Once Upon a Time: Time to Transform

It's hard to know where to begin with this week's episode of Once Upon a Time. Never in my viewing life have things that I liked so much been so bound up with things that I can't stand. Last night's ultimate message with Ruby's backstory (by the way, how hot and amazing is Meghan Ory? Hi there Angelina Jolie 2.0!) was "Adventure is scary! Don't leave home!" And I strenuously object to that message. You find one human heart in a box and you need to go running home with your werewolf tail between your legs? Not okay.


And yet, every second she and Snow walked through the forest together was a moment out of my wildest dreams. The visuals of the snowy forest and her red cloak and Snow White's dirty white gown was an exquisite feast to my eyeballs. Red Riding Hood as a lady werewolf who tied up her one true love and refused to leave his side, then morphed and ate him: that's daring, dark and amazing and I can't hold my two thumbs up high enough to that kind of madness. It was an unexpected turn, that Granny had been locking Red in the house each night and protecting the humans of their town from her transformations. What a goth little twist on the toothless original tale.


I was so thrilled when Ruby stormed out of Granny's café (taking all the business with her, I'm pretty sure 90 percent of the customers there are just checking her and her apron out)! It was like, "Okay! Things are happening!" and then we had Mary tell her to move in. That was exciting in itself, the idea of the three of them being roommates, sitting up late watching Legend together, but we never saw them in the apartment.


She spent one day kind of outside of her comfort zone and then decided nothing could be better than running a diner in the town she's never left. Fantastic message. If you really want to streamline existence, why not just be born in your own open grave and curl up there until you die? Then you REALLY don't have to worry about getting into trouble in the outside world. I have no patience with this "Grow where you're planted" kind of message.


Also, I don't like David Nolan enough to have any patience with him having a mental break down and wandering around the woods. He had black outs! He didn't remember if he called Cathryn or not! Shoot him, shoot that effer already. No good to anyone.


And what can I say about Regina framing Mary Margaret? I am super grateful that we are finally going to see the beef between Snow and the Evil Queen, but we're not completely stupid, OuaT writers: we know you can't lock up Mary Margaret in jail indefinitely. Real talk: we all know Regina killed the bitch and put her heart in a box. Kind of what she does. And we all know she waved some wand or cast a spell by throwing some chicken bones and made Mary Margaret's fingerprints appear in the box, right? So was the tension supposed to be us, as the audience, worrying that Mary Margaret was going to be framed as a psycho killer by magic means and then electrocuted for a crime she didn't commit? What the hell is this, Dancer in the Dark?


I understand that this show is determined to be around for the next six years, but will anything good happen, ever? There is no show on TV as relentlessly mean to its audience as Once Upon a Time. I can't remember the last time I walked away from this show feeling anything but bummed. The characters are getting progressively stupider and stupider. David's black outs almost feel like an extension of the encroaching stupidity that seems to flow through the town like lead in the water supply.


Speaking of stupid: Emma, do you not remember that you were curled up next to Mary Margaret on her bed the night Cathryn went missing? At what point was Mary Margaret supposed to have procured a jewelry box and disemboweled Cathryn after dragging her from her car? Emma, I shouldn't be the one pointing this out. But don't expect the world's most glamorous Sheriff to piece together that she was Mary Margaret's rock solid alibi, a waitress managed to out-cop her this episode on her first damn day. Emma, without Ruby's K9 sniffing capabilities, would probably have been looking for that human heart until Regina came into the office and hit her upside the head with it.


Speaking of Regina, I miss Lana Parrilla. I miss her doing something other than running into a room and hissing at Emma. While Regina as a character has become annoyingly successful in keeping all the action frozen, Lana, my fave actress on the series, is almost always off camera. Both she and Robert Carlyle are being seriously underused, and how the writing staff justifies benching two of their biggest players week-after-week is beyond my comprehension. It's time for a good villains-centered episode, one that doesn't base its emotional stakes on something we know can't happen (like Mary Margaret getting convicted of murder) or a character we've just met. Just put Lana and Robert in a room across from each other and make your audience happy FOR ONCE, FOR ONCE UPON A TIME!


