MR. ROBOT Season 1, Episode 1
“eps1.0_hellofriend.mov”
GRADE: B
“Hello, friend. “Hello, friend”…that’s lame. Maybe I should give you a name. But that’s a slippery slope. You’re only in my head. We have to remember that.”
If Dexter ever met Tyler Durden inside The Matrix, you’d have an idea what to expect from “Mr. Robot”. Starting June 24th, USA Network’s newest techno-thriller show ditches frantic keyboard jockeys typing inhuman batches of code at 732 words per minute and telling the room “we’re in” and, instead, assumes a sleek and meditated approach.
The show’s star, Rami Malek (who, before this, cut his teeth on TV fare such as “Gilmore Girls” and HBO’s World War II drama, “The Pacific”) plays “Elliot”, a sweet, unassuming cyber-security code monkey who, by night (always a fun plot device), becomes a cyberpunk Batman, donning a hoodie instead of a cape.
In the first half hour of the show, we learn that Elliot is your prototypical “tortured soul”. He uses morphine to drown out the crushing depression and sadness which plagues him (stemming from a terribly abusive childhood) and his only real physical connection comes from his dealer who he screws from time to time.
“I wish I was normal,” says Elliot, revealing his desire to escape both his personal demons and his own horribly cynical view of the society he inhabits. He crushes on Angela Moss (Portia Doubleday), his blonde co-worker and childhood friend. But he won’t act on his feelings — or reveal that her boyfriend, Ollie Parker (Ben Rappaport), is a lying, cheating scumbag. “Angela has shitty taste in men,” he tells us. “but I can’t tell her about Ollie because I’m afraid what would come next.”
It’s this fear that keeps Elliot in check. Even though he silently rages at the world’s many injustices, he picks and chooses his battles in order to make their “the phony world” a little brighter. While entertaining the notion of wiping out Angela’s student loan debt, he manages to use his skills to expose a one-man child porn ring and forces a married man to break up with the therapist (Gloria Reuben) Elliot sees on a regular basis. Elliot’s awful paranoia (he believes he’s constantly being followed by a group of men in black suits) is the reason he’s even there — and it’s because his therapist has been so kind and helpful that he’s willing to help her in return, for better or worse.
The main crux of the plot deals with Elliot’s security firm dealing with repeated cyber attacks against their biggest client, “E Corp” which even Elliot’s superior, Gideon (Michael Gill) and colleagues dub “Evil Corp” due to their ominous influence on everything from food to technology to science and research. It turns out millions of dollars are being siphoned from the company at an alarming rate by an unknown attacker. This fascinates Elliot and he eventually proves smart enough to I.D. the file causing the mayhem, isolate it and stop the attack — but he secretly keeps the code instead of deleting it as it “scratches his mind”. The file in question (labeled “fsociety.dat”) turns out to be the creation of “Mr. Robot” (Christian Slater), a mysterious hacker whose primary goal is the total financial destruction of Corporate America who, in his opinion, has run amok and bankrupted the common citizen. Robot reveals that the hack was a test and had Elliot failed to stop it, he wouldn’t be offering Elliot a seat with his secret regime.
Initially fearful of “what might happen” if “Evil Corp” (complete with a parody of the Enron logo — I wish I was making that up) was ever knocked over, Elliot eventually decides to help Mr. Robot in his quest to bring about “financial redistribution” on a grand scale, for better or for worse.
The show comes into the land of television with a nice amount of street cred, having scooped up the Audience Award at the South by Southwest Film Festival and, after viewing the pilot, it’s easy to understand how they were drawn into it. It has an intriguing premise and the cliffhanger-style climax leaves you wanting more. Helmed by the director of the original “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” film, Niels Arden Oplev (and co-produced by Propaganda Films, headed by David Fincher, the director of the remake of the aforementioned film), the show has a very cold, concise and neatly-aligned ambiance.
But its strengths are also its weaknesses.
It’s obvious that head show-runner Sam Esmail is not enthralled with the status quo in America and this is his attempt to shake everyone awake. I applaud that. I love bold material. The way he goes about expressing his gripes, however, is flawed. Forgiving the fact that he apes the hell out of Fight Club (while channeling Peter Finch all the live long day), Esmail seems convinced he’s giving us V for Vendetta when, in reality, it comes off more like a digital-age Reefer Madness with all the substance of the goofy political conspiracy click-bait puffery and rhetoric seen on the wall of your crazy uncle’s Facebook page.
At one point, Elliot rants about the world to his therapist, condemning all the broken promises of our politicians and flaming the “heroes” we idolize. Here, he goes after Steve Jobs who “made his money on the backs of Chinese sweatshop workers”, then Lance Armstrong for doping — valid points if there ever were — but then, for reasons I can’t even fathom, he references Tom Brady because of the over-hyped “Deflategate scandal” which only ESPN cares about.
So, that’s a thing that happened.
The generic ranting is heavy-handed and simplistic. It has the unfortunate effect of reducing everyone who isn’t Elliot to caricatures and flat stereotypes. The good people are sweet, helpless individuals who need saving from their douchebag boyfriends while the bad guys wear dark suits and are three seconds away from an actual “MWAHAHAHAHA” session in their Corporate Castle of Doom.
And then there’s Elliot, saving the world in his Super Hoodie. This makes a great deal of the show hard to take seriously.
If you think I’m kidding, take the big bad boss of “Evil Corp” (Bruce Altman) as an example: he sneers and acts like an asshole and arrogantly browbeats Angela during a meeting — and that’s like two seconds into his character’s introduction. He flies off the handle so fast, I was left unimpressed. So much so, in fact, that I couldn’t even bring myself to hate him. His entire demeanor and attitude screams “VILLAIN!!!” so loud, it would blow out any set of speakers if it were actually vocalized. It’s even worse when we finally get our first look at the real people in charge and that’s more of an annoyance than anything else.
The other issue is that there isn’t much to this — and that creates a potential problem for the show’s future.
