Picket Fences had a classic Halloween episode as they jumped int0 the history of Rome, Wisconsin and reopened a case from the past.
The case of Rosemary Bauer was unknown to all of us, but the writers did a magnificent job of making it important to the audience by placing several of our key characters at the heart of the original case.
It was believed that the beautiful Rosemary Bauer had jumped out of her window and committed suicide when she had found her husband having an affair with the maid. The maid, Karina Shaw, sunk into a mental breakdown, never to speak again… that is, until the most recent Halloween in Rome when, during the playing of “Ragtime Gal” Karina said the word, “murder.”
That was enough to get Maxine’s investigatory juices flowing and she tried to get the case reopened. The Mayor and Jimmy, who were new to their posts when the suicide happened, were insistent that it was a suicide. Rosemary had been Jill’s patient and the suicide shook Jill’s confidence.
With Maxine, Kenny and Carter leading the way, Jimmy started to wonder if he had rushed to judgement back 10 years prior to get the town past the suicide.
With an ending straight out of Psycho, Leo Bauer, the husband, was revealed to have killed Rosemary in a fit of rage when he found her in bed with Karina, and Leo had dug up the body of Rosemary and was keeping it in his house, dressing her in her wedding gown.
A very engaging and intriguing mystery and a solid pay off. Leo’s insanity did kind of come out of nowhere, but grief had truly crippled him.
The episode was also fun when they went to Carter’s Halloween party and we saw Douglas Wambaugh dressed as Dracula singing songs and Judge Bone dressed as a Martian (a throwback to actor Ray Walston’s past in My Favorite Martian).
This episode saw they debut of Howard Buss, who would become a major character over the life of the series.
It is November 1st and this is officially my anniversary in collecting comics. I have been collecting comics since I was in 5th grade, which makes this my 43rd year.
I remember the night well. I went to stay overnight at my friend, Jeff’s house. We were going to go trick or treating for Halloween. After that, Jeff and I went and hung out at his house. Jeff already collected comics and he showed me some of his books.
Jeff had what was called a “folder” at Comic World in Dubuque. The folder was basically a pull-list at the comic shop. Comic World is still the comic store that I buy my books from today. It has had different owners and lcoations, of course, but it is a cool thing.
The next morning I said that I was going to start collecting comics too. I had always been a superhero fan. I remembered being a big fan of the Batman TV series. I was always more of a Robin guy. I made my mom make me a Robin half-mask.
So November 1st became my anniversary. There were stretches where the amount of comics that I bought were down. The years after college were tough on money so I did not buy many during this period, but I never felt as if I was not a collector.
I am happy that this anniversary lands on NEW COMIC BOOK DAY and I will be heading to Comic World later today to buy my new issues. This year has starte da new push in my collecting as I have taken steps to get my collection organized and I am preparing for rebagging and reboarding the older books in my collection, hopefully next summer.
Here is to another 43 years!
PS: I spent the afternoon at Comic World and eating supper at Old Chicago with my friend Todd. He even sprung for the tax on my six dollar pizza….
Frank the Potato Man was one of my favorite recurring characters on Picket Fences. He had been mentioned earlier in the first season, but had not made an actual appearance. So now, we get some good people directing their biases toward poor Frank.
There is a serial bather running around Rome, breaking into houses and taking a bath. As silly as it sounded, it planted worries about sexual deviancies and sexual predators. And Frank, who had been watching high schoolers from across the street, becomes a prime suspect.
Because Frank was strange, odd… he became an easy target and Maxine and Kenny went out of their way to prove that Frank was the serial bather. They had no evidence except some of the slightest circumstantial evidence.
Still Rome gets stirred up into a craze. Even Jill, in worry over her children’s safety, was reacting in such a bigoted manner, all because Frank was different.