Somewhere along the way holding up the story became a lot more important to the writers than the characters. The writers privilege obfuscating the story over the actors, over the audience, and over the natural momentum of the story itself. There is no sense of rewarding the audience for its loyalty or building on meaningful relationships. Every note of emotional justice or relationship fulfillment is sacrificed to drawing out the story for as long as possible, like a terrible day-time soap opera. OuaT seriously needs to take a few tips from Revenge, which manages to have fresh developments every episode, and those developments actually re-energize the characters and lead to MORE developments. With Revenge, a small story explodes into many possible directions like a tree trunk splitting into finer and finer branches and twigs and buds, growing larger and fuller. OuaT works backwards, with a predetermined conclusion sucking the storyline toward it like a black hole, and they are trying to avoid the inevitable conclusion by throwing whatever crazy obstacles they can to slow the natural momentum of how events realistically and naturally would unfold. It's not tension to delay finishing a sentence. It's not stakes to threaten characters you can't harm. OuaT gets a lot of credit with me because of its beautiful fairy tale world. But Storybrooke is starting to feel as much of a trap to the audience as it is to its miserable inhabitants.

The Walking Dead: You Only Live Twice

OMG, like totally huge spoilers in this so if you haven't watched "Better Angels," stop reading and go look at Cute Overload or something.

So THAT happened. Twice, if you count Carl's shot. Shaneless. No Shane in The Walking Dead's Game. "Better Angels," the penultimate episode of The Walking Dead Season 2, continued to swing the wrecking ball at the mess left by first half of the season and poured down cement for what will be the foundation of Season 3. New showrunner Glen Mazzara is doing some good things with what he was given, which was a dried-out corpse of a show. He has reanimated The Walking Dead, got it up on two feet, and now has it at least shambling in the right direction. Things aren't perfect, but they're definitely improved. Who knows, by the time Season 3 arrives, The Walking Dead might be running at a full sprint.

But the previous regime left Mazzara and the writers one juicy development to play with, and that was the death of Shane. Shane! Nooooooooo! Even though everyone saw his death coming from 18 miles out, either through the comics or AMC's own accidental spoilery ad for the DVD set or Jon Bernthal's casting in L.A. Noire or those pictures that were floating around the internet or just because it was pretty obvious, it's still a giant moment for the series. But I wish it had happened a little differently. A little less "my name is Shane and I'm a crazy psychopath and I want to take over your life, Rick," and a little more "I tried, bro. Really, I tried." You know, for some sympathy. Because even though he was portrayed like the big bad villain, Shane was right a lot of the time.

I'm guessing it was Lori's apology and admission that she knew things weren't fair for Shane that set him off. She FINALLY owned up to her responsibility in the mess of Shane's mind in that conversation by the whatever tower, and while the talk was well intentioned and oh-so overdue, it had the wrong effect on the poor lug. Ditto for Rick's dismissal of having a long talk with Carl, who's been stealing guns and killing Dale. Rick had no idea that when he said he'd talk to Carl later, Shane saw it as poor parenting to the child he had once adopted as his own. Both those things combined to send Shane to Cuckoo Town, and he saw an opening to get that Rick-less life back—so he went for it.

Plotting cold-blooded murder isn't the way I would have handled the situation (I would have started a "Rick has herpes" rumor), but Shane elaborately staged Randall's escape, broke the kid's neck, ran headfirst into a tree, put people in danger by having them run around the forest in the dark, and then pulled a gun on Rick. I'm still wondering why Shane never actually pulled the trigger since he clearly had already crossed the edge. It wasn't Shane's finest moment and since I've been a Shane defender since the pilot, I wish he had left the series on a better note rather than "[indiscernible garble] I'm Shane I'm crazy person Me love Lori! [growls!]" While the rest of the series got better in the second half of the Season 2, Shane got treated worse by the writers. And then Shane got stabbed by Rick.