Mr. Robot’s grand plan to trigger a financial meltdown makes absolutely no sense on any planet since all financial records are backed up offline to prevent that sort of thing from happening. One could argue that Robot’s plan is more involved and highly intricate, but he never truly confirms that, so the audience is left to assume that everything Robot plans is simple as pushing a button. This, of course, doesn’t really present anyone with a sense of danger or velocity — especially since the Evil CEO is basically a Jabba the Hutt without the intimidation factor or a girl in a slave costume — and when he crashes and burns, a Reddit Shrug seems to be the only appropriate reaction.
One could speculate that being hit over the head with a giant bat is the whole point and that this is a portrayal of the only person who is truly “aware” while everyone else is a colorful product of their environment that they’ve accepted as “safe” — but it still results in forced theatricality.
Despite these faults, the show does work thanks in large part to Malek who is every single superhero you know and love. He has the power to move mountains or destroy one human being — all by using a computer. He’s so likeable, you want to keep watching because you care about him more than anyone else on the show. The cast and crew has crafted a nice indictment on the wealth gap and I’m very much interested in seeing where it goes — even though I’m sure it won’t come close to topping the promise shown in the pilot.
This week’s episode of The Fosters starts off with everyone around the eating dinner in the Adams-Foster. Mike and the AJ (the guy who got Callie fired) are also in attendance. Mike has decided to foster AJ, but since he doesn’t have his foster license yet, AJ will have to stay with Lena and Stef. Just like Roemer’s law, Stef and Lena live by the saying “a built bed is a filled bed” so AJ will will be sleeping in Jesus’s currently vacant bed. Callie is not comfortable with this new setup since she doesn’t trust AJ due to the whole stealing spray paint and getting her fired thing.
Brandon/Callie/AJ
After dinner, Callie wanders upstairs to find AJ snooping through Brandon’s room, where AJ is eyeing Brandon’s priceless signed baseball. Remember the term “foreshadowing” you learned in middle school, keep that in mind as the episode progresses. Brandon walks in on Callie and AJ in his room and gets suspicious. He is worried that AJ will take advantage of his dad. He is also worried that AJ’s sports knowledge will make him Mike’s favorite (which turns out to be a bit true). Ends up AJ steals the baseball but has a change of heart. AJ returns the ball to its rightful place, but not before Brandon catches him.
Like every other child on this show, AJ has to attend Anchor Beach summer school. AJ decides to ditch mid-class, though. When Callie realizes that AJ has done a runner, she and Mike go on a manhunt. They arrive at the San Diego Park and find AJ on a roof spray painting bat signals on a water tower. When the pair reach AJ, Mike and AJ have a touching bonding moment. As she watches Mike give AJ a new cellphone, Callie suddenly figures out what her new independent study project should be (since AJ got her fired from her previous one). She will recruit Mariana to create a drop-in app to help foster kids communicate. Bravo, Callie and The Fosters for putting this project out there because it is an amazing idea. This show does a really good job of showing the issues and struggles surrounding the foster system that is rarely seen on television.
Mariana:
Mariana starts her new job at her abuelo’s bakery, but sadly, the shop has no customers. She and her cousin come up with the idea to start selling Chorronuts (a churro donut) to make their bakery the next big it thing. Mariana, I hate you so often, but this idea makes me love you so, so much. The only thing I don’t love is that her marketing campaign for the new pastry came from a text Wyatt had earlier sent her. Wyatt proved he knew his calculus and wrote the phrase “U+Me=Us Cool?” in the sand and snapchatted it to M. Mariana used her mathematical skills to create Churros+Doughnut= Myyyy Choruonut (sung to My Sharona). I have to admit, that is pretty brilliant.
Stef/Lena
The Stef and Lena storyline was in the forefront of this weeks episode. After the family dinner, the couple sit in the foyer reminiscing about the first night Callie dined with them, in which Callie asked “if they were dykes.” Ha, season one Callie, how different you were. Their cuddle session is cut short though when Stef receives a text from her friend Jenna, who requires the Wingman services of Stef.
Stef arrives at the local lesbian watering hole where Jenna immediately falls in love with a hot girl at the bar. That really hot girl turns out to be Monte, the principal who kissed Lena last season. Fortunately, Stef is not privy to the kissing story, so she introduces Monte to Jenna. The next day, Jenna calls Stef and Lena, makes a cursory lesbian u-haul joke, and forces them on a double date with her and Monte. At dinner Stef recounts how her and Lena first got together. When the couple first met, Stef was freshly separated from husband and thought she was straight while Lena was in a relationship. Sounds a little familiar, eh? Lena is really uncomfortable with the whole situation of Monte dating Jenna, and the next day confronts Monte
Lena: I don’t want you to date any women. I mean. What I mean is that I want you to be straight, because if you’re straight then there is no reason for me to tell my wife that you tried to kiss me because it really didn’t mean anything. But, if you’re gay, then not telling her is like…
Monte: ..a betrayal.
While Lena is just expressing her feelings to Monte, it feel like she is really asking Monte to never come out of the closet. This is so unlike Lena. Lena is a nurturer and wants everyone to succeed and be happy. In this case though, for Lena’s own well being, she wants someone to be untrue to who they are to make things easier for herself. I am very eager to see how this storyline plays out.
Connor/Jude
The young couple sit together in the living room playing video games.Sadly, the two are not playing together. Connor is playing a killer zombie game while Jude is playing Bejewlled on his phone. Jude realizes that he doesn’t want to play video games with guns because he is still reeling from the shooting. Jude walks into Stef and Lena’s room just as Stef is pulling her gun from her gun locker. She sees his discomfort around the gun, and explains that after she got shot, she went to the firing range until she felt comfortable holding a firearm again. The next day, Connor invites Jude to play some FPS games and calls Jude a Granny when he declines the invite. Jude responds by saying, no he cannot play videogames because he will be shooting a real gun, in a real shooting range with his real mom. Connor up and invites himself, and the three amigos go to fire range.
Jude is the first of the boys to hold the gun, and as raises it up, he realizes that shooting a bullet won’t solve his problems. Connor takes his turn, steps into his stall and shoots the gun. Shooting the a bullet brings up memories and feeling about the shooting that Connor has been trying to repress, and Connor has to excuse himself to get some fresh air. Later, Stef joins Jude and Connor sitting outside of the shooting range, and the three discuss their recent experience of being shot at, and it was truly really touching.
