Happy Town Episode 2

I came to Haplin for the Waters

Last week we were left with Sheriff Conroy going crazy in his office speaking of the Magic Man while he took an axe to his own hand, and at the same time Henley started up the stairs to the second floor, this week we dig deeper into the world of Happy Town….

We start with the arrival of Sheriff Conroy at the ER, the hand is pretty gruesome I like that, I know that some people don’t but I like this kind of thing.    Tommy watches as his father’s wedding ring falls to the ground in the ER as his father is taken into the operating room.   After this the show picks up the next morning so we’re not going to get any answers as to what she saw up in that room on the third floor right away apparently.   Georgia and her boyfriend are still keeping their relationship a secret because he’s a wuss ….what a surprise.

Ah the room to the third floor was locked, so Henley couldn’t get in and find out what was in the room, but she does get a surprise that next morning!   I still think Mrs. Meadows is hiding something, but I can’t figure out what it is until we see into that damn third floor room!   We know Henley is hiding the real reason why she came to Haplin, could it possibly be that she really does know how to make candles?  I’d like to see that a whole episode about her making candles…umm I’m just kidding.

Big Dave is a good friend of T.C. (Tommy) and he was also Jerry for many seasons on ER.   Who is Chloe, people keep asking this question and no one will answer it, but Mrs. Haplin, wants to see Tommy perhaps she will have answers as to who Chloe is or even who the Magic Man is?   So the Haplin mansion is called the Weeping Wall, there has to be a history behind that doesn’t there?   It is a very strange name for a mansion but then again it’s looking more and more as I watch this show that there is a lot more going on than just the Magic Man.

Man oh man does Hobbs not like that T.C. was put in charge, you can see it on his face instantly, but T.C. leaves Hobbs in charge of the Friddle case.   Immediately after Mrs. Meadows comes into the house and leaves her keys Henley takes the key and makes a copy of it and the more I see of things going on the more I know that Merritt is aware of what she’s doing and he’s even helping her to get into that room, if he’s not the Magic Man (I don’t believe he is still) then he’s definitely up to something.  In the meantime at least he played interference for Henley, if she’s aware of it she doesn’t show it…but if I was her I wouldn’t trust Merritt.

At the town meeting T.C. ends up being the shortest sheriff ever in the history of Haplin, but of course Mrs. Haplin lies and doesn’t really appoint Hobbs, she speaks before the people and appoints T.C. anyway despite him not wanting to take the job, as I was thinking she’s up to something…so is everyone else in Haplin that isn’t Tommy Conroy and his family appears to have some kind of a secret so far.   I love that as he quotes Jaws his wife smiles and his best friend Big Dave chuckles slightly.

Georgia meets a strange man sitting at the waiting tables in the hospital where she went to visit Griffin, as she leaves there is something about the man who doesn’t have a name yet, something almost menacing about the way he looks at her as she leaves.   Something strange happens to Georgia in the hospital room as she’s talking with the Sheriff, and as she starts down the hall the Magic Man follows her walking all slow like as she runs with strange things happening around her.   Georgia wakes up in a room with guys talking, it’s the Stiviletto brothers and I don’t think they have nice plans for Georgia at all judging by her scream right before the break.

So did Mrs. Haplin pick T.C. to run things because she was pretty sure he wouldn’t do anything to press the issues of what happened that night on the lake to Friddle?   T.C. goes to the Stivilettos after Georgia tells him what happend, there isn’t really anyway to know if they actually raped her or not because she doesn’t really remember it, she was drugged and it wasn’t by the Stivilettos, it was by the Magic Man I am pretty sure.    T.C. does a pretty good job beating the bastards up..>I have no respect for rapists or even attempted rapists.

The flour on Jerry Friddle’s body wasn’t from the bread factory but from Big Dave’s pizza shop.   T.C. goes over to his friend’s house to inspect things for himself down in the basement to make sure that Big Dave didn’t kill Jerry Friddle which I seriously doubt that he did.   In the basement T.C. uncovers Big Dave’s secret, walls of articles and other such things dealing with the Magic Man…and just then of course Big Dave comes into the room.

