The Walking Dead S05E07 – Crossed

We hit the penultimate episode of The Walking Dead‘s half-season with everything in front of us. The mission: rescue Killa Carol and Beth from the hospital, which is being guarded by one half-decent cop in my estimation. “Crossed”, however, was a bit underwhelming. I didn’t hate it, but I certainly didn’t love it. Let’s go….

-The group is at the church, fortifying it for, well, anything. Sasha is chopping up church pews, working out some of her frustration over BBQ Bob’s death. Gabriel says to Daryl, who is grabbing some steel beams, “Y’all gon use the crosses next?” and Daryl replies, “if we need them”. He also walks in on a crying Judith like he’s gon’ do something with her, then he starts tryna scratch the bloodstains from the Terminus massacre off the floor. More on Gabriel in a bit, but this cat is not trustworthy at all.

-Rick doesn’t want leave Carl and Judith at the church, but he feels like he owes Carol for saving them at Terminus, so he is going. So are Tyreese and Sasha, if Tyreese can ever stop tryna talk about feelings and shit. Leave her alone, she’ll be aight once she kills a mufucka or two.

-Eugene is still knocked out like Deebo in “Friday”, and Abraham is still on his knees looking into the distance. That is, until Rosa yells at him and he stands up right quick and she’s like, probably shouldn’t have done that. Maggie puts the gun on him, though, and you know she woulda killed him if she had to.

-Carl is tryna explain to Gabriel that he needs to know to use a weapon, so Gabriel chooses a machete. Older Carl has moved up the ranks with the quickness, but Gabriel ain’t built for this unless he is one helluva actor.

-Rick is putting together his plan to get to the hospital, which involves a lot of gun-buckin’ and of course, Tyreese is tryna do it on some peaceful shit. Daryl is going along with it too, but you never know with him because he’ll leave a person under a bookshelf for a walker in a minute, then escape with him. Rick agrees, but you know he won’t hesitate to bust his gun.

-Back at the hospital, a cop is tryna convince Dawn to stop wasting resources on Carol, who has only been there a day. Dawn agrees and Beth is like, this dude is charging DVDs like shit is a Best Buy, and you wanna kill this woman? Then the cop leaves and Dawn admits that she isn’t in control, but she does give Beth a key to the drug locker that has something that will help Carol. Dawn ain’t shit, and Beth better get to slap her at least once.

-Glenn, Tara and Rosa decide to go and get water, and leaving Maggie with a large, angry man on whom she pulled a gun on seems like an awful idea. That being said, Maggie tells Abe to get over himself and he isn’t the only one to lose something today. She hasn’t done a lot outside of not give a damn about her sister, but Maggie has had a couple memorable lines so far.

-Beth goes to the doctor and asks for the name of the stuff that’ll help Carol, and after a minute, he tells her. But can she even trust this dude, he has lied to her before.

-Glenn, Tara and Rosa are chillin’ by the stream, and we learn that Rosa met up with Abe in Dallas and asked for her help, so she rolled with him and Eugene. Dallas to DC through Atlanta seems like a roundabout route, but I guess you do what you gotta do in the zombie apocalypse.

-Rick and his people execute the plan, using Noah as bait and they roll up on two cops, one of who knows Rick was a cop from the way he carried himself. I forget Rick was a cop myself, but it turns out he was right because a car comes out of nowhere and starts to shooting at them to rescue the cops. After a brief chase, they find the car abandoned amongst a slew of walkers that have been melted into the ground. The zombie budget has been one of the best parts of The Walking Dead this half-season.

-Of course, Daryl decides to hang back and check a trailer as the group advances and gets tackled by a cop. They fight and the cop is getting the upper hand, and the walkers are getting closer to Daryl, who grabs one of them by the eyes, rips his head off and hits the cop with it. That has to be the zombie kill of the half-season, right? Then Rick shoots a walker in the head and pulls the gun on the cop. He wants to kill him, but good Daryl tells him not to and Rick obliges. He needs to stop listening to people.

-So now they have three hostages, and one of the cops are telling Rick about Dawn and how to talk to her. This lightskin dude is pretty convincing and I trust him, which means something bad is about to happen. You’d think I would learn after five seasons.

-Meanwhile, Glenn and ’em are filtering water through clothes and tryna catch fish. They’re successful and I don’t care. Tara finds a yo-yo and she’s partyin’. This shit is a waste of time.

-Michonne is tryna talk to Gabriel, who won’t come out of his room and we learn that he is using the machete to take out the floorboards. Whatcha hidin’, bruh?

-Here comes my favorite part of the episode. Beth bribes an old man with strawberries to fake like he can’t breathe so she can sneak in and grab the drugs for Carol. This old man drops to the floor and attracts four cops who don’t even notice Beth in there or when she walks out. But the old man does because he all but asks her, you done in there and damn near winks, and as soon she leaves, he’s like, I’m good now, y’all. It was so ridiculous and good. They seem to be trying really hard to change the perception of Beth, and I get it, they’re just terrible at it. Anyway, she gets the drugs to Carol, and now we wait.

-Tyreese is still tryna talk to Sasha and soften her up at the worst possible time. Dude, stick to the task at hand. No time for shook ones now. I’m thisclose to wishing death on Tyreese.

-Gabriel takes out the floorboards and crawls out through the bottom of the church for some reason. He literally takes one step and it is on a nail, which is fitting. He pulls it out and keeps going and hears something, and it is a walker. They fight for a bit before he slams her on a stick and is about to throw a rock on her head before he notices a cross on her chain. Someone from his congregation, perhaps? Either way, we get another example of Gabriel not being built for this.

-Maggie asks Abe if he wanted her to shoot him and he thought he did, but he didn’t. Meanwhile, Eugene finally starts to wake up while Glenn and ’em return with three minnows, a yo-yo and a muddy backpack. Good grief.

-The rest of the group leaves Sasha with the lightskin cop, who tells her a story of how he knew a walker out in the parking lot that was going on a call that he was supposed to go on. Sasha, who is all mushy and soft now because of Tyreese, offers to shoot the walker, and as soon as I saw the cop standing behind her, I was like, oh for fuck sakes. He runs her into a window and knocks her out. I blame this all on Tyreese. Get out of your feelings until this shit is over.

I’m torn over “Crossed” which could refer to Gabriel asking Daryl about using the cross to fortify the church, the crosses on the back of the cop car or the double-cross that the cop pulled. There was a lot of dialogue that didn’t matter and a lot of the characters made awful decisions, but the action was pretty good and Daryl’s kill was fantastic. Still, my biggest problem with the episode is that, this is why people get mad when the group is split up. The Walking Dead isn’t built for multiple storylines, not like the comics; it is much better as a show when it is focused on one thing. “Crossed” was all over the place and didn’t say anything, but hey, that’s just me.

I just feel it should have been better for an episode that was essentially Part 1 of a two-part half-season finale. But the preview for next week seems promising and I’ll certainly be here for the finale of The Walking Dead.

American Horror Story: Freak Show S04E07 – Test Of Strength

Another week, another episode of American Horror Story: Freak Show that pulls the rug out from under us, gets us drunk, tattoos our face and puts us in a jar. “Test Of Strength” was a test of not breaking something by the end of the night. Let’s go…..

-We begin with Jimmy at the Mott house, and he’s tryna convince Bette and Dot to come back to the freak show. Bette asks Jimmy who killed Twisty, and the wheels start turning for Jimmy, who should have guessed that Dandy was the other clown, but truth be told, Jimmy isn’t very bright. Then Dandy says something about the surgery Dot wants, which he only could have known from reading her diary, which sets her off and she wants to leave with Jimmy. Dandy pleads with Bette on some “but I love you giiiiiirrrrrlllll” shit, begging like Keith Sweat in his prime. But Dot chooses her sister and leaves with Bette, which is kinda hilarious because Dot is tryna get this surgery to throw Bette in the bushes.

-Gloria is looking like, aw shit, I gotta dig ANOTHER hole because Dandy is standing there with smoke coming out of his ears, his face getting more red by the second. His mad face game is unquestionably the best in the game.

-After the credits, I hear the first couple bars from Nirvana’s “Come As You Are” and instantly got my back up, but as much as I wanted to hate it…it was actually pretty good, definitely the best cover of the season. It’s a fitting song for a group of people that don’t for into society, and we see Penny taking care of Paul while Dell is at the gay bar, looking for whom I presume is the guy that Dandy killed. But on the low, Stanley is there watching Dell, plotting and scheming.

-Elsa tells Jimmy that the song might not be what they’re looking for (yet her bullshit song gets to stay, but whatever), and Jimmy is like nah, we don’t listen to liars, bringing up the twins. Then they come out and Elsa looks like she might faint, but strangely the twins flip the script on Jimmy and they don’t say they were sold to the Motts, but they were helped by Elsa. What are they planning? And that was cold as shit, making Jimmy look insane.

-Desiree and Ethel make a trip to the doctor, where they find a “Closed” sign, but they go inside to investigate anyway because fuck it. They find his daughter, who tells them he committed suicide because the freaks made him question his beliefs in religion and science. But here is the thing: he had broken hands, so how could he pull a trigger? We know Dell threatened him, and we know he has a temper. Keep that in your back pocket.

-Stanley is struggling at the Test of Strength game, the joint with the hammer and the bell and whatnot. Dell walks by him and Stanley drops all kinds of references to Dell being gay since he saw him at the bar, and Dell wants to get him, but Maggie comes by to make sure there is a witness. This should have been a hint for Dell, but like son, like father. Stanley takes Dell into the big top, where he has a gun and says he needs one of the freaks within a day. Again, another hint. Stanley even told Dell that Maggie saw them go in there. Strong as shit, dumb as a bag of dull rocks.

-Jimmy and Maggie are in bed and he is saying something about there being a bad feeling around the place. Maggie is like, yeah, I’m part of a plan to kill one of y’all, but I can’t tell you about it. The best part is that Jimmy is talking about Dandy and the twins, so he isn’t even concerned about Stanley.

-Dell is outside of the trailer of Eve the Amazon lady, pouring chloroform on a rag and the first thing I think is, this might not work out well for him. Yo….she is huge, b. Dell is a strongman, but Eve wakes up and she is no joke, squaring up with Dell and throwin’ a fantastic-looking jab. Then she wraps up by throwing Dell out of her trailer like Uncle Phil and Jazz in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

-Eve tells Ethel and Jimmy the story while icing her knuckles and Ethel is about that vigilante life; she ain’t tryna talk to the cops. Jimmy says that he’ll handle it, which gave me a good laugh because, well, we’ve already seen Dell kick Jimmy’s ass once this season; fuck is he gon’ do?

-The laughs continue as a civilian is tryna play the strongman game, but he’s weak and Dell is like, you can only get it halfway up there. You can’t tell me that someone didn’t know what they were doing when they included that line because as we know, Dell has an impotence problem (hilariously enough, prior to that, my friends and I were throwing around impotence jokes on group text before that scene; we should just write an episode, y’all). Anyway, Jimmy steps to Dell and says they need to talk, and Dell suggests they go for a drink.

