This is the first episode that wasn't an original story by Rod Serling. He wrote the teleplay based on a story by Lynn Venable. But, once again, the idea of loneliness as the most crippling aspect of our existence looms over the entire story. It's almost as if loneliness were an incurable disease which caused an eventual death so terribly painful that a person with the disease always tries to end it all as quickly as possible once they realize they've contracted it. Henry Bemis lasts maybe a day after the world ends and he finds he's the only survivor before he's ready to pick up a gun and shoot himself in the face (possibly exposing that he was a sex robot all along!). Bemis makes sure to mention that he'd be fine except for the loneliness. But he doesn't really go on and on about the other people he hated not being there. He does go on and on about how boring everything has become. So I think he's more willing to murder himself out of boredom than loneliness.
"Time Enough At Last" begins with poor Henry Bemis distracted at his job because he's trying to read David Copperfield while also counting out money at his place of employment, the bank. Everybody hates him because he's a reader. They all despise his love of reading. I guess in the Fifties, reading was worse than showing off. "Oh, look at the smart jerk without the buzz cut! What a fancy boy! Knows words like...like...well, you know 'em when you hear 'em even if you can't think 'em up!" It's also possible they despise him because he doesn't do anything but read. His boss hates that he can't do his job well. His wife hates that he can't do his marital duties well. She says, "I won't let you lose the art of conversation," (or something like that) but I know what she really meant. You had to use a lot of euphemisms in the Fifties or else somebody would call you a communist.
But all Henry wants to do is read. Too bad real life always gets in the way! Stupid jobs and wives and customers and responsibilities. I get that nobody ever has enough time to do all the things that you want to do once you find them. But some of us organize our lives in such a way that we can do the things we love as often as possible, like working jobs below our capabilities and not marrying vicious shrews who mangle our poetry books. But Henry didn't think about that when he was getting his life together so he had to wait until the world was destroyed during his lunch break.
Henry eats in the vault so when the world blows up, he's safe in his makeshift bunker. Being television in the Fifties, he only sees evidence of one person dead (his boss, crushed beneath rubble) instead of walking around the city seeing the gory remains of everybody he ever knew. He manages to find plenty of food and cigarettes to get him through as many days as he has left (especially if those days are just a couple which is about all he can stomach). But he doesn't have any entertainment. So what's the point, really? Without distractions (or a sex robot), what is life?! That's Henry's point of view anyway so when he finds a gun, he instantly sticks it to his head to end the boredom.
I used to think Rod Serling had some kind of a phobia regarding loneliness but now I think it was just a phobia of boredom. The immortal guy spends five minutes in jail after realizing he's going to spend his entire mortal life in jail and he's ready to end it all. He's definitely not lonely! He's just so bored that he'd rather die. Well, Henry's got some of that attitude in him as well. But luckily for Henry and for all the people who love the twist ending that they all remember, Henry sees the library just before blowing his brains out. Whew! That was a close one! Although that would be a good twist ending too, right? He puts the gun to his head instead of in his mouth and winds up blowing his eyes out and surviving. Then Nelson Muntz pops up and points and says, "Ha ha!" But remember! This was from 1959. That's more of a modern twist!
Henry Bemis, despicable low-life reader (please be sure to read the word reader dripping with disdain), finds all the books he can ever read. And he even gets to say the title of the episode when faced with all the time in the world to read as much as he wants: "The One with Burgess Meredith that Everybody Knows," he says. Then he drops his glasses and they break and he whines, "It's not fair! It's not fair!" Meanwhile all the ghosts of all the people all over the world incinerated by the H-Bomb begin making jerking off motions and thinking, "Oh, why don't you tell us about fair, Henry!" The worst part is that now he won't even be able to find that gun! Also, Nelson Muntz could have popped up and pointed and said, "Ha ha!", for this ending too but that might have been too cruel. Although isn't that why everybody loves this episode so much? Because the fucking reader gets whats coming to him! Fucking readers. PTUI!
The moral of this episode is to always carry an extra pair of glasses with you when you rely on them so heavily. Or maybe,after the world ends, to first find the pharmacy or the opticians before you begin climbing around a dangerous world full of rubble. Unless the moral is reading will always get you into trouble so maybe listen to your wife when she says you're a big dumb homo poetry reader and just go give it to her good already!
Now I'm thinking about a rewrite of the previous episode, "The Lonely Man," but renaming it "The Lonely Woman" and have the hotshot female space pilot bring the prisoner a sentient vibrator to keep her company over the long nights. But when she's told that there's no room aboard the ship when it comes to save her, she just tosses the vibrator as far away as she can and says, "Thank God. One more night of that Goddamn thing telling me about the novel it's working on and I'd have blown my face off." Then the hot shot space pilot would be all, "Well, now that your sentence has been overturned, I can finally see you as a real person and stick my face between your legs." Then they'd make out and the story would end with a big sex scene and I'd be fucking rich.
Saturday, November 23, 2019
Friday, November 22, 2019
Review of The Twilight Zone, Episode Seven, "I'm So Lonely. So, So, So, So, So Fucking Lonely. Version 2."
Being forty-eight and watching a television show from 1959, I'm often familiar with the protagonist of each episode but not often familiar enough to know their name or where I've seen them before. Jack Warden stars in this episode, "The Lonely Man," and nobody my age would be surprised to hear that I recognized him. His voice alone is enough to make a viewer think, "How much of my life have I wasted watching television that this old fart is as familiar to me as one of my own grandparents?" In my head, I kept thinking, "I know him from something where he yells a lot. At little kids even!" My initial thought was The Bad News Bears even though that's one of my all time favorite movies and I know Buttermaker was played by Walter Matthau. But my brain kept giving me that image anyway. So I went to IMDB, as often we all do in this day and age because we have to know everything immediately and, because we have a machine that does it for us, nobody ever retains any information what-so-ever because what the fuck do I look like? A pledge for Lambda Lambda Lambda? An actor's credits go from most current projects to older projects so the first thing he was in with which I really connected was Dirty Work. Oh yeah! He was Pops! And he yells a lot in that so maybe that's why I think of him as yelling a lot! But then, lo and behold, there it was. He played Buttermaker in the television series of The Bad News Bears! I don't even have any actual memories about the show but I don't doubt for a second that I watched every episode when it aired. And my brain remembered even if my stupid stubborn brain decided to keep it as privileged information. For whom?! Doesn't my brain know I am my brain? What a fucking jerk.
I know that's a pretty piss poor review of a television show. But have you read my reviews for Friends? At least I didn't say Jack Warden was played by a literal sack of potatoes.