But then Shane got up. Only it wasn't Shane. It was Zombie Shane! "Better Angels" not only made a major move in killing off its biggest character yet, it made its biggest reveal about the overall zombie situation. Just like those cops we saw a few episodes ago that had no visible bite marks or scratches but were clearly at one point zombified, and just like broke-neck Randall who got up and started walking around, Shane became a zombie without having any contact with a zombie. It's a violation of Basic Zombie Rule #1, which states (and I'm paraphrasing) "any person scratched by a zombie, gnawed on by a zombie, or bled on into their eye by a zombie (28 Days Later), is infected and will die and become a zombie." I guess the theory is that everyone is already infected somehow, and the Z virus if you die at the hands of a zombie or the hands of your former best friend (is that what Dr. Jenner told Rick in the Season 1 finale?). Or is it just those that have been splattered with zombie goo, as Andrea was in the RV? Now this show becomes more than about survival, it becomes a show about finding a cure.

However, Zombie Shane sat down pretty quickly after Carl blew his brains out with one hell of a shot for a kid. But the real question is this: what was Carl doing out there alone... AGAIN? The entire farm is on alert because there's a madman with a gun looking for a kid to rape or whatever they thought Randall was going to do, and Carl is out there on his own? Where is Lori? Shouldn't the first thing that Rick did is tell Lori to get Carl and run into the farmhouse where he'll be safe? Shane may have been insane, but he made a good point about being able to raise Carl better than his parents do. A starving pack of hyenas could raise Carl better than the Grimeses.

And in the final final moments (the end went on for a long time didn't it?) I think we saw something that we've been waiting for: an excuse to get the hell off the farm. There are zombies on the horizon, and with the mud hardening and gunshots going off on the farm, they're heading the survivors' way. I didn't think Season 2 could spend almost the entire season on the farm, but they did. Now it's time to get them out of there.

The second half of Season 2 still has its haters (this show is pretty unique in its temperamental/over-protective fan base), because it still has its problems and haters are gonna hate loudly and annoyingly. But those who have been paying attention have to admit that the show is in a better place than it was in before the middle of Season 2. Back then, the show was a giant meteor heading towards Earth ready to kill us all. You don't just blow it up and save the day as we learned from Deep Impact, you have to gently nudge it until it's on the right path to smash into something else much lamer like Venus. This is all prep work to make sure Season 3 starts off on the right step.

The Walking Dead: Won't Someone Think of the Children ?

The Walking Dead: Won't Someone Think of the Children ?

There are big spoilers ahead for The Walking Dead's "Judge, Jury, and Executioner," so you should probably watch the episode before continuing with this article.

Stunned! One thing the second half of The Walking Dead's second season has going for it is that the first half never really showed any teeth until Sophia shambled out of the barn in the midseason finale and Rick shot her in the face, making any substantial events that occur now seem that much bigger. And tonight, a real big one dropped.

"Oh my God, they killed Dale!" You bastards.

When Sophia went down, we all said, "WHOA they killed a kid! No one is safe!" But Sophia wasn't exactly a main character. Sure, she was a survivor. But if you asked me to list off all the characters from Season 1, her name would come up somewhere between Grandma Vato and that Morales guy who decided to randomly leave with his wife one night. She wasn't just a kid, she was a secondary character's kid whose main responsibility was shaking like a leaf and cuddling a teddy bear.

But Dale is just about as main of a character as we have, and he's one of the core members of the group that came over from the comics. Sorry, WAS. He could get annoying at times and often gave my boy Shane the stink eye as though Shane had peed in his Fruit Loops, but he was an extremely important and unique part of the group dynamic. Oftentimes he was the voice of reason in a world where reason had died, and that definitely showed tonight. Everyone was set on ending Randall's life because they thought he was a threat, but good old Dale bugged out his eyes and did that thing with his voice where it hops up a pitch when he can't believe what he's hearing. (By the way, I totally agree with Dale. Randall got the rawest of raw deals.)