-Elsa and the twins are in negotiations in Elsa’s tent, and their plan becomes clear: they want all of the things. Bette wants caviar for breakfast because she’s fancy now and 20% of the box office, but Dot ups that to 50% and they want the money now. Elsa is like, look at this bitch, and I think they settled on 30%. Elsa hides it well, but she has to be steaming.

-Jimmy gets a drink into him and starts snitching like shit, telling Dell all about the plans to get him out of the show because of what he tried with Eve. While Jimmy can’t keep secrets, he is opening up to Dell, who is getting a bit of that paternal instinct for him a minute. He even tells Jimmy to take off the mittens he is wearing to cover up his lobster hands and it’s funny that no one is questioning why a person is wearing gloves in Florida, but hey, details. Besides, if anyone says anything to Jimmy, Dell will kick their ass.

-Jimmy is a lightweight as he doesn’t drink much because of what it has done to Ethel, and he runs outside to throw up. He hits that drunk vomit cry that we have all done at some point (and you are a damn liar if you say you haven’t), and starts spilling more shit to Dell, who has rolled up on him with a brick. But Jimmy tells him he knows Dell is his father from stories he has heard from the old-timers in the freak show, and Dell doesn’t have the heart to go through with it. They hug and walk away on some Leave It To Beaver shit. I was mad initially at Jimmy for not noticing the brick, but he was pretty hammered and it is American Horror Story.

-They get back to camp in the morning, tore the fuck up and making enough noise to wake up Elsa and Desiree, who implores Jimmy to get away from him, but Jimmy got his daddy now and he ain’t tryna hear it. Jimmy passes out and Dell walks out to find Stanley, who reminds him of what is at stake. Stanley just needs to do this shit himself. He stays gettin’ mad at people for not being murderers.

-Penny sneaks into her house where her father is waiting for her, and she tells him that she is leaving to go be with Paul. Her pops is a prideful man and values his reputation, and he’ll do anything to protect it, so I figure he is about to kill her since this man kept a shotgun on her last week. However, he says he isn’t a murderer and brings out his friend Maurice, who has a gang of face tattoos and piercings. Where the hell did they find this cat?

-The twins are getting a makeover, well, Bette anyway. She got her makeup on and some new blonde hair, fancy as shit. But she starts throwing all of the shade at Dot, saying that they can be a before-and-after commercial now with Dot being the plain “before” part and Dot is lookin’ like, I’ma kill you. Elsa slips a note into Dot’s pocket, which she reads later in bed and basically, Elsa asks her why she wants so much money, so Dot says it is her find a surgeon to separate her from Bette, so she wants Elsa to help her. Elsa says Bette can trust her to be of help, and I laughed.

-Elsa and Stanley are having dinner, well, Stanley is as he eats all of his food, as well as Elsa and a pie or a cake that Ethel brought in. Even Elsa looks at him like, you got a tapeworm, bruh? Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but this could be a thing down the road, like he has something living in his stomach. OR DOWN HIS PANTS. That’s my theory, dammit. Yo, we’ve seen a dude with a face on the back of his head in this show, I dare you to tell me I’m crazy. I don’t even know what he and Elsa were talking about anymore. Something about TV, I assume. I don’t care. He got teeth down his pants somewhere.

-Back at Penny’s, she is passed out on the couch because Penny stays gettin’ roofied. Her father wakes her up and she sees that Maurice has tattooed her entire face, which is wild, but they forked her tongue, b. THAT was unnecessary. Her father is on some “you wanna be a freak, here ya go” shit, and he has become quite a scumbag in his short amount of screen time.

-Dell sneaks into Ma Petite’s trailer and immediately, I was like, nah, why don’t y’all leave her alone. He brought her a dress and she is all smiling, squeaky voice and all. She goes to give him a hug to say thank you for the dress, and he proceeds to squeeze the life out of her. Her little fingers were clawing as hard as she could, but eventually, she dies and he says sorry, but fuck your apology. Big man picking on the worlds smallest woman, but I suppose after you got that ass whipped, you had to do something. Meanwhile, our group text is filled with cussing and wishing painful death on Dell. The odds-on favorite so far is Ethel, because she is dying and ain’t got shit to lose, and she knows Dell ain’t shit. The second is all the women ganging up on him, which would be fitting because we know Dell hates women.

-Penny rolls up on Paul to show her new face and he cries, so he’ll be out for revenge. Apparently, they also gave her the George Jefferson cut because her hairline is all. the way back.

-The museum gets their treasure: Ma Petite in a jar of formaldehyde. Fuck Dell, fuck Stanley, fuck the museum, fuck Maggie for keeping this secret and fuck whoever makes these big-ass jars.

Well, Dell has moved to the front of the pack for the worst character in the history of American Horror Story for that. The rest of the freaks will put two and two together, so that is worth watching. Stanley will get greedy and want more, while Dandy is probably still standing in the same spot, fuming, and the whole Elsa-and-the-twins situation. The Freak Show rolls on.

Sons Of Anarchy S07E11 – Suits Of Woe

The gloves are off now as we reach the homestretch of Sons Of Anarchy, and “Suits Of Woe” was as heart (and gut) -wrenching an episode as we’ve gotten out of this series. My stomach was in all sorts of knots watching this go down. Let’s go…

-After last week’s Fuckfest 2014 to open the show, this week’s opening was muted. Jax is sitting on Abel’s floor processing what his son just told him, while Gemma is talking to Tara again and I didn’t even mind it this time. Besides, I’m always here for Katey Sagal fidgeting and smoking. Juice is talking to himself in his cell, and he thinks all will be good if he just kills Lin. Oh, Juice. One way or another, you’re gon’ die.

-Chibbs is sneaking out of Jarry’s crib and I wonder what her neighbours think about seeing a SAMCRO member walk outside of her place in the morning, but everyone in Charming tends to mind their business for the most part. It’ll be so awkward when this relationship blows up in their face, possibly in a literal way.

-Jax walks out to see Wendy in the kitchen and he changes his shirt, because Jax apparently keeps his white tees in the kitchen. Wendy feels like she has to tell a truth since Jax told Abel about his real mother, and it is that Juice was staying at her place thanks to Gemma. You can see all of the wheels turning as Jax puts the pieces in place.

-She also tells Jax that Unser knew about it, so he books over to his trailer and starts bangin’ on the door like the damn police, ironically. He tries to engineer a sit-down with Juice and Unser is tentative to help him, for good reason. Unser also tells Juice about the dude Gemma accused of Tara’s murder being in a Vegas drunk tank that night, and another piece falls. While I’ve been critical of the way Jax’s revenge plan has been written this season, the way they are revealing the truth has been pretty good.

-Unser tells Jax that he’ll talk to Jarry about the Juice meeting, but if he burns him, all ties to the club are cut. Jax says they can pull the tape of the meeting, but come on dogg, you lyin’. Won’t be no tape.

-Back at the jail, Juice gets word that the Lin thing will go down after breakfast, so he gets his shit ready. He gets walked down to a boiler room, which seems to take 45 minutes, but there is Lin, chained up to the ceiling. He tells Juice that it was Barosky who ratted about the heroin, not Jury. I never saw that coming, I actually forget he is there from time to time. Juice told Lin he would be fine if he gave up the rat and didn’t leverage SAMCRO into a deal, but stabs him anyway because why wouldn’t he be a liar as well as a rat? He raises a very good point. Shoutout to the guard who left Juice some clean clothes because the blood would probably be a giveaway.

-Gemma gets to T-M and Unser tells her that Jax is looking for her, that Wendy told him about hiding Juice and that the dude she identified was in Vegas that night. Gemma is like meh, they all look the same, but she gets freaked out when Unser tells her that Jax is en route to see Juice. You could just see Gemma’s face getting hot. She leaves and Unser tells Chucky to follow her.

-Chibbs and Tig meet the rest of the club, and the rest of SAMCRO isn’t happy about the way the Jury thing was handled. Basically, if they find out Jax is lying, he will die. See what happens when you don’t think things through, Jackson? You paint yourself into a corner like the writers on the final season of Lost.

-Jax is at Stockton, where Tully him a phone with Lin’s confession of Barosky, and to make sure the room is secure which Jax called ahead to do because he is a fuckin’ liar. Juice gets brought in and Tully hits him with that, “oh, I’ll see you later baby”. Juice is like, oh goddammit, but he sits with Jax and pleads his case that he did what the club wanted him to do. That is all fine and good, but Jax has other ideas.

-Jax tells Juice what Abel told him and says he is about to send his kid to a psychiatrist, so what is the truth? For a split second, I thought Juice was gon’ lie, but I think he figured what’s the point and lays everything out for Jax. So, I did watch this scene again and man, listen…that was Charlie Hunnam’s Emmy scene right there. He wasn’t angry, he didn’t wanna scare Juice, he just wants the truth about some shit he doesn’t want to admit: that his mother killed the mother of his children and the love of his life. I dare you to look at his face and not be like, damn, maybe he isn’t a piece of shit, even though we know he is.

-But then Jax comes back as he tells Juice that Bobby was tortured and murdered, and not to say sorry because he is gon’ die for his part in the lie that set all this off. At least Jax tells him that he’ll make sure it is quick. Juice calls Gemma to tell him that Jax knows the truth and she hangs up on him with her flip phone. Never trust anyone on a flip phone, bruh. They’re usually on some shady shit. If you pause it, you can see Gemma saying, “FUUUUUUUCCCCCKKKK” internally.

-Chibbs and Tig are pouring over the books, which Bobby used to take care of, so Tig suggests they patch in another Jew because we needed some humor after watching Jax and Juice. Jax arrives to tell them that Lin is dead and Barosky is the rat, but priority #1 is to find Gemma and the two are like, huh? Tig asks if she is okay because remember, he has known Gemma as long as he has been in the club. Shit, Tig, Chibbs and Bobby went back to the days of Jax’s father at least, so this is some real family shit.

-Gemma is obviously packing her shit to get outta dodge, but Wendy shows up at the house and I’m like, shit, there goes my “Wendy survives” theory. I thought it was on when Wendy explains why she told Jax the truth, but I think Gemma knows the kids need someone to raise them (because we all know Jax won’t) and Chucky comes in with a shitty-ass Thomas. Gemma plays with Thomas and you get the feeling she won’t see him again. But dammit, change the kid’s diaper.

-At Diosa, Nero and Alvarez are completing the notary and we learn that Lyla knows shit about notarizing things and real estate stuff. Not just a pretty face and a porn director. Montez and Quinn swing by looking for Gemma, and it begins.

-Gemma is about ready to go as she hears motorcycles outside. Chucky comes up with a plan for Gemma to punch him so he can tell whoever is outside (Happy and Rat) that she stole his keys. I wonder why Gemma hasn’t questioned Chucky on following her, but he came up with that plan and it worked, buying Gemma some time. Chucky calls Gemma his best friend, but he has NO idea what she has been up to.