Quote of the night
Stef- “You can’t date a woman who watched Friends for the first time on Netflix”
In case you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t been an active participant in the WWE Universe, WWE Tough Enough has returned to television!
I know, I know…we’re all just so thrilled this show is back on television since it gave us wrestlers we can all agree are pretty OK. Like The Miz and Ryback.
I’m Matt Perri and my other half, Danielle, will be putting in her quips on, this, the first episode of the sixth season of WWE Tough Enough…
Let’s get started…
We start with our hosts, Chris Jericho and Renee Young who immediately introduce our judges:
Daniel Bryan, who I am convinced only owns 150 plaid shirts.
Paige (DANIELLE: Who suddenly has Nikki Bella-esque tits and will show boob if she sneezes wrong.)
Hulk Hogan, who gets 5 minutes of career highlights (DANIELLE: As opposed to Daniel Bryan who got 1 1/2 “YES” chants in and Paige who almost skipped like AJ because she forgot who she was.)
Chris Jericho asks what the judges are looking for.
Daniel Bryan and Paige want “personality”. Ditto for Hogan. But he also wants the “IT-Factor”.
So, as you can see, the requirements for pleasing the judges aren’t very hard to meet.
Our “first challenge” is to take place in a stadium in Orlando where Booker T welcomes them as the thirteen (DANIELLE: THIRTEEN! THIRTEEN! THIRTEEN! THIRTEEN! THIRTEEN! THIRTEEN! THIRTEEN! THIRTEEN! THIRTEEN! THIRTEEN! THIRTEEN!) finalists. Booker, Lita and Billy Gunn make speeches and then we’re introduced to the thirteen people who looked and sounded good enough over choppy .mp4 video format. (DANIELLE: I wonder how long it took for Vince to figure out how to play those on his laptop.)
Josh from Thornton, CO – He looks like Glenn Danzig and he can do an imitation of a Yeti. (DANIELLE: Shut it down! Nothing spells “PERSONALITY” like somebody paying homage to Cryptozoology!)
Daria from Los Angeles, CA – She’s an MMA fighter who fights under the name of “The Jersey Devil”. (DANIELLE: Maybe she and Josh can have a debate over which legendary creature truly exists.)
Hank from Macon, GA – Hank is a “hammer, not a nail”. (DANIELLE: Can’t tell if he’s attempting to come out of the closet or…)
Amanda from Yorktown Heights, NY – She’s not a Barbie Doll. (DANIELLE: Honey, you ain’t a “doll” at all.)
Alex from Dallas, TX RUSSIA, BRO, HE TOTALLY SWEARS – He’s badass because he’s got tattoos that resembles a Byzantine suit of armor and he also has a phrase tattooed on his back that, allegedly, means “DEFENDER OF MAN”. (DANIELLE: It’s on his back! They could have tattooed “EAT AT JOE’S” for all he knows!) Alex considers himself a “superhero”. (DANIELLE: Who will invade WWE’s Ukraine office and take the contract from the American embassy.)
Patrick from Washington, D.C. – Token black guy who awkwardly plays the “my Dad just died” card. He explains that WWE brought out the best in him during that time. (DANIELLE: Jesus, just put a red shirt on him and call him “expendable”.)
Mada from Los Angeles, CA – (DANIELLE: Who looks like he should be starring in Aladdin 4: The Quickening. Seriously. Dude has a “Disney Villain” vibe going on with that goatee.) He’s ready to compete.
ZZ from Bayou Beouf, LA – He wrestles alligators. So everyone calls him “Gator”. (DANIELLE: I guarantee nobody calls him that…)
Dianna from Spokane, WA – She models. And she’s engaged to a guy. And her ring is sparkly. Suck it, other women.
Giorgia from Brisbane, Australia – She’s single! And that’s important because fucking other people holds them back.
Gabi from Southington, CT – She’s a diva. And she’s mean. That’s original.
Tanner from Boiling Springs, SC – Essentially, Seth Rollins’ gay brother.
Sara Lee from Hope, MI – She has no “Plan B”.
Booker’s got a “surprise” for the finalists: Chris Jericho…on JUMBOTRON!!! The finalists applaud this as if it’s a new concept. Jericho gives a speech about how they all need to be “tough”! Jericho tells them that they should all want to be at WrestleMania.
Booker gives us our first challenge: running to the other side of the field while parachutes are attached to them. Lita illustrates the follow-up: picking up bags of sand which weigh as much as they do and running back to the other end. Then, they have to run all the way to the top of the second deck where Billy Gunn waits for them while texting his friends and telling them how fucking hot it is.
The challenge starts as a superimposed stat graphic tells us that the temperature on-field is a stifling “81 DEGREES”. Oh, the suffering. Meanwhile, Billy Gunn yells over a megaphone, insulting the women, suggesting they are “walking” as they plainly bust their asses to run. (DANIELLE: I swear, if Billy Gun is at RAW on August 3rd, I’m going to punch him in the nose during a commercial break.)
Josh makes it all the way to Billy Gunn first. Amanda is the first woman. ZZ isn’t even done with the sandbag challenge as everyone else hangs with Billy Gunn, taking Selfies.
But enough of that, Booker wants to take them all to The WWE Performance Center their dorm which has basic “army-living” amenties like:
Designer lounge chairs
A pool table
A jacuzzi (w/ Tiki torches)
Beer Pong balls and Solo Cups
A big HDTV w/ The WWE Network (DANIELLE: Only $9.99!)
ZZ wants to “get naked in the jacuzzi” while Tanner wants to “go out and celebrate” by getting plastered on whiskey. ZZ is pissed he can’t drink because he’s “only 18”. (DANIELLE: He’s getting the JoJo treatment…but fear not, there’s women. And “getting naked” in the jacuzzi.) ZZ says that he will stay behind, build alliances and “eat all the cookies the kitchen has”. Patrick stays with him.
TOUGH ENOUGH STUDIOS
The finalists are introduced (DANIELLE: AGAIN?!) and the judges start yacking about them.
AT A BAR IN ORLANDO
Gabi pole dances. Giorgia isn’t surprised by that while Dianna twirls her hair and says she’s engaged.
WWE PERFORMANCE CENTER
ZZ and Patrick talk about orgasms. While wearing inflatable floaters on their arms. (DANIELLE: Am I supposed to be using this to decide who’s “tough”?)
