Six Feet Under, Season 1 – Life Is Fuckin’ BLEAK

Through the Idiot Glass Disclaimer: There will be spoilers. If you’re even remotely interested in this show and you haven’t yet seen it, or if you’ll be mad if you accidentally read any possible spoilers about it, I’m going to chalk it up to “not my fucking problem”. You have been warned.
Discussion Subject: Six Feet Under, Season 1 (2001) (HBO)

Six Feet Under, Season 1
This is a rewatch. Other than Lost, which I barely count, Six Feet Under is the first drama series I’ve ever watched. We’re talking circa 2009, when all I had really seen up to this point was cartoons, Comedy Central, and plenty of Alton Brown. A sad, sheltered television existence.

I remember having a tense love/hate relationship with the show. Half, if not most, of the characters really suck ass. Some of the story arcs aren’t very interesting, and I only remember a few besides. There’s that one episode in Season 4 where David got kidnapped for a night, that one really stuck with me. My wife still hates that she watched it to this day. And yet, we plowed through the series pretty quickly, probably within a month and a half. It was near the end of spring semester of college. If there’s one thing that was captivating about Six Feet Under, it was the relentless morbidity. Don’t watch this show if you have anxiety or depression unless you have a blog that you can write about it in. Hey, that’s me!

There are only a few beats I remember about Season 1:
-David is an incredible slut.
-Billy is a lunatic.
-Claire dates an ugly, but nice, loser.

I also found Brenda incredibly attractive. And isn’t it the attractive people that makes us want to watch TV shows in the first place? It’s why I love The Wire! That Bunk can really melt my butter.

Six Feet Under, Season 1

Speaking of attractive, who are these three handsome, tall drinks of water? (Freddy Rodriguez is 5’6″)

The Premise

The Fisher family owns and runs a funeral home in Los Angeles. The head honcho and patriarch, Nathaniel Fisher (Richard Jenkins), dies in a car accident within the first ten minutes. Ownership of the funeral home gets transferred to his large adult sons Nate (Peter Krause) and David (Michael C. “Dexter” Hall). The former is a down-to-earth, laid-back 35-year-old. The latter is an uptight, no-nonsense 32-year-old. Nate doesn’t really want to help run the funeral home, but he steps up when necessary. David is a big fucking martyr about it and thinks he’s doing everything single-handedly. Which he kind of is. Nate spends a lot of time with his girlfriend Brenda Chenowith (Rachel Griffiths) and not a lot of time kissing the dead bodies in the downstairs morgue.

Six Feet Under, Season 1

Are you sculpting titties on my dead body, son? My last will and testament specifically requests sculpted titties or there’s no inheritance for you.

The other sibling is Claire, a 17-year-old high school student who gets shit for growing up in a funeral home. If she had her choice, she wouldn’t! Their mother is Ruth (Frances Conroy), who is even more uptight than David if you can believe it. I can! I’ve seen the show! Having recently become a widow, she struggles with expressing her emotions and it comes out in random volatile ways. She’s fucking Ed Begley Jr. and she works in a flower shop with a Russian immigrant named Nikolai. Nikolai wants to fuck Ruth.

There’s also Keith Charles, David’s on-again off-again cop boyfriend. Usually ACAB, you know? But Keith is a nice guy. There’s also Federico (Freddy Rodriguez), the often dissatisfied restorative artist of the funeral home. He ends up defecting to a major funeral service corporation for a few episodes, but returns for reasons that escape me. The Fishers are nice to him? They barely pay him. He’s the best in the business. There’s also Billy Chenowith (Jeremy Sisto), Brenda’s wack-a-loon bipolar younger brother. He’s jealous of Nate to the point where he 1) dates Claire for a couple episodes like a pedophile, and 2) threatens Nate directly at least two times. Nate ain’t havin’ it.

The Fisher family slowly implodes over the course of the season. David breaks up with Keith and scours chatrooms and nightclubs to get some random dick while trying to be deacon at his church, running the funeral home, and coming to terms with his sexuality. Claire dates an ugly, slightly mentally ill piece of shit named Gabe who, while nice to her, is quite stupid and somewhat dangerous. Brenda and Billy’s relationship is fraught with baggage they’ve been carrying for decades, and since Billy is totally in love with his sister he acts out in very harmful ways. Nate is often caught in the middle.

And Ruth is Ruth.

Six Feet Under, Season 1

And Claire is Claire.

My Half-Baked Thoughts

A lot of this holds up well for pre-9/11 television. Clothing, hairstyles, and slang isn’t too dated. Homosexuality is handled with empathy (most because Six Feet Under‘s creator, Alan Ball, is gay). Characters are complex, all of them are fucked up, and they face pretty knotty conflicts.

Nate lived away from home when Nathaniel died, and most of his issues stem from regretting his lack of involvement with the family business and feeling bitter that he didn’t know his father very well. You could see it especially during the episode where Nate discovers Nathaniel’s secret room. Nate felt that his father was PACKED TO THE GILLS with secrets. Secrets coming out the wazoo and whatnot. Then later, when Gabe’s stepbrother Anthony accidentally shot himself, Nate projected his own bitterness at Anthony’s deadbeat father. Then, of course, he has to deal with Brenda and Billy. That’s a real trip.

Six Feet Under, Season 1

The voices in my head tell me that I’m the one who gets to fuck my sister. NOT you.