-Jarry shows up at T-M to talk to Unser to tell him that Lin is dead and there is no tape of the Jax/Juice conversation, then Jax and the boys roll up. Jax asks Chibbs what’s up with Jarry and he’s like, meh, she’s cool. Again, that’ll be awkward when it blows up in their face. But the boys here that Gemma is on the run, so Jax asks Unser to call Gemma and pretend like he wants to meet her at T-M. Unser LOSES it and tells Jax that he doesn’t give a shit about Tara, that he should spend more time being a father and not being a thug; he gets a shove and a warning. But Unser keeps going and is like, whaddya gon’ do, kill me and add to the body count and Jax punches the shit outta his face. Chibbs and Tig are like, yup, saw that coming and get Jax outta there. Unser tells Jarry to put an APB out on Jax for assault, and while it was pretty low of him to mention Tara and he deserved the punch…..Unser wasn’t wrong. Finally, someone stood up to Jax.

-Unser and Jarry go to see Juice in jail, and they wanna know what he talked about with Jax. He tells them to check the tape and Jarry is like, don’t be an asshole. Juice retorts with, “in here, all I am is someone’s asshole”. At least he still has a sense of humor about life, or what is left of it. But then he fires shots at the cops, telling them they don’t know what is going on even though it is right in front of them, and that Gemma knows the truth about everything; she is the gatekeeper. He also says that it is too late for everyone involved, and it’s weird to see Juice not being a bitch about something. All it takes is some prison rape, love poems, a cleansing of the soul, drugs and impending death.

-Gemma calls Nero to meet her, and she goes on about some story with her father, who used to go to the church where they’re at. She says she wasn’t a good wife, but she was a good mother, which is kinda up for debate like shit if you ask me. Nero is like, what did you do now, and he gets a call from Jax, who asks if he has talked to Gemma and then tells him everything. Nero is looking at Gemma completely speechless and shocked, but manages to ask her if it was true after he hangs up. Jimmy Smits be actin’, bruh. He shuts Gemma down when she tries to give him some “it’s complicated” bullshit, then he tells her that he thinks she should go. Then he sits on the curb and breaks down because finally, he learns that the woman he loves ain’t shit. She might be the queen of ain’t shit.

-Meanwhile, Jax is as Barosky’s, not parenting and being a thug, but his target isn’t there. But the cops show up to arrest him and he bails out the back, stealing a car in the process because, well, Sons Of Anarchy. The cops in Charming are terrible drivers and Jax gets away because again, Sons Of Anarchy. And that musical choice? Jazz? Probably the worst thing about this episode.

-Gemma goes to Abel’s school to give him a Sons ring that belonged to JT first, then to Jax when he was patched into SAMCRO. What was that about being a good mother, Gemma? Fuck outta here. Tara was tryna get them away from it and you destroyed that. I get that it was the life she knew, but that doesn’t make it right. Anyway, Courtney Love comes over to break it up and say that she’ll report this to child services, and Gemma leaves before asking her to take care of Abel. She walks away and so does Abel, but he turns around and says, “goodbye, Grandma”. For me, Abel (and the twins that play him) is at least top three in the SOA Season 7 power rankings.

-Jax gives Alvarez the car stole in a trade for a hideout, and the rest of the crew comes over to learn the truth. Earlier, Chibbs asked him and Jax snapped at him to not ask again, and this is where I’m like, fuck Jax. No one ever questioned him when he was executing his fuck-ass plan, and now he gets salty? They have followed him to the bottom of hell and back. But anyway, Jax tells the table about everything and they’re shocked, obviously. He realizes that he has been an ass and takes responsibility for a change, which is nice of him, and suggests that everyone take some time to think.

-Unser and Chucky are sitting at Gemma’s and Chucky asks if she is ever coming back; Unser just sits in silence. Poor Chucky. Meanwhile, Abel comes in to miss Wendy and Thomas good night, and I really thought Abel was about to do something stupid.

-I think it is here where we see the prison guards go to Juice and tell him he is taking a ride on the Orient express before beating the shit outta him. The plan is to take him to the infirmary where I assume the Asians are waiting for revenge for killing Lin. If he survives this show, I’ll be wild-eyed.

-Nero finds Jax and the two have their moment. Nero more or less cops to the fact that he did speak to Gemma, but he couldn’t talk to her so he actually doesn’t know where she is, which Jax understands I think. Then Nero suggests that he avoid killing his mother because that is some shit that he won’t come from, but at this point, does it even matter? Jax will never come back from this, and we know he isn’t a long-term thinker. Jax knows this and says through all this, he still loves her; she is his mother, which I think everyone can understand and as someone that has lost their mom, I get it. He cries and the British accent came out for just a second. The two hug and when you think about it, Nero is the closest thing to a father Jax has ever had, not mention he has mad love for Gemma.

-The episode closes with Gemma driving and singing hymns on some Underground Railroad shit, and she is driving to Mexico, I think, says the highway sign.

So, that was that. I was drained by the end of “Suits Of Woe”, but this will end up being a top-five SOA episode when it is all said and done. The first thing I said was that I can’t watch the Jax/Gemma scene. I’ll be a wreck. Shoutout to all the actors in this episode as they took their craft to another level. And we still have to deal with Barosky, Juice, the meeting of the SAMCRO presidents and I’m sure something else will pop up.

Oh, if you missed it, no Sons next week because of American Thanksgiving. It’s gon’ be a long two weeks.

The Walking Dead S05E06 – Consumed

The Walking Dead hit a little bit of a lull over the last two episodes, but it picks back up with “Consumed”, following the wacky adventures of Carol and Daryl. Y’all know how I feel about Killa Carol; her evolution, to me, has been the best part of the entire series. Daryl is good people too, all they need is Michonne and they could send everyone else home for the season. If I graded episodes, this was getting a 7.5 off the jump because of who was the focus, but it was even better than that, let’s say an 8.5 to 9. Let’s go….

-We open with Carol driving away from Rick, who put her out of the group for killing Karen and someone else, which is some bullshit. I know she had to die, but Carol watched Rick kill her daughter, Sophia, cut a girl some slack. Carol pulls over on the side of the road to cry and just screams on a walker that rolls up on her.

-She finds an abandoned law firm to kick it at and sets up shop. Carol has gotten quite self-sufficient as she makes noise to draw out any walkers, and sets up a thing to catch rain water. I wouldn’t have even thought that far ahead. Then she sees smoke in the sky from the direction of the prison and decides to save the people that banished her. Another reason why Carol is better than me.

-In the present, Carol and Daryl are following the car they were chasing three episodes ago and Carol just wants to run them off the road, but Daryl wants to be all stealth-like. I would feel as though the car in front would be able to see Carol and Daryl, especially in that shot as they were just driving into the city of Atlanta, but meh, details.

-I love how they’re doing more stuff in the city. I understand why most of the series has been set outside of Atlanta to minimize the amount of people/walkers, but I think they’ve done a great job of showing how decayed Atlanta is, and it’s a nice change.

-The car stops and so does Carol and Daryl, and as a cop (I still don’t think the people at the hospital are even cops) is messin’ around, a walker comes up and starts banging on their car. Another hint that these people aren’t cops: the guy doesn’t do anything at all, doesn’t go to check what is going on, nothing. You would think most of all that cops would be more likely to investigate that shit.

-The cop drives away and the two try to follow, but their car is out of gas; FINALLY, someone runs out of gas in The Walking Dead. Daryl figures they should chill for the night and Carol says she knows a place, but first, she stabs the walker that was banging in their car because fuck ’em, that’s why.

-They find the place and grab some keys off a dead walker, and Carol says it is temporary housing; apparently she has been there, but she didn’t stay. The two have a back-and-forth about trying to start over, and Daryl asks what would have happened if he hadn’t shown up when Carol was outside that night; she says she still doesn’t know. I love the interaction between these two. Not a lot of words, just quick and to the point, and neither of them have a bullshit bone inside them.

-They hear a sound and go to investigate, and it is a pair of walkers, I think it’s a mother and a child, but Walking Dead Wikia says it is two children. Carol wants to bring the Killa out, but Daryl stops her and says she doesn’t have to. I say BOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

-But it turns out that Daryl kills the walkers as Carol sleeps, and she wakes up to find him burning the bodies. Daryl did that so Carol ain’t have to go through that (word to Jay-Z – Izzo).

-Carol and Tyreese are burying crazy Lizzie and Mika, and Carol turns to see smoke billowing from God knows were, I would assume Terminus, maybe. Carol and that smoke, tho. Stays following her.

-In the present, the two construct a plan to get to a tall building so they can look around for an idea of where Beth is. They go outside and get past a bunch of walkers, into a building where there is a skybridge. But as they go through a door, you see someone watching them. I hit that pause button and sure enough, it was Noah, who obviously ain’t make it that far after he and Beth executed their escape plan. He does have a bum leg, remember.

-At the bridge, the two find a bunch of walkers in sleeping bags, along with tent walkers and while Daryl and Carol made short work of them, shit was pretty cool to look at. They find an office to take a breather and Carol tells Daryl that he still hasn’t asked about what happened with her, Tyreese and the girl. He says he knows what happened to the girls, I assume he thinks they turned or got eaten, but Carol says it was worse that that. She wants to tell you, fuckass, but again, they don’t use many words. They also manage to find some Peat’s potato chips an some water in a cooler that was probably warm as shit. But warm-as-shit water is better than none, I suppose.

-Before they got to the office, we see Noah watching them again; he be creepin’ like shit.

-Daryl sees a white van in the distance and since the van has those white crosses on it, he thinks that will point them in Beth’s direction. But as they make it to the walker bridge again, Noah ambushes them as Carol put the rifle through the door first, which is a rookie move, but shit happens. He gets the rifle and Daryl’s crossbow, and then proceeds to cut open the walker tents before leaving. Daryl still has a knife and Carol has a pistol and they wreck shop on the walkers, but she goes to shoot Noah and Daryl hits her hand away. I’m not sure I’m fuckin’ with new Daryl. Merle lookin’ down him like, “Why you aint shoot that nigger tho?”.

-Carol says she was aiming at his leg, which was probably a lie, and Daryl is like, he’s just a kid. Carol says that they now have no weapons and they, along with Beth, could die. She raises a good damn point. Carol is practical; all about gettin’ shit done.

-In a flashback, Carol is watching the bodies of Karen and David (I guess) burn at the prison. Oh, Carol and her crazy fire. Did she ever tell Tyreese about what happened? I can’t remember.

-Daryl and Carol find the van, which is half off and half on a bridge, and with walkers converging on them, they realize it is a hospital van. Carol knows there is a hospital around, but the walkers get there and there are far too many, even for Carol and Daryl. They get in the van and as the walkers push it off the bridge, Daryl tells Carol to buckle up. They fall for the ground and are banged up, but alright. I personally think the seat belt is what hurt Carol’s shoulder. Lesson, kids; never wear seat belts, especially in the zombie apocalypse.

