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S04.E05: Goon Struck


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I feel like I missed half an episode somewhere.  Was there any reference last week to Don E and Major going to kidnap someone?  And why would anyone in their right mind send Don E on that mission?

I wish we'd had more time on the kidnapped girl and on detailed character development for Chase.  I was not interested in the hockey silliness.

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2 hours ago, MisterGlass said:

feel like I missed half an episode somewhere.  Was there any reference last week to Don E and Major going to kidnap someone? 

I am with you, I even went back and checked the previouslies to see if it was mentioned there.

40 minutes ago, Zahdii said:

I never watched Chinatown either.  I don't get the reference, and I missed the explanation Clive gave.

Basically the world they are living in is corrupt so its futile looking for justice.

She's significantly older than me but I still winced when Chase descibed Dawnn Lewis as a "little old lady".

Edited by biakbiak
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4 hours ago, MisterGlass said:

I feel like I missed half an episode somewhere.  Was there any reference last week to Don E and Major going to kidnap someone?  And why would anyone in their right mind send Don E on that mission?

I wish we'd had more time on the kidnapped girl and on detailed character development for Chase.  I was not interested in the hockey silliness.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't understand what was going on with Major & Don E for almost the entire episode. It wasn't until the end when it made sense, but I also felt like I missed part of the episode.

59 minutes ago, Ashand11 said:

So Liz wants to kill humans for their brains and create so many zombies that they can't feed them all?

Yeah, I don't understand what's going on with that. Why is bringing humans in a good thing?

I was actually pretty bored, this show has really gone downhill.

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Yeah, I was all kinds of confused when the Major/Don E. stuff started off, and I thought I had missed an episode or part of one for a second.  Made a bit more sense at the end, but it was still kind of jarring.

So, in the end, Chase ends up executing Renegade because he is hoping it still strike enough fear in everyone to quite smuggling and/or making more zombies, but all it seems to have done now is make Liv decide to assume the mantle.

Hockey brains wasn't all that fun (even though both Clie and Ravi seemed to be enjoying it.)  Really, the episode itself wasn't all that great, honestly.

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Don E. playing punch buggy with Major made me laugh more than it should have.

BRAIN POUTINE!

I wouldn't go so far as to say that I felt sorry for Chase, but it's obvious that he did not want to execute Mama Leone (and can we talk about how that code name makes her sound like the kind of pizza restaurant that has coupons on the back of your grocery receipts?) and that he only did it because he felt it would get New Seattle more under control so that the U.S. government doesn't nuke the city.

RIP Jaleesa! I'm pretty sure that a real guillotine would have the victim put their head so that they were looking down (not out toward the audience), but if we'd had that then we wouldn't have been able to see Liv's silent conversation with Renegade before she was beheaded.

Blaine cheerfully treating his trip to the police interrogation as a social visit cracked me up. "I'm sorry, are we really not going to address the missing tooth?"

Loved Clive and Ravi's super sarcastic conversation about the victims putting themselves in the trunk of a car and waiting to be shot and then the simultaneous pose. Their growing friendship is always a highlight for me, which is why I also loved that once Liv suited up for hockey, Clive knew that he HAD to tell Ravi to come down to the ice rink immediately to witness it.

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I liked this one.  Liv was her usual annoying self, but there was less of her.  Less of the case of the week, and more service to the world at large.  I liked that General Mills (groan at that name) was pushing for the destruction of Seattle and that he was gaining support.  Yes there are a lot of innocent humans and zombies in there, but this is kind of one of those things where you make tough moral choices.  Kill a small number to save a larger number.

 

When Major infected the general's daughter, I was worried that they were going to smuggle a zombie outside Seattle.

 

I am wondering if Chase's gambit to keep Seattle safe by abducting the general's daughter will work.  It will probably soften him up, but I can see a military man sticking to his guns.  Kind of like in Failsafe when the President nuked New York City in order to prevent a full scale nuclear war, even though his wife was there.

 

Very interesting that we now have the world witnessing a zombie escaping the quarantine zone.  This is bad.


And now Liv is going to become a criminal?

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7 hours ago, Ashand11 said:

So Liz wants to kill humans for their brains and create so many zombies that they can't feed them all?

I don't think she wants to kill humans for their brains. She wants to take up Renegade's cause--helping humans by either getting them out of Seattle (isn't this what she did for a little boy and his mother in a previous episode?) or saving them from a fatal illness by making them zombies (as she apparently did for the Hawaiian shirt guy that Blaine killed in a previous episode). But it's true that neither Renegade nor Liz seemed to be thinking through the problem of a decreased food supply when creating more zombies. 

