. I never used to be in credit card debt and used to pay off everything immediately. Enter homeownership and adulthood — like, real adulthood with worn out tires and a leaky roof. I’m on top of it and I have excellent credit and all that but things got a little tight last summer. We had to pay two mortgages for awhile after buying the new house and the house needed furniture and stuff that you always seem to need after you move, no matter how well-prepared you think you are.

But with our tenants in place and paying rent on the old house, we have some breathing room and I can attack this debt. Then we can finally put in place our grand plans. MWAHAHAHAA!

* yes

The Walking Dead S6 E4: Here's Not Here

A flashback to the mysterious cheese maker delves into the story of how Morgan went from crazy violent to relatively pacifistic, filling in the time between the great season three episode “Clear” and his arrival at Alexandria.

Eastman wasn’t a very good cheese maker but he knew what he was doing with that aikido staff. His story was chilling and the ending was a sick joke: After taking 47 days to starve to death the man who killed his family, Eastman goes to turn himself in and finds that the world as he knows it has ended and now his brutality was just a drop in the bucket. Nobody would care that much because everybody is numb. I liked how Eastman’s death was off camera. We’ve seen this routine so often on The Walking Dead that not seeing death and burial is sometimes more powerful.

I did like how Eastman’s story gave us a look into the past before the zombie apocalypse started. The show doesn’t seem to do too much of this lately, I guess because everybody is too busy fighting for their lives to reminisce. An occasional look into who these people were before can be very powerful.

The framing sequence with the captured Wolf was a jolt, as Morgan weighs the practical necessity of killing the man he spared against the “all life is precious” philosophy he learned with Eastman. In the end, he locks the door, perhaps so the guy will starve and the problem will take care of itself through malignant neglect and not action. (If they wanted a sitcom ending to this, they could have had Carol rush in and shoot the Wolf in the head to a sad trombone sound effect.)

This was a mostly good episode as a breather after the intensity of the first three episodes, and we did need to see how Morgan got more centered so we can understand his actions going forward. However, I laughed out loud at some of the dialogue, like Morgan growling “I need to clear!” and saying “Kill me!” I don’t know if it was the acting, writing or directing, or maybe just that I have an empathy problem, but this sort of thing always makes me laugh.

Another howler: “The door is open. The door was always open.” The door, you see, is a symbol.

I felt bad for that poor goat.

Cancer Meat

Oh, come on. Are you really shocked that there’s a link between processed meats and cancer? The warning is that 50 grams of processed meat a day, or a hot dog’s worth, will raise the risk of colorectal cancer. If you literally eat a hot dog per day, what did you think the long-term effect on your health would be? You are eating a food that, despite its all-American branding, is almost literal crap. I mean, we all eat crap sometimes but you have to realize eating a hot dog every day would come back to haunt you in some form.

Didn’t we just do this? I could swear there was a study not that long ago that said the same thing about processed meat. Why is the freakout happening now? I indulge in bad foods like everyone but I was never under the impression that I was eating kale.

I have also read several articles talking people down off the ledge after this health warning and saying they may not have to cut processed meats out of their diet much. Maybe the cancer risk isn’t mathematically as great as feared but if you eat a hot dog or several pieces of bacon every day, it might be a good idea … to cut back a little … anyway? For general health reasons? Just a suggestion.

I will probably come off arrogant and piss people off, which happens whenever we talk about diets, but I don’t eat that much processed meat. God knows (and you can tell the minute you spot my middle-aged spread) that I am not a health nut but my food indulgences lay in other areas. I haven’t eaten a hot dog in many, many years. I was that weird kid in school who brought his own lunch on hot dog day. They’re just … no. No. I cannot.

I will eat lunchmeat if someone offers it, like if our company brings sandwiches for lunch, but it’s like a few times a year. I don’t hate lunchmeat but I very rarely eat it. I can’t remember the last time I ordered it at a deli (mostly because the supermarket deli is the fifth circle of hell with me having to wait behind King Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette imperiously insisting on micron-thin bologna). I am that odd person who doesn’t care much for hoagies. I don’t even know what’s on an Italian hoagie. If I want a sandwich, I’ve just found it much easier and tastier to cook a chicken or corned beef myself and carve it up. One person can get multiple meals out of a whole chicken, plus stock. Plus, I really should watch my salt intake and lunchmeat has too much of that.

I eat some sausage but it’s only now and then. I do like my red meat but it’s like once or maybe twice a week, especially in the summer when I’m barbecuing burgers or steak. But I can’t afford steak every day.

And then there’s bacon. I’m a fan in theory and won’t pass it up but I really only eat it a handful of times per year. It’s really only when I go out for breakfast or on Christmas morning or something. It’s more of a treat. I’m just so bored with the whole Military Bacon Industrial Complex anyway. I’ll see people post pictures of bacon on Facebook and I’m supposed to immediately drool and hit the “like” button so hard that my mouse shatters and make some over-the-top comment about how much I worship bacon more than you but I just … meh. Bored now.

Most of my meat needs are chicken and pork. Oh God, I could eat chicken every day. I realize it’s not a kale smoothie but it’s not as bad as some of the other options for carnivores. I also love pork chops. The cancer articles listed pork as part of the red meat risk, but I thought it was white meat? It’s white when cooked.