-A couple of walkers fall on the van as the two scurry away, but only two. Apparently walkers get distracted by fire, but are smart enough to not follow other walkers off a bridge. We need walker intelligence consistency, dammit (I’m just playin’, I don’t care).

-They chill for a minute and Carol realizes that her shoulder is fucked, but that they did make good time falling off the bridge. Makin’ jokes and shit; I love Killa Carol.

-They go into a building and find a machete, and see where the hospital is. Carol also tells Daryl that she stayed at that temporary housing place because it was actually a shelter, and she took Sophia there for a day and a half before going back home to more abuse. At the prison, however, she was able to take control of things and this is Carol to a tee because in this episode, at least twice, we saw Carol with some sort of “dealing with abuse” book. She didn’t have the strength to walk away from her abusive husband, then she lost Sophia. Now, she is not fuckin’ around and if she sees you as a threat to her or the people she loves, you’re dying; “this world consumes you”, she says, hence the name of the episode. I admire that.

-They hear a noise and find a walker pinned against a wall with an arrow, so Daryl kills it, but they also heard gunfire. They see Noah fighting a walker and losing, but he manages to get away and the walker attacks Carol. Daryl kills it and Carol tells him to go after Noah, and after the briefest of struggles, Noah ends up with a bookshelf on him because it’s Noah vs. Daryl, for fuck sakes. Keep in mind, this bookshelf was blocking a door and there is a walker on the other side.

-Noah is begging them to save him and asks why they were following him, which is some shit because he followed them, stuck them up and took their weapons. Daryl finds a carton of smokes and I cheered because I would have smoked the entire carton right there on the spot. Daryl walks to let the walker get to Noah, but then Carol decides they can’t let him die and kills the walker. These two have the good cop/bad cop routine on lock, because you have no idea which one is which.

-In the final flashback, Carol is walking away from Terminus and she takes off her blood-smeared walker disguise, and she rubs blood off her face. She looks exhausted after SHE SAVED EVERYONE WHO ABANDONDED HER, but she keeps on movin’ as Terminus burns and of course, there is smoke billowing.

-Noah tells them that the people from the hospital probably heard the shots and were on their way, and he mentions Beth, so they know they are close. They try to leave, but Carol runs outside and gets smoked by a car, to which I wrote, “OH MY FUCKING GOD CAROL”. I gasped and shit. That car hit the almighty fuck outta Carol. Daryl wants to go save her, but Noah says the hospital people (who picked Carol up and put her in the car with the quickness, they have this down to a science now) have numbers and guns, and they can help Carol because they have a doctor and medicine. Daryl is like, yeah bruh, wait ’til you see my clique.

-Daryl composes himself and distracts walkers with fire again; so much fire and smoke in this episode. He and Noah find a truck somewhere (don’t ask) and peace out to head back to the group.

That was a really quick 42-45 minutes, even on my second watch. I would honestly watch a spinoff of Carol and Daryl runnin’ around and wildin’ out (again, along with some Michonne). So that answers the “who was with Daryl in the bushes” question and I think people were right for the most part. So the final two episodes of The Walking Dead for 2014 will revolve around rescuing Carol and Beth, and if they’re smart, taking over the hospital because the people there don’t seem very bright.

Melissa McBride is still the reigning MVP of The Walking Dead heading into the final two episodes, but Andrew Lincoln’s beard and Lauren Cohan’s sweat/dirt mix are still in the hunt. ‘Til next week, folks.

American Horror Story: Freak Show S04E06 – Bullseye

“Bullseye” picks up Freak Show right where American Horror Story‘s fourth series left off, and my big questions are answered immediately, kinda: what is Elsa gon’ do now that her TV dreams have been thrown in the bushes, and what happened to the twins? Let’s go…

-Elsa is getting some of her staff to roll a big-ass wheel into the main room, and I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but could the freak show have a creepier entrance? A giant devil’s head with some wild eyes, and y’all wonder why people don’t come to see you? Jeez. Get them in the show, THEN scare them, but I mean, my freak show experience is minimal, so what do I know?

-The wheel is for Elsa’s throwing knives act, which she used to do back in the day, she tells Ethel. This is for the television show, she says, but didn’t Stanley leave with the twins to end that dream? She looks far too high to be throwing knives, though. Keep that in the back of your mind. Elsa be lookin’ disheveled as shit.

-At the Mott house, which scares me more than the freak show, Gloria and Dandy are having some sort of meal, and Gloria gives her son what I think are matches and I was like, oh great, give the guy ammo. But nope, they’re condoms apparently, because Gloria doesn’t want him breeding because of the whole “incest bloodline making him murderous” thing. Dandy rejects them and says that he is all about that raw life and he is in love with Bette and Dot, who are at his house and I am so confused about what happened at the end of the last episode. But I know how AHS rolls, and rule #4 of AHS is, forget what happened in the last episode. Anyway, Dandy tryna get this threesome poppin’, although the twins are bending all the definition rules of threesomes (number of heads/holes/limbs, all sorts of questions here).

-It is also Elsa’s born day, and she is receiving twins, one of which is Ma Petite in a box in a sweater. Elsa looks a hot mess because, well, opium, but she does manage to notice that the freaks don’t look happy. They miss the twins, which certainly pisses Elsa off, and she demands they have fun because, dammit, she is,

-She is in bed with Paul, tattooed cuz with the seal arms, and apparently they’ve been doin’ the business for a minute now. She also doesn’t have her legs on, and the idea of them having sex opens up a whole ‘nother box of questions, but I can’t explain at least three of them without a drawing. She also says something about Paul visiting her in Hollywood, because Elsa is fucking delusional. Then Paul hands Ma Petite to Elsa, and I hope she ain’t have to see/hear all that.

-However, Paul has other plans as he is sneaking away to be with Penny, the nurse Elsa drugged in the first episode. Apparently, the opium opened her up to that freak life, but Paul won’t sleep with her because he wants her to love him for him, which is admirable, I guess. But he has to hide when Penny’s father comes to her room. More on THAT mufucka in a bit.

-Dandy is tryna get on the twins’ good side by making them all of the food (well, the Motts’ chef), and Bette loves the cavier, but Dot isn’t really feeling Dandy. That is, until Dandy tells them about a successful surgery separating a pair of Siamese twins. Dot is like, well shit, I can’t afford this, but Dandy can, so I’ll play nice. Then she dreams of being comforted by Jimmy over the death of her sister after the separation, which is some cold, cold shit. I have three takeaways from this: Sarah Paulson continues to be great and my Emmy agenda has been shifted into another gear, Dandy might say fuck it and separate them himself, and these twins have awful taste in men.

-Paul goes to a drugstore to buy some perfume, and he sees Dandy, who is buying two of everything, all girl stuff. Paul puts two and two together, but Dandy tells the store owner that the freak is bothering him and he might have stole something, because Paul has such a reach on him. Paul leaves and spits on the window, and I fucks with that dude.

-Paul goes back to tell Jimmy about what he saw, but Jimmy ain’t tryna hear it, which is funny because he was tryna leave like, three eps ago. Paul tells Jimmy that Elsa isn’t what she seems, spittin’ that truth.

-The twins find out that one of the twins from the surgery has died, and they start mind-talking to each other. Dandy thinks they shouldn’t have secrets, and tells them that he was the one who killed Twisty, but Dot not only declines to tell him a secret, but tells him that Jimmy was the real hero. Dandy freaks the fuck out because she isn’t playing by his fuckass rules, and he doesn’t like being told no. Son’s head starts to shake and shit. If this ain’t a hint and a half for their ass that this dude is NUTS.

-Stanley and Maggie meet, and Stanley is all about that paper, coming up with a plan to cut off Jimmy’s lobster hands and sell them to that museum. But Maggie is all sweet on Jimmy now and instead, wants to sacrifice Ma Petite. We see a disturbing dream sequence that involves Ma Petite, formaldehyde and a big-ass jar. Where are these jars coming from? They got a Costco in 1952 Jupiter, Florida?

-Elsa is singing a song for Paul, who is tryna get outta there and see Penny, and she notices that he smells like perfume that isn’t hers. She flips out and wants to know who it is, and he is like, fuck you, where are the twins? This sets her off and Elsa wants everyone awake because they have been talking shit behind her back, and she calls them, “ungrateful ingrates”, which tells you how mad she was because that is redundant as shit. Jimmy tries to calm her down, but Elsa says that if they trust her, someone will get on her knife wheel. Jimmy says he’ll do it, but Paul does it since he started this whole thing.

-So, Paul gets on this wheel, getting knives thrown at him by high-ass Elsa, who progressively looks like someone you’d see on Cops. Of course, she doesn’t hit him with the first two knives, but she nails him in the stomach with the third and doesn’t look like she gives a damn. Ol’ girl might have even smiled. Dat opium, bruh.

-Penny tries to sneak out to see Paul, but her father stops her with a shotgun because it could have been a burglar. They argue because Penny wants to go out and experience life, and her father is too strict. She eventually leaves, but here is the thing: even after he knows it is Penny, her father keeps the shotgun pointed at her. She might have a point. Who does that? Keep an eye on him going forward. Son might run up in the freak show on some Rambo shit.

-Maggie grabs Ma Petite and takes her to Stanley’s barn, and I can’t front, I was cookin’ off Ma Petite. Maggie told her to get in a jar, and Ma Petite was like, Weeeeeeeeee I’m a butterfly! She was flappin’ her little wings and shit, tryna blossom, it was sad, but SO GOOD. Even Maggie was like, I’m an asshole, but she wants the Lobsterhands D (that should be the name of a band) so she pours in the formaldehyde.

-Penny gets to the freak show, looking for Paul, and she finds him high as shit with Elsa, who is giving him opium for the pain, but no doctor yet. Elsa even told him that she won’t cry when he does because he betrayed her, and she tells Penny that there is no rush for a doctor. Uhhhhhhh, what?

-Jimmy tells Ethel what Paul told him about Elsa, but Ethel has always been one of Elsa’s biggest supporters; shit, she is even making a cake for Elsa’s born day. But they are interrupted by Eve, the tall woman, who says that Ma Petite is gone and she missed breakfast, which is not like her. They round up the troops, but Maggie comes out with Ma Petite, so she didn’t follow Stanley’s orders. She tells Jimmy that they should run away together, and he is just psyched that a quasi-normal girl likes him, but he has to do one thing before they leave.

-Stanley is waiting for Maggie in her trailer and he is pissed because he was ready to go back to Philly with Ma Petite. He isn’t leaving without Jimmy’s hands and I don’t even think he has a plan to get them, but he is getting them. I assume it involves a Viking hat.

-Dandy is a mess as he has read the girls’ diaries and man, Dot was spittin’ that ether at him. He bores her to tears and only laughs at his shitty jokes for money, reads Gloria, while Dandy is laid up in the fetal position. Gloria suggests that he focus on Bette and try to make Dot jealous, but it is all or nothing with Dandy, who grabs a knife and goes on some spiel about being put on earth to bring death to mufuckas. Finn Wittrock be actin’, dogg.