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4 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

 

I wouldn't go so far as to say that I felt sorry for Chase, but it's obvious that he did not want to execute Mama Leone (and can we talk about how that code name makes her sound like the kind of pizza restaurant that has coupons on the back of your grocery re

Mama Leone’s is just that kind of restaurant, presumably, and a Veronica Mars reference. 

As someone who lived in Canada for a while I personally thought they rode the stereotype hard. Also French Inspector. Really, show?

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6 minutes ago, Affogato said:

Mama Leone’s is just that kind of restaurant, presumably, and a Veronica Mars reference. 

Showing my age here, but Mama Leone's was a clear Billy Joel reference--they even quoted a couple of lines from the song.

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17 minutes ago, Paloma said:

Showing my age here, but Mama Leone's was a clear Billy Joel reference--they even quoted a couple of lines from the song.

Yes and it sort of fits the character. But it also is a vm reference and the VM reference could have come from the same song. Or the Italian song from the late 70s  that Joel was probably referencing. Or the actual restaurants. It can be ‘all of the above’. 

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10 hours ago, biakbiak said:

She's significantly older than me but I still winced when Chase descibed Dawnn Lewis as a "little old lady".

He did later say "Not so little, not so old," so that helped for me. And I think he originally described her that way to cover why he didn't instantly kill Renegade/Mamma Leone.

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1 hour ago, Affogato said:

As someone who lived in Canada for a while I personally thought they rode the stereotype hard. Also French Inspector. Really, show?

Compared to how Liv usually acts, and that idiot French inspector, I thought Liv's behavior was laid back.

The inspector reminded me of that clumsy French waiter from that episode of The Simpsons where the waiter gets savagely injured and Freddy Quimby is accused of it.  Does anyone in the entire nation of France actually act like that?

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1 hour ago, Paloma said:

Showing my age here, but Mama Leone's was a clear Billy Joel reference--they even quoted a couple of lines from the song.

Never heard it. To me "Mama Leone" sounded like somebody you'd find at a restaurant with organized crime connections, but that probably has something to do with where I live.

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20 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

The Billy Joel song is "Movin' Out."

Right, and I think the lyrics that were referenced (but said in a conversational way so it was not obvious they were lyrics) were "Mama Leone left a note on the door
She said, Sonny, move out to the country." I'd have to rewatch to be sure which lyrics were used and who said this, but I recognized the words as soon as they were said.

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I was kind of hoping that Chase would find a scape goat to execute instead of Renegade preferably Blaine. It annoys me that Blaine gets away with so much and never has to suffer the consequences of his actions.

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1 hour ago, dubbel zout said:

The Billy Joel song is "Movin' Out."

Yes but there is an Italian song mama Leone and given the Italian references in Joel’s song I’m imginng that is why he used the name. 

47 minutes ago, Paloma said:

Right, and I think the lyrics that were referenced (but said in a conversational way so it was not obvious they were lyrics) were "Mama Leone left a note on the door
She said, Sonny, move out to the country." I'd have to rewatch to be sure which lyrics were used and who said this, but I recognized the words as soon as they were said.

Yes we probably all did, too. You are correct. No doubt about it. Theme the words. That’s the song. 

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12 hours ago, biakbiak said:

 

She's significantly older than me but I still winced when Chase descibed Dawnn Lewis as a "little old lady".

Me, too! 

I did like Clive an Ravi's amusement at the ice rink. Clive pointing out his "little one" on the ice, and the woman looking disgusted; Ravi getting out his phone, to film her slamming another guy. 

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This show is so good and so well done, and yet I'm not enjoying watching Seattle descend into a dystopia. It's just too stressful.

I really like what they're doing with Chase, particularly the way they show him making hard (and sometimes terrible/evil). I like how good the actor is at depicting his internal struggles. I like that his apology to Ravi was genuine and quiet. The writers could have taken the easy way out with him, but they haven't and the show is better for it.

Renegade had to die for storytelling purposes, but I really want Jaleesa back on my tv.

Why are none of the "good" guys focusing on a vaccine or a cure??? That should be priority number 1, given the difficulty in controlling the zombie population growth and the food supply.

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So zombies are starving to the point that the bus driver passes out at the wheel, crashes then goes on a brain eating rampage with both the dead and the survivors. But Don-E can just wander around with his giant tray of brains on sticks. I can see a situation there aren't enough brains to go around but Blaine and at least one other are allowed to siphon some off and sell them to the elite zombies and some FG soldiers. But no way on earth would there be brains on sticks available for sale at public events.