FUCK IT, BACK TO THE BAR
The women play with Tanner’s hair while the men talk about things like “towers” and “cardio”. Tanner shows off his muscles and Mada isn’t happy.
WWE PERFORMANCE CENTER
ZZ is happy that the women are back because “a jacuzzi that just has meat in it is a stew, not a soup”. (DANIELLE: They got into the tub when everyone left and they’re still in there when everyone returns?Are they tenderizing themselves to be eaten later?) ZZ’s happy because a couple girls join. ZZ strips his shorts off and the party ends real quick.
6:00 AM
Billy Gunn wakes everyone up and everyone does calisthenics. Dianna complains that her “groin hurts”. They jog outside. Tanner destroys everyone out there while ZZ limps along, dead last, while thinking about being naked in a jacuzzi.
Later that day…
Dianna is engaged — but not engaged enough to braid Tanner’s hair while Tanner looks smug as fuck, thinking about being naked in a jacuzzi with Dianna. Daria works over ZZ and the boys with no hair aren’t happy. Alex gets testy and says he can’t wait to beat Tanner. Tanner shows off his muscles. He’s ready for Alex.
Training Ring
Billy Gunn challenges the finalists to run back and froth in the ring which is really hard if you “don’t grab the top rope. Meanwhile, Billy Gunn wants to show the contestants how to “pick people up”. Then…they’re gonna…run the ropes…again. Because that’s different from the time they did it the first time. Dianna complains because her “side hurts”. Everyone trash talks about how much they can do in the ring today. It becomes a shouting match with Patrick yelling at everyone within five feet.
Spoiler Alert: Tanner and his thong-soaking blonde hair win the thing. I guess. He had the most amount of points. But Vince usually buries everyone getting over, so I don’t know what’s passable these days.
Later that night…
Dianna’s fiance is here (already wearing his wedding ring but, whatever). He hugs Dianna. The other girls have no idea where she is. Gabi hates her because she’s engaged…and because she’s Dianna. The other girls want her to pack her bags because Dianna. Some girls want her to fucking die because DIANNA.
Dianna comes back into the dorm (DANIELLE: Having thoroughly fucked her fiance in his Mazda RX.) and expresses her dismay that the Performance Center has no Wi-Fi which means that she can’t finish planning her wedding. DANIELLE: This is ridiculous. She said she was getting married in September. That’s three months away, she should be done planning. Matt and I are getting married in 10 months and we have more planned than this girl.) She starts crying. Gabi ain’t impressed. But ZZ and Patrick are…and they help her out by hugging her real tight. Dianna stops crying long enough to tell Gabi how much she sucks and how “nobody likes her”.
Three hours from elimination…
Alex is saying how much Tanner sucks and how he’s going home because of how he wins everything and how all the women on the show wanna fuck him him silly.
FULL SAIL UNIVERSITY
Renee Young goes over this show’s “rules”:
One contestant gets eliminated each week
The judges will always nominate the “Bottom 3 contestants”
Viewers will keep their favorite of the aforementioned in a global vote
Each judge has the power to save one contestant from the axe per season
At the season finale, viewers will decide the final vote and will get to vote on both the male and female winners
Chris Jericho wants to the judges to grill the competitors.
Hulk Hogan wants to drill grill Dianna and he asks if she’s “tough enough” or a “trophy wife”. Whew, I’m exhausted by this line of questioning already. A suddenly-platinum blonde Dianna says she’s ready for Tough Enough. Daniel Bryan wants to know why her fiance was “already wearing his wedding ring”. (DANIELLE: JESUS CHRIST, BRYAN. THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE KAYFABE.) Dianna says that her fiance “respects his woman”.
Paige grills Hank. She wants to know why he insulted ZZ’s weight and compared him to the women on the show. Hank sheepishly explains, “nuh-uh”. Daniel Bryan tells him to shut up and wants to know what Daria’s done to “take risks”. She says something about taking risks that goes nowhere.
Jericho says we’ll find out who gets eliminated…AS TOUGH ENOUGH ROLLS ON!!!
When we come back, we get our “Bottom 3″…
HULK HOGAN: ZZ
DANIEL BRYAN: Hank
PAIGE: Josh
Renee Young tells us all how to vote on this bullshit…then realizes that there are still people who haven’t gotten the WWE App, so she instructs them on how to do that too.
Jericho has all the votes and gives the Bottom 3 a chance to “appeal to the voters”:
Josh – Josh he’s BEST FOR BUSINESS™.
ZZ – He’s Cajun. He has flavor. He was born to be here.
Hank – He’s average, unlike everyone else. He’s also BEST FOR BUSINESS™.
None of the judges want to save anyone. (DANIELLE: They’re just overwhelmed by all the “personality”, I guess.)
AND THE WINNER OF WHATEVER THE HELL THAT WAS IS…
ZZ.
AND THE ELIMINATION GOES TO…
Hank.
Seriously. After losing every competition, not drinking and letting chicks play with his hair, ZZ’s got the highest amount of votes because people call him “Gator” and he’s Cajun.
Hey everybody. My name is Rob… and I’m a collector. Every payday (*see steal money from my wife’s wallet) I blow “my” money on collectibles and collector editions. It’s a serious problem. That’s where Collectors Anonymous comes in. It’s a place where collectors can be open and honest, without being judged. Well, actually it’s just me doing unboxings with a sick melodramatic intro sequence…but ummmm… so you don’t have to!?
This meeting I’m joined by my cousin Cookie and hilarity ensues as we unbox This time we have The Order: 1886 Premium Edition. (Editor’s Note: Mostly just awkwardness)!
Just so you all know, there’s breaking news: WWE Network interviewed the Music Legend of All-Times, Machine Gun Kelly and he’s totally fine. I know you all care.
I don’t know why but I feel like it’s been forever since the last RAW.
Maybe it’s because we didn’t have two PPV events in three weeks and I don’t watch Smackdown or NXT but it feels like a long time.
There are three major feuds in WWE right now: Roman/Sheamus/Wyatt, Cena/Owens and, now, Rollins/Lesnar. For those of you looking for an update on Machine Gun Kelly vs. Kevin Owens, go elsewhere.