Just reread all of this again but skip the previous stuff and start at the next paragraph if you're actually interested in The Twilight Zone and aren't interested in my brain damage. That's different than just continuing to read from this point on because...well, just trust me. I can't explain everything!
In this episode, a man has been convicted of murder and sent to life on an asteroid. You think the current prison industrial complex is expensive well just wait until Rod Serling's future version! Every felon serving a life sentence must be shot into space and gets their own asteroid all to themselves while getting constant resupplies of free goods every three months. And you know it's a private firm being paid with government money. What a waste of taxes! But at least everybody back on Earth can feel safe knowing that terrible criminals can't escape prison to rape their VCRs in the dead of night.
Believe it or not, this fucked up new penal system isn't the point of the show. It's just the excuse to showcase a man in an environment where he's driven so mad from loneliness that he winds up fucking a machine and falling in love with it. The space pilot who brings him the fuck machine is horrified to find out that the prisoner thought it was for more than just fucking. Sure, the machine looked and acted just like a real woman and not like a toaster with a lubed hole. So maybe it's a little bit understandable that a lonely man would be driven so crazy by loneliness that he might actually find comfort in the arms of a woman. I mean a machine. You have to remember it's a machine or else you'd be all, "What is this episode about? It's about a lonely man finding comfort in another person's intimacy? Is that weird?" But then when the ace space pilot shoots the face off of the robot, you, as the viewer, are reminded that what you were witnessing was a man driven to perversion by the ultimate existential monster: loneliness!
After Jack Warden unboxed the robot, I was all, "Oh yeah! That's pretty hot!" But then the robot cried when Jack Warden kept refusing her advances and screaming at her, "What kind of a man fucks a toaster oven?!" That made me think the situation was more complex than I first thought (which was "Oh! A fuck robot! Nice!"). And once she cries, you wind up thinking, "Maybe the pilot messed up and brought an actual woman in a box! That's quite a twist. I guess it's okay if Jack fucks her now. That's not weird. Maybe she was convicted of murder too!" So then when her face is shot off, casually, at point blank range and the asteroid isn't painted with brains and bone but nuts and bolts, you're left thinking, "Maybe I should have waited until the end before I stuck my dick in this old VCR."
Was this a love story? I think maybe? I think the moral of the story is either "You can find true love with anything as long as nobody else is around to judge you and depending on how good looking you can dress up your air conditioner" or "Loneliness can lead even the most ethically ambiguous man into the delusional dark recesses of perversion!" Or maybe it's just "Cars and chess boards can't replace a good woman. But someday soon, they'll get pretty fucking close! Yee-haw!"
I know that's a pretty piss poor review of a television show. But have you read my reviews for Friends? At least I didn't say Jack Warden was played by a literal sack of potatoes.
Just reread all of this again but skip the previous stuff and start at the next paragraph if you're actually interested in The Twilight Zone and aren't interested in my brain damage. That's different than just continuing to read from this point on because...well, just trust me. I can't explain everything!
In this episode, a man has been convicted of murder and sent to life on an asteroid. You think the current prison industrial complex is expensive well just wait until Rod Serling's future version! Every felon serving a life sentence must be shot into space and gets their own asteroid all to themselves while getting constant resupplies of free goods every three months. And you know it's a private firm being paid with government money. What a waste of taxes! But at least everybody back on Earth can feel safe knowing that terrible criminals can't escape prison to rape their VCRs in the dead of night.
Believe it or not, this fucked up new penal system isn't the point of the show. It's just the excuse to showcase a man in an environment where he's driven so mad from loneliness that he winds up fucking a machine and falling in love with it. The space pilot who brings him the fuck machine is horrified to find out that the prisoner thought it was for more than just fucking. Sure, the machine looked and acted just like a real woman and not like a toaster with a lubed hole. So maybe it's a little bit understandable that a lonely man would be driven so crazy by loneliness that he might actually find comfort in the arms of a woman. I mean a machine. You have to remember it's a machine or else you'd be all, "What is this episode about? It's about a lonely man finding comfort in another person's intimacy? Is that weird?" But then when the ace space pilot shoots the face off of the robot, you, as the viewer, are reminded that what you were witnessing was a man driven to perversion by the ultimate existential monster: loneliness!
After Jack Warden unboxed the robot, I was all, "Oh yeah! That's pretty hot!" But then the robot cried when Jack Warden kept refusing her advances and screaming at her, "What kind of a man fucks a toaster oven?!" That made me think the situation was more complex than I first thought (which was "Oh! A fuck robot! Nice!"). And once she cries, you wind up thinking, "Maybe the pilot messed up and brought an actual woman in a box! That's quite a twist. I guess it's okay if Jack fucks her now. That's not weird. Maybe she was convicted of murder too!" So then when her face is shot off, casually, at point blank range and the asteroid isn't painted with brains and bone but nuts and bolts, you're left thinking, "Maybe I should have waited until the end before I stuck my dick in this old VCR."
Was this a love story? I think maybe? I think the moral of the story is either "You can find true love with anything as long as nobody else is around to judge you and depending on how good looking you can dress up your air conditioner" or "Loneliness can lead even the most ethically ambiguous man into the delusional dark recesses of perversion!" Or maybe it's just "Cars and chess boards can't replace a good woman. But someday soon, they'll get pretty fucking close! Yee-haw!"
Friday, November 15, 2019
Review of The Twilight Zone, Episode Six, "The Dumbest Guy in the World"
I'm going to shit all over Rod Serling a lot while watching episodes of The Twilight Zone so I should probably say this as soon as possible (which could have been sooner, I suppose. Like in my review for Episode One?): I love The Twilight Zone and I think Rod Serling wrote a fuck-ton (real Queen's measurement in the UK) of memorable and poignant stories. He covered just about every important feeling a person might go through across all times of their lives. It's like he sat down and just began listing human concerns and then wrote stories about each one (sometimes he wrote 50 stories about one of the items (like feeling lonely)). It's just that sometimes he didn't quite hit the mark. Sometimes his stories suffer from the need for a twist ending or a big surprise comeuppance to the protagonist. This episode, "Escape Clause," is a good example of Rod Serling choosing to write a story about mortality and completely fucking the whole thing up because, at some point during the writing process, he thought, "What if you got sentenced to life in prison while being immortal? Ha ha! So good!"
This story is about a guy who fears death so much he barely gets out of bed and never stops complaining that he might be dying. So the devil is all, "Hey! I bet I can get this guy to sell his soul for immortality!" And the devil is right! But not just immortality: invulnerability and the absence of aging! And all for just his measly soul! The deal is so great that the scared bastard goes for it! The devil even allows him an escape clause so that if he eventually lives so long that he finds himself engulfed by a bloated star, he can call on the devil to let him die and the devil will kill him peacefully.