Douglas Wambaugh stepped up this episode though. His confrontation with Maxine over her tactics in trying to arrest Frank was an episode highlight. Any time Wambaugh drops the clown act and speaks truth, he is powerful. His reference to his parents dying in the Holocaust and that he knows about bigotry and oppression was an amazing moment. It is why a character who is seemingly as over the top as Wambaugh is, truthfully, a compelling and complex person.
Actor David Proval does a great job as Frank, the Potato Man. The sadness in his eyes is just painful as he takes the bigotry from everyone around him.
The ending of this episode was sad as we, once again, see that our main characters are just as likely to make mistakes and be bad as anyone. This show was truly ahead of its time.
This week’s Bonus Action kicked off almost immediately with…COMBAT!
Yes, we picked up with the group on the ship just after we had the drama of Victor’s backstroy last week and we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a battle with a monstrous Chimermaid.
Yes, I said Chimermaid.
It had multiple heads, a shark, eels, alligator etc. It was a horrific creature that gave our crew a real battle.
The battle featured several fun moments including:
Bric kicking off with some huge shots
Marlon having some of the worst luck rolling in a long time.
Bar’B and Todd coming up with an epic teamwork attack
It was nice to have Marlon end the battle after having such a tough time.
Then, after the battle, it was back to character development as sweet, sweet Rory kept talking to Victor and we had an awesome moment where Victor admitted what he needed was friends, and without saying it, he implied that Rory was his friend. It was a beautiful time and was a nice button on the end of an action packed episode.
This group of six D & D players have been excellent and are a lot of fun to watch.
A tough episode of Picket Fences that shined a light on the behavior and choices of all of our favorite characters all centered around the upcoming mayoral election between Mayor Pugen and Douglas Wambaugh.
It also goes into some deep character bits throughout the story, including fat shaming, lack of respect, businessmen and their criminal acts, and police overstepping their rights.
The end of this episode did feel anti-climatic and I think that that is the whole idea of the episode. There were no easy answer to these difficult questions and Picket Fences was never about giving easy answers to challenging questions.
One of the best things about the show is that these characters are real people, who all do good, who all do bad, who all just try to get by. No one is one-dimensional. They are all deep and developed.
By the way, there is also Douglas Wambaugh singing. Oh, the outrageousness of this show is just wonderful.
This is really the first time when our heroes looked tarnished. It would not be the last time.
The official DailyView Rewatch of Picket Fences starts tomorrow. I will be watching at least one episode daily through the month of November. I am looking forward to it.
The dancing midget from Twin Peaks arrives in Rome, Wisconsin riding on the back of an elephant.
Okay, so it wasn’t the dancing midget. However, the actor, Michael J. Anderson, who played said dancing midget played Peter Dreeb, a circus performer who had stolen an elephant from that circus because the circus owners were being cruel to the animal and beating it as a way of training.
Honestly, though, the animal cruelty aspect of this episode was down the list of the storylines. Mr. Dreeb and Maxine had some dates, and that was higher up than the case. Wambaugh and Mayor Pugen were looking for any camera they could stand in front of since they were both running for mayor. Kimberly’s gifted teacher was dismissed from his job because of a tumor that he had in his brain that was affecting his mental state. The teacher asked Jill to help with the surgery.
There were a bunch of scenes strung together without that major throughline. The finale of the show was very emotional and helped make the episode finish strongly, especially when focused on Jill, Jimmy and Kimberly.
This was a good episode with a strong ending, but was weaker than what this show is known for.
A film that has been on my “To Watch” list for a few weeks now has been the 2023 drama Fair Play. It has been on Netflix and today was the day that I finally got the chance to watch it. This one was quite brutal and turned really ugly.
Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich), who work together at a cutthroat hedge fund, were in love and became engaged to be married. Since they worked together, they were going to wait for the perfect time to let people know.
That perfect time did not come as an unexpected promotion at work started to create tension between the two ambitious people.