Big Dave believes that Friddle was the magic man, and he took him down with a railroad spike which leads right to him being the killer of Jerry Friddle.  I am actually pretty surprised that it was Big Dave that killed Jerry Friddle, and at the same time he found out where the bodies were.    Henley again at the end of the second episode attempts to go up the stairs and into the locked room.   She walks into a room filled with….birds?   Why would there be birds up on the third floor and why would they want to keep people out of a room filled with birds?   A hidden place under the floorboards reveals a hammer in a case and then everything goes quiet.

Maybe I was wrong before about Georgia’s boyfriend Andrew Haplin isn’t such a bad guy after all, he wants to protect Georgia, maybe he has redeeming qualities after all….someone walks into the Sheriff’s office at the end…and as T.C. looks up at him…its the man from earlier the Magic Man perhaps?…now he has a name: Dan Farmer and he’s from the state police.   The episode ends on a lonely stretch of highway…Henley in a car she just bought and a bird crashing through the window and then flying away.

Until next Wednesday…..

Qutoes:

“You be sure to let him know if he ever needs a hand…” -one of the Stiviletto brothers…I think it was Womper.

“Umm as Mrs. Haplin..uh referred to it…now would be a good time for an old soul to scratch his nails across teh chalkboard and claim that he can catch the…the head…the tail…and the whole damn fish” -T.C. quoting Quint from the classic Jaws great horror film!

“Hello..Georgia. Are you okay?  Would you like some Tapioca?” -Baby Boy to Georgia….I put this one in there because it was so strange.

“The Serpent always hisses where the sweet bird sings, Chloe” -Griffin Conroy

“Well you can’t heal a wound Tommy until you clean it out!”  -Big Dave

Tidbits:

-Why does Chloe have a tattoo of the Magic Man question mark with a halo over it on her back shoulder? I can’t believe I forgot to mention this last week!

-Mrs. Haplin is hiding something, but what is she hiding?  Why does she want a Conroy to be in charge of the Sheriff department?

-I’ve always wondered in shows like this…the wife and the husband are out…the usual babysitter isn’t watching the daughter either…so who the hell is watching the daughter????

Overall: A-

The first episode was a little slow building but this one started the real mystery working, who is the Magic Man, is he perhaps now working with the police?    What is T.C. going to do about Big Dave and his secret about Friddle and that he did it?   Who is Henley/Chloe, we still have no clue really and I don’t think the answers are coming any time soon.  Overall I am enjoying this series, the mystery is becoming more interesting….I’ll be back next week.

Lie to Me Season 2-Ep 4

Honey

It begins with Lightman at a party of some sort talking with single women, he starts hitting on one and sits down to talk with her asking her questions trying to find out how she feels about cheating.  At first I thought that Lightman was here scoping out the babes so to speak, finally going to be going out on a date like a regular guy, I should have known it was part of a case and it turned out that it was.

Lightman doesn’t seem particularly happy about the fact that he has to do cases like this, before he gave his wife back her controlling interest in the company he could pick the case that he wanted to do and he even states here that he wants to go back to that way and that he won’t do a case like this one again.   At the same time Torres has gone to the house of Eric Matheson to speak with his sister about rather or not there was any signs of him being a violent man and also to perhaps uncover where he really is.   As she’s leaving the house Eric is in the backseat and demands to be taken back to the Lightman group so that they can prove that he didn’t kill his wife.

The opening credits roll as he walks into the Group holding Torres hostage at gun point….

As we come back Cal demands that Eric let go of Torres and take him hostage instead because he wants to protect her from the threat of death and also I am pretty sure that he wants to study the man and try to figure out what he’s doing.    Foster convinces Reynolds from calling in the hostage situation but he will only do it under one condition, Foster goes in to talk with Lightman and Matheson.  Cal wants Foster to videotape and talk with the man who Matheson believes killed his wife.

I have been very impressed with Mekhi Phifer so far in this series, he’s really pulling off the whole FBI agent thing really well and his character is interesting and being slowly built up over the episodes of this season.    Loker takes Reynolds clothes and pretends to be a FBI agent since Reynolds refuses to leave the building while a man with a gun is in there.  Foster convinces Tom McHenry to be videotaped to prove that he isn’t lying about not killing Eric’s wife.

As Cal talks with Eric he begins to uncover through Eric’s mannerisms and speech that he’s not telling the entire full truth and he’s still trying to figure out if he did it or not.  Ria and Reynolds talk with one another about what happened to her, I can tell just by looking at her that she blames herself for the entire affair and she’s not going to go easy on herself.  Reynolds convinces Foster and Lightman to move Eric Matheson across the way to another room so that they can keep an eye on him easier and if anything happens they can resolve it quicker.    This is a smart idea and it helps to slowly move control away from Eric of the situation.

