Tag Archives: writing

Boston Legal S1 E10, E11, E12

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“Hired Guns”

“Schmidt Happens”

“From Whence We Came”

One of my favorite quotes from Boston Legal happened in episode 11. It is a thought have many times in the restroom…

“I keep an extremely clean penis“

Alan Shore is in response to a woman who had entered the men’s restroom and had introduced herself, while Alan was at the urinal. He extended a hand to shake and she said that he is going to wash that.

Hence, the clean penis comment from Alan.

That woman was Shirley Schmidt, named partner in Crane, Poole & Schmidt, played brilliantly by Candice Bergen. Shirley Schmidt becomes one of my absolute favorite characters on this show over the next four and a half years. This was her first appearance and Candice Bergen immediately was placed as a powerhouse, keeping Denny Crane off balance.

In “Head Games,” Alan winds up getting held at gunpoint by a disgruntled father who had recently lost his children because of Alan. Yes, the father would take his children without permission to Peru over Christmas. The mother asked for help from Alan. I mean… it is kidnapping.

This whole situation led to another classic moment of the series. Denny Crane using his rifle to shoot the father. Denny had the gun in his desk and had Tara open the door when he yelled “Pull!” As Denny said, he was a Marine, “trained as a sniper… or was it a pilot?”

We also get the debut in episode 11 of Bernard Ferrion, a small man who killed his mother by hitting her on the head with a skillet. Alan was able to free Bernard on a technicality, and then gave him a kindly speech about being good. Then next episode, Bernard is back after killing his neighbor with a skillet as well. Alan was disappointed, and sent Bernard to Tara.

Bernard is a surprisingly complex character for the short arc that he appeared. You could tell how lonely he was, and how he had a kind heart, despite being, as Alan called him, evil.

Betty White arrived as Alan’s new assistant, Catherine Piper. White had played this role on The Practice and had come in contact with Alan then. Seeing her resume this role was an awesome thing.

The arrival of Shirley put a charge into this show and gave the show a foil to Denny that was every bit as formidable as he was. Certainly, she was more capable of standing up to Denny than Paul was. All Shirley had to do was whisper those two little words… “Denny Crane” and Denny would shiver.

Rick and Morty S9 E10

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“Field of Dreams”

I am now caught up on the Rick and Morty series, finishing up with the episode 10 that debuted on HBO Max today, but had been shown on Comedy Central earlier in the summer.

The new episode started off as an enjoyable story of Morty going through the multiverse and attending other Morty’s funeral. Morty is discovered as he was watching the funeral by a family that was grieving “Mort,” the kid who was so much more successful and loved by his family.

Morty started spending time with this family, thinking that they were better than the family he had. Morty found out that this Smith family was extremely crazed and chasing after him to replace their Mort.

Morty went to this universe’s Rick, who had stopped drinking, had gotten married, and was living a happy life as a college professor. This was when the episode took a darker turn that I was not a real fan of.

As Rick was trying to help find a way to get Morty home, I knew what was going to happen. I knew that Rick was going to need to go back to drinking to get the work done. Watching Rick throw away his life, his sobriety, his wife to the bottle was so sad and too predictable. I wanted this Rick to not transform into yet another drunken Rick.

Of course the ending was anything but predictable as the whole family is butchered in their final confrontation. This allowed Morty to get back to his regular universe with a happier feeling toward these people.

The whole motorcycle scene at the end of the episode was odd.

Overall, this was an up and down episode for me, and with different shades of dark, it did not do well for me.

There is a season 10 in works right now with a rumored release during the summer of 2027.

Lanterns S1 E1

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“Pilot”

The first episode of DC Studio’s latest TV show premiered on HBO Max this Sunday night. Lanterns started off with Hal Jordan training John Stewart as his replacement.

We start the story in 2016, with a gruff Hal Jordan being very tough on his trainee, John Stewart.

The show ended in 2026 with Hal Jordan dead on the bleachers of a football field.

There had been rumors about Hal Jordan dying at the end of the pilot, but with the 2016 story going on, this is how we will get a full season of Hal alive and John moving forward.

Of course, there will be some story in 2026 too since the dead body of Hal nor John had the Lantern ring. Where is it? Who took it? Who killed Hal? These points I expect will correspond to the storyline from 2016.

I do like shows that play with the manner in which the narrative is presented. Of course, LOST is the immediate show to come to mind, and former LOST writer Damon Lindelof is a writer and executive producer on the show. That always could hook me.

