CletusMusashi

Vampire Bat: Depicted here, sort of, by the unquestionably brilliant Phil Lamarr:

Speaking of "dead in black negligee," that's another reason Homelander has to play himself in the movies. He'd kill every actor that failed to live up to his vision of himself.

Let's not even get started on Seagan... or Lu-Seal... or Father Sea-Pants.

That's what I get for always watching late at night. Oh well, two valid possibilities left.

I already love HBO Max for saving "Harley Quinn." If they can provide us with an ending to TVB, then I will offer them my first-born child. Well, okay, I'll probably do that anyway, because I hate kids, but you get what I'm saying.

I have a turtle. Please don't tell Enid. And instead of gravel, I use crushed coral in his tank. If you have any eco-concerns about that, don't. It's not harvested from reefs. It's raked up off of beaches where washed up bits of dead coral are a nuisance, and then hosed off and sold to the aquarium industry. If you're a turtle, it's a crunchy, digestible calcium source that has all the bone and beak benefits of giving cuttlebone to a parakeet. Sometimes he'll just sit on the bottom of the tank for five minutes or so, grazing contently on it. The sound is similar to when you get impatient with hard candy and just crunch in and chew it. By now you can probably see where this story is going. Since it does get eaten, not every day, but often enough, I do have to add a few pounds of it every couple years. Today was one of those times, so I stopped into the pet shop on my way to work, and suddenly my inner TWD nerd took possession of me. Picture a man who is bald on top, with long severely windblown hair on the rest of his head, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a red cooty mask with Dr. Zoidberg's mouth thingies depicted on it, meandering around toward the aquarium supply section uncontrollably keeping up a monologue of "Coral! Where are you, Coral? I'm looking for Coral. Has anyone seen Coral? I need you back in the house, Coral..." I don't think one person there even got the joke. Yet, so few people look up their phones to wonder about anything... I'm really not losing much sleep over it.

This sucks. They'd been closing up so many long-running arcs, I honestly felt that they'd be (successfully) finished after one more season anyway.

Thanks to this episode, I am now up to three guesses about how Homelander dies. Third choice: All the Payday references have been foreshadowing the fact that Homelander's kryptonite is a peanut allergy. Second choice: Butcher injects his dog with Compound V, points to Homelander, and says "Fuck him to death." First choice: Sausage Guy recovers from his ass-kicking and ends up getting recruited by Stormfront. Of course, they end up having sex. Homelander shows up at an inopportune moment. And the insanity of what he is looking at makes his head explode.

Perhaps Homelander is a rare case because his embryonic DNA was manipulated very early.

Most of the good stuff this season has been Big Shocking Moments. This one, by contrast, was scene after scene of good solid nuanced character-based drama that nonetheless kept me on the edge of my seat. Well, okay... that and killer penises.

Edgar appeared on the phone so quickly that for a minute I actually suspected that Black Noir was simply a robot that he controlled.

I'll probably watch it until Negan shows up. Which he undoubtably will. Because we can not have nice things.

And wouldn't it be a shame if A-Train happened to get between them?

How exactly was being in front of a speeding boat with automatic weapons in it not supposed to result in the whale being at least seriously injured? The Deep may whine about how sensitive and unloved he is, but at the end of the day he will manipulate and sacrifice his "friends" any time he feels like it. The empathy he felt afterward was caused by him experiencing Lucy's agony via a psychic link, but as soon as it wears off he'll be just fine doing the same thing again.

This is two episodes in a row that disappointed me. Last year, I was invested in everyone's scenes. This year, I consistently like all the Vought stuff, but "the boys" themselves, including Kimiko, are just not carrying their share of the entertainment load very well. The season pilot contained enough scary Homelander stuff for me to give it an overall thumbs up. This one did not. And, why can't A Train just use his super speed to kill Starlight? Vought would do another paper-thin coverup, he'd give Homelander the stolen sample, he'd explain that he did it to protect their big secret, and Gecko could even be interrogated for collaborating evidence. How on earth was "Oh yeah? Well if you try to endanger me, I will move slowly at regular human speed to tell people what my dirt on you is," even remotely a serious threat? By the way, I though the previous episode was decent. This one, however, was weak enough that I went back and rewatched it a second time, to see if it was just my mood or whatever. Nope. I'm on my way now to try the third installment, but I can't honestly say my expectations for this season are still high. My hopes, however, are. I miss loving this series.