Watching these two individuals who had been in such a positive place at the beginning of the movie devolve into a brutal, toxic relationship was tough. The couple started slowly, with resentment being forced down, but the anger and frustration was never going to stay hidden and it was obvious to the audience that this engagement was doomed.
Both of our lead actors, Dynevor and Ehrenreich did a spectacular job playing the emotions that they were burying inside of them. As communication broke down, mistrust started filling the emptiness.
This is not a movie I would throw on to have a pick me up. It is most definitely a downer of a story, but it is extremely well told and acted. It is one of those movies that I would admire, but never want to see again.
Funny story to start off with this week. A few weeks ago, I read issue #3 of The Cull from Image Comics, but I actually did not know it was number three. Instead I thought it was number two. Why? Well, I had not gotten number one and when I got number two (the numbers of which are very small on the cover of the comics) I thought it WAS number one.
When I read issue two, thinking it was number one, things seemed to make sense for me. Where the issue picked up, it seemed to make sense for the story and the characters. It just felt like there were some holes that I assumed would be picked up on later in the five issues.
When I noticed that I was reading number three and not number two as I thought, I was surprised. I had The Cull on my pull list, and number two wound up pulled, but apparently, number one was not there. So I quickly went to eBay and bid on a #1 of the Cull. It came this week and I read it and, guess what? It made the actual number two and three make way more sense. Who would have thunk it?
The Cull is written by Kelly Thompson and has spectacular art by Mattia De Iulis.
Other new books read this week:
The Defenders #76-77. Written by Steven Grant and art by Herb Trimpe. I guess we are starting off with an “old” new book this week. This two issue arc of The Defenders came from 1979 and was the wrap up of the Omega the Unknown storyline from Omega #1-10. That was written by Steve Gerber and I had been following along with it for awhile now. This finished up the story, which I wonder if the fans of the Defenders hadn’t read Omega #1-10, would they understand what this was all about? It was nice to get a bow tied to the storyline though.
Howard the Duck #1-6 (MAX Comics). Written by Steve Gerber and penciled by Phil Winslade (except for issue three which was penciled by Glenn Leach. This six issue series was published in 2002 and had a “Parental Advisory Explicit Content” label on the covers. I saw this while surfing around eBay and I was able to get a good deal on it. It was strange because for most of the issues, Howard the Duck had been transformed into a 60-lb mouse instead. This was very much a satire and it poked fun at everything from politics to Witchblade to religion.
Gone #1. Written and illustrated by Jock. The larger scale book from OSTLRY is an interesting science-fiction tale. It was difficult to read at times because so much of it is new and the world building is so important in a new sci-fi series. It is a beautiful book and I will certianly be looking at in the coming weeks and months.
Universal Monsters: Dracula #1. Written by James Tynion IV and illustrated by Martin Simmonds. I do love me some James Tynion IV. I also love me some Dracula so this was a clear winner for me when I saw the ad for it in Previews a few months ago. This book is another top notch job from James Tynion IV and Martin Simmonds, who worked with Tynion on several projects, brings his distinct style of artistic flair to the book. I am happy to be able to say, “Blah Blah.”
Captain Marvel #1. “The Omen” Written by Alyssa Wong and featuring art by Jan Bazaldua. Stephen Segovia & Romulo Fajardo Jr. did the cover art. The MCU movie, The Marvels is just a few weeks away, so it is time for the new ongoing series for Carol Danvers, Captain Marvel to be replaced. And the storyline seems very similar to what I know of the storyline for The Marvels. Curious timing, hm?
Amazing Spider-Man #36. Written by Zeb Wells and penciled by Ed McGuinness. Rek-Rap is back and being chased by other demons to try and get him back to Limbo. Spider-Man joins in to the excitement, but has to team up with the demon on his “big case.” I’m not a big fan of Rek-Rap, but this was a little better than his last appearance.
Uncanny Spider-Man #2. “Blue Streak” Nightcrawler, in his new Spider-Man outfit, takes on the Rhino while trying to deal with Silver Sable and Mystique too. This has been a fun book starting Kurt Wagner so far.