After the deal is finalized, you expect the story to maybe allow multiple time jumps to see how this poor bastard is dealing with immortality. Maybe see the death of his wife and other loved ones. Or maybe have him experience terrible war on a global scale. Maybe have him suffer as the last man on Earth living in a bleak and radiated landscape. You might expect something like that. But what you probably don't expect is for this guy who was once afraid of living to begin throwing himself in front of buses and subways and trains just to feel a little excitement. See, it turns out that life apparently isn't worth living if you don't have the risk of death! I guess? Who the fuck knows! It's totally out of this guy's character to suddenly feel he needs to risk everything for any kind of enjoyment from life. Up until the deal, he was just wasting his whole life in bed afraid of dying.
Instead of being immortal for thousands of years before becoming weary of life, this fucker grows bored with life in the span of a few weeks. A few weeks of knowing he can't die and suddenly this guy is tired of life? He can't find any sort of excitement without the risk of death? What the fuck is wrong with this guy? Can he even read a book or go to the movies? Do those things bore him unless somebody releases a bunch of venomous cobras in the room with him? Can he go to dinner without also playing Russian Roulette between servings? Am I supposed to believe that this guy got off on thinking he was going to die so choosing immortality was the worst decision of his life? "I can only come if I think I might be dying, baby!"
This guy is so fucking dumb that after his wife accidentally falls from the roof of their fifteen story apartment complex, he confesses to murdering her. His plan is to see if surviving the electric chair will finally give him a thrill. I don't know what this idiotic bastard was thinking. When he survives, everybody will just shrug and let him go his own way? Is that how the death penalty works? If the method of execution fails, you get your freedom back? Because this stupid dolt never even considers that he's going to wind up spending life in prison. He doesn't even get the chance to be electrocuted because the judge simply sentences him to life. Ha ha! Big twist ending! Now this fucker is really going to be bored!
But wait! There's more! This guy who was terrified of dying in just forty years decides to take the escape clause a few weeks after becoming immortal because he's bored. Well you know what Piebald says (and other people, like parents and teachers and shit): "If you're bored, you must be boring too!" And this guy is! He's afraid to die and then all he can do after getting immortality is to try to die and then after realizing he can't die, he chooses to die. Fuck this guy. Man, I can't stress that enough! FUCK. THIS. GUY.
FUCK HIM! I hate this motherfucker! And by extension, I hate Rod Serling too! He really fucked up this episode! Who the hell thinks life is only enjoyable because of the risk of death? This motherfucker could have went on a wild sex and drug spree! He could have gotten his excitement by trying loads of new things! Fuck, he could have just decided to eat every single different thing on the planet! He could have tried murdering children, just for the hell of it! He could have hiked the bottom of the oceans! He could have purchased a sprawling estate in Germany with all of the insurance money he was getting from the accidents he was faking and created the first Human Centipede! This fucker had no imagination and I'm glad the devil took his soul and killed him.
Man. Fuck that guy.
This story is about a guy who fears death so much he barely gets out of bed and never stops complaining that he might be dying. So the devil is all, "Hey! I bet I can get this guy to sell his soul for immortality!" And the devil is right! But not just immortality: invulnerability and the absence of aging! And all for just his measly soul! The deal is so great that the scared bastard goes for it! The devil even allows him an escape clause so that if he eventually lives so long that he finds himself engulfed by a bloated star, he can call on the devil to let him die and the devil will kill him peacefully.
After the deal is finalized, you expect the story to maybe allow multiple time jumps to see how this poor bastard is dealing with immortality. Maybe see the death of his wife and other loved ones. Or maybe have him experience terrible war on a global scale. Maybe have him suffer as the last man on Earth living in a bleak and radiated landscape. You might expect something like that. But what you probably don't expect is for this guy who was once afraid of living to begin throwing himself in front of buses and subways and trains just to feel a little excitement. See, it turns out that life apparently isn't worth living if you don't have the risk of death! I guess? Who the fuck knows! It's totally out of this guy's character to suddenly feel he needs to risk everything for any kind of enjoyment from life. Up until the deal, he was just wasting his whole life in bed afraid of dying.
Instead of being immortal for thousands of years before becoming weary of life, this fucker grows bored with life in the span of a few weeks. A few weeks of knowing he can't die and suddenly this guy is tired of life? He can't find any sort of excitement without the risk of death? What the fuck is wrong with this guy? Can he even read a book or go to the movies? Do those things bore him unless somebody releases a bunch of venomous cobras in the room with him? Can he go to dinner without also playing Russian Roulette between servings? Am I supposed to believe that this guy got off on thinking he was going to die so choosing immortality was the worst decision of his life? "I can only come if I think I might be dying, baby!"
This guy is so fucking dumb that after his wife accidentally falls from the roof of their fifteen story apartment complex, he confesses to murdering her. His plan is to see if surviving the electric chair will finally give him a thrill. I don't know what this idiotic bastard was thinking. When he survives, everybody will just shrug and let him go his own way? Is that how the death penalty works? If the method of execution fails, you get your freedom back? Because this stupid dolt never even considers that he's going to wind up spending life in prison. He doesn't even get the chance to be electrocuted because the judge simply sentences him to life. Ha ha! Big twist ending! Now this fucker is really going to be bored!
But wait! There's more! This guy who was terrified of dying in just forty years decides to take the escape clause a few weeks after becoming immortal because he's bored. Well you know what Piebald says (and other people, like parents and teachers and shit): "If you're bored, you must be boring too!" And this guy is! He's afraid to die and then all he can do after getting immortality is to try to die and then after realizing he can't die, he chooses to die. Fuck this guy. Man, I can't stress that enough! FUCK. THIS. GUY.
FUCK HIM! I hate this motherfucker! And by extension, I hate Rod Serling too! He really fucked up this episode! Who the hell thinks life is only enjoyable because of the risk of death? This motherfucker could have went on a wild sex and drug spree! He could have gotten his excitement by trying loads of new things! Fuck, he could have just decided to eat every single different thing on the planet! He could have tried murdering children, just for the hell of it! He could have hiked the bottom of the oceans! He could have purchased a sprawling estate in Germany with all of the insurance money he was getting from the accidents he was faking and created the first Human Centipede! This fucker had no imagination and I'm glad the devil took his soul and killed him.
Man. Fuck that guy.
Thursday, November 14, 2019
Justice League Dark #16
The next Wonder Woman series should just be Wonder Woman tying up Republicans so they'll finally tell the fucking truth about something.