I can't believe it only occurred to me now, during my probably fifth or sixth viewing, how awesomely meta the writers got... with Joker actually arguing with Harley that one can't just choose a new origin story whenever one chooses to.

Shining Knight really did turn out to be a useless character. However, props to him for realizing it and immediately leaving the show. There are a few other DCCW characters who I wish would take that hint.

So they just let a giant killer Frankenhulk run off to do whatever he wanted. Sure, what's the worst that could happen? Does the staff put out some kind of weather-invulnerability field? Because otherwise that wind Courtney was flying through (and then sitting on top of a water tower in) would have been brutal. When Bandboy inevitably completes his evolution into a super villain, I really hope he continues to go by Tuba Turd, because that name is just awesome. Now that Joel McHale is back, will he be followed by Jim Rash's version of the Riddler?

But in order to control Washington, wouldn't he have to find some brains there?

Two thoughts about the ep stand out. Oddly, both of them are about the least interesting villain on the show. First of all, maybe the reason Baby Bowboy is getting picked on in school isn't that he plays violin. It's that he looks and dresses... a bit extremely. And don't get me wrong here, I honestly do think the kid has style. But style isn't good or bad based on whether or not I think it's cool. Style relies on context, and if your choice of clothing has resulted in so much bullying (at a school where your mommy is the principal, no less) that your last resort is to hide in your mommy's office and whine... well, okay, maybe it's not all the fault of the clothing choice. Second... Sportsbro and Tigermom were giving me some serious BtVS vibes even before their argument with Principal Bow-itch. When the scene started, it was just two fun villainous characters acting well together and putting out some fun in-character dialogue. I immediately thought of Spike and Drusilla, even though neither one actually reminds me of Spike or Dru. Then, of course I started playing the "who equals who" game, except I started out by trying to figure out which character was closest to Angelus. I should have been wondering which character was closest to The Annoying One. Okay, so we know they're used to replacing a lot of coaches. But, principals who are also members of the Team Evil?

Another reason to love Jane. "Hey, Larry! Quit boring the audience and help me do something interesting!" Hell, even the Dorothy story was good when they mixed it with Jane's. This time I was just left wondering why it took her ninety years to reach puberty. How many years will it take for that fake accent to wear off? I do question why the stuffed animal and paper were so immaculate after all that time. Maybe when Minerva left them there she laminated them? Watching Rita try to make "The Beekeeper" a thing was funny. Is everybody going to fantasize a TV spinoff?

I can not wait for the Dorothy story to be over. Despite the fact that I really honestly do, for the most part, like this show, I find myself commenting week after week after week that Larry is boring and Dorothy's whole story is just anviliciously nauseating. If they can find a way to put Dorothy out to pasture somehow then all I'll have to worry about is the occasional boring Larry flashback. And those aren't real action-based anyway so I can just open up a game window to amuse myself while I listen for a scene change. He's fine if you pair him with someone interesting, like they did with Jane this week, but please just stop trying to write Larry Scenes. Cyborg's "My girlfriend is a supervillain" arc is decent, but when he's off-screen I honestly don't miss him. The actors are fine and everything, but Jane, as far as I am concerned, has the arc that I'm consistently most invested in. To me, this is the "Jane and Friends Show," on which Cliff and Rita are quite welcome to appear as comic relief co-stars. And any extended arc that takes too much screen time away from that has an uphill battle to prove itself worthy to me.

The Wire: A former tightrope artist works as an undercover cop. Also, he has the power to control electricity. Actually, that sounds fun. Maybe I should go watch it.

When I was nineteen years old I rented an apartment that actually was right across from the train tracks. "So often you won't even notice" did, in fact, become true, although I probably would have been saying that anyway just for the quote value.

Example: The Man-Delorean is about a Jedi time-traveler who has the ability to turn into a car. I assume that most of the action takes place in the 1950s. And you'll never convince me otherwise, because you'll never convince me to watch it. I've already seen far more Star Wars than my lifetime actually requires. Anyone else have a show that they "already know quite enough about?"