Claire, as we see, deals with alienation at school. Frequent trips to the school psychologist suggests a problem with motivation and lack of direction. When she happens to get a boyfriend, he betrays almost immediately about the weird sexual toe-sucking kink he’s got. It takes a stepbrother’s death to get him back on her good side! But, mostly, she’s just an angsty teenager who really didn’t want to grow up in a funeral home. If I grew up in a funeral home I’d be playing Xbox all fucking day.

Ruth is emotionally repressed. Sexually repressed too, at least in her marriage. I’m sure Nathaniel was too busy to really give her the time of day, or else she wouldn’t have been fucking Stan Sitwell for years! When I first watched Six Feet Under I thought Ruth was a kind of a bitch, but I have a lot more sympathy for her now. You can tell she grew up learning to bottle up her emotions, and now they’re exploding out of her like dynamite.

David has got it the worst. Religious and gay? What a fantastic combination! I can’t see how that would irrevocably fuck someone up at all, man. The guy is wound up so fucking tight. Taking on double duty at the funeral home with dead dad. Dealing with a slacker older brother. WHAT’S A MAN TO DO? Oh, right, how about completely act out and do some hella drugs and go to hella gay bars and cruise for hella dick in hella chat rooms. David is a baller.

Six Feet Under, Season 1

Pictured: David being a baller.

Then there’s Brenda and Billy. The latter goes without saying, whose bipolar disorder led to sorta statutory rape AND slicing his own tattoo off of his back. Nuts. You meet Brenda and Billy’s psychologist parents, who are so infuriatingly narcissistic that you realize it’s impossible for their kids to grow up, you know, normal and stable. Brenda is clearly trying to work on it, but she’s unintentionally roping Nate into a hellish roller coaster ride. The sex must be really good, otherwise, if I were Nate, I would’ve dumped her early on.

Brenda gets better, though! Well, she gets worst first! But then she gets better, I promise!

Worth the Watch?

Yes. This holds up very well. With the glut of good TV out there right now, Six Feet Under is an easy show to overlook. BUT DON’T! There are some bad storylines throughout its run, but everything does, so go fuck ya-self.

Just don’t get mad at Ruth. She’s going through a lot right now.


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Tales of the Vampires, Issue #1

* Part 1 of 5 of the Tales of the Vampires limited series *

Welcome to Buffyness and Nightlurkers Presents: Tales of the Vampire, Issue #1!

Following Whedon’s Tales of the Slayers one-shot, Tales of the Vampires presents event more short stories about, I imagine, vampires.

No other introduction necessary! Only because I don’t know what to expect! This is the last bit of business before moving onto, like, “seasons” of Buffy and Angel. I think. I’m telling you, I’m going to be doing this for years.

Tales of the Vampires, Issue #1 [December, 2003]

Tales of the Vampires, Issue #1

“Tales of the Vampires, Part I” – Joss Whedon

Let’s begin! A rather frightening looking man with a torch leads a small group of children through some stony underground catacombs.

“They’re animals.”

“They are not.”

“I don’t know what we’re doing here.”

“They always call them animals.”

“They call you ‘sausage roll’ behind your back, that doesn’t mean you are one.”

“It’s so dark down here…”

The alarmingly ugly man stops and tells the children to stay quiet and calm. He wears what looks like a anti-fuckin’ chastity belt with a cross hanging from it. If I had to guess, we’re in the Middle Ages.

The children are afraid, yet prepared. After all, they need to see the real thing if they are to someday become Watchers! No reading this shit in books, books can’t bite your neck (unless you’re in Discworld!).

“I don’t want to be a Watcher. I want to be a Duchess,” whines one girl. The priest-like scary man with hideous creases in his brow and a terrible mustache unlocks a padlock and opens a door. “Be quiet, children. We are here to learn.”

Creak. Swing. Step step step. Creeeaaakk. Moo. There’s a vampire chained up to a stone wall. His face is all sallow and white; he’s got an Abe Vigoda chin and a Nick Cave haircut. Sophie, the one who wants to be a Duchess, recognizes the creature as Roche. Roche is ready to teach the children a thing or two about vampirin’!

Tales of the Vampires, Issue #1

Come sit on Pappy’s lap, kiddos! I have Werther’s Originals!

“We’re here to learn your history, then?” asks Duchess Sophie. Roche smiles like the Joker on crack. First, the kids are going to learn about vampires in general. Roche is cooperative, almost eagerly looking forward to teaching another round of prospective Watchers! “We are monsters, you see, not animals, and every one of our… lives… is different. Those who came before me. Those yet to come.”

#1: Vampires don’t leave anything behind when they “die”. Only dust! Which is not “nothing”, so we’re already contradicting ourselves.

#2: Humans can die by conventional means, and you can scare them off with conventional means. With vampires, you have to be super creative. You have to, like, trick ‘em and shit.

While Roche talks, a man appears to be throwing a young woman in a dungeon. I suppose we’ll get to that later.

“The Problem with Vampires” – Drew Goddard

When one suddenly finds themself conscious again, the first thing they need to do is try piecing together bits from their past. For example, a city skyline tells you that you’re in Prague. Your mouth tastes like whiskey and blood, which is exciting at first until you realize most of the blood is your own. Then there’s a stake sticking out of your bloody chest, which is a nuisance. And then, you’re sunk an inch into the ground by the river as if thrown from the bridge above.

“So then. Prague. Drunk. Beaten. Nearly staked. Thrown off a bridge. Left for dead. The sort of night that might make an ordinary person pause and re-evaluate his life.”

“But you’re no ordinary person.”