Could you imagine Lindsey Graham or Mitch McConnell having to deal with the Lasso of Truth? Has Wonder Woman ever accidentally killed anybody with her lasso because they were so full of lies that their head exploded having to finally confront reality?
Fuck Republicans.
One thing that brings me great joy in this world is how conservatives can't enjoy the best of popular culture because it all leans toward justice and equality, and they have to ensconce themselves in twenty-four hour news cycles of outrage to feel good about their petty, selfish lives. Seeing them tell a comedian to stick to comedy on Twitter makes their previous cries of "Snowflake!" so psychologically delectable. I'm like a vampire feeding on their lack of self-awareness.
Last issue, Republican Eclipso was trying to get into the head of Kent Nelson by spewing filthy lies with his big fat square Hannity head as Wonder Woman traveled astrally to the moon to speak with some dead witch. This issue begins with Zatanna casting a spell that would really help improve Fox News.
Fuck Republicans.
One thing that brings me great joy in this world is how conservatives can't enjoy the best of popular culture because it all leans toward justice and equality, and they have to ensconce themselves in twenty-four hour news cycles of outrage to feel good about their petty, selfish lives. Seeing them tell a comedian to stick to comedy on Twitter makes their previous cries of "Snowflake!" so psychologically delectable. I'm like a vampire feeding on their lack of self-awareness.
Last issue, Republican Eclipso was trying to get into the head of Kent Nelson by spewing filthy lies with his big fat square Hannity head as Wonder Woman traveled astrally to the moon to speak with some dead witch. This issue begins with Zatanna casting a spell that would really help improve Fox News.
Oh! I should have Photoshopped Sean Hannity's face onto Eclipso's.
Speaking of lack of self-awareness, my high school friend, Soy Rakelson, used to quote Yeats' quote from "The Second Coming": "The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity." Which was a weird thing to quote because he was the one full of passionate intensity while I was all, "Are we going to get this Cyberpunk game going or are you going to try to trap me in one of your theological mind traps again?" Maybe he was just complimenting me!
Eclipso reveals he doesn't need a mouth to talk. But then he makes himself a new mouth anyway because, like, it's easier to talk with a mouth, I guess?
Eclipso reveals he doesn't need a mouth to talk. But then he makes himself a new mouth anyway because, like, it's easier to talk with a mouth, I guess?
Why am I suddenly horny?
Apparently Wonder Woman is in the collective unconscious and not just on the moon. I don't remember Jung saying that the collective unconscious is where witches go when they die. But then maybe I didn't read the whole book because I fell asleep while reading it and then dreamed that I'd finished reading it and then woke up and thought, "That was probably good enough, right?"
The collective unconscious is haunted by flame-headed Sgt. Pepper.
How do you think Wonder Woman keeps her boobs from flopping out? Probably magic, right?
If this isn't a visual representation of menses then I'm a virgin.
What that caption is saying is that it totally is a visual representation of menses and that I've had loads and loads of sex. With a partner even! Human!
If this isn't a visual representation of an ass and vagina then I'm a virgin? Whatever. I'm definitely still horny.
How the fuck did Simon Bisley get ousted at DC for drawing a penis in Lobo's musculature but this porn-laden issue was acceptable?!
Oh, that's Man-Bat's new form, by the way. The scariest ass and vagina you've ever seen! Which sucks if it's the first one you've ever seen. But this being the Internet age, it would be pretty sad if you hadn't seen one yet. Can anybody send me links to some pictures? Or at least tell me how to disable Google Safe Search?
Detective Chimp, Lame Doctor Fate, and Swamp Compost need to figure out how to stop mutant Man-Bat before he fucks up the whole Eclipso seance. According to the cover, they're going to destroy him but lose their hats and one arm in the process.
Meanwhile on the moon, the artist is plagiarizing Sailor Moon R
Oh, that's Man-Bat's new form, by the way. The scariest ass and vagina you've ever seen! Which sucks if it's the first one you've ever seen. But this being the Internet age, it would be pretty sad if you hadn't seen one yet. Can anybody send me links to some pictures? Or at least tell me how to disable Google Safe Search?
Detective Chimp, Lame Doctor Fate, and Swamp Compost need to figure out how to stop mutant Man-Bat before he fucks up the whole Eclipso seance. According to the cover, they're going to destroy him but lose their hats and one arm in the process.
Meanwhile on the moon, the artist is plagiarizing Sailor Moon R
Just seeing this image causes "Moon Revenge" to begin playing in my head.
Flame-headed Sgt. Pepper (or "Circe" as some people call her) begins telling the origin story of Hecate. Somehow, Hecate was more powerful than God or something. She was the light of the moon but she had no opposite but you have to have an opposite or there is no balance! That's just stone cold logic. Her real opposite was The Upside Down Man. But since he was trapped in some other dimension, other powerful gods created Eclipso to keep Hecate in check. Circe has taken Hecate's power and now she's going to wield Eclipso's power as well by using the Black Diamond. Then nobody will be able to stop her because she will be all balance! That totally checks out, right? Has Tynion rationalized magic enough for you so that you don't roll your eyes and make jerk off motions about his plot? I was just beginning to think, "This is fucking ridiculous!" But then he explained it so logically and rationally that now I'm all, "This is fucking brilliant!" I love when magic has all the magic taken out of it!
Maybe James Tynion IV is the yang to Snyder's yin! It's the only way either one can exist!
Constantine shows up to help Detective Chimp figure out what's going on. Or maybe he just shows up to drink with him. Has there ever been a Constantine/Detective Chimp team-up series? Because these guys would probably make an entertaining team.
Wonder Woman fucks up and Circe takes over her body, leaving Diana trapped in the collective unconscious. It should be easy to get a message to the others from the collective unconscious, right? Once Circe takes control, Doom takes over the world and everybody is fucked. Next month, every comic should be labeled "Doom Risen," I'm guessing.
Justice League Dark #16 Final Thoughts: I was about to start typing when my cat Gravy jumped in my lap so I guess I'm done here!
Maybe James Tynion IV is the yang to Snyder's yin! It's the only way either one can exist!
Constantine shows up to help Detective Chimp figure out what's going on. Or maybe he just shows up to drink with him. Has there ever been a Constantine/Detective Chimp team-up series? Because these guys would probably make an entertaining team.
Wonder Woman fucks up and Circe takes over her body, leaving Diana trapped in the collective unconscious. It should be easy to get a message to the others from the collective unconscious, right? Once Circe takes control, Doom takes over the world and everybody is fucked. Next month, every comic should be labeled "Doom Risen," I'm guessing.
Justice League Dark #16 Final Thoughts: I was about to start typing when my cat Gravy jumped in my lap so I guess I'm done here!
