Invincible, Issue #3

* Part 3 of 4 of the Family Matters storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Invincible, Issue #3! In the previous installment, Mark sneaks out of his room in the dead of night and flies to the toy store where he meets a group of four superheroes known as the Teen Team. They are there to stop a big blue guy named Mauler from stealing a pallet of video game consoles for their processors in order to build a robot army! Or something to that effect. They let Mark on the team.

Mark learns that one of the heroes, Atom Eve, has been in his biology class the whole time! They’re totally gonna fuck later. She starts showing him the ropes a bit.

The issue ended with a man exploding in a mall. He had a bomb strapped to his chest and I don’t think he was too happy to be dead one second after he woke up on a bench. We’ll see more about that soon!

Invincible, Issue #3 [March, 2003]
Written by: Robert Kirkman

Invincible, Issue #3Mark goes to Reginald VelJohnson high school, which is the single funniest thing I’ve seen in a comic book. Look that up. “We are currently working with the authorities to give them all the information we can in order to help them locate the missing students,” Mr. Principal says during one of those school-type press conferences. What do you call them? Assemblies, yeah. The principal tries to assure the student body that these three students are friends and this disappearance may have been planned, so, like, don’t freak out yet. OK?

Later in the hallway, Mark admits to Eve that, in nicer words, “Good riddance”. Green Day, baby. Eve calls him cruel, saying that she can’t speak for the other two, but TODD JEFFERSON was always nice to her. Mark tells her it’s because she has the pussy. Eve thinks Mark is hitting on her. Mark gets a giant anime sweat drop.

Now that Eve has made it weird, Mark doesn’t make it any more reassuring that he’s not creeping on her: following her to the cafeteria, asking to sit next to her. She’s not into it whatsoever, but this really dumb teenager isn’t picking up any of the very obvious social cues.

…

…

“So…” Mark hazards with a smile, “sure is fun being a superhero, isn’t it?”

“Did you hear there was another mall bombing?” Eve responds, not listening fully. Just sucking all that fun right out the Funnest Place on Earth. The school cafeteria.

Robot is on these scene trying to figure out what’s going on, but the bombs are so powerful that they’re destroying all the evidence on the scene. We’re talking Fat Man and Little Boy. We’re talking Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We’re talking Oklahoma City. We’re talking How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love It.

Another bombing! Why that’s two in three weeks! That’s one every week-and-a-half! That’s, like, half a bombing every 126 hours, man. That’s almost as long as it took James Franco to cut off an arm! Sorry, you were saying?

God, the panels here are awful. Nothing good yet to include in the post! Sorry, more words ahead.

Eve wants to know if this kid is serious about joining the Teen Team yet? He should swing by after school and make it official with all those ritual paddlings that all new members are required to undergo. Mark can’t make it, he’s going to work at the Burger Butt even though his dad is a big rich “semi-famous novelist”. Working builds character! I think Mark’s been hanging around Calvin’s Dad a little too much lately. Building character by working at fast food restaurants and digging holes and the like. Grinding down pennies until they’re the size of dimes and using them in vending machines! Nothing builds character like victimless crimes.

Mark’s friend William thinks he and Eve are going out. “Trust me. She is not my girlfriend,” Mark half-complains.

Invincible, Issue #3

Building character through irreversible crippling depression.

At the Burger Fuck, Mark’s manager hollers at the kid for spacing out. Customers are demanding their awful, greasy food! Clientele of varying degrees of obesity, ranging from morbidly to catatonically, are going through fat and sugar withdrawals. STEP ON IT, KID.

How about no? Life’s too short to not be using super powers at every minute of every day! Mark calls his Nazi boss a jerk and storms out of there with a BIG OL’ SMILE on his face.

Then he stands outside near the dumpsters with a BIG OL’ FROWN. “Dad’s going to kill me.” You better hope that’s the least he’ll do. Dad is super strong, he could rip your limbs off like wings on a fly. HOWEVER, lucky for Mark, Dad’s on the same page. In fact, right after dinner, Dad even suggests quitting! He’s like “you’re a dang superhero, stop flipping burgers and start flipping bad guys”. Mark smiles in a patented Mark-style aw-shucks face and tells his dad that maybe, heh, maybe he could swing that. Heh heh.