I have enjoyed Green Lantern as a character, despite not collecting his comic title. I think the way this show has been set up, kind of a True Detective-style show, with this mystery of what is going on in this little town in Nebraska where Hal Jordan originally received the ring was some solid writing.

I found Kyle Chandler to be excellent as an older, grumpier Hal Jordan, who was training his replacement John Stewart despite not wanting to have a replacement. Aaron Pierre as John Stewart, was good, but I do not think he had the amount of material by comparison yet. Pierre is a solid actor and I think he will get better as the series goes on.

I am invested in the mystery that has been set up and the ending with Hal’s death only served to increase the interest I have in this series. I expect to be watching this every Sunday night until October.

Boston Legal S1 E7, E8, E9

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“Questionable Characters”

“Loose Lips”

“A Greater Good”

I watched episodes 7, 8, & 9 of Boston Legal tonight. They fell around the Christmas holiday as there were some background mentions of Christmas, including a crossdressing mall Santa that had been fired.

There were several questionable lawyering tactics used by the lawyers at Crane, Poole & Schmidt. And it was not just Alan Shore. In fact, it seemed that most of the lawyers on the show were influenced by Alan’s iffy choices. Some examples:

  • Lori pretended to be a therapist to meet with a client who verbally made threats to murder his wife to his therapist.
  • Denny went ahead and outed a whistleblower on the stand after Paul Lewiston specifically told Alan not to do it.
  • Tara approached another attorney on a case and pretended to be a flight attendant to get info on the case.
  • Brad, very jealous of Alan, made a wager on a case with Alan and then tried to manipulate the outcome by getting a unfavorable judge assigned to it.
  • Even Paul Lewiston turned a blind eye on Lori’s trouble which led to the wife, fearful for her life, shoot and kill her husband, who used the therapist to get out the bad thoughts only and had no intention of ever following through with it.

Meanwhile, Alan is just trying to do the right things for his clients, albeit by some methods that should not be done. Paul actually recommended a couple of times for other lawyers to approach Alan because he knew of ways to get things done.

Jon Bernthal appeared as a friend of Lori’s who wound up getting shot in the shoulder when he tried to hold up a convenience store. They were able to convince a judge that Bernthal had the right to not allow the doctors to take the bullet out. The bullet was the only evidence they had against him. Tara got info from Alan about a doctor (working as a vet) who could take out the bullet without giving it over to the police.

These three episodes were all good, but maybe not as awesome as some of the others. Next episode looked like a banger.

Boston Legal S1 E3, E4, E5, E6

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“Catch and Release”

“Change of Course”

“An Eye for an Eye”

“Truth Be Told”

I do love this show. It is so well written and acted.

William Shatner may be most well known forever as James T. Kirk, but his best career performances come as Denny Crane. The buffoon-like behavior hiding a deep seeded concern over his health. Arrogant and sarcastic, Shatner’s eyes revealing the truth.

James Spader brings such a complexity to Alan Shore. He is willing to do anything, even step over the lines or morality, to get things done. Many times, his motives are pure. His methods, on the other hand, are anything but. Simplicity, Tara described Alan as split into three people: the Good Alan, the bad Alan and the Naughty Alan. Though it may be too simple for this character, the description does work.

It was sad the way Alan took advantage of Sally, which seemed to be a way for Alan to get Sally to leave him. There is a deep neurosis to Alan and his relationships pay the price. Yet, he is completely loyal to former lovers and women that he respected. He is a contradiction in terms for Alan. It is why I was so happy that, at the end of episode 6, when it appeared that he was going to go and have sex with Dana Delany’s character, a woman he always had desires for, but he turned up in a motel room with Tara instead. Had Alan slept with Delany, the betrayal would have been tough to swallow, especially after he dealt with Delany’s husband’s infidelity. I don’t want Alan to be a hypocrite even if he had many otehr bad traits.

Episodes 3-6 again do not focus as closely on Alan and Denny’s relationship as they could, but there are moments. When Alan came to share their whiskey in Denny’s jail cell after he was charged with contempt of court, they exchanged a wonderful scene where Denny worried about his mental capacities. The whole possible Alzheimer’s Disease arc and how it could destroy the image and legend of “Denny Crane” follows Denny through the entire series.