Wednesday, November 13, 2019
The Terrifics #21
I don't believe Metamorpho could be affected by the Anti-life virus.
I'm four episodes into doing reviews¹ of The Twilight Zone series and I just realized Hulu is also currently airing The Outer Limits and Alfred Hitchock Presents. Should I do reviews of all three series at the same time, episode by episode?! I'm really² conflicted about this. I suppose it would be fairly easy to do all three at the same time since my reviews¹ don't actually take a lot of time to write. I mean, they're still great and worth reading because I only speak the truth³. If you disagree with me, you might want to do some soul searching to figure out why you're such a Goddamned liar.
Last issue, The Terrifics turned into Voltron4 so they could travel from the 1980s to 1960s. This is a comic book so that sentence makes sense without having to read it more than once.
Last issue, The Terrifics turned into Voltron4 so they could travel from the 1980s to 1960s. This is a comic book so that sentence makes sense without having to read it more than once.
Voltron was a syndicated cartoon shown daily on weekdays and not a Saturday Morning Cartoon, Mr. Saturday Morning Cartoon Himself.
I suppose time travel is confusing so I shouldn't be surprised that I'm confused but maybe I'm confused?
Let me preface my rant about this panel with this statement: I know next to fuck to nothing about cars. But, thanks to a few family members' obsessions with them, I do know a little something about Corvettes. I think.
These two panels first struck me odd because the speaker is excited about seeing "an '81 Corvette." Obviously car people know how to tell the difference between the yearly models of many types of cars. But I can't help thinking, "Who the fuck notices, specifically, an '81 'Vette?!" Maybe it's a fault with my severely lacking ability to recognize cars but if I saw an 80s Corvette, I'd probably be able to tell it was from the 80s but that's about it. Then due to time travel, the car, in the next panel, has already changed from an '81 Corvette to what I'm guessing is supposed to be a Sixties Corvette. Because we're traveling from the 80s to the 60s. But that's a fucking '56 or '575! Am I wrong?! Wouldn't a 60s Corvette have the dual headlights? I understand that a 1957 Corvette would still exist in the 60s but that would sort of ruin it as a marker of time travel by turning it from an '81 to a '57. But then again, this is a time travel story! So maybe I should follow the clues that the artist and writer are giving me and just think, "Oh! I guess they're in 1957 now!"
I bet when I turn the page, something somewhere will simply state, "The Terrifics are now in 1957! Whoa!", and all my fucking ranting will be for naught. So, like usual.
Judging by the looks of The Terrifics on the next page, I think I'm supposed to believe they're still in the Eighties and that the Corvette pictured is supposed to be an '81 Corvette? No, no! That's too much to swallow! But I can't stop thinking about it! Is it an error?! Is it a visual representation of the year in which The Terrifics find themselves? Is it....
I bet when I turn the page, something somewhere will simply state, "The Terrifics are now in 1957! Whoa!", and all my fucking ranting will be for naught. So, like usual.
Judging by the looks of The Terrifics on the next page, I think I'm supposed to believe they're still in the Eighties and that the Corvette pictured is supposed to be an '81 Corvette? No, no! That's too much to swallow! But I can't stop thinking about it! Is it an error?! Is it a visual representation of the year in which The Terrifics find themselves? Is it....
That's not a monster! That's an insemination machine!
I can't tell what year the insemination machine is from because I've never needed to use one, old or new. Being that it's a giant robot monster, it could be from anytime in the last half of the 20th Century.
During the giant robot battle that's exciting because it's a battle between giant robots, Plastic Man crashes into a venue that definitely pins the time period down to the 80s: a dance club slash arcade slash pizza joint6. Just in case you weren't sure that that screamed "EIGHTIES!", there's a poster on the wall that says, "80's!"
The rest of the issue is just a lot of fighting. Lots and lots of fighting. With Rocket Reds and evil Plastic Men instead of giant robots. I think Gene Luen Yang grew bored of writing 80s references and just turned the rest of the issue into filler to get to the 70s. In the 70s, The Terrifics turn into the Scooby Doo Gang and then the Legion of Doom take over the multiverse.
The Terrifics #21 Final Thoughts: I'm still disturbed by the Stephen Segovia's drawing of a 1981 Corvette. I've stopped reading comic books for far slighter errors than that. Luckily for all the creators involved, not reading this comic book means I need to actually remove it from my pull list which means speaking to the local comic book clerks and probably looking them in the eye for a few seconds. I might not be up for that this week and then I'll forget and before you know it, I'm reading the next issue of The Terrifics.
_____________________________________________
¹ I don't actually write reviews. I vomit genius opinions in vulgar language such that people who think they're smart read them and think I'm an idiot and people who aren't smart read them and think I'm a pretentious twat. It's a curse!
² Not really.
³ I only speak the truth! I only speak the truth! I only speak the truth! I only SPEAK THE TRUTH!
4 I spent so long trying to find an alt code for a superscript numeral four that would work in HTML that I forgot what this footnote was supposed to be. I could not find one so I'm using the HTML SUP tag instead. That's why the 4 looks like a superscript number with gigantism.
5 I'm assuming the two vertical lines coming off of the wheel well are the signature body indentation which is usually painted white and gives that particular Corvette such a distinctive look.
6 You know. Just like we spent all of our time at in the 80s. All of us. All the time. It was totally a thing.
During the giant robot battle that's exciting because it's a battle between giant robots, Plastic Man crashes into a venue that definitely pins the time period down to the 80s: a dance club slash arcade slash pizza joint6. Just in case you weren't sure that that screamed "EIGHTIES!", there's a poster on the wall that says, "80's!"
The rest of the issue is just a lot of fighting. Lots and lots of fighting. With Rocket Reds and evil Plastic Men instead of giant robots. I think Gene Luen Yang grew bored of writing 80s references and just turned the rest of the issue into filler to get to the 70s. In the 70s, The Terrifics turn into the Scooby Doo Gang and then the Legion of Doom take over the multiverse.
The Terrifics #21 Final Thoughts: I'm still disturbed by the Stephen Segovia's drawing of a 1981 Corvette. I've stopped reading comic books for far slighter errors than that. Luckily for all the creators involved, not reading this comic book means I need to actually remove it from my pull list which means speaking to the local comic book clerks and probably looking them in the eye for a few seconds. I might not be up for that this week and then I'll forget and before you know it, I'm reading the next issue of The Terrifics.
_____________________________________________
¹ I don't actually write reviews. I vomit genius opinions in vulgar language such that people who think they're smart read them and think I'm an idiot and people who aren't smart read them and think I'm a pretentious twat. It's a curse!