Dad later catches Mark squeezing into his Invincible costume. So proud, this mustachioed dad is of his acne-riddled son. Mark’s gonna go patrollin’! Dad asks if he’d like him to join. “I think we’re about due for a team-up.” Daaaawwwww!!

They take off and fly side-by-side while having a congenial fatherly-sonnily chatty chat. “You’ve done a lot of good these past three months. To be honest, I’m quite impressed.” Really? Mark has barely done shit except sneak out of bed late at night and accidentally make the girl at school uncomfortable. Mark thanks his dad. Dad tells him to keep up the good work.

Something bad’s gonna go down soon. This issue is too banal and sinister! I have nothing to talk about! Have I mentioned my love of mostaccioli before in this blog? Several times, actually! There’s a little Easter egg for ya. Find all the mentions of mostaccioli in my blog and win a prize! The prize is your testicles hooked up to a car battery.

Invincible, Issue #3

Behold, the representative exciting tone of the comic book so far.

Father and Son go to BEEFY FRANK’S, where the two enjoy a meal of American-style hot dogs! Dad admits that since Mark is a loathsome half-blood, he may never get to be as powerful as Dad. Do I even know Dad’s name? Is “Omni-Man” his God-given Christian name from Planet Quoobs or wherever he’s from?

Hold that thought, Dad’s superhero pager is going off… and he’s gonna need Mark’s help with this one! Whattaya say, buddy old pal? Ready to do crime-busting with Dad?? You bet you are! *noogie*

They fly high in the sky, guy! Jets are fighting with other jets, so I assume this is the military versus some other military? “Let’s help these boys out!” Dad grunts as he flies around like a dang superhero. Invincible punches some dudes, making Dad proud.

BOOM BOOM POW BOOM POW HURK MOO. Aircraft explodes, guys are blowing up, Dad says that these jets keep flying out of “that portal”.

Invincible, Issue #3

Says you! I’m from Jersey City!

Looks like it’s aliens, Scully. “Let me help you find your way home,” Mark cries, uppercutting this bitch and sending him flying back toward the large pink portal.

“I think we’re dealing with some sort of other-dimensional army here,” Omni-Man does some Omni-Mansplaining. “I don’t recognize these things at all. Which means they could have an entire universe worth of soldiers ready to spill out of that thing!” Well well well, things aren’t that easy for the most powerful sorta-human in the world, is it? Is this part where Mark watches his dad die? Hilarious!

SKRAGG! That’s the sound of Omni-Man ripping an alien jet into two pieces. Invincible continues punching aliens. “Wait a second,” Invincible hesitates by waiting a second. “…is it just me or are these guys getting slower?”

Yeah, that’s pretty sus. In fact, now that they look… even… harder… at these guys… *leans in for a kiss* … they seem to be aging right before they’re very eyeballs! It sure is making beating these losers up much easier. They’re, as Omni-Man says, using an Earthian English expression, “dropping like flies”. Even so, there are about a quintillion of them and poor widdle Invincible is getting tired and, uh, more Vincible by the minute.

“GET OFF MY PLANET!” Omni-Man screams as he launches an alien tank toward a group of aliens who aren’t currently in tanks. Invincible gingerly approaches his dad, who is snarling and growling and frothing up a storm. “It’s ok, Dad. They’re leaving. It’s over.” Invincible points over to the portal where the aliens are retreating. They look sad. “You’re right, let’s go,” Omni-Man responds. And just like that, they go.

This doesn’t happen often. Another couple of nanoseconds and Omni-Man would’ve had to call in for backup. Guardians of the Globe. Megaforce. NAMBLA. Whoever was available. Anyway, let’s head home! I think Mom made a pile of chicken nuggets and–

OH NO! LAKESIDE MALL! LET’S BOOGIE!

Invincible, Issue #3

Heh, uh… hey Dad… let’s try not to strangle the patronage, ok?

Omni-Man speeds ahead faster than Invincible can keep up. Eventually, Invincible makes it to the mall where he discovers a giant hole plowed into the roof. Then, as you can see, dad’s fucking up some kid’s shit. Well, the kid has a bomb strapped to his chest with three seconds left on the timer.