Cal doesn’t bluff or lie about it instead he tells Eric the truth that he doesn’t believe at all that Tom was responsible for the death.   Tom basically fired Eric’s wife but he didn’t kill her.  The things that Matheson are keeping from Cal are about money that he borrowed in order to keep him and his wife afloat and he hasn’t paid any of the money back yet but his wife was trying to help him by borrowing the money from her boss in a loan.

Lightman is one cool guy, even with a gun pointed at his head from a clearly disturbed person he manages to get that person to not only move the gun away again but also give him the name of the friend whom Cal now believes is responsible for the death of Matheson’s wife.   Reynolds meanwhile isn’t quite as cool, but he knows by forcing the friend to give it that the man will because that is how he responds to that kind of stuff.

The wife was trying to clean up her husbands messes and it looks like it got her killed. Foster has no fear really in these kind of situations, she walks into a bar well aware that the people within it will notice her and she walks right up to the man who they’re looking for, and asks him if he knows anything about a flat.

Lightman’s ability to read people is always stunning, he can always find out what people are thinking and why they are doing what they are doing.   Lightman wants to help Matheson but Matheson still doesn’t trust him and he is slowly starting to trust LIghtman to the point that he’s willing to put the gun down and walk away until the cops show up because Reynolds called it in.  Torres goes to the front door and invites the cops in letting them known that no one there had called anything in and no one was in trouble, that it was a fired employee.

It’s some quick thinking that probably saves Cal’s life and maybe even Torres as well.  Torres and Foster quickly realize that Zancanelli is definitely lying about never being in the apartment of the Matheson’s.    Turns out that the wife was recording something and that it worked and she was going to keep the file just in case.   It turns out that Zancanelli sexually blackmailed Connie (Matheson’s wife) and she recorded it as well.    Now of course Matheson wants five minutes alone with the man responsible for his wife’s death.

Matheson once again points the gun at Cal and he still continues to try to get Matheson to drop the gun and live his life, just live his life.   Matheson is a mess of a man, his wife was the only thing really keeping him together and all he wants is to make the man that took her life pay for what he did.    Zancanelli is brought into the room so that Matheson can talk with him.  Agent Reynolds comes in as well to make sure that it stays a conversation and nothing else.    Zancanelli doesn’t come in, Loker comes in the room instead disguised as him and Reynolds finally manages to get a shot in on Matheson.

At the end of the day Cal meets with the woman that he saw at the beginning of the episode (not the ex-wife but another woman).   Even though he likes the woman and is sexually attracted to her Cal realizes that he shouldn’t be there, and he goes to Foster which is not surprising.  I am beginning to think that him and Foster should be together, that they would be a good couple…but they have a history.

Quotes:

“If there s one thing Matheson has said today that I believe its that if he sees the cop he will pull the trigger…he will” -Foster to Reynolds.

“I told you no cops…I can’t believe I trusted your lying ass.”  -Matheson to Lightman

Tidbits:

–Lightman is willing to risk his life for the truth, this we already know, but tonight his life was on the line and it wasn’t because of something he did.

-Foster and Lightman come to an agreement on the billing issues from the beginning of the episode.

-Spare bedroom really???

Overall:  A

The Crystal Returns

Final Fantasy XIII

Final Fantasy and I have a long history with one another, since I was a teenager I have been playing Final Fantasy with the release of Final Fantasy IV (which was released originally here as Final Fantasy II).   Since that time I have watched Final Fantasy go from a series of sprite characters to full on 3D characters sometimes with mixed results.  Some games have had questionable story issues (yes I am looking at you VIII and XII).  Others had deep characters who each had their own stories to tell, and almost every single one of them had a battle system that made you want to play and keep playing upwards of forty hours.

Square-Enix (previously SquareSoft) was one of the most succesful companies in the Playstation One era with the release of Final Fantasy VII.  Since then their games have gotten more and more style and sometimes the substance has lacked, but not always.   I have enjoyed every Final Fantasy for various reasons, some of them like VIII I enjoyed because of the battle system or the quirky characters.   Others like VII I enjoyed because of the story, back when Final Fantasy VII came out no one thought that Square would do what they did with Arieth as it had never been done before and they had the courage to do it and not go back.    Square had stated many times before that the Final Fantasy games are their biggest series and they will continue to push it as such.