Marvel Zombies: Black, White & Blood #1. Three stories featuring Daredevil, Spider-Man and Moon Knight separately. The cover was a beautiful rendition of Wolverine as a zombie by Gabriele Dell’otto which was weird because Wolverine is not in this issue. The Spider-Man story was my favorite of the three with the Moon Knight one being my least favorite. Good zombie action though.
Captain America #2.“Taking A.I.M.” Written by J. Michael Straczynski and art by Jesus Saiz. I am really enjoying this new take on Captain America, going into his pre-Super Soldier past as a young boy in Brooklyn and matching it up with his current Marvel Universe world. This includes a guest appearance from Spider-Man which is always a plus for me.
Rare Flavours #2. “Chapter 2: Mirchi” Written by Ram V and illustrated by Filipe Andrade. I actually had a little hard time following this story this issue. I do find the book beautiful to look at and I am hoping that I can figure out what is happening after a re-read or so.
Money Shot: Comes Again #5. Written by Tim Seeley and drawn by Gisele Lagace. The climax of this series feels a little premature. I feel as if they could have squeezed out some more by getting a handful. It can’t be that hard. Come on…
Void Rivals #5. Written by Robert Kirkman and featuring art by Lorenzo De Felici. Solila and Darak started off together, but both had a dark future fate in their heads. Darak gets rescued by an underground resistance force and Solila has to face her destiny as a Keeper of the Light (whatever that means).
Hallows’ Eve: The Big Night #1. Written by Erica Schultz and illustrated by Michael Dowling. Ben Harvey does the cover art. Halloween is just a couple days away so we have a one-shot featuring Hallows’ Eve. She uses some new masks, including one like Captain America and another like the Hulk in her actions. This is a fun character that has been enjoyable to read and one of the better things to come out of the recent Dark Web story arc.
Uncanny Avengers #3. “The Arrogants” Written by Gerry Duggan and drawn by Emilio Laiso. Javier Garrón & Morry Hollowell did the cover art. I love it when Captain America is monologuing and everyone listens and is in awe of him. That happens this issue showing how much presence Steve Rogers has.
Immortal Thor #3. “The Riddle of Raidho” Written by Al Ewing and art by Martin Coccolo. Alex Ross did the cover art (and it is gorgeous!). Loki has Thor trapped in a dimension and seems to be playing games with his brother. Thor has to use his mind to escape instead of his typical fisticuffs.
Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant #3. “Waking Nightmare” Written by Iman Vellani & Sabir Pirzada featuring art by Carlos Gomez & Adam Gorham. Sara Pichelli & Matthew Wilson are the cover artists. There is a tense story going on inside Kamala Khan’s dreams as she is confronted by her mutant mutation and Orchis is setting her up to be the ultimate weapon against the other mutants.
Something is Killing the Children #34. “Showdown at the Easy Creek Corral” Part Four. This showdown has been building for what seems months and it seems as if it is finally here as the last panel of the book gives us a huge shocker. Next issue must be the big wrap up of this storyline.
Other Books read this week: Marvel Unleashed #3, Slow Burn #1, The Schlub #3, Newburn #12, Jean Grey #3, and Plot Holes #3.
The second episode of Picket Fences is a classic episode that brought a serial kidnapper to the borders of Rome, Wisconsin named The Green Bay Chopper.
When a little brought a severed hand to school for show and tell, Maxine knew what this meant. The serial kidnapper who would cut off the right hand of his victims had come to Rome.
The FBI followed close behind and was anything but happy with the involvement of the Rome Sheriff Department.
This episode made the deputies and Jimmy look better than the last one did. M.E. Carter made some crucial discoveries. Kenny and Maxine found the car that they believed the Chopper had left, including samples of urine from victims in the trunk. Ginny could tell the severed hand had been removed from a dentist because, as she said, she could read palms.