“Quickly! Tell me who did this to you!” Omni-Man bellows, hoisting the kid up by his jacket.

“D– did what?”

Then the superhero tosses this kid through the hole in the roof. The kid explodes. Everyone is safe!… except for the exploded kid.

“That was one of the missing students from my school!” Invincible exclaims. Omni-Man thinks on this for a moment. “But that would mean–”

We don’t get to know what that would mean. A portal appears behind him and an alien drags him right through. “Dang it,” Invincible stares at the empty air before him. Bye bye, Pops! Maybe forever? I’m still predicting a dead dad scenario here.

Invincible flies home to his bedroom and puts on his Mark clothes. I’d hate to be him right now, having to tell his mother the bad news! I’ve had to tell my mother the bad news in my day; I failed college. I got fired. I’m addicted to heroin and fentanyl cocktails. But I’ve never had to break news THIS bad before. And I’ve watched Breaking Bad twice.

“I guess I can look forward to you both being late from now on,” Mom sighs, setting the table.

Ha ha. Uhm. “Actually… Dad was sucked into a portal about fifteen minutes ago, I don’t think he’ll be home tonight. It was some aliens we fought earlier today… I’m sure he’s fine.”

…

“Well that’s more pork chops for us,” Mom replies, emoting like a mailbox.

Final Thoughts

“Dad”, if that is his real name, is probably going to need to be rescued from another dimension by his son IF he has already been eviscerated and heavily probed in the buttocks.

I predict Mark’s going to have to leave for an extended time with his new Teen Team. That’s a lot of extra pork chops for Mom. She’s a lucky gal.


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The Eye of the World (Book 1) – Chapter 41: “Old Friends and New Threats”

The Wheel of Time - Book 1 - The Eye of the World

Rand runs and runs like Forrest Gump back to the inn, not stopping for anything. Not even for a beer or whatever it is young men drink in Caemlyn. Cream soda? He tells Master Gill and Loial the Ogier what had happened with the Queen and her creepy kin, which Gill doesn’t believe at first! Poppycock and whatnot! But then when he realizes it’s all true, he goads Rand and Mat into leaving the city immediately before the Whitecloaks ransack every inn looking for them. Loial, again, asks to join Rand on his merry adventures. Rand declines again, but then half-heartedly allows him to join once they shove off.

Whitecloaks have entered the inn! Let the ransacking commence! It doesn’t work, because Gill is an intimidating man that I’m picturing as Jim Belushi and he is able to convince the Whitecloaks to do an about-face and leave the inn forever.

Rand is about to try to explain that he has no idea why the Whitecloaks are after him when a maid pops her head into the room and says that there’s a woman asking for Rand. Who could that be? There would never be any woman asking for Rand, that’s for damn– Nynaeve! Perrin! Egwene! Moiraine! Lan! Simon! Theodore! ALLLLLLVIIIIIINNN!!

They catch up all friendly-like, explaining to one another their various adventures since they all split off. Rand has to tell the group that Thom is dead, which makes everyone shift uncomfortably. Rand notices that Perrin is all weird now, but he doesn’t see his yellow eyes yet. Time to visit Mat! He’s been curled in bed for about 490 hours sick with some sort of plague! Don’t get too close now.

Mat is sick with something all right. He’s sick with “Butthead Fever”, because he starts saying mean, nasty things to the group that he hasn’t seen in days and days. He calls Nynaeve a pretty young woman who isn’t supposed to think of herself as a pretty young woman, but she does anyway. He also calls Egwene a pretty young woman who shares other, more nefarious similarities with Nynaeve. When Moiraine enters the room, he hisses like Catwoman repeatedly. Mat tries to stab her with the ruby-studded dagger that he stole from Shadar Logoth, but Lan stops him in time. Quick as a ninja, that one.

This is the part where Rand finally admits that Mat had stolen the thing, which went explicitly against Moiraine’s very specific instructions to “not fuck up”. That dagger acts like a magnet to Fades, Darkfriends, and Kanye West. No wonder they’ve been chased around for weeks! They probably just brought another Trolloc war to Caemlyn. Total jerk move, guys.