Which brings us to Final Fantasy XIII the first game in the High Definition era, a beautiful game with substance, a deep story and some interesting characters despite the first few hours or the last few hours.    We waited a long time from the first announcement back in 2006 and the wait has been worth it, but in a sense you get the feeling after playing it that we won’t be seeing another Final Fantasy (besides the MMO coming later this year) for a long while.

Playability

Like every other Final Fantasy out there XIII has a unique battle system, but it’s not as unique as you think it is.  In the beginning the Paradigms system seems shallow and uninteresting, but as you continue to play through the first few hours of the game the system fully opens up and shows you how deep it really is.   It has more in common with the Job system from Final Fantasy Tactics or even X-2 than you would think at first, but it has refined the system to fit just a few different jobs: Commando, Ravager, Medic, Sentinel, Synergist, Saboteur.   These “jobs” each define what kind of role the character will be playing and as you get deeper into the system you begin to realize just how important they are.

The battle system’s other important part is the Staggering system.   You must Stagger your enemy in order to beat them, a bar builds up the more damage you do to the enemy until its full and they go into stagger mode which lets you do a whole lot more damage to them.   The trick is working your Paradigms in order to stagger the enemy quickly.  A good example is like this:  you’ve got three team mates working together a commando and two ravager’s.   The three of you are getting closer to staggering a tough enemy (there are lots of them in the game so don’t go crying to mom) and one of you is about to die but you’re only seconds and one good spell away from staggering the enemy.  Do you risk that one of the party members might die (just don’t let your leader die or its game over and you have to restart the battle) and stagger the guy for a quick kill or do you stop and heal?   It’s a tough question and I can’t answer it for you because I did it many times in the game.

If you stagger and enemy you can make it to where they can’t attack you at all as you assualt them over and over again…this includes bosses. Because of the Staggering system enemies including bosses seem to have even more status weaknesses and magic weaknesses than in any previous Final Fantasy.   There are actually bosses in this game that you can poison, slow, or even weaken defenses on in order to stagger them quicker.   It becomes important that you learn the system or you will die a lot, trust me it’s not a forgiving game once you get all of the tools of the system.   Some of the bosses are down right tough but not unbeatable.   Thats the genius of the battle system, it makes you want to keep playing with it.

A screen shot of the battle system

At first I didn’t like this system, mainly because I have no direct control over any other character other than the Leader.   You can’t tell the others in your party what to do, you can’t even suggest it to them, all you can do is give them a paradigm and hope that they follow it correctly and quickly enough.    The thing about this is it adds more strategy to the system and yet keeps the game’s battles at a unbelieveable fast pace.  I feel in love with it after playing with it for ten hours and realizing how deep it really was.  The bad thing about this is that by the time I truly grasped the entirety of the system I realized the game was over or nearly to the last chapter and I didn’t want it to end.

The only disappointment to the battle system is once again the Summons.   This time once more called Eidlons it just seems as if they serve no real purpose, in fact you can beat the entire game with out even summoning one except for parts where you have to use them and you have to fight against them.   Summoned creatures use up a different system of points which are more useful spent doing other things and they last for a very short time and seem to do less damage than your group of three is capable of doing, so once more they are just there for show instead of a useful purpose.  I miss the summons of six and seven, those guys at least did their thing, did some damage, and left.

On the other side the leveling system in the game is different as well.   Magic points do not exist this time, you can cast any spell any time you want to as much as you want to as long as you have enough command slots filled up you can cast it.   The slots also fill pretty quickly but as you get further into the game it becomes more and more important that you have Haste on your main character because they constantly need to quickly do things including healing themselves sometimes.    This also leads to the Crystarium which is the leveling system in the game.   Your character doesn’t get levels in the same sense as they do in other Final Fantasy games.  Instead you spend CP (crystogen points) to add HP, MP, spells, abilities, and also things like strength and other such attributes to your character through the Crystarium.   This is similar to X’s system the Sphere Grid but its refined and actually done better.

The biggest disappointment here for me was the weapons, there doesn’t really appear to be any reason to have multiple weapons per each characters other than for looks and for some stat bonuses against some enemies especially later in the game when you reach a certain large area where you can do all of your side quests.    You can upgrade your weapon and in fact this is the only way to get the ultimate weapon,  it’s a great system and I don’t see any reason why it couldn’t have been the only system for getting new weapons and accessories.  Still its a minor nitpick in an otherwise excellent battle system.