-Someone is at the door, and lo and behold, it is Jimmy, who Dandy says is here for the twins. He still has the knife, too. Someone is not leaving this house.

-Elsa and Ethel are talking over a single piece of birthday cake, and Elsa tells Ethel about her sister, who died in infancy and that she reminded her parents of that tragedy. Elsa thinks the freaks are her family, but Ethel says they don’t trust her and if she finds out she had anything to do with the twins leaving, Ethel would kill her. The episode closes on Elsa wishing to be loved as she blows out her candle.

So, we have the Jimmy/Dandy/Bette/Dot rectangle to deal with, Paul is still alive, Stanley is not leaving Florida without freak body parts, Elsa is, well, Elsa and Ethel doesn’t trust her. We ain’t even see Dell and DJ TripleTits (Desiree, thanks for that, Lindsay) this week. Yep, American Horror Story: Freak Show is right on schedule in that I have no clue what is going to happen next.

Sons Of Anarchy S07E10 – Faith And Despondency

The tenth episode of Sons Of Anarchy’s final season was up and down as “Faith and Despondency” tried to focus on a lot of secondary characters, but by the end of it, we were right back on track for a helluva finale. Let’s go..

-For a show that features a brothel/porn studio, there hasn’t been a lot of sex on SOA this season outside of Chibbs and Jarry. It seems like they were saving it all for the opening of this episode as we roll through all of the sex, although I didn’t catch the opening couple. Gemma and Nero don’t like they wanna bother having sex, Tig is gettin’ it poppin’ with Venus, which they’ve been moving towards for a couple seasons now, while Chibbs and Jarry make an appearance, of course. Rat doesn’t heed Gemma’s advice of not being a dick as he cheats on Brooke with an escort, while Happy takes one in an alley on the hood of a car. Wendy has graduated from junkie to the most sensible person on the SAMCRO side, and she has her vibrator, while Juice is getting pillaged by Tully Manson in jail. I guess they have to get over Bobby somehow. Except for Juice; he is just getting fucked.

-The first couple was Jax and Winsome, apparently, and we have barely seen her since Jax rescued her from the pimp named Greensleeves. She gives her condolences about Tara and goes to leave, but a tearful Jax asks her to stay. Right, Jax. Like you have time for this right now.

-Jax and Nero meet at Diosa, and Jax says he can’t see SAMCRO without Bobby, while Nero says Gemma is a mess, which is fair as she has known Bobby forever, but she is so responsible for his death. Nero sees this as a time to talk about him leaving, and while
Jax is hesitant, he seems to understand. Nero leaves and Jax turns his attention to Rat, who is walking his escort out and Jax tells him to meet T.O., the leader of the Grim Bastards. I honestly have no idea what Rat’s thing is. They continue to show him way more than I thought they ever would. By “they”, I hope you know that I’m talking about Kurt Sutter and his crew of writers and directors.

-Winsome comes out and says Jax is a decent person for rescuing her and such. I laugh out loud. She has no idea what this dude has done. But her bar is probably pretty low.

-Tig and Venus have a scene and I’ma be honest, I zoned out like shit here. Y’all know I don’t like Tig at all and unless it has to do with him dying, I don’t care, but more on that later on.

-Breakfast is being had at Gemma’s, and Abel has a scratch over his eye. He says that Thomas did it to him, but come on. Thomas is such a mild-mannered kid that he wouldn’t or couldn’t do that, and if he did, Abel would fuck his entire life up. So automatically, I assume he did it himself because, well, Abel is SO messed up.

-Back at the cabin, Grant and his mom wanna go home as they have given their statement to the DA, but Quinn and Montez advise against it. I just realize that ol’ girl’s name is fucking Loutreesha. Kurt Sutter, boy, I tell ya, he is something else.

-Gemma drops Abel off at school, and Courtney Love notices the scratch above his eye. She knows something is going on due to her last meeting with Gemma, and she takes Abel inside to get the truth. She gon’ die, b.

-Jax goes to meet Tully Manson, who says that he’ll get Juice close to Lin, but it might take a couple days. There is also a new guy, Otis, who is replacing crazy Leland in the Nazi ranks, says Tully, who also tells Jax what he is doing to Juice. Jax is like, “he needs some lovin’ anyway”. DAMN.

-Moses wants Tyler to find out where Grant and his mother are, and that he knows that Tyler rolls with the Sons heavy. Tyler says that T.O. might know where they are in a solid case of black-on-black snitching. He might gotta die, too. Moses doesn’t trust him obviously, and they all head to the Bastards’ headquarters.

-Abel goes to the bathroom at school, and in a stall, he takes out a fork, which made me sit up straight. But I have a couple questions about this. Would you give a child like Abel a metal fork to do anything? Give him a knife, maybe even a small chainsaw. And two, Courtney Love is all up in his shit, but she doesn’t notice him going to the bathroom with his lunchbox? Details, I guess, but jeez.

-Jax goes to meet the new Leland, Otis, and one of Leland’s boys aren’t happy about the change. Otis says he has more guys on the way, but the attention is on this guy, who calls Tig a tranny-humper; how he would know this, I have no idea. Chibbs says this isn’t the time, but Otis is like, “I got no problem with the time”. So Tig steps to him and asks for an apology, and when he doesn’t get it, he shoots homeboy in the dick. All the guns come out, and Jax shoots another guy in the head. Otis calms the situation and they also learn that Leland is late for this meeting because he is en route to kill the female cop in the hospital. He gets killed and the boys head to the hospital. Working with Nazis sounds like a hard knock life.

-Moses, Tyler and ’em find the Bastards and Rat and throw them all in the back of a van. I also forgot that the Bastards are now SAMCRO, which explains why Rat was with them. A lotta shit goin’ on in these streets, bruh.

-Leland sneaks into the hospital, all the way to the room in which she is supposed to be, and it is pointed out that he would have been stopped by a nurse who walks right by him as he is past a secure point. However, details schmetails. He sees the bed empty, and goes in the bathroom, where he finds Unser in the shower. After a brief struggle, Unser shoots Leland in the chest. Dogg, Unser is old as shit and has cancer. Leland deserved to die.

-In the ensuing investigation, Unser tells Jarry that he got an anonymous tip and you can see the steam coming out of her ears. She tells Unser that the boys are in the lobby, and Unser is shaken up as he never had to kill anyone as a cop. But seriously, how did he know though? That Otis guy?

-Chibbs gets a call from Wendy, and he tells Jax that he has to go to Abel’s school. Meanwhile, T.O. and Rat are in the Bobby room and when they don’t tell Moses what he wants, his men punch the shit outta them while Tyler watches. Man, after last week’s brilliance, SOA is back to jumping all over the place. It’s a bit off-putting.

-Meanwhile, Juice gets a package from Tully consisting of a book of Emily Bronte love poems, which I thought was fantastic as “Wuthering Heights” is one of my top five favorite books of all time. You wanna talk about fuckery? Read that shit, bruh. Anyway, he also gets some K-Y and drugs, so yeah, Juice about to be on some bitch shit for the foreseeable future.

-Jax gets to Abel’s school, where Child Services have been called, as well as Gemma. Abel comes out and shows that he has cuts all over his arm from his fork and when he is asked who did it, he says “Grandma”. Awwwwwwww shit, another brick falls in Gemma’s failing house of cards.

-Moses gets out his eye-extracting spoon, and T.O. is like, fuck that, mufuckas are at this location. Moses says he is disappointed that it was the brotha that broke, and this whole season could be a segment of “Fuckin’ With Black People”, word to The Black Guy Who Tips podcast.

-At Gemma’s, they try to figure out what in the hell is wrong with Abel, and Jax says he is taking Abel to his house, and he wants Wendy to watch him. You can see Gemma pee herself a little bit, because she knows what is coming. Nero thinks it’s because Abel thinks Gemma is tryna to replace Tara. He isn’t completely wrong there, but we know there is far more to it than that. Gemma’s palms gotta be sweating like Patrick Ewing.

-Also, let’s take the messed up child to the house of his murderous biker leader father. But I guess the alternative is Gemma. Abel never had a fuckin’ chance.

-Moses leaves Tyler with one of his boys with Rat and T.O., and shoots the dude in the head to free the SAMCRO boys. Moses is en route to Otis’ house unbeknownst to him, and after a sweep, they don’t find anyone or anything but a camper. They open the door to the camper and it is rigged, of course. Out come the Nazis, along with SAMCRO, and they proceed to gun down Moses and crew. Moses is hit, but only in the knee so Jax can exact revenge. He rips out Moses’ eye with his bare hands, which seems extremely hard to do, then cuts off his fingers, then shoots him in the head.

-So, here are my issues with this. Tyler must have called Jax when Moses left for the cabin, but why wouldn’t Moses take him as well? That doesn’t sound like something he would do, even though we haven’t known him that long. Second, who came up with this plan? Jax? The same dude that has spent all season getting outsmarted by damn near everyone? Okay. But I am alright with it because he is the protagonist and he was supposed to win, no matter how unlikely. Besides, his whole world is about to get flipped upside down.

-Jax thanks Otis for the help and for getting rid of the bodies, while Otis thanks him for getting rid of Leland, which Jax ain’t have anything to do with, but whatever. Jax tells Rat he is proud of him for standing strong, but still, something doesn’t sit right with me about him. Also, Happy kept one of Moses’ fingers as a souvenir. I fucks with that dude.

-After that, a buncha shit happens quickly. Grant and Loutreesha (Jesus Christ) learn they can go home quasi-safely, while Unser hangs out with the cop he saved. Juice is snorting drugs and listening to Tully read him Bronte poems, because, romance.

-Jarry tells Chibbs that she thinks this is over, and Chibbs is like, okay, and she freaks out. Chibbs tells the truth: she is a cop, he is a criminal and they’re not gon’ be a normal couple. She pushes him, he smacks her and they end up having mad sex on the floor. I don’t like where this is going for Chibbs. At some point, he will have to make a choice between her and the club, unless she leaves her job to be an old lady, in which case I will throw my fuckin’ hands up.

-Tig and Venus have, like, a seven-minute scene about him not knowing who he is, and how he wants to go away with her or something. Look, I’ve wanted Tig to die for like, four seasons now. And they give him a relationship with three episodes left in the series? NOAP. Not here for it. I don’t care if it’s with a male turned female, a hot female, six hot females and a baby elephant, I don’t care. Kill him.

-Nero goes to Gemma’s, where Brooke is patching up Rat and Nero is lookin’ like, she don’t know he was fuckin’ someone else this morning, but he is no snitch. He finds Gemma sitting on the floor, fidgeting and smoking (which I will miss about this show strangely). Gemma is like, yeah, I think I should go with you now and says, “I don’t know why you’re still here”. None of is know, Gemma; it’s the million-dollar question.