Mat is not far-gone just yet! Hopefully! Moiraine tells everyone to leave her with Mat so that she can work on exorcising his demons. That probably just entails slapping him around for a bit, which is what I would do anyway.


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Sucky Funnies for February 5, 2023

I ate two bowls of Golden Grahams this morning, and it was the highlight of my day. On the list of things I did this morning, reading the Sunday funnies was about 480th on my list of things that made me feel productive.

I also drew a circle on the wall and pressed my nose up against it for 20 minutes. That was 15th on my list.

Rex Morgan, M.D.

Rex Morgan, M.D. - February 5, 2023

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REX MORGAN BRINGING THE FUNNY. Good god, man, this makes Family Circus look like… uh… Def Comedy Jam? Fantastic analogy.

Let’s jump to Sarah’s room. I’m going to flesh this part of the story out a little bit! Rex is reading Sarah the Bible. After one of those stories about God killing a whole town full of innocent people, Sarah begs for more deity carnage. Rex wants to get loaded, so he’s trying to wrap this up as quickly as possible. Tomorrow, Sarah’s going to read more from Rex’s Kama Sutra collection. Rex agrees to let Sarah draw penises in her diary for another 20 minutes before bed. Tomorrow is Saturday, but Rex is making her go to school anyway.

Meanwhile, the quotation marks around “twins” implies marriage infidelity.

Hey, this comic strip was funny after all!

Mallard Fillmore

Mallard Fillmore - February 5, 2023

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Holy goddamn crap, this Mallard Fillmore punchline is teetering precariously over humorous territory. Has the world turned itself ass over elbows??

America is FULL of one-star prisons. Up your game, prison system. I suggest electric chairs that shoot out chocolate syrup instead of 2,500 volts, and prison gangs that revolve more around knitting than around shivving inmates of different races between the ribs.

Blondie

Blondie - February 5, 2023

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Why does Dagwood continue to work at a company where his boss performs the Argentine backbreaker rack whenever he fucks up his spreadsheets? He could be synergizing with friendly, young professionals. He could be playing in the ball pit at the Google offices. He could be turning tricks in the alley behind Arby’s.

Or just quit working altogether! Let Blondie have her chance mashing her nose against the grindstone. Then Dagwood can spend more time reconsidering their awful furniture arrangement situation.


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Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #5 – “Rings”

* Part 5 of 6 of the Green Lantern: Rebirth limited Series *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #5 – “Rings”! In the previous installment, the big fights ensue! Parallax vs. Spectre and Parallax vs. Hal Jordan and Sinestro vs. Kyle Rayner and Parallax vs. Ganthet and Hal Jordan vs. Sinestro and Sinestro vs. Green Arrow and the Justice League stands there looking extremely incompetant and useless! There were like 76 of them and they were all pointless! They can go fuck themselves.

Hal Jordan is alive! He got his ring now and he’s alive and he’s going to kick some butt and I’m excited and I’m 12 years old and let’s go!

Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #5 [April, 2005]
Written by: Geoff Johns
“Rings”

Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #5

CHECK OUT THAT COVER! HAL JORDAN IS GOING TO KNOCK SINESTRO’S DICK IN THE DIRT! WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP!

We’re in the Watchtower, the Justice League HQ, where Kyle Rayner is bleeding all over the place while Sinestro tears shit up. Hal Jordan has his ring pointed right at the yellow dude for serious. “I told you Sinestro, get the hell away from them.”

Rayner is staring up in slightly-horny awe. The uniform looks majestic. The ring fits a glove. You know, like the kind of glove that fits. And the glow! Oh, the glow! What a glow!

“When I was first recruited, I was told ‘do not challenge those more powerful than you’,” muses Hal. “Funny stuff.”

Sinestro is NOT afraid. He’s gonna fight his yellow fight, and with barely any effort he blasts Hal right through the wall of the Watchtower… which I guess is on the moon? Hal bounces about 17 times on the ground before he stops. He must be halfway around the moon. He looks out of the page at the reader shoots a rather dashing smile. This ain’t nuthin’.