Let’s go…
No mention of “Nature Boy” Buddy Landel as we begin. That’s right. WWE updated you on Machine Gun Kelly’s health and didn’t memorialize Buddy.
We are LIVE(!!!) in Indianapolis, Indiana for WWE Monday Night RAW!!!
Cole, JBL and Byron Saxton are at the table tonight.
Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman start us out to a huge pop and we get clips from last week when Seth and Lesnar went face to face last week.
AT BATTLEGROUND: Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins
Heyman introduces the official return of Lesnar. Heyman says a lot of fans are wondering where Brock’s been and what happened to him. Heyman gives us clips from the RAW following WrestleMania 31. After we come back, we learns that Lesnar’s only back if he apologizes to Michael Cole and JBL. Brock looks sheepish and the crowd chants “Suplex City”. He steps out of the ring and then approaches the desk slowly. Brock extends his hand to JBL and JBL shakes it. Cole tells Brock he doesn’t have to apologize, then tells Brock he wants no trouble. Brock extends his hand. Cole takes it — and Brock grabs him a headlock — only to give him a noogie. Brock laughs and shoves Cole back into his chair, then taps him on the shoulder and says he’s sorry. Cole: “We’re good! WE’RE GOOD!”
Brock gets back into the ring. Heyman says Brock has done what he’s been told to do and asks if Cole has accepted Brock’s apology. Heyman mocks Cole, yelling, “YES, MR. HEYMAN! I DO!” He says the next order of business is taking care of the sneaky little guy known as Seth Rollins. Rollins will end up a resident of Suplex City, bitch.
TONIGHT: Roman Reigns will fight Sheamus
Dean Ambrose walks backstage and he’s on his way to the ring. He will face Kane…next.
MATCH #1: Dean Ambrose vs. Kane Kane boots Ambrose, then hits a Side Suplex but Ambrose kicks out of the pin. Ambrose fights back, chopping Kane in the corner but Kane just uppercuts the shit out of him, then kicks at him while he’s down. Ambrose comes out of the corner with a forearm and punches away at Kane. Kane comes back and knocks Ambrose down and covers for two. Ambrose comes back with a press, but Kane escapes and rolls out of the ring. Ambrose goes outside and tosses him back in. He hits a nice legdrop off the buckle but Kane pulls him outside. After break, IT’S BEEN ALL KANE! But Ambrose comes back with quick jabs. He runs at Kane who catches him for a Sidewalk Slam for two. Kane goes Brie Mode with a Chinlock of Doom. Ambrose breaks it but Kane hits a Running DDT for two. Kane beats Ambrose in the corner, then beats him in the other corner. He tries a third corner but Ambrose elbows out and hits a Neckbreaker. Dane hits a Missile Dropkick and tries a Bulldog but Kane shoves him away. Dean comes back and rolls up Kane but Kane kicks out at two. Kane runs at Ambrose but Ambrose pulls the top rope down and Kane flies outside. Ambrose follows and it’s a brawl with Ambrose hitting the Rebound Clothesline. He rolls Kane back in and hits another one off of a counter to the Chokeslam. Ambrose goes for Dirty Deeds — but Rollins’ music hits. Ambrose ain’t falling for it and runs at Rollins, knocking him down. Kane attacks Ambrose who fights back. Ambrose climbs the top rope but Rollins leaps up to grab his leg. This should be a typical fuck finish but referees no longer care about interference these days. Kane grabs Ambrose and hits a Chokeslam so weak, Ambrose actually lands on his feet before he hits the mat. Kane takes this at 11:21 because he needs protection being a rookie and all. WINNER: Kane via Chokeslam
RATING: *3/4. Another boring Kane match. I’m not sure Ambrose has any heat left.
Post-match, Rollins gives a thumbs-up to Kane, signalling that he stands with Kane. Kane looks confused.
After break, Rollins walks with Kane backstage. Rollins tells him that they should be on the same page like the old days. Kane sees through this and says that Rollins is sucking up because he needs back-up for when Rollins faces Lesnar at Battleground. Rollins denies this and says that this is about family. He wants to make amends and offers his hand in friendship. Kane shakes his head and walks away, leaving Rollins looking worried.
Cole reviews MITB when Wyatt cost Roman Reigns the case and how he used his daughter’s photo in his promo spots.
AT BATTLEGROUND: Roman Reigns vs. Bray Wyatt
ALSO AT BATTLEGROUND: The Prime Time Players fight The New Day in a re-match for the tag titles.
MATCH #2: WWE Tag Team Champions The Prime Time Players (Titus O’Neil & Darren Young) vs. The Ascension (Konnor & Viktor) (non-title) Titus slams Konnor and does the Gator Bark. Tag to Young who splashes Konnor. Another tag to Titus and he takes care of Viktor who flies into the ring by slinging him across the ring. Konnor and Titus gets into a heavy slap fight which Konnor wins and tags Viktor, who stomps a mudhole in Titus. Viktor works him over in the heel corner and the two tag in and out. Konnor applies a headlock. Titus breaks it with a Side Suplex. Hot tags on both sides with Young punching at Viktor and clotheslining him. Suplex by Young and running clotheslines in the corner. Northern Lights Suplex gets two. Konnor comes in and Titus hits a Spinebuster. Viktor boots Titus from the ring and Young hits Viktor with the Gut Check to win this at 4:06. WINNERS: The Prime Time Players
RATING: *1/4. Eh. At least the PTP looked a little better here.