-Finally, we get to Jax’s, where Abel comes out and Jax decides this is the perfect time to tell him that Wendy is his birth mother. I get what he was trying to do, but this vaults Jax into the pantheon of terrible TV dads alongside Don Draper, Tywin Lannister and Frank Gallagher (honourable mention to Dexter Morgan). Like the kid isn’t confused enough. Wendy is shocked, but thanks Jax and at this point, you assume they gon’ smash. Jax might have that in mind, but he goes to tuck in Abel, who hits him with, “Is Wendy my first mommy because I came out of her tummy?”. Jax says, “Yeah.” Then Abel drops, “Is that why Grandma killed my other mommy, so my first mommy could be here with me?”

-SOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNN….Jax almost hit him with a, “I beg your pardon?”. Abel did it so innocently because he really is a kid tryna make sense of this all. And in doing so, he came through and crushed Gemma’s buildings like Snoop in the “New York, New York” video. So fucking good.

Overall, I thought “Faith and Despondency” was inconsistent, they gave too much time to secondary characters and I will always be mad about them tryna make me feel sympathic towards Tig. But that ending, DAMN. That is all I needed to see. Three episodes left in Sons Of Anarchy, who ya got?

The Walking Dead S05E05 – Self Help

The Walking Dead continues on with their single-group episodes as “Self Help” follows Abraham, Glenn, Maggie, Eugene, Tara and Rosita (whose name I have been tanking for the majority of the series, so I’ma just call her Rosa) after they leave Rick and ’em at the church. Let’s go…

-The group is driving down the road, and Rosa is playing with Abraham’s hair, saying she’ll cut it soon. Hell, I don’t even know if we have heard her speak before, and we definitely haven’t seen this sort of interaction between the two. Tara says she’ll cut Eugene’s mullet, and I don’t think there is anything sexual going on here, it’s kinda awkward.

-Glenn and Maggie ask Eugene how everything is gonna go when they get to DC and he starts talking a lot of scientific stuff, which he tends to do; he doesn’t know how to explain things in normal terms, or he is hiding something. I think I wrote a while ago that I thought he was full of shit. I know if I’m Glenn, I’m demanding answers. I left my group for your bitch ass.

-Just after they drive by some walkers, the group’s bus blows a tire or something, swerves into a car and flips on its side. The walkers roll up, and on to the credits, which I don’t think get enough to credit for being creepy as hell. I think about my favorite shows: Game Of Thrones, Archer, Sons Of Anarchy, just to name a few, and I get excited when I get to the opening. Shit, Dexter’s opening was the best part of their final four seasons, but that is a story for another day.

-We flashback to Abe (it’s easier to type and I’m lazy) pummelling some dude with a can, then he steps on his neck. He calls out to Ellen, whom you would have to assume is his wife.

-But we go right back to the present, where the group has to get out of the bus that is surrounded by walkers. They come up with a plan and proceed to execute it, and the main goal is to protect Eugene, who is persuaded by Tara to leave and she even gives him a knife, but he is shook as shit. However, he does manage to stab a walker behind Tara, although she finishes the job. God, I hate Eugene so much.

-The engine was screwed, so the group loses their supplies and now they’re in trouble. Eugene wants to go back to the church, but Abe loses it and starts going on about retreating means to lose, so this dude has to be a former soldier for real. I dont trust anyone in The Walking Dead, but this seems pretty legit. Glenn is like, “uhhhh, you alright?” to Abe, who says he is good. Tara suggests that they find bikes, which my homie Bieber suggested a few weeks ago, because bikes don’t burn and furthermore, they don’t require gas. The group leaves and Eugene spits on a walker, and I PRAY that the walker gets up and bites the royal fuck outta this smug bastard. God.

-In another flashback, Abe is yelling for, and finding, Ellen, who has to be his wife; the redhead son is a dead giveaway. They’re looking at him like he is crazy as he is covered on blood, as one tends to be after you beat a buncha dudes with a can; oh yeah, there were multiple dudes in the original flashback. One thing is for sure: Abe’s hand game is no joke at all.

-In the present, the group finds a book store, which they secure and make camp. They make a fire and set up shop, and Glenn and Abe have a moment to themselves. Abe thanks Glenn for coming, and that everyone can survive on their own now, which is bullshit because Eugene is a punk. He also says that he would to say that killing isn’t easy, but now it is the easiest thing in the world. Glenn says he’ll take watch and Abe should get some sleep, to which Abe agrees, but he needs some ass first. Maggie is with Glenn, and Tara is a lesbian, so that leaves….

-Cut to Abe and Rosa gettin’ it, and she says to him that he is watching again, meaning Eugene, so this has obviously happened before. Abe gives no fucks whatsoever, and keeps going. Tara rolls up on Eugene like, what the hell are you doing? Eugene ends up admitting that he sabotaged the bus and that it was never supposed to start in the first place. His reason: he can’t survive on his own and if he couldn’t save the world, he has no value. Tara says they’re all friends, and they would keep him alive, but she’ll keep his secret. She also hits him with her patented fist bump. I fucks with Tara. She’s good people.

-As for Eugene, his reason for sabotaging the bus makes no sense at all and I think I dislike him more than Andrea or Lori combined. I need him to join them.

-Glenn and Maggie are talking, and Maggie says she feels guilty about leaving the group. Ummmm……WHAT ABOUT YOUR SISTER, YO? Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Lauren Cohan, I just listened to her on the Nerdist podcast and she has a British accent, which is awesome. Maggie is generally a good character too, real ride-or-die, but the lack of fucks she gives about Beth is mind-boggling. Still hasn’t mentioned her name.

-Rosa suggests to Abe that they should chill for another day, but he insists on moving forward so they can get Eugene to DC, where he can save lives. Then Maggie suggests the same, and Rosa says the opposite for some reason. A fire truck appears out of nowhere, so now they have a vehicle. Abe says that it is about time something good happens for them, but just before the truck starts, you see it move forward and open a door, so this is the TWD formula for “something bad is about to happen”. The truck stops again and a gang of walkers emerge, and the group fights them off. Eugene gets on top of the truck and sprays the walkers to death, which is some shit and the smug look on his face makes me hate him even more.

-Abe starts laughing as he gets on top of the truck and sees a message on the ground, “Sick inside let them die”, then yells at Glenn when he suggests they raid a Goodwill up the street. Abe won’t fucking listen to anyone; he is so focused on getting Eugene to DC that he has tunnel-vision. Even Rick at the height of the Ricktatorship listened to others.

-In another flashback, Abe wakes up to find his family gone, and they left a note saying “Don’t try to find us”. DAMN. How bad of a person is he? Of course, he goes to find them.

-The group gets in the truck, which didn’t get very far before breaking down again. Maggie tries to talk to Eugene about the mullet, but they’re distracted by a smell, which Glenn goes to investigate. Down the road, it is walker city, like, hundreds of them it looks like. Glenn says they have to go back, but stubborn ass Abe isn’t buying it and says they can get through. A struggle ensues between Abe, Glenn and Rosa, but in the commotion, Eugene decides to yell that, SURPRISE…..he isn’t a scientist! I throw my hands up and do a touchdown dance, I knew Eugene’s fuck ass wasn’t shit. Everyone freezes like that “Red Light Green Light” game we used to play as kids.

-Eugene tells him that he is smarter than them and a good liar, and I’m wondering why he isn’t dead yet. People died to get him this far, and he is being so damn smug. So Abe, thank Jesus, punches Eugene into next week and falls face first on the pavement, knocking himself out. GOOD.

-In the final flashback, Abe discovers the bodies of his family, who barely got around a corner before dying and he is about to comit suicide by putting his gun in his mouth and pulling the trigger. But he hears someone calling for help and it is Eugene, who has the most bitchass run you ever did see and Abe kills the walkers that are chasing him. Abe starts to walk away, but Eugene begs him to stay and says he has a very important mission to end the episode.

“Self Help” was an improvement over “Slabtown” from last week, but not by a whole lot. It seems like Abe is treating this like a video game and needs to complete missions after his family died. He is a terrible leader whose inability to listen to people might get them killed. And if they save Eugene, they all deserve to die.

But next week, we get the Incredible Adventures Of Carol and Daryl, and I am here for that like shit. The Walking Dead goes in waves; it always has. The last couple weeks have seen a decline, but with three episodes left until the stupid midseason break (AMC, stop that shit), business is about to pick up.

American Horror Story: Freak Show S04E05 – Pink Cupcakes

American Horror Story: Freak Show rolls on with “Pink Cupcakes”, and after their two-part special on the Edward Mordrake myth, it would seem like it would get into a more streamlined style of storytelling. Not so much. If anything, I may be more confused by Freak Show than I was before, but that was to be expected. Let’s go…..

-We open with Stanley and Maggie back at the museum in which we first saw them in, and they show the body of Paul the Illustrated Seal, dead as all hell and Stanley is so proud, although that is tempered when he doesn’t get the credit for finding Paul. I’m not sure at what point this takes place because “Pink Cupcakes” jumps all over the place when it comes to time. Keep that in mind as you’re reading this.

-Then we go back to what I assume is the current time as Stanley is discussing with Maggie on how they’re going to store the bodies of the freaks, which they’re killing to give to this museum so they can get this money, but Stanley says he needs Maggie to stick with the plan and he is going to continue to get close to Elsa. Maggie doesn’t want to be down with murder because she sort of feels something towards Jimmy, who saved her from Twisty and Dandy last week. She also calls Stanley a “poof” because he has magazines of shirtless men falling out of his bag. I had no idea that was even a thing and all I can think about Cheesy Poofs from South Park.

-At the Mott house, Gloria finds Dora laid out in blood on the floor and screams, and she instantly sees through Dandy’s lie because she knows her son is fucking nuts. And for killing the maid, he gets sent to his room. Sounds about right.

-Stanley approaches Elsa as a TV exec, and Elsa goes on this big spiel about television trying to replace movies as an art and all but spits on it. The irony of Jessica Lange making this speech isn’t lost on anyone, but we should be used to her characters doing these types of speeches. Stanley leaves to go watch her show, of which Elsa’s delusions still have her as the star.

-Jimmy and Maggie are outside and Maggie reads his McLobsterHands to tell his future, and says that there is a man coming whom he shouldn’t listen to, meaning Stanley, we think. Jimmy tries to kiss her and that doesn’t work out well for him, because even though she is playing a role, she ain’t tryna to have the lobster hands messin’ around down there. For good reason, as we see soon….

-Jimmy heads to Dell’s trailer to find him, and he doesn’t find him, but he does find a drunken Desiree who tells Jimmy that Dell isn’t as bad as everyone thinks. Jimmy starts going on about Meep and tries to kiss Desiree, who rejects him at first, but they start going at it and he starts rummaging around down there. Next thing you know, blood everywhere, bruh. I automatically thought he cut her dick off, and a rousing conversation about what happened during the commercial break.

-Ethel takes Desiree to her doctor while Elsa is just bombing on stage, singing that “Life on Mars” song from the premiere or the second episode. Like, mufuckas throwing popcorn at her. This is something that needs to be brought back, although people might get shot now. Elsa calls for Stanley and wants to know about “this television”, because she is not the star she thinks she is.