Sinestro launches himself across the moon to go after Hal. It’s like, this guy sucks ass showing his face around here again! Foiling my yellow plans! Well, no mas! Not today!

As Sinestro gets closer, Hal checks his ring’s stats. 99.4% charged, good, good. There’s nothing in his head that’s scrambling his brains. No Spectre. No Parallax. Just Hal Jordan and all of his nasty little thoughts. We’re good to go.

Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #5

Oh baby, keep those nasty little thoughts coming!

Sinestro leaps at Hal with the power of 45 mega-locomotives! Hands wrapped around the Green Lantern’s throat, they both spiral through space as streaks of green and yellow. A couple of buddies, these two. They hug and fight in the middle of outer space. “You took the oath too seriously,” Sinestro stammers as Hal has an arm wrapped around his neck. “You abandoned it,” Hal responds as Sinestro grabs Hal’s jaw. So cute.

After a spell, Hal decides that his ring is charged up enough to give it all he’s got. BAM! That yellow bitch gets sent a couple thousand miles in the other direction! He revs up the ring again and chases Sinestro down.

“The oath abandoned me,” Sinestro retorts. “You all did. When you ripped Korugar from my hands, you left it in chaos. Under the care of a naive child.”

Yes, yes, this is all about how Sinestro is butthurt that he isn’t in charge of his smelly hellhole of a planet anymore. He’s so butthurt, in fact, that he sends a thousand yellow shards flying in Hal’s face.

“You wanted vengeance against me and the Corps,” Hal says, fighting back the shards. “I don’t believe in vengeance.” And here’s the thing, though. Are you ready for the thing, Hal? “You were vengeance. Pure vengeance. And you are a murderer.”

Sinestro brings the tough love, wouldn’t you say? The poor boy just wants to have a little control, that’s all.

Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #5

You can’t control your cat, Sinestro. You gonna kill your cat?

Hal Jordan remembers his first encounter with Sinestro while he was flying one of Ferris’ jets, helping R&D some new tracking devices. His radar detected something straight ahead. “I thought I was alone up here,” he radioed the control tower. They confirmed nothing on their own screen.

His eyes widen in the universal behavior of “oh shit” as he sees a Green Lantern Sinestro hovering above the clouds, arms crossed and staring straight at the jet.

BOOOOM. Sinestro destroys the jet and captures Hal in a green bubble. “Green Lantern of Sector 2814. You are wasting time.” Hal doesn’t know who the FUCK this douche is, but he is Sinestro! Sinestro of Sector 1417! Don’t you forget it!

Sector 1417. The most orderly sector in the universe. Hal is kind of impressed, and obviously Sinestro’s reputation precedes. He keeps things spic and span over in 1417. He bought a lot of those Mr. Clean Magic Erasers. Those things are a godsend!

Sinestro is here to help Hal continue his training. Being the best dang Green Lantern of all the Green Lanterns has its perks! Perks such as… helping Hal continue his training? What a drag, man. “Only a select few have been honored,” Sinestro drawls as he name drops a few nerds that mean nothing to Hal nor I. Who the hell is Arkkis Chummuck? Some kind of groundhog?

What about the jet? That was a $20,000,00 jet! Use your special best-Green-Lantern-ever powers and cough up some dough before Hal gets whiny and wheezy! Sinestro says no and tells him to fall in line. Don’t talk to your superior officer in this manner. He’ll get his belt, don’t test him.

Pffft. Hal goes by the beat of his own drum. “Own-Drum Hal” they call him.

And tensions have been high ever since!

Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #5

Now get on the floor and lick my boots, you worthless scum. Go on, now.

Back in the present, these two lovebirds are fighting within Saturn’s rings now. Bashing each other around the rocks and ice.

“Your mind is like a muscle. Unused for years. You forgot how to use the power ring,” Sinestro sneers while Hal sneers back. “I can see it, Jordan. You’re sweating. Working too hard. You’re working too slow.”

Sinestro claims that he has contacted the Parallax to return to Earth and consume it. He controls the Parallax as he controls Hal. He controls everything, or he destroys it! I think that point was made clear earlier. Then he’ll kill Kyle Rayner because that kid looks like he eats bugs.