You rip the stake out of your chest and start to panic when your girlfriend is missing.

Ah ok, so the young woman is this vampire dude’s girlfriend. The so-far unseen man holding her captive has her strapped to an old wooden chair. He points to the wrist and leg cuffs. “As I tighten these screws, the spikes at your arms, legs, and back are slowly driven into your body.”

Sounds horrible! Except this woman is a vampire, so it’s instead, in fact, good.

Tales of the Vampires, Issue #1

You mean the giant spikes impaling my limbs? I thrive off of this, actually.

Look lady, if you don’t want to suffer with spikes for eternity, it’s time to listen the fuck up. The man shows her the contents of a small box, the kind that has an engagement ring inside. Her look is of surprise.

Meanwhile, New Vampire Jones is biting necks and strangling bitches.

The young vampire woman thinks to herself about how painful the spikes are, and how the inquisitor smells like turnips, cologne, and sweat. “I know what it is you feel,” the man says, lifting up her chin. “You have no conscience. You have no morality. You have no soul. You have nothing except pain. Pain is your nature. You hunger for it. You live to inflict it. It feeds your existence. It is the only thing you truly fear.”

This guy has her number! Being in pain sucks ass! She tries to think of horrible, gruesome things to make her feel better: a baby on fire in an upstairs crib. A woman mangled in a car wreck. Little girls lost at the fair. That one seems less gruesome. “It doesn’t comfort you,” she thinks as the rigid spikes keep her bleeding arms in place.

“…and so to communicate with you, I have to speak in terms you understand. I have to speak in terms of pain.”

This guy thinks he has the upper hand here. And he almost does. She can’t think of ANYTHING else except the pain!

…until… she thinks of him.

These two fucking lovebirds. How romantic is vampire courtship? …it’s a little romantic, actually, I have to admit. There’s something about being together forever that’s just… ok, I’m back to reality now.

Vampire Dude continues chewing up mofos. Vampire Gal has stopped reacting strongly to the pain. “Hmm,” the inquisitor thinks, believing that he has rendered her unconscious. Time to get the holy water and the stake, this one has become a lost cause.

Anyway, we’re just gonna…

Vampire Dude tears through the dungeon door and bites the inquisitor on the neck! Hooah! He rescues Vampire Gal from the spiky chair and cradles her in his arms, all lovey-dovey.

“People think you’re crazy,” thinks Gal.

“They think the only thing you feel is pain,” thinks Dude.

“They don’t understand,” thinks Gal.

“Not that it matters,” thinks Dude.

They have each other, and that’s what matters. A real Monster Mash for the ages.

They’re thinking about travelling to the Hellmouth for the summer! Maybe kill a Slayer! It’s been a while.

The couple are Spike and Drusilla. The end.

Tales of the Vampires, Issue #1

Disgusting.

“Stacy” – Joss Whedon

“Nobody gets me,” this nerdy girl thinks while reading Children of Dune. I don’t get her. She’s fascinated with magic. Not magic tricks or illusions or love or any of that happy horseshit, we’re talking pentagrams and mages and floating skulls and +4 Swords of Wildfyre. Stacy saw The Lord of the Rings with her friends, and although she couldn’t take her eyes off of the sultry Elijah Wood, she was more entranced by a world of wizards, witchery, and Bertie Botts’ Every Flavor Beans. Her friends thought the movie was boring and, I quote, “gay”, but Stacy didn’t care. Boys are dumb.

“It isn’t boring if you have magic in your heart.”

What a gay thing to say, Stacy! Jesus H. Christ, dude!

Stacy wishes she were something other than human. Even an elf. Being an elf would be tops! “I wanted to live in that world so hard, to feel the light, to battle with that darkness – instead of battling with Jason trying to feel be up after half a tab of X.”

Fighting orcs! Scary, mean orcs! Fighting without fear! That’s the stuff! That’s the life!

Tales of the Vampires, Issue #1

I bet you stayed in your bedroom all day stroking your dick to Transformers and WWE wrestling videos.

We suddenly take a turn. “And I know you’ve never been murdered. I’m making it sound all dramatic, being killed. Actually, it was weird.” It happened at a house party. Everyone got drunk and stupid. While Stacy was helping her friend Dwayne puke his guts out by the side of a house, a man approached the both of them. He looked like if Trent Reznor fucked Keanu Reeves and had a baby made of marshmallow paste. “He looks wicked strung out, but he also has this thing…” We see him tenderly grab her hand.

“He says there’s a meteor shower going on. You can see it around the back of the house. What moron falls for that?”

THIS moron right here! *points to dumbass Stacy who’s about to get hella vamped*

Oh, yes yes. He bites the shit out of her neck.

“I wake up in the bushes. It’s still night – or it’s the next night, ‘cause I don’t hear the party anymore.”

Based on the scents and sights around, she knows that it’s been two days. Two days dead in the bushes and no one found her there. She can see without her glasses. It’s dark as shit outside and she can see, man. “Mostly, though, I can feel. Inside me. You know what I feel?”

“Connection.”

She is welcomed with open arms by Spike, Drusilla, and a small gang of other vampires. She never felt connected as a human. This, though, this was something else. Powerful. Sexy. Pungent?

She’s the orc now!

“Yeah, I know I’m evil, and I know I’m dead. But I’m something else too. I’m magic.”

It’s not the vampires who are animals, it’s the humans who are animals! “You’re meat.”

You see, all those mythical creatures always felt above her. Now she’s on the same plane. She’s just like the rest of them.