When Carter said that the hand had been removed after death, the case was now a homicide investigation, preventing the FBI from insisting that the deputies stay out of the way. Another brilliant courtroom scene featuring Douglas Wambaugh for the Rome Sheriff’s Department! Fyvush Finkel was listed as a guest star on the episode, but this was one more reason why he would become a series regular. The few minutes you spend with Douglas Wambaugh is always some of the most entertaining parts of an episode.
It’s Sunday morning and it is time for the next American Horror Story episode. This one is entitled “Home Invasion” and it is really creepy.
The episode starts off showing a home invasion into the Murder House from the past when a couple of nursing students were tortured and murdered by a man. This led to Vivien and Violet being taken hostage by a group of three wanting to re-enact the famous murder.
Lots of weird and frightening things happened this episode:
We find out that the house is on the LA famous murder tour.
Ben gets a call from the woman he cheated on Vivien with and she told him she was pregnant. He went to Boston so she could have an abortion. He lied to Vivien about it.
Constance made some poison cupcakes for Violet.
Constance was having an encounter with a young male model.
She shut Addie into the “bad girl closet” with a bunch of mirrors.
Tate mortally wounds one of the home invaders with an axe.
The ghosts of the dead nurses murdered the other two home invaders.
Tate, Constance and Moira have a connection and knowledge of each other and work together to get rid of the bodies. Tate says that they had to get rid of the bodies, “If we want him to keep treating me.” Mysterious.
Constance could sense that Vivien was pregnant.
Vivien is worried that she has not been getting sick with this pregnancy unlike before. She worries that something is wrong.
Vivien ends the episode saying that they were going to sell this house.
Packed full of horrific goodness, I remember how confusing everything was when this first aired. Watching it with foreknowledge of what happened is a new experience and bring more depth to what is happening.
The second season of Moonlighting kicked off with David and Maddie sitting on her desk and addressing the viewers. This was a technique they used several times over the years. Breaking the fourth wall was a common occurrence on Moonlighting, and their joke was that the episode was too short so they needed to fill time. That actually may not have been just a joke, knowing how some of the backstage issues caused problems for this show.
This episode was the first of the family members to be introduced of our two lead stars. In this case, Charles Rocket guest starred as a David’s huckster brother Richard, who had found a briefcase full of $100,000 and came to run David’s nose in it.
Of course, more than that happened as the actual owners of the money came looking for Richard and found David instead.
The jealousy between David and Richard was clear and when Richard took a shining to Maddie, well, it made David all the more crazed.
The story of the money is way down the importance of this episode. The story itself was underdeveloped. The most important part was how David and Richard’s relationship was and how that affected David’s relationship with Maddie.
This was never my most favorite episode of the series and I was never much of a fan of Richard Addison.
I am starting a DailyView through the month of November, re-watching one of my all-time favorite TV shows, Picket Fences. I hadn’t considered doing another re-watch at EYG for now, especially since I am doing Moonlighting, The X-Files, and American Horror Story already. However, when I discovered that I could see the entire series of Picket Fences on Hulu, well, that changed my mind.
I was watching The X-Files episode called “Eve” when I thought that it was the episode that was intended to be the X-Files/Picket Fences crossover. I did my research and realized that it was not that episode, which was among the X-Files’ second season.
I own season one of Picket Fences on DVD, but I have not seen the rest of the series since it was on TV back in the 1990s. I loved this show very much so I took a chance and Googled whether or not it was available on any streaming service. Lo and behold, I fund that it was available on Hulu, the same service where I watch Moonlighting, The X-Files and AHS.
I couldn’t believe it. This David E. Kelley show was so quirky and clever, with amazing characters and acting. I decided that, not only would I watch the series on a re-watch, I would make it a DailyView through November. I had been looking for something to do for a goal for November and this works perfectly.