Yeah, well, Kyle’s the man. He stepped up! Respect him! You’ll eat the bugs, Sinestro! You’ll eat the bugs!

“Green Arrow says hi,” Hal proclaims calmly as a dozen green arrows piece through Sinestro’s torso. Then he fashions some chains and shackles and crushes his wrist to keep Sinestro’s willpower down.

It doesn’t work very well. He returns the attack. But Hal is ready.

Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #5

Thank you for turning me into a disintegrating skeleton, young man! Your training is complete!

Hal fights back so hard that Sinestro’s ring cracks. Then it shatters. Then Sinestro is fucked, but he’s happy. Everyone wins.

Rayner floats up out of nowhere and asks if Sinestro is dead. Hal calls up his ring’s Alexa and the answer is a resounding NO. He escaped into an extra-dimensional vortex! Duh! It’s the anti-matter universe where Sinestro was first banished, like, last Tuesday or something. Being able to track him now will be impossible even though, from my understanding, these power rings can literally do anything. Hold it at your crotch and it’ll suck your dick.

OK, well, don’t worry about Sinestro for now. Let’s do the important thing FIRST…

Hal sticks out his hand. “Hal Jordan.”

Kyle shakes Hal’s hand. “Kyle. Kyle Rayner.”

Beautiful! The handshake creates a nice orb of friendly, green light. It looks just like the usual angry green light, though. It’s hard to tell the difference, and one needn’t. Don’t worry about the various emotions and the dispositions of the green light, we’ll let Geoff Johns take care of that.

Rayner confirms that everyone is ok. Ollie Green Arrow Man is fine. The other who-cares Justice League members are fine, maybe, who cares. Then he looks glum. “You already know, I’m not like the other Lanterns, Jordan. I’m not… I’m not a guy that can overcome great fear or whatever.”

Hal laughs! HA HA HA! HA! Look, son, you have the heart and you care and yada yada yada. Touching moment alert. You know how these go already. Plus, being able to confront Sinestro and living to tell the tale is a pretty cool story! You can tell your friends, if you even have any!

Hal flies away while Rayner smiles like a starstruck little bitch.

Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #5

I want some corn, mac & cheese, bananas, lemons, pineapples, a dang stick of butter, lots of cheddar cheese, potato chips, and, ooooh, French fries! With mustard! And some piss.

Something very scary has happened to Ganthet. An inconvenient possession by the Parallax, it seems? Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.

So now Ganthet the big powerful Guardian is compromised. What are Guy Gardner, John Stewart, and Kilowog going to do?!

NEVER FEAR, THE UNDERDOGS ARE HERE! DOOT DOOT DOOT DOOOOO!! Hal and Rayner arrive, get hearty hellos, and they all ready their stupid rings. “Remember fear and you can shake off Parallax,” Hal advises vaguely. Even Guy Gardner doesn’t like that advice. Sounds like wankery, sir.

It don’t matter anyway. A batarang cuts through the scene. “Jordan,” says an unhappy Batman surrounded by his fellow unhappy Justice League buddies, “as long as I’m standing – you’re not doing anything.”

Final Thoughts

Final Thoughts? FINAL THOUGHTS?! Here’s a final thought for you: there’s one issue left before the Geoff Johns run kicks off proper! Hoo boy, what a yarn this is turning out to be. I hope Hal glues Superman’s butt to Batman’s face.


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Derry Girls, Season 1 – ’90s Northern Irish Tomfooleries

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: Derry Girls, Season 1 (2018) (Channel 4)

Derry Girls, Season 1
My wife has been wanting to watch this! I thought the premise sounded interesting, plus it’s one of those tune-in-and-zone-out sitcoms that I probably needed in my life at the moment.

The Premise

Derry Girls follows five friends living their daily lives in Derry, Northern Ireland in the 1990s during the Northern Ireland Conflict. The main characters are Catholic, and therefore on the side of the conflict that wanted Northern Ireland to be unified with Ireland. We all know how that turned out, but hey, this isn’t about history! This is about Derry Girls, and the Northern Ireland Conflict is just the backdrop of the show. It’s not really about that, sorta kinda.