PTP celebrates…and Sheamus’s music hits as we’re on to match #3…
MATCH #3: Sheamus vs. Roman Reigns Sheamus and Reigns grapple for the first minute as Cole is so sure that “people will be chatting about this on social media”. Reigns ejects him from the ring, then kicks him in the head. Back in the ring, it’s a Reigns clothesline and a running elbow. Sheamus drops Reigns’ throat on the top rope and he starts his attack. Short-arm Clothesline gets a one-count. Sheamus goes for Ten Beats but only hits four before Reigns has had enough. He elbows out of it but misses a running attack. Sheamus hits the Irish Curse Backbreaker and both men just look beyond gassed already. After a long break, Reigns breaks a headlock and hits clotheslines and a huge flying lariat. Reigns hits several clotheslines in the corner and Sheamus falls across the bottom rope. Reigns goes for the Missile Dropkick but Sheamus counters with a nice clothesline. Sheamus goes outside and tosses Reigns into the crowd barrier, then rolls him back into the ring. ANOTHER headlock. Reigns breaks and hits three huge Irish Curse Backbreakers for a two count. Sheamus goes for a Cloverleaf but Reigns fights his way to the ropes. Sheamus slingshots him into the bottom rope, then locks it in. Reigns breaks it and kicks out. Sheamus just runs him over with a lariat. Sheamus punches Reigns in the back but Reigns comes back with elbow shots and a side suplex. Another side suplex gets two. Roman runs at Sheamus and both men end up outside. Roman hits the Running Missile Dropkick and then hits a massive clothesline into the announce table. Reigns gets back into the ring…and we hear Wyatt humming about a tea party. And there he is, drinking tea with a toy tea set and candles. Reigns runs off to find Wyatt and just fuck all this. Time is 16:43. WINNER: Sheamus via countout, presumably.
RATING: *. Holy. Shit. A slow, clunky, plodding match that went on far too long with a guy who has a very small moveset and ending in a shit finish to resolve some sort of “feud” nobody cares about. Thanks for that, WWE.
When we come back, it’s a recap of what we just saw.
Backstage, Reigns walks backstage and finds the “tea room” that has a bunch of photos of Reigns with his eyes gouged out and “ANYONE BUT YOU” painted on the walls in red.
We get a look at Lesnar and Heyman from earlier tonight.
Rollins approaches J&J backstage at the coffee dispenser. J&J ain’t happy, man! Rollins says that he was just joking. That’s what “family” does. He calls them both family and friends. Rollins says it has nothing to do with Lesnar. He can face Lesnar and beat him. He wants to know if they’re cool. J&J walks off.
John Cena was on The Today Show plugging Tough Enough.
MATCH #4: Neville vs. Kofi Kingston (w/ Xavier Woods & Big E) Neville hits a quick Northern Lights Suplex while Woods threatens to “call gravity”. Neville locks Kofi’s arm but Kofi breaks and punches away at Neville in the corner. Kofi hits a Flying Axe Handle and gets two. Armbar by Kofi but Neville breaks and hits a Frankensteiner and then dropkicks Kofi from the ring. Neville goes to beat on Kofi but the New Day is there to harass him. PTP shows up but the ref tosses them from ringside, then does the same for New Day. Kofi’s pissed. Neville hits an Enzuguri at Red Arrow to get the win at 4:28. WINNER: Neville via Red Arrow
RATING: *. A match that was actually hindered by Big E and Xavier Woods yelling the entire match. How many times does Neville have to look over his shoulder as Woods and E yell really loud? It just made for a slow, boring match.
LAST MONDAY: Owens beat up MUSIC LEGEND MACHINE GUN KELLY!!! OH NOES!!!
TONIGHT: John Cena returns, having only been out of action for like a week.
ALSO TONIGHT: Ryback fights Mark Henry
Then we get a peek at Mr. Robot for no reason.
MATCH #5: Zack Ryder vs. King Barrett Barrett hits a shoulderblock but Ryder comes back, dropping Barrett on his face. Ryder tries to punch at Barrett in the corner but Barrett escapes and trips him, then beats the crap out of Ryder in the corner, finishing with a hug short-arm clothesline for two. Ryder comes back with a big clothesline and a nice Missile Dropkick. Running Elbow hits the mark but Ryder misses the Broski Boot. Barrett rolls out of the ring. Ryder climbs the buckle but Barrett trips him and hits the ROAL BULLHAMMER for the win at 3:21. WINNER: Barrett via Bullhammer
RATING: *. Barrett finally wins a match, so I guess he stopped fucking around backstage or whatever the hell it was he was doing.
NEXT: John Cena.
Cena joins us and calls the United States Championship a “symbol of excellence”. You know, only when he wears it. Otherwise, it’s the title that R-Truth could win at any moment. Cena recaps what Owens did to him at MITB and says that Owens wants to win the title. Cena calls him a great wrestler but a garbage human being. He says that it’s gonna be hard to deal with if he loses the United States title and says that, maybe, he has signed up for a fight he can’t win. He says he could tell Owens “no” like Owens told him no a month ago. He says he will fight because that’s what champions do.
Owens’ music hits and he comes out to the entrance ramp. Owens says that he isn’t upset by what Cena just said. Owens says he doesn’t put value in what people think. He says he’s been called lazy and out of shape. He says that Cena even called him a “dirtbag”. He says that this lazy, fat dirtbag beat him. He says he doesn’t care about pride. He cares about winning titles. He wants to win the title that Cena has as we continue to pretend that the U.S. Championship is the top prize in WWE Because Cena. He says he will make the crowd boo the “evil foreigner” and starts speaking French like he’s in a Lady Gaga song. He wants to hear what Cena has to say.
Cena says that the people dislike Owens because he’s a disrespectful “suckbag”. Then he speaks French. And Chinese. Then, he says he’s gonna spell it out in good ol’ English: he accepts Owens’ challenge. And he will kick Owens’ ass.
Backstage, Triple H and Steph hang out. Rollins shows up. Steph asks if Rollins is letting Brock get to him. Rollins says he’s not afraid. Rollins says he’s pissed at J&J. HHH says that Rollins doesn’t need them. Rollins says that he’s afraid that J&J and Kane will never align with him again. HHH tells him to cut the crap. This is all about Rollins being afraid of Brock Lesnar. He says that a smart man has back-up and a “Plan B”. He says that a smart man apologizes to those he pissed off. That’s surreal. Rollins wants to know what happens if Brock shows up. HHH asks Seth how much he wants the title.
LAST MONDAY: Paige tries to get the other girls behind her but they all left.