I am trying to cut down on meat somewhat. It will be like Meatless Monday but I don’t want it to be on the same day every week, because I might want some chicken on a Monday night. I’m realizing that I do like fish (I could eat salmon every day) so I’m eating more, except for vile shellfish. And there was that unfortunate incidence with the mackerel. I’ll never be a vegetarian or vegan but I don’t need meat 24/7.

Anyway, I do have my food indulgences, which are too long and disgusting to go into here, but processed meats are not really part of them.

Hello, sob

I am writing this while curled up in the fetal position in a dark room. I have just listened to the new Adele single “Hello” and … and …

SOB!

… Sorry. Let me collect myself … there. I just have to keep starting the song over because it’s just all so heartbreakingly sad and I can’t hear the lyrics over my own weeping. It’s the saddest thing that ever happened. Well, maybe I’m exaggerating a little. Let’s say it’s the saddest thing since “Someone Like You” but since “Someone Like You” was the saddest thing in the history of the world, that makes “Hello” the second saddest.

I need therapy after the first verse. If you combined my tears from every time a family member died, I have never even cried this much. The sadness of this ballad will comfort me through the sadness of winter. I will spend many nights curled up on the couch in the dark, wrapped in a tasteful throw blanket because I’m too sad to turn on the heat, just playing this song on a loop and crying into my hot chocolate. 

Oh god, she’s getting to the chorus again … excuse me …

… Sniff sniff. OK. Better now. Maybe I should pause it, though, for my own sanity. Anyway, Adele sounds like a million birds with broken wings, all crying out in sadness. She is the Space Needle of sad ballads. She is like a quadruple bypass that failed because there was just too much heartbreak. Adele’s voice is the sound of a choir of angels who just found out that God dumped them.

I actually started crying before I even heard the song. The second I read the headline that Adele would be releasing “Hello,” I just started bawling. I don’t know why because I haven’t gone through any breakups in years. You just cry at Adele; it’s just something humans do. You see all these articles like “Why We All Cry Uncontrollably When We Hear Adele” but that can’t explain it. One might as well try to map the human soul.

I wept at the first few notes. And then the video? Forget it. I was a puddle. The flip phone … SOB … oh God the flip phone. So heartbreaking. Who can’t relate? And Adele’s eyeliner in that sepia tone? All the feelings. All of them. I cried so hard when I saw that video, I had to lie down for a few hours. Even the font choice for the single title … meltdown. Total meltdown. Just thinking about it now … whimper.

The best part of this new album is that we get to have our hearts broken all over again. I didn’t think Adele hit the themes of heartbreak hard enough on her last album so I look forward to experiencing much, much more of the same, slapped on with the same trowel.

I am ready to wallow again.

The Walking Dead S6 E3: Thank You

So I guess Glenn is dead? Or maybe not? Nicholas’ body had fallen on top of Glenn so those could have been Nicholas’ entrails that the zombies were ripping out. The large intestine was coming from too high on Glenn and Glenn was upset and screaming but didn’t seem to be quite as upset as if it were him being eviscerated. If he’s covered in blood, he might be able to play possum until the zombies leave because they wouldn’t smell him.

I watched “Thank You” last night but I knew ahead of time that it was Glenn who died (or not). I didn’t seek out spoilers but all the entertainment sites I read had a photo of Glenn with a caption like “Someone dies horribly.” I guess looking back you could see some foreshadowing in the series premiere when Glenn said, “I’m supposed to be delivering pizzas.” Maybe that was a way of bringing him back to the beginning before killing him off.

I won’t be terribly upset if Glenn dies. I suppose I’m immune to characters on this show dying because it’s so frequent. The only people I’ll be really upset to see die would be Carol and Michonne and I guess Morgan. Darryl, too, but I’m not in “If Darryl dies, we riot” mode like I was before. I still like the character but that one episode with him overacting with Beth in that farmhouse they burned down just made me realize what a limited range he has. Not that I want Glenn to die since he is an original cast member. Can’t they kill Tara and the other woman? For me, they add zero to the show and I forget they’re there.

Right before Nicholas shot himself, I was just saying how I was surprised more people don’t kill themselves in that world, since it’s so hopeless. I suppose anybody who would have committed suicide did it long ago and now only the hardcore survivalists are left. Still, for the characters who died in this episode, I was wondering why they didn’t turn the guns on themselves or why the survivors didn’t kill them. They were surrounded by zombies and dead anyway so as morbid as it sounds, at least if they shot themselves in the head, they wouldn’t reanimate.

Those Wolves Morgan let live come back to haunt the cast as they attack Rick in the trailer (at least I think it was them). As brutal as it sounds, Carol had the right idea about just killing them right away. It was harrowing when Rick showed just a hint of panic in the trailer.

The mission in the quarry is probably the costliest disaster in Walking Dead history. Four or five people died this episode and a few died in the season premiere. Plus, a ton of people died in Alexandria while half the cast was away. The Wolves might have attacked anyway but if everyone hadn’t gone to the quarry, more competent people would have been around to defend the residents.

Hindsight is 20/20 and Rick’s instinct (if not the actual plan) to prevent a disaster at the quarry was sound. But you have to wonder if they would have been better off staying in Alexandria. The zombies might have broken free but at least they’d be inside the walls and have more control. So I can’t blame them for doing what they did but this was an interesting look at a plan gone very, very bad.