Saoirse-Monica Jackson is the ambitious Erin, who I would consider the de facto lead in the ensemble cast. Jamie-Lee O’Donnell is Michelle, the boisterous and wild one! Nicola Coughlan is Clare, the anxious, prim and proper one! Orla, (Louisa Harland), Erin’s cousin, is the weird one! There’s also James (Dylan Llewellyn), who isn’t a Derry Girl at all, but rather an English Boy who becomes the only male student at the Catholic school. He gets shit on constantly by Michelle. They’re cousins.

Antics and hilarity ensue!

Derry Girls, Season 1

We’re not going to milk that cow. Who do you think we are, the Dairy Girls?

My Half-Baked Thoughts

I may be biased because I spent exactly 100% of my viewing time enraptured by the Irish accents, but this show is pretty good! It’s certainly a fresh perspective, gearing more toward “I’m accidently complicit in attempting to smuggle this Irish Republican Army guy across the border” type storylines, and not so much the American “muh face is fat” storylines. Other storylines include the families hosting Ukrainian students as part of the Chernobyl Children International exchange program; a dog peeing on an upper floor of the church, leading to what looks like tears coming from a Virgin Mary statue; the group (including James) developing a crush on the hot, young priest who is vaguely, second-guessing his life of God dedication; many, many more! A finite amount. Maybe lose one “many”.

Derry Girls, Season 1

The Hot Priest is just one of the many zany characters you’ll find packing each episode of Derry Girls!

I was floored to learn the ages of these five people playing teenagers. In 2018, the “kids” were the following ages:

Saoirse-Monica Jackson – 25
Louisa Harland – 25
Dylan Llewellyn – 26
Nicola Coughlan – 31
Jamie-Lee O’Donnell – 31

Who doesn’t love watching 30+ year olds play teenagers? That shit never goes out of style. 31! Two of these women, approved and cast in a TV show about teenagers at a Catholic school, were 31! I remember being completely beside myself when I learned Alan Ruck was 30 years old when he played Cameron Frye in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. But 31? That means when the show ended, they were both 35. Is that a record? If someone knows if anyone older played a teenager, please let me know. That’s fucking nuts.

Derry Girls, Season 1

Yes, this is pretty much the default temperament of the group.

Anyway, being exactly .0000005% Northern Irish myself (I’m barely exaggerating), I’ve been interested in Derry Girls‘ existence. This show prompted me to look up details about Northern Ireland Conflict, and let me tell you, they were pretty boring! First of all, only 3,500 people were killed in 30 years? That’s only 1/3 of a person per day! Almost as many people get struck by lightning per year. Alec Baldwin has shot more people in the face! Allegedly. Second of all, have I mentioned the age of these Catholic school students? I know that has nothing to do with the conflict, but that seems to be the bigger atrocity. Sorry, I don’t have much to say about the Northern Ireland Conflict. I’m not very good at reading large pages of words!

Who are the best characters? None of the main five! The best characters are, in reverse order, the following two: Joe McCool, Erin’s acerbic grandfather, who lives with the family and hates Gerry Quinn (Erin’s father) with a passion. He will often tell his daughter to get a divorce and find someone else right in front of Gerry. He’s great.

Then there’s Sister George Michael, the nun headmistress of the school. She is constantly annoyed by the children, she shows no respect for the priests, and she says every blunt thought that’s on her mind. You can count the number of times she rolls her eyes on about 10 hands!

Bonus option: Saoirse-Monica Jackson makes the best faces.

Derry Girls, Season 1

“I’d love to go to prom with you. Hyuk hyuk.”

Back to the Irish accents for a moment, I’m obsessed with the way they pronounce the word “now”. It’s like the band Neu! (as in, “noy”). They’re all like “I have to go to the loo roight noy.” It’s incredible.

Worth the Watch?

Yes indeed. There are three total seasons (or “series”, if you’re not a filthy American like I am), each only six episodes. I haven’t continued, but normal people without lives and jobs can bang this whole thing out in a weekend. I look forward to continuing.

Perhaps I’ll do it right noy.

Derry Girls, Season 1

Now with 80% more Derry Non-Girls.


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