Alan and Denny are together when Denny lets it slip that Donnie Crane was not his son after all, only for Donny to hear. Freddie Prinze Jr. appeared as the supposed son of Denny Crane, and his devastation in this scene made it all the better.

There are several fun moments of Fourth Wall breaking during the show. In this crop of episodes, my favorite was when Alan Shore said he wanted to be on cable because that was where all the best work was happening. Of course, Boston Legal aired on ABC.

Episode five featured one of Alan’s top line closing arguments. We have not seen too many of those yet in the season, but there will be plenty more to come. This one was just right on the nose for his case that you can tell how the case will go.

Lori is involved more the last few episodes, and they are still teasing a potential relationship between Alan and Lori. Probably one that would be highly toxic.

Boston Legal S1 E1, E2

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“Head Cases”

“Still Crazy After All These Years”

I have been seeing a ton of clips of Boston Legal on TikTok recently, and it influenced my decision to start a rewatch of Boston Legal. I found it on Hulu and I discovered that there were only five seasons. I really thought there were seven of them. Episodes varied per season as season one only had 17 whereas season 2 had 27 of them.

Watching these first to episodes of the series, it struck me how this cast changed over the years. Some of the characters of the first season were flashes from my memory, such as Lori Colson, Tara Wilson and Sally Heep. These women were replaced as the years moved on. No Shirley Schmidt, though I do think she comes soon in season one.

The appearance of the black Little Orphan Annie was a classic case that I did not think was in the premiere episode. It featured a cameo from the Reverend Al Sharpton as Denny’s “Rabbit out of a hat.”

It showed how questionable Alan and Denny’s tactics were at times when they were doing things that were for the “greater good.” I loved how these characters were shades of grey. They are complex and written so amazingly.

Alan Shore debuted on The Practice, as did Denny Crane. Their relationship was not as prevalent in these first two episodes as it would become. The chemistry between James Spader and William Shatner was off the charts. They were better than most couples on TV at the time. These first two episodes did not feature it as much.

Denny’s ongoing inner doubt about his lost of his abilities was highlighted early here and would be a major plot point through to the end of the series.

It was fun to see Elizabeth Mitchell, who I got to know as Juliet from LOST, make an appearance in episode two here. She played one of Alan’s ex-girlfriends who was committed after she tried to kill Alan. Alan helped defend her when she was trying to be released from the asylum. This story extends into episode three.

This David E. Kelley project joined several other Kelley shows that I loved (including Picket Fences, and The Practice).

I am looking forward to watching this 100 episodes moving forward.

Rick and Morty S9 E1-E8

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I started the ninth season of Rick and Morty on HBO Max today and watched the first eight episodes. I discovered that the Rick and Morty show was shown originally on Adult Swim earlier this summer and then it debuted on HBO Max, releasing every episode weekly. I was confused at first as I saw episode 9 and 10 listed on Wikipedia as having been released already, but it was not available yet on HBO Max. I see that the last two episodes will be released over the next two Mondays, so we will finish as we go.

The last few seasons of Rick and Morty have been lesser than I was used to. They weren’t bad, but there were more episodes that I did not love as much as some of the earlier seasons.

However, I thought that the season nine episodes were just awesome.

The first episode kicked off with the return of Evil Morty, and Morty discovered that Rick was running adventures with Evil Morty. Rick was able to trick Evil Morty into destroying the Omega blueprints in all universes. It set off a war between them and Evil Morty gets arrested by the time police after he tried to time travel.

In “Ricks Days, Seven Nights” Rick went on vacation in a dimension and he wiped his own memory. He does it every year and goes to a planet under the name Ted. Ted decides to stay, and he has to fight against himself trying to get Ted to remember. This was so clever and creative… I loved it.

“Rick Fu Hustle” is next up and while Rick and Morty are trying to keep themselves from having their hearts exploded from a Kung Fu master’s special punch, Jerry is having sex with his robot pool cleaner. Not kidding.

The season seems to have a running storyline where Rick is trying to stop drinking after he has had several bad events, including locking himself out of the lab in the garage. He also lost his always filled flask of vodka from a world of pigs. There was another incident where Rick’s head is decapitated from his body, and the two parts of Rick get into a war with the other. While Rick’s head was separated, he saw how good he felt without the alcohol. Morty had the head and Summer had the body and they tried to reunite.