-Desiree gets scoped out by the doctor, who figures out that she is 100% woman, and that the penis down there is really just an enlarged clitoris, and the bleeding was actually a miscarriage. I’m not sure on the whole biology about this, but we’ll go with it, because American Horror Story.

-Gloria orders her gardeners to dig a huge hole as they’re planning to bury Dora, and we learn that Dandy’s father was also prone to killin’ mufuckas because they have an inbred family. So much is explained here. I think this has been theorized from the beginning. She basically tells him that they’ll figure out a way to handle his impulsives, so Dandy is turning into Dexter, apparently.

-Elsa gets all dressed up and is ready to leave with Stanley, but she sees him driving off with Bette and Dot, and you can see the insides of her soul collapse. But then, we skip forward in time and see the twins inside the museum in one of Stanley’s kill jars, and he tells the curator that they died of pneumonia or something, but really, he poisoned Bette with a pink cupcake, then suffocated Dot because she wouldn’t eat one. Watching Bette crying in bed with Dot’s dead head beside was creepy as shit. But apparently, none of this happened, which is great because there was no way I would be happy with Sarah Paulson leaving after five episodes.

-We see a Dandy workout montage and he is in his underwear, talking about being a murderer or an actor or both, I don’t know. I was too busy laughing at the montage to pay attention to him. But he goes to a gay bar, where he sees Dell talking to a male prostitute and we realize why he can’t have an erection with Desiree; it is because he is gay, but he thinks she has a penis and it’s all very confusing. Dell has been telling this prostitute for a while now that he’ll run away with him, but he has Desiree and all and when the dude (named Andy) says he is working, Dell storms off. Enter Dandy, and Andy tells him all of his prices, and we deduce that gay brothels were cheap as shit in 1952.

-Dell goes home to Desiree, who tells him what the doctor told her and Dell isn’t shook at all. She also knows that he is Jimmy’s father thanks to Ethel and he tries to scare her, but Angela Bassett channels “Waiting To Exhale” and tells him to get the fuck outta her face before leaving.

-Dandy leads the prostitute out to the bus, because it is always good to follow strangers in the woods. Then they play some “take off your clothes with our backs to each other” game, which sounds the worst game in the world and you just know this isn’t gon’ turn out well for Andy as Dandy turns around and is wearing some briefs and the Twisty mouth. Dandy stabs the shit outta Andy, like, 25 times, and starts to saw off his limbs to dispose of them in acid. Andy wakes up because the mufucka just won’t die and he begs Dandy to kill him, but Dandy is like, meh, I’ll get to it.

-Dora’s daughter Regina calls Gloria to ask why her mother missed their weekly phone call, and PRECIOUS BACK, Y’ALL. Gabourey Sidibe returns to the cast and has this “this bitch…” look on her face as Gloria lies to her about her mother being alright. Gloria asks Regina about how she was as a mother as she kinda hung around Dandy as a kid, and Regina was like, you wasn’t really around back then. Gloria says something about that was the way she was raised, and Regina was like, I don’t have time for this, and hung up.

-Dell pays the doctor a visit and basically says to leave Desiree’s genitalia alone or he is going for his family. He sure loves the peen, or what he thinks is a peen. He broke dude’s fingers like shit, though. I think the doctor would have been fine without all that. Dell is an asshole, man.

-Dandy shows up at his house in his underwear, covered in blood on some “Oooops, I Did It Again” shit, and we wonder how the hell he got home without anyone seeing him. But again, and you have to say this every single episode, you have to let some shit slide with American Horror Story.

-Finally, we see Elsa driving the twins somewhere as she told them she wanted to be their mentor, but she took them to the Mott house as Gloria wanted to buy them when she took Dandy to the freak show. These twins are in a world of trouble, no matter who they go with.

A typically weird episode of AHS as they continue to shock, and I’m tryna figure out what Dell’s angle is, and how many people Dandy is about to kill. Maggie looks like she is tryna warn Jimmy, who is looking to fuck anything that moves, and of course, I’m worried about Bette and Dot. Five episodes in, and I have no idea where American Horror Story is going, and that is the way I like it.

Sons Of Anarchy S07E09 – What A Piece Of Work Is Man

From the very beginning, you had an idea that this was going to be a different episode of Sons Of Anarchy. Each week has been wildly chaotic to the point where you have no idea what is going on, but with “What A Piece Of Work Is Man” (a line from Hamlet, which SOA has always been a modern retelling of, or at least the foundation on which the story was built), they managed to slow everything down and come up with the best episode of the season. Let’s go….

-Your first clue that this was about to be some shit, was that there was no music during the opening montage like there usually is. Jax was laying in bed with Abel in probably the most parenting he has done all season, while Wendy pops in to take Thomas. Gemma is smoking and fiddling with her hands while Nero sleeps, and she lies about sleeping because with everything on her plate, there is no way that she has been sleeping. Juice and Bobby are being contrasted in their jails as Juice is moved to Stockton, while Bobby is just sitting, smoking with one eye and one hand. It just all seems very tense, and the lack of music did a good job in accomplishing this.

-Gemma tells Abel to say thank you at the breakfast table, and he gives her this look like, “Bitch, who are you talkin’ to like I don’t know you killed my moms”. I love the kid who plays Abel, man. He just looks stunned all the time, but after going through everything that he has by, what, five years old, he should be stunned. And murderous. Very murderous.

-Jax wants Abel to go up to the cabin along with Gemma and Wendy, and he was going to come there later. If he is sending everyone out of Charming, you know shit is about to go down. Abel asks if someone has died, which is a very pertinent question because, well, someone always dies.

-At the cabin, Jax gets his Godfather on and tells Grant, the preacher’s son, the new plan to make Marks think that he is getting the video to get leverage for Bobby, and Grant is like, your plans suck, b. I thought he was gon’ jump across the table when Jax says, “trust me”, which is SOA-speak for “something awful is about to happen”. Then Tyler shows up and Jax asks him to set up a meeting with Marks, but he is distracted when Montez the prospect (I was gon’ call him the Latin prospect…..RESEARCH!) runs in because Grant hit him in the head with a pipe and took off. Hell, we didn’t have a chase scene in the last episode, did we?

-Grant runs Happy off the road, so this isn’t gon’ end well for him. The bikes eventually catch up to him and they get Grant out of the car. The nerve of Jax yelling at him like he has a leg to stand on and has been right this entire time. Meanwhile, Grant was gon’ do the honourable thing and give himself up to Marks so his mom would be safe, but Jax is like, nah, we got this, because they have done alright so far. Happy punches Grant in the face to make things even, because even though I get why he did it, still, you don’t fuck with Happy. Man, fuck Jax. I know this is all Gemma’s fault and she put him in this position, but Jesus, his plans are just terrible, b. TERRIBLE.

-Gemma gets tipped off from Unser that Jarry will be looking to question her about Juice’s story before she goes to the cabin. She doesn’t want to, but Rat was listening to the conversation and tells Gemma that Jax is behind Juice in jail. Then his chick, Brooke, comes out and he yells at her to get in the kitchen, and Gemma’s basic lesson to Rat is to not be a dick because finding a good old lady is hard in these streets. She would know, I guess, having gone through two SAMCRO presidents and the third is her son.

-Gemma goes to the office and looks through some pictures for Jarry, who is starting to piece things together, but Gemma calls her out on being on the club’s dime AND fucking Chibbs. Jarry slaps her and man, Gemma pushed her like a WWE wrestler, legs in the air and everything. For me, the moment of the episode is seeing Nero outside, and he just throws his hands in the air like, “are you fucking kidding me?”. Jarry tells her cops to go outside because it’s not like Gemma isn’t right, and the two exchange threats before Gemma is allowed to leave.

-Jax meets with Marks with everyone else there, and he shows Marks the video, but says Marks won’t get it or the pastor’s body until they get Bobby, and he doesn’t want Marks to kill the mother and son, to which he agrees, but he still wants to meet with Grant. Is Jax STILL tryna outsmart Marks? Jesus Christ. I wrote as I watched this, “How does Marks know that Jax has been helping Grant”. It might be because Marks has eyes everywhere, but it is worth keeping in the back of your mind, I think.

-Jax told Marks that they saw the pastor and he was cut into pieces, so now these mufuckas gotta dig up the bodies again on some Weekend At Bernie’s shit, because why not? It is good to see Jax digging up a body though; at least he is getting his hands dirty in this stupid, stupid plan. The boys take the bodies back to Red Woody and start sewing parts together on some Frankenstein shit, and it looks like they are putting a bomb in the body, right? RIGHT?

-The new president of Indian Hills comes by with his VP to tell Jax that he is setting up a jury of impartial SAMCRO members to figure out what to do about the Jax/Jury thing, because we seem to forget (as Jax does) that Sons Of Anarchy is more than just the Redwood chapter. One more thing that Jax has to deal with. Awesome. So the plan is to get Juice to record a conversation with Lin……IN JAIL, mind you…..that puts Jax in the clear for what he did. Jesus Christ.

-Moses, Marks’ security guy, readies Bobby to go to Jax, but first, he wants his boys to break his jaw and one tries, but Bobby laughs it off. Moses says that he respects Bobby, a fellow former army guy and a soldier, and then proceeds to punch the everlovin’ shit outta him.

-Back at T-M, Nero tells Gemma that he is going to sign some shit to get his plan in motion, and Gemma was like, “are you really doing this?”, like he is the one with the bad idea. Nero then asks Chucky to keep Gemma out of trouble until he gets back and Chucky is like, “are you serious right now, bruh?”. Just then, Jarry rolls up to talk to Unser, and she tells him that the guy they are tryna pin Tara’s murder on was arrested in Vegas the same night, so he couldn’t have done it. And the proverbial house of cards loses its foundation, because Jarry and Unser gotta know something is seriously up now.

-The two sides meet again, and Jax asks that everyone leaves so it is just he and Marks. Marks agrees, almost like he knew Jax would request this and after the two leaders are frisked, everyone leaves with the assets there. Jax shows the body of the pastor and the video, while Bobby is brought to him by Marks, but Bobby’s jaw was broken so he couldn’t tell Jax that Marks put a gun in his back, which is then turned on the boys. Marks tells Grant that if they get the idea to betray, that this will happen and he shoots Bobby while he is in Jax’s arms. He then tells Jax that this is on him. Yep, outsmarted again by Marks. Jax gotta be what, 0-for-15 now? And he is still gon’ win somehow, for fucks sakes.

-The boys take Bobby’s body and put it in the van, and Happy cries, which was a motherfucker to watch, Jax tells Chibbs (who could barely talk) to give the mother’s statement that Marks killed someone or something; seriously, that body has been transported so much, I have no idea what the plan is now. All I know is that Jax wants Marks arrested. Chibbs wants to give the statement to Jarry instead and the two part ways.