“I have magic in my heart.”

Tales of the Vampires, Issue #1

The evening doesn’t get anymore enchanted than this, that’s for damn sure.

Final Thoughts

There’s something… eerily romantic about all this. Romantic in the idyllic sense, not in the gross Spike/Drusilla sense. I like the part that, while reminiscing, Vampire Stacy still has it in her brain to find Elijah Wood attractive. Whedon really knows how to touch upon the human element of the montrously supernatural, and he’s good at finding the parallels between good and evil in a way that can blur the lines once in a while.

It makes me wonder what it would be like to vamp out. I bet I’d get a real kick out of it! I’m only 5% kidding.


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Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #20 – “Venom (Part 5)”

* Part 5 of 5 of the Venom storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #20 – “Venom (Part 5)”! We close out yet another thrilling Batman tale. In the previous installment, having successfully detoxed, Batman and Alfred fly to Santa Prisca to confront Porter and Slaycroft. After a few failed attempts to kill and/or detain the intruders, Slaycroft ends up kidnapping Alfred and feeding him to the sharks! But Alfred doesn’t die, oh no sir. Batman beats up sharks for about three pages and saves Alfred.

After knocking Porter out cold, Batman thinks he has won! But, oh no sir, Slaycroft has order his army of indestructible men to KILL THE BATMAN!

So then Batman dies horribly and forever. But, oh no sir, here’s the nail-biting finale.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #20 [July, 1991]
Written by: Dennis O’Neil
“Venom (Part 5)”

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #20

General Slaycroft has ordered his 23 IQ son to kill Batman, and Batman looks nervous. “Tim… Timmy Slaycroft… don’t listen to him…”

Apparently being buff and indestructible means you can’t talk anymore and you always have this angry, sourpuss look on your face. Timmy reaches his hands out to crush Batman’s head like the shriveled grape that it is, and Batman tells him he has information about his mother. His dear, sweet, old mum. It turns out she wasn’t killed in a car crash as Timmy had thought for so, so long. Oh, no no no. She was murdered by a bomb! Didn’t see that one coming, did you? It’s like when Phil Hartman was murdered with a gun, but this was with a bomb. It’s actually entirely different, now that I’m thinking harder about it.

As Timmy tries to land some punches, Batman continues to say that it was General Slaycroft’s fault. But the police couldn’t prove it. General Slaycroft has this angry, sourpuss look on his face.

Even Dr. Porter is like “wtf dude”. General Slaycroft admits to this dastardly murdercrime. “The boy’s mother was a weakling. She was ruining him.”

Batman tries to talk things out with Hulk Boy, but the lad clocks Batman right in the jaw – breaking it into 15,000 pieces! Wouldn’t that be something? I’m loling at the thought!

While on the ground, Batman trips the kid with his legs. Then he holds him down by the neck and tries to talk more sense into him. Trying to remind him that he saved Batman’s life and that he doesn’t want to actually hurt him now. Why would anyone? Batman’s cuddly.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #20

I learned this one when I was in ‘Nam! Just killing all sorts of Charlies! I was on vacation in 1986 at the time.

Batman smacks and boops and bops him with no success. This kid has become a monster at the hands of Dr. Shithead Porter and his father, General Penisface Slaycroft! This won’t do at all. Time for drastic measures…

Nope, none of those. Porter pushes Batman into Timmy’s line of fire. Batman gets knocked in the jaw again, and Timmy lifts him a two feet off the ground by his throat. “Finish him,” General Slaycroft orders while Batman gurgles and burbles. But then Porter is like “no don’t!” because this Batfellow might be useful to them alive. Porter’s brewing up some plans. For now, steal his utility belt and drag his ass to some cabana somewhere.

Or an abandoned castle with a torture dungeon, I guess, according to the very next panel. Hector Lopez, the local drug kingpin, he uses it for fun and he’s going to let Porter and Slaycroft borrow it for a bit! There’s a single steel door that leads out. The walls are made of stone and gum and toothpicks. And there’s a pipe that will slowly fill the chamber with water until Batman either drowns or figures out a clever way to escape through the door without them knowing – whichever comes first.

What’s cool is that the door is 800 pounds, which should be easy to lift for someone addicted to Porter’s delicious pills! Mmm mmmm!!

Well shit sticks, this certainly is a pickle. The men leave Batman alone in the chamber to stew and think and get some tender jerking-off time. He wonders if Alfred was able to escape the island unharmed. Or at least barely harmed. Or at least harmed enough to rattle him a bit for shits and grins.

And, indeed, Alfred escaped the island. He’s in a rowboat in the middle of the sea while seagulls peck at his head. lol.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #20

He’s still got it!

Slaycroft intends to discuss the miserable trap they set up for Batman. Porter tells him to shut his yap. Slaycroft furrows his very furrow-able brow yet again after watching the Mad Scientist pop yet another pill. Porter knows exactly how Batman’s going to play this out, and indeed he does predict and describe Batman’s actions just as Batman performs them! Using a dumbbell weight, he smashes the end of a metal rod flat so that he can use it to scrape the mortar between the bricks. The pills would make all this easier, of course, but we don’t want to become a junkie again just to save your own life. Pish posh.

Meanwhile, after rowing his boat for 45 years, Alfred happens upon a ship in the distance! I hope it’s pirates. Wouldn’t that be fucking funny? God, I hope so. Walking the plank would be the least they’d have him do.