Story and Characters

As I said earlier I’ve been playing Final Fantasy games for a long time and in all of that time there is only one game that Final Fantasy Thirteen’s story is similar to:  Final Fantasy VI (Final Fantasy III originally on the SNES) hear me out and I’ll tell you why.    First there is the main character, everyone.   Thirteen’s story isn’t the story of one character or another, it is the story of every single character, which was the same for Six as well.   There was one character in both games that stood out for me, in Six it was Locke, in Thirteen its Lightening.   They aren’t similar characters at all but both of them are leading material type characters.    Lightening is a strong woman who blames herself and also her sister’s boyfriend for what happened to her sister and she stands at the fore-front at the beginning of the game making you believe that she’s the main character.

Yet then suddenly you’re thrust into the lives of other characters in the game, and they all throw out terms and things that you have no idea on, and at first you might be confused with what a Fal’cie is or a L’cie is but there is a handy dictionary that explains it all to you.   Each character has their own reasons for hunting down the Pulse fal’Cie and the story quickly moves from one character to another.    There is Hope’s desire for revenge against Snow,  Snow’s desire to save Serah, Lightening’s desire to protect her sister, Sazh’s desire to save his son from being a L’cie, Vanille’s desire to save all of Cocoon and also Pulse, and Fang’s desire to protect Vanille.

All of these stories intersect with one another and put all of the characters on the run from those of Cocoon.  This is why the game doesn’t have typical towns or shops because you’re always on the move.   Yes its linear up to a point in the story (don’t worry I won’t spoil it) but the linear fashion helps tell a more cohesive and tight story.  yes sometimes the voice acting does faulter, but not to the point that you don’t want to keep watching the story unfold like in some other games.   The thing is some people don’t like it because it’s not a typical story.   There is no sweeping love story arc, or dark menacing bad guy, there is just the mystery of Cocoon and Pulse and what the fal’Cie want.

A lot of reviews have had a problem with this story not having a real menacing bad guy, I didn’t really even notice it as I was enjoying the characters and the battle system so much and most people will feel the same way I am certain once they play it.   It takes about ten hours for the story to really get going but during those same hours you’re learing the battle system so it passes quickly.    Things are really tight until close to the end of the game, as you travel through Cocoon usually in two or three different branching story arcs with characters separated all over the place the story keeps things moving quickly.

In those last few hours when the side quests all become available and you’re close to the ending things sort of all apart slightly.  Then the end arrives with its final battle which is in typical Square fashion a tough final battle that has three parts to it.   The final cinematic and ending story is really well done and deeply moving if you got into enjoying the characters as much as I did, and trust me when it ends you don’t want it to end, you want more from these characters and this world of Cocoon.

Over All Rating

Graphics: 10 out of 10-Square is in its element here, knowing how to put on stellar graphics even in the non-cinematic areas, each character is finely crafted, each location as interesting as the one before, and every enemy is unique looking.

Sound: 7 out of 10– I thought it was the weakest part of the game, the main music has a little too much jap-pop sound to it at time and other than a few memorable songs the music is mostly forgettable.    The voice acting is great though in almost every part but for a few faltering places here and there mainly with Hope and Vanille.

Play Systems: 9 out of 10– the Battle system in the game is wonderful as is the leveling system but  at times its also frustrating but never to the point that it makes you throw a controller…I just wish it wasn’t instant game over if your leader dies…come on square couldn’t you have given a save system with a phoenix down or something?

Story: 8 out of 10– The story has some shallow parts to it, but over all its one of the deeper stories in the Final Fantasy universe.   There are no confusing love arcs, no strange cat characters that serve no point at all (I am looking at you Cait Sith).  Instead you get a mature story about people who are just trying to save their world from destruction and if you don’t like that then you won’t enjoy the game.

Overall: 9 out of 10 –  Perhaps my love of Final Fantasy clouds my judgment sometimes but I enjoyed the game immensely and never found it dull or off putting.  I surely never found the story boring or the characters uninteresting and the battle system more than made up for teh parts where the story did lull for a time.   I’ve waited a long time for a new Final Fantasy and I devoured it and enjoyed every second of it and will again when I play it once more in the future….