MATCH #6: The Bella Twins (Nikki & Brie) (w/ Alicia Fox) vs. Naomi & Tamina Brie and Naomi start out. Naomi kicks at Brie and tags in Tamina who just tosses Brie to the ring and punches at her. Tamina tosses Brie into the corner and elbows her, then it’s a nerve hold while Fox pounds the mat because she’s totally with the Bellas now. Tag to Naomi and the Bella Beating continues. Naomi hits a Bulldog into the buckle, then tosses Brie into the ringpost. Naomi runs at her but Brie holds down the second rope. Naomi flies out — but gets up and attacks Nikki. Nikki eventually gets a hot tag and dropkicks everyone, plus Tamina. Alabama Slamma gets a two count. Tamina gets involved and lunges at Brie. The ref, however, can’t get out of the way and Tamina trips the fuck over him in a horrible botch. Naomi hits the Rear View on Brie and goes to nail Nikki with one but, nope. She hits Tamina. Rack Attack. Done at 3:45. WINNER: #BELLASWINLOL
RATING: DUD. This division needs an overhaul. Shit the episode needs an overhaul.
We get a commercial for Terminator Genesys. Also, it’s just like WWE. Because editing.
NEXT: Ryback vs. Mark Henry
Big Show’s at ringside for commentary as we learn that…
AT BATTLEGROUND: Big Show vs. Miz vs. Ryback in a Triple Threat Match for the WWE Intercontinental Championship
MATCH #7: Mark Henry vs. WWE Intercontinental Champion Ryback (non-title) Mark Henry just knocks Ryback over as Show buries Miz on commentary. Ryback comes back with a shoulderblock and kicks Henry out of the ring. Ryback follows him and it’s a brawl. Ryback gets tossed into the crowd barrier. We actually get a fucking commercial break. When we come back, Ryback has broken a hold and is punching Henry in the corner. Henry knocks him off and runs at Ryback who counters with a Spinebuster. He tries the Meat Hook but Henry counters with a big boot. Henry goes for the WSS which, as we all know, now includes tossing his opponent up in the air before doing it. Ryback escapes and knocks Henry down, then hits a Big Splash off the ropes to win the match at 6:22. WINNER: Ryback via Big Splash
RATING: 1/4 of a *. This is horrible stuff.
Post-match, Show gets into the ring and lectures Henry who shoves Show. Show leaves the ring, irritated as Henry falls to a knee.
Cole, JBL and Saxton promote Tough Enough.
JoJo interviews Ryback who doesn’t wanna be called “Flyback”, even though nobody was calling him that. He says he can beat anyone. The Big Guy is here to stay. Show shows up and says he’s gonna expose Ryback for the fraud he is. They mock one another and it’s a brawl backstage with Ryback getting the better of it all. Ryback tells Show he doesn’t look so big and walks off. Man, this feud really needs The Miz to make it “great”, doesn’t it?
MOMENTS AGO: Holy crap, we have to re-live that epic backstage battle.
It’s not enough we have to watch Adam Rose wrestle, we have to hear him talk and then make out with Rosa which isn’t much different than a bass swallowing a goldfish.
MATCH #8: Adam Rose (w/ Rosa Mendes) vs. Dolph Ziggler (w/ Lana) Ziggler hits a dropkick but Rose comes back and copies all of Dolph’s moves because he suddenly has no original moveset of his own. Ziggler hits the neckbreaker but Rose puts Ziggler in the corner and beats on him. Ziggler tries a Fame-Asser but misses. Rose hits a Spinebuster and SHOULD have had three except Ziggler forgets to kick out and the ref stops the count so he can. Anyhow, this ends when Ziggler Superkicks Rose off the top turnbuckle at 3:05. WINNER: Dolph Ziggler
RATING: DUD. I didn’t even know Rose still existed.
Post-match, Ziggler tells Lana to let her hair down. She does. Then they make out while Rusev watches from backstage. Rusev gets so pissed, he tosses his crutches away, then falls on his ass. Summer Rae shows up to pick up the crutches and hands them to Rusev. Oh, the white hot passion.
J&J complain to Steph about Rollins’ behavior. Triple H lays the law down and Steph asks them to hear Rollins out. Kane & J&J agree.
Rollins hits the ring and says that it’s easier to pretend you’re right then admit your wrong and asks that J&J and Kane come to the ring. They do. Rollins says that he has something to say. He says it isn’t about Lesnar. He’s not afraid of Lesnar. He beat him before. He apologizes to J&J and tells them that they’ve always had his back. J&J discuss it so Rollins turns to Kane and says that Kane isn’t a Dinosaur, he’s The Devil’s Favorite Demon. He asks Kane to come back and be a family. The three men are incredulous. Rollins begs them to come back.
Suddenly, Lesnar’s music hits and he hits the ring. All four men wait for Lesnar’s next move. Surprisingly, they stand with Rollins…then they leave. Lesnar grins and goes to get in the ring — but Kane attacks. Lesnar tosses him to the mat, then runs Mercury into the crowd barrier. Lesnar gets into the ring. Rollins attacks but Lesnar hits two German Suplexes. Crowd finally wakes up for this and yells “ONE MORE TIME”. Lesnar obliges. He goes for an F5 but Kane gets back into the ring and chokes Lesnar. Lesnar breaks it but then runs back into it. Chokeslam by Kane. Kane goes for another but Lesnar breaks out and hits a German on Kane. Rollins attacks but Lesnar goes for an F5. Kane clips Lesnar’s ankle. Lesnar gets up and goes after Kane but Rollins attacks from behind and the two beat on him, wrap his leg around a ringpost and hit his knee with a chair. They continue their mudhole stomp. Lesnar tries to fight back again but Mercury joins the fight and grapples Lesnar’s legs. Mercury punches away and it’s a 3-on-1 mudhole stomp. They hold Lesnar in place and Rollins completely botches a flying knee from the top rope, overshooting it by five feet. Lesnar sells it anyhow and Kane hits a Chokeslam for good measure. Rollins finishes with a Pedigree as this drags on and on. Rollins holds up the belt and brags as we finally go off the air.
OVERALL: Ugh…this show was lazy with slow, boring matches and a bunch of filler. The only bright spot was Brock Lesnar who has so much heat, he can turn a funeral into a rock concert.
Marvel and Sony Pictures have announced today that English actor Tom Holland will be playing the beloved web-slinger in the upcoming 2017 Spider-Man film.
Holland was in The Impossible with Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor in 2012 and more recently in the BBC mini-series Wolf Hall. He will next be seen in Pilgrimage with Richard Armitage.