Slaycroft is starting to distrust the overly-confident Porter. This plan can’t possibly be 100% foolproof, no matter how many arrogance pills Porter gulps down.

The ship captain is actually a semi-friendly fellow who will offer to take Alfred to shore for a price. $10,000. Chump change, honestly. Looking at Alfred’s fancy, stereotypical Butler clothes, I would’ve highballed to at least $100 trillion.

After removing a whole bunch of bricks from the wall, Batman looks at the pills thoughtfully again. This shit would be SO MUCH EASIER after getting hopped up. Oh well!

Alfred uses the ship telephone. Narration explains this fascinating tidbit: “Long ago, Alfred learned to imitate Bruce Wayne’s Batman voice perfectly.” That’s gotta be the biggest fucking stretch I’ve ever read in a comic book, and I’ve read about man-sharks. Anyway, Alfred calls up Jim Gordon and growls about getting a military presence in Santa Prisca as soon as possible. Gordon is like “RAAWR! THAT WOULD START A WAR, BONEHEAD!” and hangs up.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #20

I see you’ve played Knifey-Spoony before!

Slaycroft brandishes a knife. Remember those documents that Porter lost in Gotham before they skedaddled to Santa Prisca? Well, Slaycroft wants them replicated and given to him. “You have become unreliable,” Slaycroft says. “I learned certain interrogation techniques in South America.” AHH! Slaycroft his going to tickle him into submission! That’s what I was hoping pirates would do to Alfred. Such a shame.

Batman created a shelf with which he can load bricks onto. The shelf is hanging from the hook. All he needs to do is load up 800 pounds of bricks and the door will open. Huzzah! Genius like this doesn’t grow on trees, I always say.

Porter is crying and bleeding. Slaycroft holds a giant 1991 tape recorder. “Talk,” he tells the blubbering mass of snot and semen.

Batman “Brain Genius” didn’t carve enough bricks out of the wall and now his very large paperweight plan isn’t going to work anymore. The chamber is filled with water up to Batman’s chest. Time for drastic measures: he adds his own weight to attempt to pull down the hook, and the door opens! And, in an act of SUSPENSE, he rolls his ass under the door before it closes shut again.

Porter and Slaycroft cheated, though. Two henchmen are waiting outside the door to manhandle the Bat and give him wedgies and noogies. Batman clunks their heads together and scampers off. “The cool, dry night air is exhilirating after the stale dankness he has been breathing for the past three nights. He pauses to enjoy it.”

Final Thoughts

Just kidding! Man, that joke never gets old. Batman considers hightailing it to shore to find a way off the island, but he decides that he needs to stop Slaycroft and Porter before they wreak more havoc.

Speaking of wreaking havoc, Slaycroft has really wreaked havoc on Porter’s face. The scientist insists that he has told Slaycroft everything he knows about all the plans, but Slaycroft is like “LIAR!” and is like “I will test the information you recorded. If it proves valid, you will die swiftly and painlessly. If it does not, you will die in agony.”

Don’t you wanna just give Slaycroft a big ol’ wet kiss on his lucious mustache?

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #20

Daddy’s home!

Next thing you know, Batman does his trademark break-through-a-window-and-slice-himself-the-fuck-up manuever, which proves to be as tried and true as ever. Showdown time with Slaycroft! SWIPE! PUMMEL! LAUNCH! FIST! KICK! SLAP! JERK! GRUNT! “It’s over,” Batman grimaces. “You’re beaten.”

Nope! Time for the big guns! *kisses arms* And now the finale. Slaycroft begins to order his massive son to destroy Batman – even Porter is like NOOOOO!! — but Batman uppercuts Slaycroft and knocks him out cold. before he can even say the word. Timmy remains supine and asleep.

“You did it, didn’t you?” says Porter. “You took the pills.”

“No.”

“Oh, but you did! You must have.”

*opens fist and lets 40 pills drop in Porter’s lap*

Checkmate, bitch. Later, Batman and Porter have a heart-to-heart in a private setting. Batman tells him to stay put. Porter plays back the tape recording and somehow, for some reason, has the voice of Slaycroft ordering Timmy to kill his father. This perks Timmy up, and he wraps his giant hands around Slaycroft’s throat.

Batman tackles Timmy. Timmy drops Slaycroft’s corpse. Timmy mad! Then Timmy sad! Then Timmy cradles Slaycroft. “Father…” he cries.

Now you’ve gone and done it, Porter! More blood on your poop-smeared hands! We find the doctor scuttling around the floor scooping up the pills that Batman dropped and popping them in his mouth.

Batman witnesses Timmy cradling his dead dad and feels sympathy. I bet Bruce Wayne cradled his own dead dad! lmao!

“Satisfied?” he growls at Porter.

“Abundantly, he got what he deserved.”

“Not the kid, damn you. The kid didn’t deserve any of it!”

Oh well, time to move on and blow this popsicle stand and never look back. Batman steals Slaycroft’s helicopter and flies off the island, setting a course for Puerto Rico. He calls Gordon, who is like “RAAWR! THAT WOULD START A WAR, BONEHEAD!” and hangs up.

“I’ll win in the end, you know.” Porter smiles up at Batman. I don’t know why Batman decided to drag Porter’s ass along with him, unless he’s going to dump him in the middle of the ocean. That would be ideal.

But no. Batman’s going to land safely and soundly in Puerto Rico where Gordon is already waiting to apprehend Porter. Gordon is wearing this awful yellow suit with black zigzags. He looks like a mustard bottle.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #20

Happiness is overrated. Bonehead.