² Not really.
³ I only speak the truth! I only speak the truth! I only speak the truth! I only SPEAK THE TRUTH!
4 I spent so long trying to find an alt code for a superscript numeral four that would work in HTML that I forgot what this footnote was supposed to be. I could not find one so I'm using the HTML SUP tag instead. That's why the 4 looks like a superscript number with gigantism.
5 I'm assuming the two vertical lines coming off of the wheel well are the signature body indentation which is usually painted white and gives that particular Corvette such a distinctive look.
6 You know. Just like we spent all of our time at in the 80s. All of us. All the time. It was totally a thing.
Review of The Twilight Zone, Episode Five: "The Pain from an Old Wound"
The night before Donald Draper pitched his ad campaign for Kodak's new slide projector, "The Wheel," Don must have watched the fifth episode of the first season of The Twilight Zone entitled "Walking Distance." The episode's theme revolves around nostalgia which Donald Draper defines as "the pain from an old wound." The main character gives himself an old wound (which he didn't have before being overcome by nostalgia) by harassing his younger self until that younger self falls off the carousel. "The Carousel" is what Don Draper decides to rename Kodak's "Wheel." The story is about a man time traveling back to his youth and Don Draper describes "The Carousel" as not being a spaceship but a time machine. He obviously plagiarized his entire pitch from "Walking Distance"!
The main character, Martin Sloan, has become weary of the world at age thirty-six. It's probably because he looks like he's forty-six! I mean, Gig Young, the actor playing him, was definitely forty-six. Which is sort of hilarious coming on the heels of the previous episode about an elderly actress (in her forties elderly! You know, Women Elderly) who still looked terrific but, being forty-one, was slated to forever play mothers for the rest of her career. Why couldn't she play a 31 year old woman going through a mid-life crisis? At least she still looked the age as opposed to Gig Young who definitely did not look thirty-six. Although didn't thirty-six year old men just look older in the mid-20th century? When did men stop looking like men? It was the hippies, wasn't it? When I picture a man in my head, I think of somebody like Don Draper or Fred Flintstone or, as it happens, Gig Young. I mean, I wouldn't have pictured him before learning who he was because of this episode. But now I do! He's totally what I think a man looks like. Maybe military service does something to the DNA or bone structure of the male body to make them appear more manly? Or maybe just doing manly things gives them an air of manliness that most modern men just don't project?
Anyway, this super old thirty-six year old has become tired of adulting. Not that he'd ever use the term "adulting"! The only people who use that term are most definitely not men. Or women. Did I unironically use the term just now? Who can tell? I'm not a fucking adult! I can't tell when I'm being serious or cynical or earnest because I've never had to cower in a foxhole wondering if my movie screen was about to suddenly go black while the world moved on without me in vibrant technicolor. I'm just a lazy Generation X fuck that has had everything handed to him on a middle class silver-coated platter. I don't fucking know how to actually feel anything. Our entire lives have just been a terrifying Cold War joke where the Post-Cold War punchline never came. How the fuck were we ever supposed to feel anything when we were shown The Day After as children?! Sure, generations now have to worry about Climate Change but at least that's a long, slow decent into the Mad Max era. We had to deal with the psychological trauma of the end of everything in an actual blink of an eye while those fucking Boomers and the Greatest Generation really taught us about cynicism by casually living in that terrifying world that they fucking created! And how did they deal so nonchalantly with that shit? Probably because they once lost all feelings by having to cower in a foxhole wondering if their movie screen was about to suddenly go black while the world moved on without them!
Whoa. Man. Maybe I am an adult.
So Martin Sloan walks back through time and winds up talking to Richie Cunningham who is all, "You're not Marty Sloan! I know Marty Sloan and you're not him! Don't touch me! I'm so terrified I'm going to leave my marbles in the street!" And then Martin Sloan sees his younger self carving his name on a bandstand like he did when he was eleven. After that, he goes to his old house and talks to his mother and father who think he's a mad man. Then he runs into a kid with a hot rod and the kid is all, "It's a 1934! It just came out last year!" And that's when Marty McSloan is all, "Holy fucking shit! I've traveled through time!" I'm glad The Twilight Zone doesn't want us to think all of the main characters are geniuses. Or even of mediocre intelligence. I mean, what a fucking dum-dum!
Later, after Martin Sloan scares the shit out of his younger self so that his younger self falls off of the carousel and catches his leg underneath the ride (causing Martin Sloan to suddenly have a limp), he tells his younger self, "I didn't want to scare you! I didn't want to be creepy! I just wanted to tell you that you should appreciate being young! That's what all young people need to hear or else they won't enjoy it! They need to hear it from me, a lost old man! Enjoy your youth! I mean, I can see you were enjoying it until I came along. But I really want you to understand that you must enjoy it! Stop enjoying it so much and listen to me! You have to enjoy it! OH GOD, YOU JUST HAVE TO!"
After that, Marty's father comes along and is all, "Hey, dude. Get the fuck out of here. You're ruining your childhood. You had your time. Now maybe go enjoy being an adult. Get a drink. Fuck some broads. Gamble. But, shit dude, stop looking backwards, you maniac." And Marty is all, "Hey yeah! Maybe when I get back to my present, I'll remember to enjoy carousels and cotton candy and climbing trees!" And his dad takes a big hit off five cigarettes while he scratches at the VD eating away at his crotch and he says, "Yeah, yeah. Go enjoy that stuff, you nerd."
Marty returns to the present feeling better than he's felt in a long time. He really learned a lesson by his inadvertent trip to the past! And that lesson was to not wish to be young again but to make the best out of every day you have. Sure, it's the opposite lesson that Miss Trenton learned last episode. But maybe there are different lessons to be learned by men and women? I don't know! All I do know is that this episode did not make me feel wistful or nostalgic in exactly the opposite way the scene from Season One, Episode Thirteen of Mad Men, "The Wheel," did make me feel.
The main character, Martin Sloan, has become weary of the world at age thirty-six. It's probably because he looks like he's forty-six! I mean, Gig Young, the actor playing him, was definitely forty-six. Which is sort of hilarious coming on the heels of the previous episode about an elderly actress (in her forties elderly! You know, Women Elderly) who still looked terrific but, being forty-one, was slated to forever play mothers for the rest of her career. Why couldn't she play a 31 year old woman going through a mid-life crisis? At least she still looked the age as opposed to Gig Young who definitely did not look thirty-six. Although didn't thirty-six year old men just look older in the mid-20th century? When did men stop looking like men? It was the hippies, wasn't it? When I picture a man in my head, I think of somebody like Don Draper or Fred Flintstone or, as it happens, Gig Young. I mean, I wouldn't have pictured him before learning who he was because of this episode. But now I do! He's totally what I think a man looks like. Maybe military service does something to the DNA or bone structure of the male body to make them appear more manly? Or maybe just doing manly things gives them an air of manliness that most modern men just don't project?