The pilot episode is listed as both episode one and two on Wikipedia, but only episode one on Hulu, so I am not sure how to classify it. For now, I am considering this only episode one.
This kicked off with the murder of a man who was playing the Tin Man in a local play of The Wizard of Oz. It appeared to be a heart attack, but thanks to the overzealous medical examiner Carter Pike, an injection spot was found and it was proven that the Tin Man had died via poison.
Sheriff Jimmy Brock (Tom Skerritt) and Dr. Jill Brock (Kathy Baker) are at the center of the case as they always would be. Their relationship was the heart of the show, good or bad, fighting or happy, their love was everything.
One of my favorite television characters of all-time was everybody’s lawyer, Douglas Wambaugh, played by the irreplaceable Fyvush Finkel. Judge Henry Bone is another character that makes his debut here, played by Ray Walston.
The show featured a good chunk of twists and turns and plenty of courtroom shenanigans. It also focuses heavily on its characters’ moral dilemmas, just like this episode’s one where Jimmy used his wife’s job as a doctor to gain a confession with the use of privileged information. As many Picket Fences cases, it put a strain on the marriage as well as their jobs.
One of the standouts from the the Poltergeist movie was Zelda Rubinstein, who appeared as police dispatcher Ginny Weeden. She fit right in with the rest of the eccentric residents of Rome, Wisconsin.
I am so excited about being able to re-live this multiple Emmy winning series. Without the X-Files re-watch, I would have never gone looking for this series and I would not have found that it was readily available. Fate is amazing sometimes.
Interestingly enough, this was another episode of The X-Files that I do not remember ever seeing before. This rewatch has really been a treat with some of these episodes that, if I have seen, I do not recall because “Eve,” the 11th episode of season one, was a taut, tense episode with some great acting and anxiety-filled moments.
As the “Monster-of-the-week” episode, “Eve” features a great acting performance from Harriet Harris, who has been a great character actor for years including work on Desperate Housewives and Marvel’s Werewolf by Night. She plays several roles as a woman who had been involved in a program where a group of men and women, ‘Adams’ and ‘Eves’ were cloned and given extra chromosomes. Unfortunately, it also created a higher level of homicidal tendencies.
The twin actors, Erika and Sabrina Krievins, played Cindy and Teena respectfully and they did a great job as these somewhat creepy children who were discovered to have been continuation of this cloning program by ‘Eve 7’ under the alias of Dr. Sally Kendrick. The girls were raised on different coasts and both of their fathers had been killed by exsanguination.
I feel that the show really took a huge step in storytelling by making these girls the ones who had killed their fathers, using their advanced intelligence to figure out how to do it. They also “just knew” that the other had existed. They also poisoned Eve 7, who had kidnapped them, as well as attempting to poison Mulder and Scully.
The Krievin twins did a great job being these cold-blooded killers. They certainly worked very well as the trope of creepy kids that we see often in horror films.
“Eve” is an excellent episode of The X-Files and I am so glad that I got a chance to see it either again or for the first time. I wonder how many episodes of season one will be like this?
I was watching the Geek Buddies on YouTube today, which is a podcast with John Rocha, Michael Vogel and Shannon McClung. During their weekly show, they typically talk about new trailers and so I figured I could add the trailers to this post.
Lisa Frankenstein
This looks kind of funny. It could be a fantastic film or a complete nightmare. Kathryn Newton leads the film.
Fargo Season 5
It has been awhile since I watched a season of Fargo. This trailer looks to have the oddball charm and bizarre feel of the best of this anthology series. By Nov. 21, Loki, Goosebumps will be done, maybe I’ll give this one a looksee.
Maestro Trailer 2
This is the Netflix movie, directed by Bradley Cooper, featuring the story of the relationship between icon Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein.
You should definitely give The Geek Buddies a try if you have not watched it before. John, Michael and Shannon have chemistry all over the place and they are always funny. They give some excellent opinions on geek culture and are always engaging.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 