So what is the show saying when it kills off the only man who opposed the group's murder plot? I don't think the message is "conform or die," I don't think it's "yellow-hearted pacifists get killed," and I don't think Dale's death was subliminal pro-death penalty propaganda. I think—and hope—the show is trying to say this: If you're a character on The Walking Dead who's not named Rick Grimes, count your blessings every frame of film that you're alive because you can go at any time, and what happened in the comics stays in the comics. That's what this show has to do in order to be a believable zombie apocalypse drama, and to continue to surprise those who thought they knew what The Walking Dead was all about because they read the graphic novels. And most importantly, these deaths have to be random. None of us want to be shorted an "authentic" zombie-apocalypse experience, and allowing Dale, who was so important in this episode, to have what he ate for lunch ripped from his guts by a zombie is about as keepin'-it-real as it gets. I love random, senseless deaths! They keep me on my toes. Even if they happen because someone walks out into the wilderness. At night. Alone. The show needs to work on these lonely walks people seem so intent on taking.

The effects of death are just as important as the deaths themselves, and Dale's demise is going to rattle Carl like a maraca in the hands of a tweaker. Poor little guy. Growing up in a world where the dead eat the living must be tough for a kid. So what's a tyke to do? Of course he's going to harden up real fast. You can't tell him the world is different now, openly discuss murdering someone, and then expect him to quietly play Chutes & Ladders in the corner.

Carl's cold heart was on display during the scene in the barn with Rick, Randall, Daryl, and Shane. Gotta say I wore out the edge of my seat watching that one. I was already uncomfortable because I was vastly opposed to their actions (I'm a lover, not a fighter, and believe in prisoner rehabilitation), but seeing Carl stroll in to say "Do it!" like he was watching a cockfight made me full-on squirm. When Shane goes El Pollo Loco it's one thing, but when Carl does, it's brutal. I believe the children are our future and all that, and this future looks pretty bleak. Again, this is something the show had been hinting at doing for some time now but didn't have the balls to go all the way with in the first season and a half. The Walking Dead is a much better show now than it was in 2011. So much better.
And to make things worse for Carl, his zombie plaything was the one that escaped and ripped Dale open like a Christmas gift. This kid is going to be supremely messed up. I don't know if what happened will smack the fake maturity out of Carl or make him even more of a stone-cold killer, but he's one of my favorite characters, and whichever direction he goes in will be fascinating to watch. Part of me wants him to go back to being a normal kid and do kid things. That's the happy ending. Another part of me wants him to become the Zombie Terminator and shave his head in the mirror, because, well, seeing a 12-year-old boy fire off headshot after headshot would be pretty badass. Any time a drama throws a kid into a serious storyline, it's a total crap-shoot, but The Walking Dead has the potential to have one of the best on its hands as Carl represents so much more than just a child. Yes, I'm LOVING this storyline.
But hey, Dale's death is only partially Carl's fault. That's what happens when kids stop acting like kids and parents stop acting like parents. For all the whining Lori does to Rick about "thinking about what's best for his son," she sure doesn't spend a lot of time doing things like, oh I don't know, making sure her son doesn't walk into the woods ALONE to play Nanny-Nanny-Boo-Boo with walkers stuck in the mud. Carl is 12 years old, Lori. What's your excuse?
And now for the complaining (sorry!). There were times when I thought the episode was backtracking in quality. Some of the conversations leading up to the big debate club in Hershel's living room smacked of the show's past problems. I shuddered when Dale spoke to Andrea in the RV: "You were a civil rights lawyer. You fight with words, the power of ideas." Ugh. Not this again! "The world has changed! (again)" "Where's our humanity? (again)" Yeah, yeah, we've hard all that before. The Walking Dead has gotten much better about not wasting scenes, but there are still moments when it feels preachy and you begin to wonder, "Would people really talk this way in this situation?"
Those are just nitpicks, though, for another episode that overall was another positive step for the series that had been falling down every open manhole it came upon. It was pretty dark, wasn't it? What the writers are doing with Carl is J-U-I-C-Y. And killing off Dale was a shock that I never saw coming, but in the long run, it was a great move for a series that purports to be a show that can kill anyone. I love that. However, if The Walking Dead so much as touches a hair on Glenn's head so help me God I will hunt down those responsible and murder them myself. Have a good day!