Anyway, this super old thirty-six year old has become tired of adulting. Not that he'd ever use the term "adulting"! The only people who use that term are most definitely not men. Or women. Did I unironically use the term just now? Who can tell? I'm not a fucking adult! I can't tell when I'm being serious or cynical or earnest because I've never had to cower in a foxhole wondering if my movie screen was about to suddenly go black while the world moved on without me in vibrant technicolor. I'm just a lazy Generation X fuck that has had everything handed to him on a middle class silver-coated platter. I don't fucking know how to actually feel anything. Our entire lives have just been a terrifying Cold War joke where the Post-Cold War punchline never came. How the fuck were we ever supposed to feel anything when we were shown The Day After as children?! Sure, generations now have to worry about Climate Change but at least that's a long, slow decent into the Mad Max era. We had to deal with the psychological trauma of the end of everything in an actual blink of an eye while those fucking Boomers and the Greatest Generation really taught us about cynicism by casually living in that terrifying world that they fucking created! And how did they deal so nonchalantly with that shit? Probably because they once lost all feelings by having to cower in a foxhole wondering if their movie screen was about to suddenly go black while the world moved on without them!
Whoa. Man. Maybe I am an adult.
So Martin Sloan walks back through time and winds up talking to Richie Cunningham who is all, "You're not Marty Sloan! I know Marty Sloan and you're not him! Don't touch me! I'm so terrified I'm going to leave my marbles in the street!" And then Martin Sloan sees his younger self carving his name on a bandstand like he did when he was eleven. After that, he goes to his old house and talks to his mother and father who think he's a mad man. Then he runs into a kid with a hot rod and the kid is all, "It's a 1934! It just came out last year!" And that's when Marty McSloan is all, "Holy fucking shit! I've traveled through time!" I'm glad The Twilight Zone doesn't want us to think all of the main characters are geniuses. Or even of mediocre intelligence. I mean, what a fucking dum-dum!
Later, after Martin Sloan scares the shit out of his younger self so that his younger self falls off of the carousel and catches his leg underneath the ride (causing Martin Sloan to suddenly have a limp), he tells his younger self, "I didn't want to scare you! I didn't want to be creepy! I just wanted to tell you that you should appreciate being young! That's what all young people need to hear or else they won't enjoy it! They need to hear it from me, a lost old man! Enjoy your youth! I mean, I can see you were enjoying it until I came along. But I really want you to understand that you must enjoy it! Stop enjoying it so much and listen to me! You have to enjoy it! OH GOD, YOU JUST HAVE TO!"
After that, Marty's father comes along and is all, "Hey, dude. Get the fuck out of here. You're ruining your childhood. You had your time. Now maybe go enjoy being an adult. Get a drink. Fuck some broads. Gamble. But, shit dude, stop looking backwards, you maniac." And Marty is all, "Hey yeah! Maybe when I get back to my present, I'll remember to enjoy carousels and cotton candy and climbing trees!" And his dad takes a big hit off five cigarettes while he scratches at the VD eating away at his crotch and he says, "Yeah, yeah. Go enjoy that stuff, you nerd."
Marty returns to the present feeling better than he's felt in a long time. He really learned a lesson by his inadvertent trip to the past! And that lesson was to not wish to be young again but to make the best out of every day you have. Sure, it's the opposite lesson that Miss Trenton learned last episode. But maybe there are different lessons to be learned by men and women? I don't know! All I do know is that this episode did not make me feel wistful or nostalgic in exactly the opposite way the scene from Season One, Episode Thirteen of Mad Men, "The Wheel," did make me feel.
Monday, November 11, 2019
Review of The Twilight Zone, Episode Four, "Kick the Can, Rough Draft"
Rod Serling sat in his leather chair in the den, fingers poised above the keys on his IBM 286 or whatever was available in the late fifties. Probably an IBM 86! What am I, a historian? He sucked on his cigarette and then sucked on another cigarette that was in his other hand and then sighed, "Man, I love smoking! Maybe I should write a story about smoking?" He looked up at the corner of the room in thought and did not think about corners of rooms the way H.P. Lovecraft thought about corners of rooms. Serling didn't even think about the corner of the room at all. He just looked through it the way a person in the late eighties tried looking through stereoscopic pictures to see the 3D image hidden within. "Let's see. I've written about loneliness and the fear of death and the fear of death in the Old West. What should I write about now?" He took another hit from his cigarette and then another hit from his other cigarette and then shouted, "A-ha! I'll write about the longing for lost youth which is totally different than the fear of death!" He then preceded to click and clack at his IBM typewriter invented by Sir Reginald IBM while each cigarette bobbed and weaved, still gripped between the middle and index finger of each hand. But backwards or something so he didn't burn the pages he was writing.
Those asterisks mean I'm exiting the story about Rod "The Rodster" Serling and now I'm speaking in my own voice! I just wanted to say something about this episode that sounds super smart and potentially sexy. I guess the moral of this story (since we have to examine morals in all episodes of The Twilight Zone, don't we?) is that wishes probably don't often come true but maybe if you waste your entire life wishing for more life, maye your wish will come true! You never know unless you try! So forget about living the thirty years after your 25th birthday which are all just garbage because you're getting older and fatter and grosser. Instead, sit in the dark and wish to be 25 again! But don't wish to be 25 so that you'll start aging again! That would be dumb because then you'll just have to waste your new life wishing to be young again! No, you have to become either super young by playing Kick the Can so you can live it all over again (and don't be the dumb jerk who doesn't believe in wishes or you'll die lonely and bitter and soon!) or you have to become 25 forever by wishing yourself onto a movie screen. I don't know if your life only then plays when somebody runs the movie or what happens to your consciousness when the movie stops. But according to the dirty underwear left behind, I guess you're living in some alternate timeless dimension in the same place or something? With all of your imaginative young friends? Anyway, the moral is to believe in wishes and not to believe in actually doing shit before you die. Keep wishing for things to be better while everything falls apart around you! Hey, it might work! Baby!
The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine
By Rod "The Rodster" Serling
SCENE: AN OLD BROAD'S PERSONAL VIEWING ROOM
Old Broad: "Oh, how I love the movies I made twenty-five years ago! I was so young and beautiful! And my costar was so beautiful and exactly the age that I am now! Why oh why do women ripen so quickly and then over-ripen even quicklier?! Twenty years later, I am still vibrant and beautiful but I have a few crows feet around my eyes and thus my career is over even though I'm now the age of my favorite leading man whom I will meet with later, revealing that he's now like seventy or eighty years old which is the age men finally become unattractive! Also he'll have terrible glasses that make him look like a nerd or Batman's butler."