Lightening facing off

Happy Town Episode 1

This Home  On Ice

A parked car, two teens, the story begins with a secret meeting between these two teens in the car and one says goodnight to the other as they drive off.   Seems innocent enough till we see the cabin on the lake and flash inside of it to the man within.   A mystery often starts off with the unknown and this one is no exception.    We don’t know who these two people are but we know that the clues they are giving us here are going to lead somewhere.    Only thing here that bothered me was it seemed a little unrealistic that he would whisper when they were alone in the cabin with one another out on the ice and no one around for miles.

Spike to the head and Happy Town begins….

A train arrives with Crosby Stills and Nash playing and we meet a strange girl named Henley who has just arrived at Haplin.  Henley meets the realtor that got her a place to live in Haplin and agrees to take her out there.  Turns out that Henley has returned to Haplin because of her mom.

We meet Tommy and Rachel Conroy next, Rachel is played by Amy Acker of Angel and Dollhouse fame I really enjoyed seeing her in this show playing a mother instead, a character very different from the ones that she’s played in the past.   Their daughter is cast really well and they really do seem to resemble a true family, which is good because we’re going to be getting to know them over the season.

Henley comes off instantly to me as a little well “off” but I want to like her despite that, it’s just strange she would be showing up at the same time someone is brutally murdered.   On her drive to the place she will be staying we see a strange sign, a question mark with a halo on top of it, the symbol of the magic man.   We meet Georgia for real this time, who turns out to be Emma Conroy’s babysitter and well-known by the family.

Despite Tommy’s day off he’s called in by his dad and we all know why.   M.C. Gainey plays Tommy’s dad Griffin who is also the Sherriff of Haplin.   If you don’t know who M.C. Gainey is then you haven’t been watching Lost all of these seasons, he played Mr. Friendly.    There is a little demonstration downtown about a banner of missing people who all disappeared around the same time years ago and the Sheriff wants it down because he knows it will just cause problems with the people around town.

The Sheriff and his son arrive at the ice fishing cabin to find a man with a hole in his head from where the spike was driven into it and the Vis Major has arrived apparently.    Henley is moving into a house with widowed older women and a strange man named Mr. Grieves.  The third floor of the house is strictly off-limits it’s the one rule that she has to obey and it’s not a joke.

“A well man doesn’t put a hole in another man’s head.”  No kidding Sheriff but its hard to say who could have done it in such a small town isn’t it?  Other than perhaps the Magic Man?    The state police are sending out a man and the men are not exactly happy about this development.     We move on to John Haplin and his wife while he’s working at the bread factory.  Their daughter went missing years ago and the mother is having a hard time letting go and her husband John just wants her to let go.

Side note:  I have always enjoyed Steve Weber ever since his days on Wings and was happy to see him in this movie.

As he gets off the phone Tommy arrives with another officer to talk with Donna Friddle and let her know that her husband was murdered.  Her actions are instant and understandable but I am surprised that the cops would just walk u to her in the middle of the factory and tell her what happened instead of pulling her off somewhere in private.   This seems a little unrealistic as I have never actually seen a police officer do such a thing.

Donna leads them to other players, the Stiviletto brothers who were always tormenting her husband.  As she is being interviewed it appears as if Sheriff Griffin Conroy goes back in time, he suddenly starts talking once again about someone named Chloe and its obvious that everyone else in the room is disturbed by what he is saying and they don’t really understand who he is talking about.   He comes out of it and they go to talk with the Stiviletto brothers.   They instantly come off as unlikable.

Henley leads us to Merritt Grieves (Sam Neil)art gallery.  I love Sam Neil he always manages to add a mystery to any character that he plays even characters on television shows.  His character is one of the most mysterious on the show which is why I don’t believe there is any chance that he is really the Mystery Man but I could be wrong.   Merritt talks of a Blue Door and a movie about a Blue Door but I have not been able to find any real life example so I am thinking that this was made up as part of the plot for Happy Town.

We finally get the history of the Magic Man, and how people went vanishing for 12 years in a row once a year and it ended five years ago without any more disappearances happening.  The Sheriff and Merritt have an encounter that adds even more to the fact that they seem to be trying to push us towards Merritt Grieves being the Magic Man himself and that’s another reason why I don’t believe it!   Although if he does turn out to be I won’t be shocked because they did make it very obvious for a mystery show!