My least favorite of this season was “MortGully: The Last Rickforest” which saw Rick and Morty on a planet trying to find some special sap from a tree. The tree was alive and called the Warden, who sentenced Rick and Morty to be single celled organisms. The episode was the two of them trying to evolve enough to escape the Warden’s trap. It was funny, but it really went a long way for the joke, which was replayed multiple times.

There was also a wild story with Jerry consuming a bunch of space worms which made him more confident, but caused him to eventually vomit up a massive amount of worms.

I have liked this season more than the previous couple, but there does not seem to be much of a thorough line for the overall story arc. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but I would like a little more connection.

Two more episodes to go.

Rick and Morty Season 8

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I finished season 8 of Rick and Morty this afternoon, leaving me with just the remaining 8 episodes so far of season to watch (I am not sure when new episodes are released on HBO Max. It would be fun to catch up to the current run before it wraps up the season).

I was not as much of a fan of season 8. I found most of season 8 to be average to slightly below average. It wasn’t bad per se, but I just did not think the plan for the season worked as well as previous seasons.

Then, among the first 4-5 episodes, I found a few of them to be in the same vein as season 8… disappointing. It did not make me feel confident about the whole season.

Among those first five, “Summer of All Fears” was one I did not love. It was a Summer-centric episode and, historically, those have not been my favorite. I also was not a huge fan of “The Rick, The Mort & The Ugly” which featured a story with other Ricks, specifically a Wild West version that reminded me of Clint Eastwood from Unforgiven. While I love that movie, this one bugged me. Another trend I am not a fan of is when we follow a character that is not our Rick (and I know that can be convoluted).

However, I did like the Space Beth episode “Valkyrick” a lot. The whole trope of a heist movie spelling out the plan of the heist as we see it on the screen was shown here, but the images on the screen showed the heist falling apart because of too much of a dependence on “Cisco.” I really loved that section of this episode.

“The Last Temptation of Jerry” was another of the first episodes that I thought was really funny, if not sacrilege. the whole Easter bit with the rampaging Easter Bunny was really funny and co-opting the Tim Allen Santa Clause plot was great too.

Episode five, “Cryo Mort a Rickver,” was another that did not impress me, though I found it better than the previous episodes that I thought were lacking.

Then, things turned around for the show, and the rest of the season felt like big hits.

I liked how Space Beth and Beth turned themselves into little girls who were anything but sweet. I liked the episode where Jerry gets lost on the road thanks to another Jerry. It was cool to see Morty’s son Junior make a return, which I think I called back when Junior was originally created.

The finale with Rick trying to purge the memories of his wife Diane from his mind so he could be more emotionally open was a very good episode. I loved the ending where Rick pretended to have killed “Memory Rick” and “Memory Diane” but instead set them up in a memory storage device. The finale was difficult to follow at times, but there is no doubt that it was a strong finish.

Then, episode seven was one of my favorite episodes of the series. “Ricker than Fiction” saw Rick and Morty watching the latest movie from one of their favorite franchises, “Maximum Velocitree,” but they responded with anger and vitriol. The dialogue was great as they were clearly mocking those people online who claim things like a certain movie “ruined my childhood” or some idiotic statement like that. They went to Warner Brothers to complain and came across James Gunn (yes, voiced by James Gunn himself).

They got into an argument with James Gunn and Rick decided to fix the next script to make it better. Rick designed a machine called the Movie-Lizer which can create a movie if given a script. It also allows the user of the machine to change the script easily. This is obviously a commentary on AI and its intrusiveness in the movie industry. Rick and Morty get sucked inside the Movie-Lizer and find themselves in the story, which they have to try to fix before it is too late. This is such a meta episode, but it is also remarkably funny and clever.

I loved the guest star voice of James Gunn who ran across Zack Snyder, who was also an actual voice for this episode. This unbelievably meta and hilarious encounter made me respect Zack Snyder way more. He was really funny and was allowing the script to give him crap.

The second half of the season was considerably more consistent and engaging than the beginning and “Ricker Than Fiction” is probably in my top 10 of all time.

Rick and Morty Season 7

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I have to say, Season 7 of Rick and Morty was my least favorite overall so far.

It was amazing when I found out that they had replaced the actor who voiced both Rick and Morty, Justin Roiland, because of a domestic abuse charge, because there was absolutely no concernable way to recognize the difference. Big shout out to  Ian Cardoni and Harry Belden for their seamless transition into the roles.