Older Broad (if you can believe it!): "Miss Trenton? Miss Trenton! I've brought you some tea! Where are you? Oh! OH! Are you in the movie screen?! OH MY GOD! Oh, no. Not yet. You were just behind the movie screen. My, you gave me a fright! Oh, I'd better get the door now!"
Colonel Cathcart: "Hey, baby! Where's Barbie? Hey Barbie, baby! Have I got an audition for you! You're not old news at all! Don't live in the past! Don't worship at the teat of nostalgia! Don't mix your petit fours, baby! It's the part you were born to play!"
Old Broad: "Is it a mother? I won't play a mother!"
Colonel Cathcart: "Oh. Well then forget it, baby! That head of the studio probably wouldn't like your feminist attitude anyway!"
Old Broad: "Well, he's twenty years older than I am now. But just wait until another twenty years and people stop taking him seriously because he's become an old dried up fig too!"
Colonel Cathcart: "Youth is cool! But you should get some sun because you can't get youth! Especially not by sitting in the dark watching your old movies 24/7! Um, baby!"
Old Broad: "Oh yeah? I'm gonna wish and wish and wish and I'll become young again! And I won't even have to run around the stupid yard kicking stupid cans in a story that used this theme way better! Probably because The Rodster got so much better at writing stories after all of the cigarettes he lovingly smoked. Smoke Chesterfields!"
Older Broad: "Now that Archie Bunker's friend has left, I'd better get Miss Trenton more tea! Miss Trenton, Miss Trenton! Where are you? Not in the chair. Not on the couch. OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! I MUST SCREAM AS IF A BEAR WERE ATTACKING ME NOW!"
SCENE: SAME PLACE BUT LATER OR SOMETHING
Colonel Cathcart: "She's young and in the movie with all her young friends now? By golly, baby! Wishes! Way to go wishes! They work, I guess? You know what I'm wishing for now, older broad?"
OLDER BROAD BLUSHES EXTRAVAGANTLY
Colonel Cathcart: "Let's go fuck with my huge penis now, older broad! Oh wait! What's this?! Look! Look here! The underwear she kissed and threw at me in the picture! It is on the floor here! In reality! What is going on?!"
Narrator: "THE TWILIGHT ZONE!"
**********By Rod "The Rodster" Serling
SCENE: AN OLD BROAD'S PERSONAL VIEWING ROOM
Old Broad: "Oh, how I love the movies I made twenty-five years ago! I was so young and beautiful! And my costar was so beautiful and exactly the age that I am now! Why oh why do women ripen so quickly and then over-ripen even quicklier?! Twenty years later, I am still vibrant and beautiful but I have a few crows feet around my eyes and thus my career is over even though I'm now the age of my favorite leading man whom I will meet with later, revealing that he's now like seventy or eighty years old which is the age men finally become unattractive! Also he'll have terrible glasses that make him look like a nerd or Batman's butler."
Older Broad (if you can believe it!): "Miss Trenton? Miss Trenton! I've brought you some tea! Where are you? Oh! OH! Are you in the movie screen?! OH MY GOD! Oh, no. Not yet. You were just behind the movie screen. My, you gave me a fright! Oh, I'd better get the door now!"
Colonel Cathcart: "Hey, baby! Where's Barbie? Hey Barbie, baby! Have I got an audition for you! You're not old news at all! Don't live in the past! Don't worship at the teat of nostalgia! Don't mix your petit fours, baby! It's the part you were born to play!"
Old Broad: "Is it a mother? I won't play a mother!"
Colonel Cathcart: "Oh. Well then forget it, baby! That head of the studio probably wouldn't like your feminist attitude anyway!"
Old Broad: "Well, he's twenty years older than I am now. But just wait until another twenty years and people stop taking him seriously because he's become an old dried up fig too!"
Colonel Cathcart: "Youth is cool! But you should get some sun because you can't get youth! Especially not by sitting in the dark watching your old movies 24/7! Um, baby!"
Old Broad: "Oh yeah? I'm gonna wish and wish and wish and I'll become young again! And I won't even have to run around the stupid yard kicking stupid cans in a story that used this theme way better! Probably because The Rodster got so much better at writing stories after all of the cigarettes he lovingly smoked. Smoke Chesterfields!"
Older Broad: "Now that Archie Bunker's friend has left, I'd better get Miss Trenton more tea! Miss Trenton, Miss Trenton! Where are you? Not in the chair. Not on the couch. OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! I MUST SCREAM AS IF A BEAR WERE ATTACKING ME NOW!"
SCENE: SAME PLACE BUT LATER OR SOMETHING
Colonel Cathcart: "She's young and in the movie with all her young friends now? By golly, baby! Wishes! Way to go wishes! They work, I guess? You know what I'm wishing for now, older broad?"
OLDER BROAD BLUSHES EXTRAVAGANTLY
Colonel Cathcart: "Let's go fuck with my huge penis now, older broad! Oh wait! What's this?! Look! Look here! The underwear she kissed and threw at me in the picture! It is on the floor here! In reality! What is going on?!"
Narrator: "THE TWILIGHT ZONE!"
Those asterisks mean I'm exiting the story about Rod "The Rodster" Serling and now I'm speaking in my own voice! I just wanted to say something about this episode that sounds super smart and potentially sexy. I guess the moral of this story (since we have to examine morals in all episodes of The Twilight Zone, don't we?) is that wishes probably don't often come true but maybe if you waste your entire life wishing for more life, maye your wish will come true! You never know unless you try! So forget about living the thirty years after your 25th birthday which are all just garbage because you're getting older and fatter and grosser. Instead, sit in the dark and wish to be 25 again! But don't wish to be 25 so that you'll start aging again! That would be dumb because then you'll just have to waste your new life wishing to be young again! No, you have to become either super young by playing Kick the Can so you can live it all over again (and don't be the dumb jerk who doesn't believe in wishes or you'll die lonely and bitter and soon!) or you have to become 25 forever by wishing yourself onto a movie screen. I don't know if your life only then plays when somebody runs the movie or what happens to your consciousness when the movie stops. But according to the dirty underwear left behind, I guess you're living in some alternate timeless dimension in the same place or something? With all of your imaginative young friends? Anyway, the moral is to believe in wishes and not to believe in actually doing shit before you die. Keep wishing for things to be better while everything falls apart around you! Hey, it might work! Baby!
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