-Wendy is chillin’ with the mom, because it is always good to leave one junkie in charge of another, and don’t front, we all thought Wendy was going to eat those drugs, but Abel comes in and asks her to fix the TV, so she just rubs it on her shirt (thanks for that, director and Drea De Matteo, we appreciate it). Rat sort of apologizes to Brooke in the kitchen and tells her that he loves her, and we learn that Brooke is bipolar, and I gotta wonder why we wasted three minutes of screen time on that; are they going to be prevalent over the final four episodes? I already had a theory on Rat posed to me by a couple of people.

-All the while, Juice has been in jail, putting knives in tubes up his ass from Tully if he is gon’ kill Lin, but instead of getting moved to general pop, he gets taken to solitary until Jarry can figure this thing out. Juice is not feeling solitary at all, and my money is that he has to kill himself. At this point, I’ll be disappointed if he doesn’t.

-Jax tells Gemma, Nero, Wendy, Rat and Brooke at the cabin that Bobby is dead, and Gemma gets up and walks out right away. Wendy asks Jax if this is ever gon’ end, and he says it already has, but that’s some bullshit. He then tells the mother about his plan to get Marks arrested and says that he will continue to keep his promise to keep them alive, but really, at this point, does it even matter? Is dying that much worse than the life he is giving them now?

-Chibbs meets Jarry and gives her the statement, and she tells him about confronting Gemma, which didn’t work out for her. Then they have a moment about this being a mistake, so Jarry tells Chibbs to take her right there if he has any feeling for her. So, a criminal biker bangs a cop on her car in a parking garage, while another biker (Quinn) watches. Sons Of Fuckery, ladies and gentlemen! I could have done without this scene, but it does show Chibbs getting close to Jarry, which again, isn’t gon’ work out well, for her or anyone.

-No song plays us out as we get to the end of the episode, just the coroner digging up the pastor’s body, while Unser is figuring shit out. Gemma visits Bobby’s body and tells everyone to leave so she can have a moment with him, and in typical Gemma fashion, confesses and apologizes for everything because it’s all her fault. All of this. Every single part of this. But Abel, of course, was watching them dig a grave from his bedroom and goes down to get a cookie, and overhears all this. Little stealthy bastard. This kid knows EVERYTHING.

-Jax and Chibs go to watch Marks be arrested, and they make sure they are seen by Marks and Moses. What a fuckin’ dummy. Jax got those glasses on, tryna look sophisticated and shit. Good grief.

Overall, “What A Piece Of Work Is Man” isn’t as good as I immediately thought, but I still think it was the best episode of the final season thus far. Jax is setting up for a showdown with Moses next week, I would think, Unser has to figure this shit out with Gemma sooner than later, right? Juice is still in play. And Abel has to tell someone about everything he knows soon, right? The final act of Sons Of Anarchy is here; let’s ride.

The Walking Dead S05E04 – Slabtown

So, The Walking Dead was finally gon’ tell us what happened to Beth. “Slabtown” had a excellent shot to be a very good episode because even though a lot of people don’t like the Beth character, we still wanted to know who took her in that car last season. The result was an extremely uneven episode of The Walking Dead that rescued itself from being complete asscheeks with the final third. Let’s go….

-Beth wakes up in a hospital in downtown Atlanta, which we haven’t seen in a long time, and she yells for help. She has a cast on her arm and stitches in her cheek, and she is greeted by a doctor and a cop, who are Steven and Dawn, respectively. Dawn says that they found her alone in the woods and that she owes them, and owing someone in The Walking Dead world is never good. And the internet tells me that the outbreak started about 520 days ago; I don’t know much about generators, but they’re powering at least some of a big-ass hospital. Just one of about 937 questions I wrote down for this episode.

-Also, if I see the hashtag “Bethisode” one more time, I might bite someone in the neck.

-Steven is the only doctor in the place and Beth joins him as he does his rounds, because they are short on nurses, apparently. One man just isn’t going to make it and Steven pulls the plug on the life support machine, then stabs him through the brain so he won’t turn. They then take the dead man to the elevator shaft and throw him down to the walkers that are in the basement of the hospital. I suppose the bodies have to go somewhere and it keeps the walkers as content as a zombie can be.

-Beth goes to grab some food and she runs into a cop named Gorman, who says he is the one that saved her and that she should show some gratitude. This dude is creepy right off the break. Something ain’t right with these cops, b.

-She takes food to Steven, who is listening to old blues records, which seems like such a waste of power, and I love music as much as anyone I know. My question here is, what are they eating and where are they getting green peppers?

-A new patient is brought in and Steven says he can’t be saved, but Dawn is dead-set on getting his man some help, so Steven obliges. The other cop whispered something to her, so that is something to keep an eye on. Then she slapped Beth for no good reason whatsoever, and I won’t front, I laughed a bit because I think we all have wanted to slap Beth at some point.

-Steven stitches Beth back up and she goes to put on a new shirt, in which she finds a lollipop. As she is walking around, she wanders into a room where the doctor and Dawn are trying to amputate a woman’s arm. This woman is named Joan and she has been bitten, but she tried to escape. Something gotta be wrong with this place if you’re tryna leave; this is the best place we’ve seen in The Walking Dead. Beth is made to help hold Joan down while her arm is sawed off. Yeesh. What good is she to them if she has been bitten and now has a nubby arm? I’m calling this “The Season of Nubs”.

-Beth finds Noah, who is in charge of the laundry and left the lollipop for her. He says that this group tends to save the weak so they can basically make them into slaves, and that he is from Virginia. How the hell did he end up even close to Atlanta? Anyway, he says he is out as soon as he can and Beth is down for the cause.

-Beth is brought food by Dawn, who says she has to be strong to be able to work off her debt. Beth said she is leaving as soon as she can and Dawn tries to change her mind, saying that they will have to rebuild when all this is over. Dawn seems like she is tryna convince herself more than Beth, who isn’t buying her shit. Then Beth is mopping blood in Joan’s room, and she all but says she has been a toy for Gorman and the rest of the male cops. Beth is smarter than she looks; she is putting all this together.

-Speaking of Gorman, he walks into Beth’s room as she is looking for her lollipop, which he has in his mouth and forces her to put it in hers, so that confirms that: this mufucka is a creep of the highest order. Steven enters before it can go any further and confronts Gorman, and then Dawn comes in, but Gorman whispers to the doctor that Dawn won’t always be in charge. Someone gotta kill this dude, b

-Beth asks Steven why he is still there and he takes her to the ground floor of the hospital and bangs on some metal shutters, and a gang of walkers come up to it, so that answers that question. They go to the roof, which features a sad little garden (which is where the peppers came from, I assume) and he tells the story of how this all came to be. Basically, he traded his service for a place when the outbreak started, but the person before Dawn, named Hanson, didn’t do a good job. I kinda blacked out during this scene, so I watched it again and it still made no sense. It is basically a microcosm of this episode: decent idea, should be important, but executed poorly.

-Steven tells Beth to give the man that was brought in earlier some Clozapine, but he starts to have a seizure and dies. Dawn is livid and asks what happened, and Noah takes the blame because he knows he is about to get that work. Beth hears the beating and tries to help, but Steven holds her back. He also asks her if she gave him Clonazepam, and Beth is like, nah, b, the other one and now she is like, is this mufucka tryna confuse me?

-Around this point in the episode, I apparently wrote, “This better not last more than one episode, fuck all these people”. I don’t think I was the only one thinking this.

-Dawn tells Beth that she knows Noah is lying and tells her that she isn’t a part of the greater good, which is a major theme in The Walking Dead. Everyone, from Rick or Carol, to the Governor to Gareth, thinks they are doing what is best for the group they are in, they just have messed-up ways of going about things. Also, Dawn tells Beth that the happier her cops are, the better they will work. Basically, let them run trains on you for the greater good. This goes back to Joan, who said earlier that Dawn couldn’t control them and the line of the episode, “I guess it’s easier to make a deal with the devil when you’re not the one paying the price”.

-Noah tells Beth he is alright and that man meant something to Dawn, but he is getting out and he has a plan that involves Beth stealing keys for the elevator. Beth takes her sweet-ass time doing so, but she also finds Joan on the floor in Dawn’s office as she bled out and wrote “Fuck you” on said floor. Joan was the best part of this episode…but she ain’t done.

-Gorman finds Beth in the office and is like, if you let me fuck, no one has to find out you were sneaking. Beth sees Joan starting to turn and is like, cool, but as Gorman is distracted, she his him over the head to knock him to the ground and Joan gets to partyin’ on his neck like the lunchtime buffet at Mandarin (Toronto people know what I mean). Beth is also smart enough to take his gun, which gets her a couple points.

-Beth sends Dawn to her office to give her and Noah time to escape. They go to the elevator shaft and Noah starts to lower Beth; pay no attention to the fact that they’re probably Walmart cloths that definitely wouldn’t hold a person. Beth gets down, but Noah falls onto a pile of bodies and she jumps down after him. Noah is limping and he has already avoided a walker that opened the elevator shaft, which is why he fell. The two managed to fight off a buncha zombies in the dark and get outside, where there are more walkers. They fight those off as well, but Noah manages to get through a fence while Beth is tackled by a cop.

-They walk out past, like, five cars with crosses on the window and again, all I want to know is where all this magical gas is coming from. I am all about letting shit slide in The Walking Dead, but this REALLY bothers me for some reason. And how far is downtown Atlanta from where Terminus was, and the church where the rest are? I need to find a map of this shit.

-Dawn tries to talk shit to Beth, who loses it and tells Dawn that no one is coming to save them and she has let a buncha awful shit happen for no reason. At this point, I am not even sure Dawn is a cop, she just found a uniform and was like, cool. Again, she slaps the shit outta Beth and knocks her out, after which we see Beth getting more stitches from Steven.

-Beth then confronts Steven with the accusation that he told her to give that man, named Trevitt, the wrong medication on purpose. He fesses up and says he knew Trevitt from before and he was also a doctor; had he kept him alive, there would be no use for Steven and Lord knows what would have happened to him. He has a point. It wasn’t right, but he has a point, I ain’t mad.

-Beth was, though, and was about to run up on Steven with some scissors, but a new patient was being rolled in: KILLA CAROL! Beth is like, OH SHIT, and the episode ends.

I won’t lie, I think this was the worst episode of the season so far for The Walking Dead, and I am pretty sure that a lot of others will think so. A lot of gripes are legitimate, but I also think that some of it has to do with the fact that, well, we don’t like Beth. She has her moments, but I guarantee that 90% of TWD fans wouldn’t care if she died at the end of “Slabtown”. That being said, I wanna see how Carol reacts to seeing her, and how the two try to escape because you know that is happening. I also think that it is Noah that was behind Daryl back at the church, but I don’t even know if we see them next week because it looks like the Abraham group is the focus. This is a very important moment for the fifth season of The Walking Dead; they have to be careful of spreading themselves too thin, which they have done before. As for “Slabtown”, the first 40-45 minutes were underwhelming to downright awful, but the final 15-20 minutes did enough for me to keep it from being a total failure.