The season had a bunch of episodes that were fairly meh, and at least a couple that were total flops. Specifically, “Rise of the Numbericons: The Movie” may have been my least favorite Rick and Morty episode of the series run so far.

The end of season 6 hinted at season 7 being all about finally ending Rick Prime, but that story arc did not run the whole season. In fact, it was mentioned early, but all came to a close in episode 5, “Unmortricken,” which also brought about the return of Evil Morty. Rick ended up, thanks to Evil Morty, beating Rick Prime to death his his own hands. I found this end to be very unsatisfying. I think that might have been the point, having the theme be that revenge never makes you feel better.

Rick was scattered the rest of the season, and I do not think the show was able to regather the momentum of previous years. The Fear hole episode finale “Fear No Mort” was pretty decent, as Morty tried to face his fears at a Denny’s. There was a character introduced in “Mort: Ragnarick” that was fun with Bigfoot. Finally, there was a sick episode where there was a world where the people who committed suicide turned into tasty spaghetti that the Smith family loved to eat.

My favorite moments of the season came from the guest star Hugh Jackman in the season premiere featuring Mr. Poopybutthole. Actually voiced by Hugh Jackman, they spent the whole episode making fun of everything. Jackman clearly has a great sense of humor.

Other episodes featuring the return of Unity, turning Morty into a “Kuato,” and Rick and Jerry combined into the Jerricky were all lower than I thought.

Next up is season 8. I am streaming these all on HBO Max.

Rick and Morty Season 6

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Season six had two of my absolutely favorite episodes from the entire six seasons.

“Full Meta Jackrick” is my favorite episode of the series. The full embrace of the 4th Wall breaking with the return of Story Lord and new characters such as Miss Lead, Flash Back, Protago Nick, Connie Tinuityerror, and Mr. Twist. There was another character called Rhett Caan that made me laugh out loud. It was such a clever episode that it really stood out for me.

Following that episode was “Analyze Piss” which saw Pissmaster come to challenge Ric. However, Rick had decided, through therapy, that he would try to ignore the supervillains that come to challenge him. This led to Jerry stepping up and defeating Pissmaster. This episode had a trigger warning at the beginning about suicide because Pissmaster takes his own life. meanwhile, Rick takes his place to help give Pissmaster a happy ending for his daughter.

Both of these were just fully engaging and entertaining.

The first half of the season saw Rick lose the ability to form the portals. There was a running joke that Rick kept saying that he could fix the portal gun, but he hadn’t gotten around to it. Funny too was the fact that the dinosaurs were the ones to fix the portals.

We also got a season long arc with Rick Prime, the Rick who killed our Rick’s wife, free and searching for Rick to kill. Rick Prime killed off Jerry Prime, who we met again after “Mortynight Run” in season two.

The end of the season sees Rick, who had built a robot to replace himself, without the family knowing, so he could continue his search for Rick Prime. The Rick-Bot was programmed to give more support to Morty (22% more…) and soon became a beloved family member to the whole Smith clan.

Space Beth was around a lot this season, even though there were not too many major events with her. Of course, she did have an affair with married Beth in “Bethic Twinstinct.”

“Rick: A Mort Well Lived” had Summer at the heart of a Die Hard parody. Maybe parody isn’t the right word, since they openly talked about Die Hard and how this episode was like the movie. I do love Die Hard so the use of the allusion was awesome for me.

“Night Family” was not one of the best episodes of the year, but I did like the attempt at the horror genre. There were some imagery that worked well, but the story did not appeal to me as much.

Perhaps my least favorite episode of the season was “Final DeSmithation” which had Jerry get a fortune cookie that said that he would have sex with his mother. This only got stupider from there.

Sounds as if Season 7 is going to be Rick and Morty hunting down Rick Prime. I’m in.

Rick and Morty Season Five

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I watched the fifth season of Rick and Morty on HBO Max this morning, moving my way through the series.

The last two episodes of the season, “Forgetting Sarick Mortshall” and “Rickmurai Jack,” really flipped the show on its head with a break-up of Rick and Morty, and the revenge of Evil Morty, aka the President of the Citadel.

I have to say, one of the things I love about Rick and Morty is how they use continuity and return to dangling plot lines from previous episodes, even previous seasons. When in episode “Rickdependence Spray” they sent the Giant Incest Baby into space, I knew it was coming back around sooner or later.