Everything has been tied up in a neat package. Porter is alive. Slaycroft is dead. Timmy is sad. It all worked out.

Oh yeah, except for the part where Porter went into withdrawals while imprisoned for two days and died convulsing and sweating and screaming.

“He is remembering a girl named Sissy, and a boy, Timmy… and the shadows he inhabits are cold… and filled with grief.”

Final Thoughts

WUBBA LUBBA DUB DUB! Uplifting story as usual! Time to boogie, Batmanophiles! I’ll see you in the funny pages! WOOZLE WUZZLE!


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Daredevil (Vol. 3), Issue #2 – “Red, White, Black and Blue”

* Part 2 of 6 of the Volume 1 collection *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Daredevil (Vol. 3) Issue #2 – “Red, White, Black and Blue”! In the previous installment, after a hiatus that I know nothing about, Matt Murdock has returned to the Law Offices of Nelson and Murdock so he can continue doing lawyer stuff. Problem is, everyone knows he’s Daredevil and he’s getting bugged non-stop about it and defense lawyers are using this info against him. He has a client named Jobrani and a case got all fucked up because of shitty representation! Murdock sucks.

Not much else happened except that he inexplicably smooched the bride of a mafia crime family, which was incredibly inappropriate for a litany of reasons. Also, Captain America is going to show up to talk to Murdock about something and we’re all going to moan and groan as he tries to string words together into a sentence. A skill he has not yet mastered.

Daredevil (Vol. 3), Issue #2 [October, 2011]
Written by: Mark Waid
“Red, White, Black and Blue”

Daredevil (Vol. 3), Issue #2

Cover art suggests that Captain America is going to club Daredevil with his own nunchucks. What an asshole.

The front page of the next morning’s Daily Bugle presents Murdock’s failed trial. “The Jobrani trial was stalled today when the judge fired blind attorney Matt Murdock and suggested that Mr. Jobrani hire himself a new lawyer who isn’t suspected of being Daredevil.” Way to bury the lead on that one, J. Jonah Jameson. Stick to your day job of snooping around for Spider-Man.

Daredevil gets smacked in the face with a red, white, and blue shield with the star on it. What can of asshole uses a shield as a weapon? Doesn’t this guy know what shields are supposed to be used for? Why can’t this dipshit get anything right ever?

Daredvil whips his sticks and clobbers Cap in the head with them, which he rightfully deserves. Even a preemptive strike wouldn’t have been deserved. Even a pillow to his face while he sleeps. Even a gunshot to the nards.

They re-grab their respective weapons and convene for a howdy-do. “I recognize the heartbeat,” Daredevil thinks. “There’s not another one like it in the world. It beats like a Sousa march.” Of course it does. What a fucking nerd, this Captain America guy. I hate him so much.

Captain America informs the Daredevilled one that he is under arrest, which seems to be something only police officers can do? Not superheroes wearing tights. At this, Daredevil flies away. “Objection,” he retorts while Cap looks at him like he was just presented with a multiplication problem.

Daredevil (Vol. 3), Issue #2

Yippee ki-yay, motherfuckers!

Daredevil takes Cap’s shield and crashes through a window with it, into what I hope is an abandoned building. “I can guess the charges. I left town for a while because there’d been a demon inside of me. Literally, a demon. And under its spell, I’d done some dark things I’d rather not openly revisit.” Ah, allow me to guess on this one: running a fetish website where perverts pay him bitcoin to hump his toilet.

Cap follows him into the building and attempts to stop him again. “I gave you time to turn in yourself. My patience is up,” he says as Daredevil does cartwheels around the room. Daredevil wonders where all this steadfastness is coming from. Cap usually just sits around the Avengers Mansion picking his nose.

Flashback to Matt Murdock watching a report on TV about Cap’s butt buddy Bucky “Butt Buddy” Barnes, charged with treason. He uses this information to schmooze. “Bucky was a pawn,” Daredevil says as Cap tries to whip his ass ruddy. “He was manipulated into committing some hideous acts. And I’m sorry I smeared your name nonetheless.”

Ah, so this is what it’s all about. Daredevil threw shade where it wasn’t his place to throw shade! “This isn’t about Bucky,” Cap glowers, tightening the cord on Daredevil’s sticks and preparing to possibly choke the life out of him. Instead, he wraps it around Daredevil’s ankle and flips him on his ass. It is so about Bucky! Nyah nyah nyah!

Daredevil tries to convince Cap that he isn’t the enemy here. Eventually, they reach an uneasy truce and hand each other back their respective weapons. “Matter’s tabled,” Cap tells him. “But not settled.” Fair enough, dummy! Daredevil will just change his uniform color to green and he’ll never find him again.

Daredevil (Vol. 3), Issue #2

Long enough to catch you farting loudly not once, not twice, but thrice!

Later, at the Law Offices of Peanut Butter and Jelly, Foggy Nelson is turning over garbage cans looking for… it’s not clear. His keys? His virginity? Ha! Never lost that! He catches Kirstin McDuffie standing at his door. “Hey, so I finally met Daredevil,” she says as he rifles through files in a drawer. “I have something you might be interested in.”

You know that Jobrani case? It’s only been brought up a thousand times so far? Murdock accidentally made an ass of himself merely by being present? “I just… happen to have stumbled across some new information.”

Foggy takes a gander at the file she’s holding. Little lines appear above his head, indicating either surprise or that he smells terrible. “If that’s true, it puts a whole new light on the case! I’ll pass that information along to Matt A.S.A.P.!