I can understand Tommy wanting to protect his daughter from death and what death is but I don’t think he’s doing her any good, she’s old enough to understand death and what it means and I like Rachel’s point that she needs to not be shielded to a point that she’s crippled.    THen a call comes and his dad has gone crazy speaking about Chloe again and at the same time Henley starts up the stairs when everyone else is asleep to see the mystery on the third floor and her name…her real name is….Chloe!  As Henley walks up the stairs and opens the door Griffin lifts an axe and cuts off his own hand as they break down the glass on the door.

Quotes:

“Just remember the inevitably of the Vis Major.”

“The what?”

“The vis major, it’s a latin term.  It means the natural  and unavoidable catastrophe that interrupts the natural course of events. ”  -Sheriff Griffin to his son Tommy.    Mr. Friendly always did have a way with words even on Lost and he continues the trend here on Happy Town as well.

“I love you so much…sometimes I don’t even know what day it is.”  -Andrew Haplin with the worst and most corny line of them all which right away should point to the fact that he doesn’t really love her he’s just infatuated with Georgia because she’s good-looking and also because he knows that his dad would never let him date her…she’s forbidden which is the only reason why he likes being with her I think….its not real love and she’s going to get hurt.

“In this town if you pay attention to folks who isn’t necessarily your friends, well then, you gotta be “magic man” material, don’t ya?” -Donna Friddle on her husband’s death and the magic man.

“Did you realize that the glow from her mouth was the silvery moon?” -Sheriff Conroy (man M.C. Gainey has got some great lines in this episode.

“Why do they call him the Magic Man?”

“Because he had the ability to make people disappear so completely that it boarded on the mystical.”  -Henley and Merrit talking about the Magic Man.

“Since I moved here the back of my balls would test positive for high traces of backing flower!”  -Hobbs

Tidbits and Questions:

-Chloe who is she, what does she have to do with the history of Haplin and the Mystery Man?

-Why is it that Georgia (who appears to be a smart and well-adjusted girl) would be dating a guy like Andrew Haplin who to me seems to be a real asshole in every since of the word which is pretty much just like his dad.

-Is Merritt Grieves the Magic Man?  They sure do want us to think that he is don’t they?

-Why do I get the feeling that Mrs. Klapman is controlling the widows for some reason and keeping them quiet about things and doesn’t let them laugh or have fun for a reason, one that we aren’t going to like at all?

Rating: B+

The episode does a lot of things right to start off the series.   It is a strong opening story with a good introduction to the characters but for a show that is supposed to about the mystery of the Magic Man there is too much glaring right on Merritt Grieves.   Did he do something to Griffin when he handed him back his wedding ring that caused him to lose his mind and chop off his own hand and why is he so interested in Henley/Chloe?   I will be watching and I say you should be watching too!

Television News for 5/5/2010

Lost finale extended by THIRTY minutes

The Final Season

Last night the Lost episode The Canidate aired and a lot of people were shocked by what happened as it moved the story forwards into new territory approaching the finale.   On top of that news today it comes out that Lost is getting an extra thirty minutes in the finale which will air on Sunday May the 23rd.   This is great news as it will help the Lost team close out the story even more.   For those of you who don’t want to know more…stop reading now and leave it at the fact that Lost was great last night for everyone else this story continues:

Last night Lost proved without a doubt that the creators are willing to do anything to the main characters, we didn’t lose one character last night, we lost three as far as I can tell and it all came in a shocking manner.  Just when I was about to write Sayid off as well he proved that he wasn’t as evil as we all thought and then what happens, well he goes and gets him self all blown up to end the episode, and on top of that the Kwon’s as well?  I had to stop watching for a few minutes there.   Why did they kill them off?  Damon and Carlton explain:

Because now you know this show is willing and capable of killing anyone,” says Damon Lindelof, suddenly materializing in my office in a puff of brimstone accompanied by Carlton Cuse. (Actually, that isn’t true. I interviewed the producers over hamburgers… but I’ll tell you that boring story in Friday’s Doc Jensen column. On with the important stuff!) Why was it so important for Lost to prove that it can be downright homicidal during its last season? To establish once and for all that the Locke-ness Monster is the true villain of season 6 and quite possibly all of Lost. “There is no ambiguity,” says Cuse. “He is evil and he has to be stopped.”