My other big issue is that zombies become uncontrollable when enraged. A public execution of a zombie beloved and despised by so many would almost certainly be a disaster. There would have been rage-mode zombies all over the place.

The thing is, I don't dislike where the overall arc is going. I could really get behind it if it wasn't being so poorly executed. If more thought went into the new world building and less BS like French zombie guy, Liv's ridiculous personality changes and Angus' cult, it could be really good tv.

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How ridiculous was French Guy at the beginning?  Then Ravi and Clive were so excited to put Liv on Hockey player brains.  That part was fun.  I appreciate how they are trying to give Chase some meat in his role, no pun intended.  I think this series needs to be put to rest after this season though.

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21 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

Made a bit more sense at the end, but it was still kind of jarring.

Yes, I understood who she was and why they did it, did I miss an explanation of why Don E. Needed to be there.

Edited by biakbiak
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3 hours ago, biakbiak said:

Yes, I understood who she was and why they did it, did I miss an explanation of why Don E. Needed to be there.

Chase Graves needed the general's daughter (I wish I could remember her name) to be turned into a zombie so that the general (I remember his name but it was so stupid that I will not repeat it).  But he needed 1) for it not to be public knowledge 2) for Major to have some sort of excuse 3) for there to be a witness to this excuse.  Don E. is an idiot who won't ask questions, so he makes a great witness.

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9 minutes ago, RayAdverb said:

Chase Graves needed the general's daughter (I wish I could remember her name) to be turned into a zombie so that the general (I remember his name but it was so stupid that I will not repeat it).  But he needed 1) for it not to be public knowledge 2) for Major to have some sort of excuse 3) for there to be a witness to this excuse.  Don E. is an idiot who won't ask questions, so he makes a great witness.

Not buying that as a remotely good plan on any conceivable level from a writing perspective or iZombie universe perspective. It appeared that they thought the pairing would be funny and they wanted the viewer to be intrigued and they failed miserably. 

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6 minutes ago, biakbiak said:

Not buying that as a remotely good plan on any conceivable level from a writing perspective or iZombie universe perspective. It appeared that they thought the pairing would be funny and they wanted the viewer to be intrigued and they failed miserably. 

I never meant to imply it was a good plan.  I mean, look at what happened.  Don freaked out and gave the world evidence that zombies had escaped the quarantine zone.

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1 minute ago, RayAdverb said:

I never meant to imply it was a good plan.  I mean, look at what happened.  Don freaked out and gave the world evidence that zombies had escaped the quarantine zone.

My main issue is that it was a stupid plot device, horrible set up and really shitty writing. 

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I wish this was a full season and I know I’m likely alone in that wish. Chase probably won’t last the season and we still have no idea why. Clearly he is flailing. Is he just unsuited to the job? Doesn’t he know not to make a martyr, either Renegade or the general’s daughter?

Shouldn’t part of the deal with the government be research and observational troops? 

Why iant Knepper parked outside Blaine’s restaurants?  Full on harassment? 

Is Liv nuts bringing anyone into the city who isn’t there already?

Is the next season zombie apocalypse? 

It just seems like we need more i information and less buddy road trip. 

Edited by Affogato
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11 hours ago, AllyB said:

The thing is, I don't dislike where the overall arc is going. I could really get behind it if it wasn't being so poorly executed. If more thought went into the new world building and less BS like French zombie guy, Liv's ridiculous personality changes and Angus' cult, it could be really good tv.

Agree. The writers just seem to be throwing a bunch of stuff at the wall and hoping it comes together.

1 hour ago, RayAdverb said:

Chase Graves needed the general's daughter (I wish I could remember her name) to be turned into a zombie so that the general (I remember his name but it was so stupid that I will not repeat it). 

I got the impression that turning the general's daughter into a zombie was not part of the plan--Major had to do it to keep her alive after she OD'ed in the bathroom. The purpose of the plan was to use her as a hostage to keep her father from nuking the city, and her father might not be so desperate to save her if he knew she was already a zombie. (Of course, he might not be able to tell that she was a zombie as long as she tans and dyes.)  

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I had a little more perspective since I read some of the forum before watching the episode.

But here's what it seemed to me happened in the Major-Don-E plot line, with some commentary.

Chase has known this General Mills was a problem and was pushing to nuke Seattle. (It wouldn't have killed the show to drop a mention or two about him in previous episodes, would it?)

Chase (either on his own or with Blaine's help) came up with the idea that kidnapping the General's daughter and bringing her to Seattle would get him to back off on plans to nuke Seattle. (Clearly overlooking that it could just as easily have the opposite effect and have the General take it as a declaration of war. Also clearly forgetting that there are actual coyotes who specialize in getting people in and out of New Seattle, such as Renegade, who are better equipped to do this smuggling).