It makes sense that they need to shake up the status quo on Rick and Morty as they have gone for five seasons. You have to keep it fresh and much of this season did a decent job of that. There were several episodes that seemed to me to be very complex, maybe even overly complex. The whole “decoy families” in the episode “Mortyplicity” and the whole “Amortycan Grickfitti” episode felt too much.

Lots of obvious parodies of the season including Planetina (Captain Planet), the GoTron ferrets (Power Rangers/Voltron), and Changeformers (Transformers).

The rivalry between Rick and President Curtis is revisited in a weird episode where Rick tries to get the President to pardon him by turning himself into a turkey. They also mentioned that this is not the first thing that Rick pulled this trick. It was weird because during the course of the episode, Morty accidentally opens up the giant robot hidden in the Statue of Liberty. That was a story bit that really was never fully touched on.

I did like Mr. Nimbus, who seemed to be a parody of Prince Namor, the Sub Mariner. This was the first episode, which had a weird storyline with Morty going into a dimension in search of wine and how that affected the creatures of that dimension.

Overall, I liked this season more than I liked season four. I have seen some hints that Space Beth is going to be used in a storyline which is interesting. Maybe she can do something with Giant Incest Baby, which would be her grandson.

Rick and Morty Season 3

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I watched season three of Rick and Morty on HBO Max throughout the day today. I have not watched many episodes of Rick and Morty over the years, but I have seen some. This season included a few of the episodes that I had seen before.

Specifically, I have seen “Pickle Rick,” “Vindicators 3: The Return of Worldender,” and, I believe, the season premiere “The Rickshank Rickdemption.” These were very strong episodes, but I remember the reason I did not consistently watch the show when it was originally on was because of the time it was on TV (Late night Sunday night).

The season long storyline of Jerry and Beth’s marriage falling apart saw the two of them planning a divorce, though they wind up back together at the end of the season. The last couple of episodes questioned whether or not Rick had cloned Beth and let her wander the universe to find herself. At the end of the finale, Rick claimed that Beth was not a clone. I am not sure I believe him. It feels like a storyline that could carry over the next several seasons even.

In “The Ricklantis Mixup” starts with Rick and Morty heading to Atlantis, but the episode did not follow them there as the show went to the new Citadel of Ricks and saw the struggles and conflicts between the Ricks and the Mortys. We see a new Morty elected president. It is another potential future arc for the show.

The “Morty’s Mind Blowers” episode was batshit crazy, using some old memories that Morty had erased from his mind. It was done as a replacement for the typically annual Interdimensional Cable episode that they had in both of the first two seasons.

One of the most iconic episode was “Pickle Rick.” I did not think that this episode, the one where Rick turned himself into a pickle in order to avoid family therapy, was this early in the overall series. I love this episode.

I did enjoy the battle between Rick and the President of the USA in “The Rickchurian Mortydate.” It was also funny how the conflict was resolved.

Overall, season three was tremendous. My favorite episode is “Pickle Rick” and my least favorite was “The ABC’s of Beth.”

Sunday Morning Sidewalk #78

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The Boroughs

“The Grey Rebellion”

Hello, Mother.

Episode six of The Boroughs gave us a bunch of info on what was going on in this place.

Last episode, the whole crew of Sam, Art, Judy, Wally and Renee are captured by Blaine and given an ultimatum. Wally has to go to work for Blaine while the others are basically on house arrest. Can’t leave the Boroughs, ankle monitors, cameras in their houses, the full nine yards.

They have to accept this situation or they would be sent to the Manor. The whole situation has become quite sinister.

Blaine takes Wally to meet the whole crew behind the scenes of the Boroughs and want him to help save a patient… the person they call Mother, who was supposedly hatched out of an alien egg found decades before. This is the being who the monsters (they call The kids) who suck “brain juice” from the residents came from.

Sam can’t take the way things were so he decided to walk through the desert to the diner and call his daughter, Claire. He cuts off the ankle monitor and heads out.

Meanwhile, Paz and Renee plan up an escape attempt to correspond to the 75th anniversary celebration coming up. They are able to recruit Judy to the fold, but Art did not want to be part of it.

However, when Art discovered from Claire that she had committed Sam to the Manor after she picked him up at the diner, he changed his mind and joined the “Grey Rebellion.”