Read more: http://www.tv.com/news/the-walking-dead-wont-someone-think-of-the-children-27991/

The Walking Dead Recap: “Judge, Jury, Executioner” (Season 2, Episode 11)

The Walking Dead Recap: “Judge, Jury, Executioner”


The Walking Dead just lost me again. How many of you out there have read the books? The show has occasionally deviated from the books, but managed to hold its own and wend its way back toward the original plot. Now they’ve taken it overboard and killed the wrong person.

Anyone reading this ought to know by now, but just in case: beware, here there be spoilers.

This week’s episode begins with Daryl torturing the captive Randall, hoping to get some info regarding the pack of hooligans Randall used to run with. Between punches to the face and slices to the groin, Randall tells a story of watching the men gang-rape two teenage girls while their father watched, and then leaving them to fend for themselves. He tells Daryl there are thirty or forty in the group, men, women, and children. But this is how they live now. Yes, this is meant to show us that it isn’t actually the walkers that are dangerous; it’s other people.

Meanwhile, our group of survivors are fast becoming those other people. Rick decides, after a night of contemplation, that the only way to handle Randall is to execute him. He’s a threat to the group, if they keep him he’s one more mouth to feed, etc. So the answer is to murder him.

Dale, already known to be the bleeding heart on the show, begs Rick to give him time to talk to everyone, to make sure everyone feels this is the right step to take. Infuriatingly, everyone he speaks to, from Lori to Hershel, says, “This isn’t my decision.” It is the banality of evil at its very best. “I want nothing to do with making that call, so it’s not my fault.” Andrea timidly speaks up, saying you know, maybe Dale’s right. Glenn backs away. Lori tells Rick basically, “Whatever you think is best, honey.” Are we supposed to sympathize with these people?

While the adults waffle over what to do with Randall and Andrea and Shane plot to overthrow the farm, Carl sneaks around by himself. Excluding him from adult discussions is proving extremely dangerous; that kid is creeping ever closer to the edge of his sanity. After Carol tries to reassure him that they’ll meet Sophia again in heaven, he tells her heaven’s a lie and she’s an idiot. He peers silently at bound, desperate Randall from the loft in the barn, and after he gets caught doing that he finds a walker stuck in the mud and decides to play a little game with it.

When Rick, Daryl, and Shane attempt to execute Randall, Carl sneaks in the door. Cooly, calmly, he says, “Do it, Dad. Do it.” Rick loses his nerve – who could murder a man in cold blood in front of his son? (This isn’t Frailty, after all.) It’s time to rethink this.

Meanwhile, Hershel gives Glenn his blessing out of nowhere. That’s the only part of this episode that doesn’t pertain to its title. Rick is judge, these wishy-washy people are the jury, and Daryl is the executioner. Unfortunately, though, the originally intended execution doesn’t pan out and another one becomes necessary.

Dale is preachy, yes, and his omniscience and meddling has gotten a bit old. But what happens next is not only unnecessary but ruins what was an integral, poignant part of the books. He was a welcome bit of humanity, truly the last shred of old civilization, and one of the better developed characters. And they let a zombie (the very one, in fact, that Carl let go from the mud) tear his guts out.

Here’s a theory: Jeffrey DeMunn, who plays Dale, has been in nearly every movie by Frank Darabont. The Green Mile, The Mist, The Majestic, The Shawshank Redemption. AMC’s firing of Darabont almost certainly wouldn’t sit right with his friends – and DeMunn is undoubtedly Darabont’s friend. I’m going to assume this was the writers’ or DeMunn’s decision, not a plot choice. (Laurie Holden and Melissa Suzanne McBride – Andrea and Carol – also worked with Darabont on The Mist. Maybe Carol’s next?)

I’m pretty thoroughly frustrated at this point. Shane deserves to die, with his crazy eyes and repetitive insanity and propagandizing Andrea. Dale (whose character was, let’s be honest, a little obnoxious sometimes) was the sole character who strove to keep the old world alive. That, one supposes, is the point. The world as we know it is gone, and Dale was the last shred of it. But now how are we supposed to sympathize with these characters?

I don’t particularly care anymore. My disappointment has reached its edge. See you next Monday, and please feel free to share your thoughts.