Presumably, the plan was to say, oh no, we don't know how your daughter got here, but she's here now and she now must stay in the quarantine zone. Guess you should not nuke us (Which doesn't work if daughter can communicate with Daddy Mills ever.)

Chase does not want to risk FG getting blamed for this. Also, FG doesn't necessarily have the connections and smuggling set up to get things in and out of Seattle without being caught. (Again, Renegade.)

So Chase turns to Blaine to do things on the down-low. Blaine agrees, and puts his best man on it. Sadly, that's Don-E. Don=E has the connections with the smugglers. Chase wants to put someone he trusts on it, so that is Major. (Again, it would probably be better to get literally almost anyone else because Major is at least somewhat recognizeable to the public at large as the Chaos Killer. Although I wonder if it's now known that he was "killing" zombies, now that the existence of zombies is not a secret.). 

So off-screen, they find Daughter Mills and drug her further to abduct her. (Major's Chaos Killer skillset is super sharp, I guess. Why not trank Plus, since Daughter Mills was half-wasted it wouldn't be too hard.)

They do their road trip thing, and camp out at the hotel as we saw. Major decides to take a nap after seeing that Don-E possibly revealed that zombies are out of Seattle (which doesn't make sense because 1) it was established that zombies don't actually need to sleep in season one and 2) going to sleep and leaving the obviously untrustworthy Don-E in charge is a terrible idea. Plus why didn't they tie Sloane up, especially after she cold-cocked Don-E?)

They go to sleep and Sloane decides not to escape, but to get some drugs. (Were they hers? Don-E's? Presumably not Major's.)

So when she ODs, Major has to turn her into a zombie, knowing that could be a death penalty for him.  

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59 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

So when she ODs, Major has to turn her into a zombie, knowing that could be a death penalty for him.  

Great post, Chicago Redshirt--your explanation of the plan and motivations makes perfect sense. I'm quoting just the last line because I never thought of this being a death penalty offense. It doesn't seem like there will be any consequences for Major, though, given that turning her into a zombie was the only way to keep her "alive" and thus carry out the larger plan of keeping her father from nuking Seattle. Also, Chase seems to value Major so would be reluctant to execute him, especially since Chase had to know that there was some risk of the girl being even accidentally zombified in this mission (for example, if she fought back). Now if Don-E had been the one to turn her into a zombie, I could see Chase guillotining him without hesitation. 

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1 hour ago, Paloma said:

Great post, Chicago Redshirt--your explanation of the plan and motivations makes perfect sense. I'm quoting just the last line because I never thought of this being a death penalty offense. It doesn't seem like there will be any consequences for Major, though, given that turning her into a zombie was the only way to keep her "alive" and thus carry out the larger plan of keeping her father from nuking Seattle. Also, Chase seems to value Major so would be reluctant to execute him, especially since Chase had to know that there was some risk of the girl being even accidentally zombified in this mission (for example, if she fought back). Now if Don-E had been the one to turn her into a zombie, I could see Chase guillotining him without hesitation. 

Chase didn’t want to kill renegade either. He felt he had no choice. Chase is, to quote the shadow hunters, a ‘the law is hard but it is the law’ person.  I don’t know if we will get to know him enough to actually care but this would seem to be driving towards something. I wonder if Liv tries to smuggle Major out?

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10 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Also clearly forgetting that there are actual coyotes who specialize in getting people in and out of New Seattle, such as Renegade, who are better equipped to do this smuggling).

I don't think Chase forgot about the coyotes. Renegade, who seems to have a bit of ethics behind her operation, probably would not have agreed to kidnap a human against her will. Additionally, the initial reason Chase wanted to capture Renegade was to send a message to the other coyotes that their smuggling had to stop; that message would have been diluted considerably if there were another coyote out there who could spill about Chase hiring him/her for a kidnapping.

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In fairness, Chase was probably not going to impose the death penalty on Major under the circumstances that he scratched Sloane. But Major could not be sure of that when he did it. I like that he took ownership and did it, instead of making Don-E do it, or letting her die or whatever.

The thing about Chase is that he is not really like "The law is the law is the law." Otherwise, Major would have gotten Gallaghered as well. He seems to be super-pragmatic, deciding only to kill Renegade when it looks like he has no other outs with basically everyone in his inner circle pushing to do it and make his public announcement that her fate awaits others who follow in her footsteps. 