Renee, though, has altered the plan. She does not want to just run away, she wanted to fight. She had been told everything by Wally and she said that she wanted to get into the offices at the manor and kill Mother, to take it away from Blaine and his cronies.

Of course there would be more to this. At the end of the episode, we see Mother, and she appears to be human-ish. She was not a monster like the “Kids.”

You knew where Claire was taking Sam after she picked him up. I was disappointed that she did not believe her father and allowed Blaine’s manipulations to work in her mind from a few episodes ago. Clearly, Mother’s appearance will make it more difficult to kill as Renee wants to do. Mother also makes me feel as if she is less sinister than Blaine and his cronies. Has she been held captive all these years?

There is something more to Sam’s wife too. This is an arc that remains unanswered.

Next week is the penultimate episode of the series and things are really setting up to be a massive final two episodes.

Daily Read- Starhenge Book One: The Dragon and the Boar #4

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Written, illustrated and cover art by Liam Sharp.

Book Four is quite the journey.

It starts off with Amber facing off with a death robot from the future and, suddenly, Daryl turned into something else as well.

One of the most creative ways this comic has been different than most is the manner in which it presents its material. In this case, the confrontation with Daryl and this death robot is shown in standard comic format, and in the narrative, Amber, who has been out narrator from the beginning, states that she had drawn this confrontation – in order to process her thoughts.

This section of the book was such a departure from the art style, reminding me of the style from issue two. However, this felt more weighty that that did. Part of that is the full page panels that this book was pulling out during this section of the narrative. It felt more important.

Then, it went back to cover more details of Merlin’s life, saying that this needed to be covered or you (meaning the reader) would be confused (she actually said that this would not make any f-ing sense).

The Merlin section in the 5th Century dealt with the Uther Pendragon legend and how Amber stated it actually went down, specifically what led to the birth of Arthur. This section was back to the painting style of the book and included a dense amount of narration. However, this narration is done in such a style that it was easy to follow and entertaining to read.

And it ended up back with Amber, laying naked, and meeting back up with Daryl and she ended the book with the statement that it was not 2022 anymore and asking the question, “Oh God, Daryl, what did I do?”

Can’t wait to find out.

Rick and Morty Season Two

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I decided that I would start watching the Rick and Morty series as I did in the What We Do in the Shadows series. Since there are a limited number of episodes in each season and each were around 25 minutes, I decided that I would watch the whole season in one sitting.

Season two was the first season that I binged on HBO Max.

The first episode was “A Rickle in Time” where they picked up immediately when season one ended with Morty and Summer finished cleaning their house as time has been frozen. It winds up having multiple Ricks and Mortys and Summers since they were messing with time.

My favorite episode of the season was episode four, “Total Rickall” where an intergalactic parasite found its way into the Smith’s house and, by planting fake memories into the Smith’s heads, created people and creatures they believed were real. There was Mister Poopybutthole, Cousin Nicky, Sleepy Gary, Pencilvester, Tinkles the Fairy Lamb, Frankenstein’s Monster, Mr. Beauregard among others. It was such a funny episode.

Jerry and Beth’s marriage was a huge side story again. They even are taken to a planet for the most successful marriage counseling organization, which they destroy it with their toxicity. This was episode 7, entitled “Big Trouble in Little Sanchez.” The continue to be fighting and this marriage truly feels to be temporary.

Also in episode 7, we get “Little Rick!” Rick puts his mind into a younger clone of himself to help search out a vampire in Summer and Morty’s school (who was Coach Feratu). The vampire plot is mostly off-screen as it is the “Little Rick!” character that is focused. He shouted “Little Rick” very much like he would eventually yell out “Pickle Rick” in a later season.

“Interdimensional Cable 2: Tempting Fate” was a sequel to the interdimensional episode from season one. This one was funny, but it felt like it was not as strong as the first one.

There are several moments of breaking the fourth wall in this season as well. These all worked pretty well including the one where Rick called “Interdimensional Cable 2: Tempting Fate” a sequel, but he did not know why.

There were other parodies including an episode spoofing the movie The Purge.

There was a great cliffhanger at the end of season two with Rick turning himself in as an intergalactic terrorist in order to get Morty, Summer, Beth and Jerry freedom to return to the earth. The whole family had left earth to attend the wedding of Birdperson and Summer’s high school friend Tammy. Tammy turned out to be an agent of the Federation, killed Birdperson and arrested everyone. It was a cool twist and sets up the show for season three.