McDuffie finds what Foggy’s looking for: his “lucky” tie. This indirectly implies that Foggy lost it while boning somebody, which is impossible because he’s never lost his virginity. We have already established this.

On Manhattan’s west side, Daredevil spies on a lawyer named Gene Loren. “I’ve never known him to turn away anyone who’d been wronged by the system. Which means he loses more battles than he wins.” Yes, the system is broken. It always has been and it always will be. This is why Captain America is an idiot about his country.

Daredevil makes his presence known, which spooks Loren and his companion. “I want to talk to you about the Jobrani matter,” Daredevil tells Loren, which confuses the shit out of him. He ain’t even know who the Jobrani jabroni even is! Well, sir, let Daredevil tell you all about it! He’s a victim of police brutality and he lost all his money on the medical bills. He’s even got the evidence to sue and win! However, Matt Murdock is Daredevil and apparently this is a huge problem?

“Why didn’t you take his case, Gene? Did somebody pressure you?” Gene Loren’s heartbeat thumps a mile a minute. Daredevil assures him that there’s nothing to worry about. All friends here! “There… there were calls. Several. Unidentified.”

He goes on to say the phone calls were unsettling. Whispers. Weird voices. Heavy breathing. Jerkoff noises. No Caller ID. Untraceable. Sexy.

So these “weird voices”… anything weird about them?

Daredevil (Vol. 3), Issue #2

He’d buy Daredevil a much higher chair to sit in.

Loren describes the voices: “Older. Echo heavy, like a bad connection – but not electronic or filtered – unless I’m just crazy…” Hmm, THE PLOT THICKENS. Maybe. Someone out there really does not want Jobrani to win…

Daredevil flips around town and ends up at the electronics store that Jobrani and his family owns. Or owned, rather. Ahmed Jobrani lost it in the bankruptcy, but it had been family-owned for three generations. That’s a lot of time owning a electronics store. Have electronics even been around that long?! I mean, how long have we had electronics? Only as far back as 1982, right? “He swore if he’d won, he’d buy back the entire building.” Daredevil sneaks in and has a look-see. As much of a look-see as a blind man can both look and see. Which is not at all, as it turns out.

He can make out the faintest of noises. Metal on metal. Maybe a hum. Maybe a buzz. A low din. Maybe a ruffle. Perhaps a titter. A squeak. A moo.

Daredevil slowly steps down the basement where he discovers these holographic android entities shuffling around. But solid. They’re not images! Daredevil shoves one to prove it. Yep, solid. *shoves again*

The room full of these Daredevil-looking androids start going “KZZKKT” “KZZKKT” “KZZKKT”.

“What are you?” Daredevil asks out loud.

“Are you? Are you? Are you? Are you?” the androids repeat in unison. Daredevil decides to retreat; these guys are screwing with his remaining four senses! Especially taste. He’s got spearmint gum in his mouth and tastes like a turd. He accidentally smacks an android with a stick and it shrieks like a motherfucker. Then they all shriek. Then, one by one, their heads start exploding. Daredevil cowers in the corner like a little wuss.

Daredevil (Vol. 3), Issue #2

Gotta get out of here before I do a Scanners all over the place!

Daredevil blacks out and wakes up to a bunch of androids getting back to their business: the business of building something. Whatever it may be. “I can’t move my arms or legs,” Daredevil notices. “Why can’t I move?”

“What are they doing to me?”

It is revealed that Daredevil is completely suspended within and hooked up to a metal contraption. It doesn’t look very cozy.

Final Thoughts

I don’t know man, this really ran off the rails at the end there. It’s almost like my comic book with blind superheroes is outlandish and improbable!

What a sticky situation for Matthew Mulaney Murdock. I hope he gets out of this one by the skin of his eyeballs.


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Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist (2008)

Tagline:
This October, press play.

Wide Release Date:
October 3, 2008

Directed by:
Peter Sollett
Screenplay by:
Lorene Scafaria
Based on the novel by:
Rachel Cohn, David Levithan
Produced by:
Kerry Kohansky Roberts, Andrew Miano, Chris Weitz, Paul Weitz

Starring:
Michael Cera
Kat Dennings
Alexis Dziena
Ari Graynor
Aaron Yoo
Jay Baruchel

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

PREGAME THOUGHTS

I was in the middle of college when this came out, at a time when it seemed like quirky indie romance movies were hitting the theaters constantly like a barrage of my paintballs against your face. Most of the ones I saw were garbage (She’s Out of My League), some were ok (500 Days of Summer), but most I never bothered seeing.

Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist had always intrigued me for its title alone, although I wasn’t expecting much from it. It almost sounded more sappy and Hallmark-y than you would get from a late ’00s indie romance romp. But, now, in 2023, I find myself with an opportunity to watch it! Was I missing out for these last 15 years?? Will this change my life???

THE 250(ish)-WORD SYNOPSIS

Once things get going, most of the movie takes place over the course of one evening. Michael Cera is Nick, a very Michael Cera character who plays bass in a band called The Jerk-Offs. Nick pines over his ex, Tris (Alexis Dziena), who is also a friend of Norah (Kat Dennings) and Caroline (Ari Graynor). Try to keep up, I know I’m throwing A TON OF NAMES AT YOU. Nick keeps making Tris mixtapes that Norah finds interesting. And so begins the budding romance sight unseen!

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

Her?