8 minutes ago, swimmyfish said:

I don't think Chase forgot about the coyotes. Renegade, who seems to have a bit of ethics behind her operation, probably would not have agreed to kidnap a human against her will. Additionally, the initial reason Chase wanted to capture Renegade was to send a message to the other coyotes that their smuggling had to stop; that message would have been diluted considerably if there were another coyote out there who could spill about Chase hiring him/her for a kidnapping.

Renegade herself probably would not have agreed to kidnap Sloane because she's a good person. Although who knows...maybe as a quid pro quo she would have. If Chase had offered her some sort of deal like, "Do this one thing and stop creating new zombies, and we'll turn a blind eye to your past dealings," she would have gone for it.

My point more was, given the choice between trusting Don-E and, well, pretty much anyone for a task involving any level of subtlety, independent thought, and risk, I'd probably take pretty much anyone in the dark. Especially if the other person had proven experience in the field.

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1 hour ago, RayAdverb said:

So is New Seattle just no longer part of the United States and subject to its laws?  Since when can a judge just declare someone guilty then execute them the next day?

I think we are to take from this that FG has been given a pretty wide berth to write laws (or rules or whatever they technically are) having to do with crimes against zombies or crimes committed by zombies. Renegade got executed the same day she was "found guilty," with no chance to confront the evidence against her, no jury of her peers, no right to an attorney, no right to appeal.

And FG and/or the mayor's office has some sort of anti-zombie discrimination law in place, at least in terms of public employment. (We saw that FG prevents zombies from working on the front line in the brain paste factory because it was too much temptation). Which as the episode shows is sort of insane. The notion that you can have someone who can potentially rage out at a moment's notice and lose control in a position like a bus driver doesn't make sense.

When was the last time Peyton had a story line that didn't involve her being Liv's bestie or Ravi/Blaine's love/lust object?

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13 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

So Chase turns to Blaine to do things on the down-low. Blaine agrees, and puts his best man on it. Sadly, that's Don-E. Don=E has the connections with the smugglers. Chase wants to put someone he trusts on it, so that is Major.

That would be a good explanation for this odd couple.  There's one point I'd like to reconcile with this theory.  Near the end, in the kitchen, Blaine asked "Where's Don E?" and then seemed genuinely surprised when Don E popped out of the brain shipment.

Did Blaine genuinely not know Don E was away, or did he not know that Don E was catching a ride back in a brain box?

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10 minutes ago, MisterGlass said:

That would be a good explanation for this odd couple.  There's one point I'd like to reconcile with this theory.  Near the end, in the kitchen, Blaine asked "Where's Don E?" and then seemed genuinely surprised when Don E popped out of the brain shipment.

Did Blaine genuinely not know Don E was away, or did he not know that Don E was catching a ride back in a brain box?

I'm assuming the latter. The plan was probably that Major and Don-E were going to have the smugglers take Sloane back to New Seattle in a more conventional fashion and then drive themselves back. (It's unclear to me if FG people are aboveboard able to exempt themselves somewhat from the quarantine).

But two wrenches were thrown in that plan: Don-E being recognized as an unquarantined zombie and Sloane being zombified. Major and Don-E could no longer run the risk of making the drive back, where they could get pulled over, and the risk of having Sloane act out as a neophyte zombie also presentedd a problem.

So the smuggling connection decided to kill some birds with one stone, and ship a bunch of brains and our trio together. (seems like a bad idea to send a bunch of zombies in containers that also contain brains, but what do I know? Also, why the smugglers wouldn't have told Blaine or someone in advance is a mystery.)

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On 27/03/2018 at 1:02 PM, MisterGlass said:

I feel like I missed half an episode somewhere. 

I'm the same. Is the weird French FG inspector someone we've met before? Should I know him? Did we see Major and Don-E stuff someone in the boot of their car last episode?

Confuzzled.

On 27/03/2018 at 3:20 PM, Zahdii said:

I never watched Chinatown either.  I don't get the reference, and I missed the explanation Clive gave.

HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW THIS? I've never seen Chinatown either but "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown" is up there with "I'm your father, Luke". Or possibly "It must be bunnies" but either way this is a pop culture standard.

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Yeah.  I don't know about the bunnies, either.  I am familiar with "No.  I am your father."

As for missing out on so much pop culture, I plead guilty.  Kids, jobs, life in general, etc.  Plus a preference for TV over the movie theater and a preference for happy endings...  Waiting for movies to hit the video store, network TV, or now Redbox, Netflix, Hulu, etc has caused me to see many things long after many other people.  That and I have a strong preference for happy endings.  Although I am odd in occasionally having a soft spot for disaster movies.  Go figure.

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