Damon goes on to talk about the man in black (Fake Locke) and why they did what they did things that I already suspected early on in the season:

Lindelof elaborates: “In many ways, the season was structured as a long con on behalf of the Man In Black. Once we revealed that Locke was the Monster, we knew the audience would immediately mistrust him, and we would have to spend at least a dozen episodes of Locke trying to convince the audience that he did not have malevolent intention, that all he wanted to do was get off The Island. But everything he was doing was leading up to one moment, which was [trying to] get the candidates in one fell swoop. He knew if he killed just one of them, everyone would know what he was up to.’”

I am starting to think that the Finale is going to be on hell of a ride after last nights episode and this announcement.

Talk continues of Flash Forward getting a second season

Over at TV by the Numbers there is an article about the future of Flash Forward and its possibilities of a renewal.  I am not anywhere near as good as they are at predicting if a show will make it past a season or not and I follow them because they are almost always right about a show’s chance of survival.     I have been watching Flash Forward all season and the quality has been hit and miss for the most part.   Some episodes are great, truly great with flashes of what the show could be if it just had tighter script control and better characters.    Recently it has picked up steam as well becoming even better quality but I have to agree with Robert Seidman over at Tv by the Numbers there is very little of this show that is salvageable and the ratings are horrible because it took too long for the show to get better and I doubt it can retain any audience after this first season.   Flash Forward will not be back next year and I am also stating to think that V won’t be back either.

Movie News for 5/5/2010

Kick-Ass gets a sequel?

First lets not get our hopes too high just yet, this is Mark Millar that we are talking about the guy is famous for saying something and nothing ever coming of it.   Mark Millar is one of those  guys known to say something and nothing ever actually come of it.    Still at the same time it would be interesting to see a sequel to Kick-Ass.   Millar released a press release today for the new magazine that he is in charge of called CLiNT which is launching in September over in the UK no press-release on when it will hit over here in the united states.

Kick-Ass was one of my favorite movies this year, check out my review for the movie and you’ll see what I mean.  I thought that the movie did a lot of things right and some things wrong for one the main character Kick-Ass himself didn’t seem to be the main character after the first few acts.   In the end though Kick-Ass was a great movie with a stellar cast and a well thought out plot.   A sequel even with a title like:  Balls to the Wall might not be a good idea as there doesn’t seem to be much to go on with the story.  Still its worth thinking about what a sequel to Kick-Ass would be like and maybe it’ll even be good.

According to Millar we could see the movie in 2012:

Millar is also launching his sequel to the hit Kick-Ass movie in the first issue of the comic. “Kick-Ass 2: Balls To The Wall” has been scheduled for production in 2011 for a 2012 cinema release, but fans of the first movie can find out what happens two years in advance by picking up CLiNT.

Find the entire press release over at Forces of Geek.

Machete is now “illegal”

Robert Rodriguez today released the first trailer for the upcoming Machetie movie over at Ain’t it Cool News.   The movie was originally a fake trailer attached to Rodriguez and Tarantino’s Grindhouse picture a few years back.   IT took a while for Rodriguez to find the time to film the movie and also get it released, the movie is coming out by 20th Century Fox this September 2nd.   It stars Danny Trejo, Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, and Michelle Rodriguez (umm no relation just in case you didn’t know).    Machete if you don’t know already was a character created for the Desperado films and was by far the most popular secondary character in those movies.   If pulled off correctly this could be a good action movie this September.  If not, well at least we get to see another movie in the Desperado franchise from Robert Rodriguez.

X-Men: First Class gets release date

Barely a few days later and 20th Century Fox releases another announcement that the next X-Men movie will be coming out on June 3rd 2011.    Vaughn has just barely been brought on as the director and already Fox is doing the same mistake that they did with the third X-men movie.   It’s possible that the script is really good this time and that Matthew Vaughn will be able to make a good movie with a very strong structure.   It’s hard to tell though as there is just a little bit over a year until the release date and there is no cast, no production crew, and barely a script but there is a plot:

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, following the classic Marvel mythology, charts the epic beginning of the X-Men saga.  Before Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr took the names Professor X and Magneto, they were two young men discovering their powers for the first time. Before they were archenemies, they were closest of friends, working together, with other Mutants (some familiar, some new), to stop the greatest threat the world has ever known.

So now comes the wait to see if the new X-men movie can redeem the damage that Brett Ratner did to the franchise with Last Stand.

More if other stories develop!