Nick’s gay friends and bandmates, Dev (Rafi Gavron) and Thom (Aaron Yoo), hoist Nick out of his funk in order to play a gig and then try to find a secret show by a band called “Where’s Fluffy?” somewhere in Manhattan.

Norah, Tris, and Caroline end up at the Jerk-Offs show, and this is where the sequence of events unfold. Tris teases Norah for not having a boyfriend, Norah asks Nick to pretend to be her boyfriend, Caroline drinks too much, Dev and Thom offer to try to find Caroline so that Nick and Norah can spend more time together, Caroline escapes from Dev and Thom’s van after thinking they’re going to rape her, Nick and Norah meet up with Dev and Thom to try to find Caroline, and omg lol the hijinks never end.

Nick eventually offers to give Tris a ride home, deserting Norah. He feels bad later and apologizes. They meet up at Electric Lady Studios, which, as it turns out, is owned by Norah’s father. They fuck in the music studio.

Not much else of importance happens after that! Jay Baruchel is also in this movie. If you’re like me, you barely know who he is.

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

What’s up baby, I’m UNDECLARED don’t you know.

TOM’S DISCUSSION CORNER

TOPIC 1 — I Didn’t Like This Movie

Aside from the touching moments near the end in Electric Lady Studios, and the hilarious concept of straight guy Nick in a queercore band with his three gay best friends, I found this Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist dull and meandering. People seem to like this type of movie, like The Hangover or Dude, Where’s My Car? where most of the movie is just driven by a thin plot, characters bouncing from one locale to the next looking for someone or something. Nick and Norah handles it a little better, but the characters are barely fleshed out anyway and I wasn’t invested in any of them. I wasn’t invested in the story. A lot of the time was spent slowly building Nick and Norah’s relationship into something positive by the end of the night, but I didn’t care. She likes his taste in music, there’s a whole trope where the girl uses her existence to get the dejected boy back on track, she’s pleasant and awkward, he’s pleasant and awkward, it’s all very middle of the road.

Perhaps the pacing is just too quick. Almost the whole movie takes place over the course of one evening, so there’s some suspension of disbelief that these two would start falling for each other. They never get really lovey-dovey, which I appreciate and do find realistic, but I never felt there was this Aha! moment between them before they get to the studio. People comment on their great chemistry, but I didn’t pick up on it. Everything felt too shallow to matter.

Is that enough? One more thing. There’s a scene where the drunk girl pukes in a train station public restroom and fishes her gum out of the vomit-filled toilet. Fucking gross.

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

Check it out, guys, someone’s holding up some dead weight here, heh heh. And it’s Michael Cera.

TOPIC 2 — Michael Cera

The masses saw three years of George Michael Bluth and thought “hey, yeah, we need a lot more of this”, apparently. This guy was everywhere between 2007 and 2010 and, obviously, that over-saturation caused a quick decline. What else has he really been in since 2012 besides the two extra seasons of Arrested Development? I don’t recognize any of the credits after Scott Pilgrim.

I used to be charmed by Michael Cera, but I’m almost exactly his age. That, and, like anyone else charmed by Michael Cera, they see a lot of themselves in him. This is especially true of his George Michael era; being in high school at the time, it was like watching myself on TV. It still makes me cringe to this day, but that was part of the genius of Cera’s performances. He was the quintessential awkward teenager for most of the ’00s.

Obviously, it started wearing thin when he started getting older. Suddenly, this awkward man-child wasn’t as fun to watch bumble around like he’s afraid to talk to girls. And then it became obvious that, as good as he is at what he does, he doesn’t have much range as an actor.

On top of it all, his handsome boyishness isn’t there anymore. The dude looks like he’s got a Brillo pad stuck to his head these days. Very uncouth.

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

George Michael’s finest hour.

IMDb TRIVIA FUNHOUSE!

Norah is a Jewish girl attending a Catholic high school. This is explained in the book that Norah wants to attend any school Caroline does, but due to Caroline’s obnoxious behavior, she’s kicked out of every school she’s been to and is only accepted at a Catholic school.
So Norah gets to decide which school she gets to go to? Norah’s dad is too busy running a music studio that he can’t even say “no” to her daughter’s obsession with switching schools every time her shitty friend gets kicked out of one? This angers me.

Nick’s cellphone ring tone is “Boys Don’t Cry” by The Cure. (The lyrics tell the story of a man who has given up trying to regain the love of a girl that he has lost, and tries to disguise his true emotional state by “laughing, hiding the tears in [his] eyes, ’cause boys don’t cry”.)
lol, if I had a ringtone of The Cure I’d probably keep my phone on vibrate indefinitely.

The trailer shows an alternate version of the club scene kiss with Nick and Norah. When Tris comes up to ask them how they met – it is Nick who tells Tris that they have the same dentist. In the actual movie, Norah is the one that tells this to Tris.
THAT IS VERY INTERESTING. COLOR ME VERY INTERESTED. The alternate version would have really sunk this movie, I’m glad they decided to go with Norah on this one.

The Yugo that Nick drives is the same one that John McClane steals in Die Hard with a Vengeance.
The exact same one? Unlikely. If John McClane stole it, how does Nick O’Leary have it 13 years later? Idiot.

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

Are we recording? I just learned “Turkey in the Straw”.

IS IT WORTH A WATCH?

No. Nick & Norah’s Infinitely Playlist was capitalizing on Michael Cera’s mid-’00s fame, and there’s not much substance beyond that. Skip it! Thank you for playing.


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