Jon Watts (Cop Car) has been brought on to direct. More below:
Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios are proud to announce that after a full worldwide casting search, Tom Holland will play Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the next Spider-Man film, in theaters in IMAX and 3D on July 28, 2017. The film will be directed by Jon Watts, director of “Cop Car,” the upcoming thriller that made its debut earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival. Marvel and Sony Pictures, and producers Kevin Feige and Amy Pascal conducted an extensive search for both the actor and the director. The studios and producers were impressed by Holland’s performances in “The Impossible,” “Wolf Hall,” and the upcoming “In the Heart of the Sea,” and by a series of complex screen tests. Following Marvel’s tradition of working with the brightest next wave of directors, Watts also went through multiple meetings with Feige, Pascal, and the studio, before winning the job. Commenting on the announcement, Tom Rothman, Sony Pictures Motion Pictures Group Chairman, said, “It’s a big day here at Sony. Kevin, Amy and their teams have done an incredible job. The Marvel process is very thorough, and that’s why their results are so outstanding. I’m confident Spider-Man will be no exception. I’ve worked with a number of up-and-coming directors who have gone on to be superstars and believe that Jon is just such an outstanding talent. For Spidey himself, we saw many terrific young actors, but Tom’s screen tests were special. All in all, we are off to a roaring start.” Feige commented, “As with James Gunn, Joss Whedon, and the Russo brothers, we love finding new and exciting voices to bring these characters to life. We spent a lot of time with Jon and find his take and work inspiring.” Pascal added, “Sony, Marvel, Kevin and I all knew that for Peter Parker, we had to find a vibrant, talented young actor capable of embodying one of the most well-known characters in the world. With Tom, we’ve found the perfect actor to bring Spider-Man’s story into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.” Sony Pictures will finance and release worldwide the next installment of the $4 billion Spider-Man franchise on July 28, 2017, in a film co-produced by Kevin Feige and his expert team at Marvel and Amy Pascal, who oversaw the franchise launch for the studio 13 years ago. Together, they will collaborate on a new creative direction for the Web-Slinger. Spider-Man, embraced all over the world, is the most successful franchise in the history of Sony Pictures, with the five films having taken in more than $4 billion worldwide.
Do you think this latest reboot will work? Sony has owned the feature film rights to Spider-Man since 1999, but earlier this year they worked out joint partnership with Marvel Studios that would bring Spidey back into the MCU.
True Detective Season 2, Episode 01 – “The Western Book of the Dead”
Air date: June 21, 2015
The biggest shadow looming over True Detective’s sophomore season isn’t the pervasive corruption of its broken world, but the one cast by the show’s incredible first season. The premiere introduces the California town of Vinci, along with a new cast of characters and a grisly murder that draws them all together. Creator Nic Pizzolatto crafts another slow burning crime procedural that brings back the show’s signature dark and brooding style, but unfortunately the premiere struggles under the weight of impossibly high expectations.
“The Western Book of the Dead,” predictably, is very heavy on exposition. The story now follows four main characters, each struggling with a parade of demons both past and present. Corrupt detective Ray Velcoro (played by Colin Farrell) gets the lion’s share of issues and dysfunction that mostly stems from a tragedy that shattered his marriage and drove him under the thumb of criminal Frank Semyon (Vince Vaughn), who is trying to build a legitimate empire via a lucrative land deal. Meanwhile, Ani Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams) plays the straight, controlling detective who clings to authority as a reaction to her family–her father is a spiritual guru at the Panticapaeum Institute, her mother committed suicide, and her sister Athena is a webcam performer. Finally, there’s Paul Woodrugh (Taylor Kitsch), a highway patrol officer and former soldier who struggles with PTSD and is the one who ultimately stumbles upon the body of missing Vinci city manager Ben Caspere.
None of the characters are particularly compelling at this point, but through no fault of their own–it all feels like a very classic noir setup. They occupy familiar archetypes and lead largely separate storylines throughout the premiere; it isn’t until the episode’s final moments that the characters are finally brought together by Caspere’s grisly murder. Consequently, the episode lacks much of the charisma and chemistry that Marty Hart and Rustin Cohle brought so immediately and effortlessly to True Detective’s first season premiere. The proceedings are dark and dour, and the rare glimpses of humor aren’t nearly enough to make an impact on the overwhelmingly somber tone.
Still, it’s easy to be overly critical when the first season has left such large shoes to fill. The second season of True Detective holds a lot of promise, unfairly hampered by the inevitable deluge of comparisons. The premiere manages to capture a similar sense of intrigue and foreboding, particularly once Caspere’s eyeless corpse brings all of the disparate storylines into a single, sharp focus. And despite invoking so many common noir story beats and characters, this season nevertheless contains a strong and talented cast with a rich well of backstory and smaller subplots to draw from. Even in the unlikely event that this season follows the predictable path of classic L.A. noir stories, a longform crime procedural in the vein of L.A. Confidential or Chinatown still sounds pretty great.
The occult aspect is notably absent from this season, though that could change considering Caspere’s bizarre and grisly murder (what’s up with that black bird mask?).
Ani’s full name is Antigone, the titular character of the Greek tragedy known for her sense of familial duty (and hanging herself after being buried alive).
Brace yourselves for the new Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation trailer as Ethan Hunt and his team take on The Syndicate, a group looking to wipe out the IMF.
Reprising their roles are Tom Cruise (Ethan Hunt), Simon Pegg (Benji Dunn), Jeremy Renner (William Brandt), and Ving Rhames (Luther Stickell). Joining them are Rebecca Ferguson, Alec Baldwin, and Sean Harris. Christopher McQuarrie (Jack Reacher) directs with Cruise, J.J. Abrams, and Bryan Burk as executive producers.
This is the fifth Mission Impossible film in the franchise, the first one coming out in 1996. It is based on the television series of the same name that aired from 1966-1973.
Jack Black and Tim Robbins may be on the brink of fantastically entertaining television, but the comedy duo is still merely echoing satirical legends of decades past.
In their new show, The Brink, which premiered on HBO Sunday, alongside heavyweight title True Detectiveand the Entourage influenced Ballers, Black and Robbins play State department officials reluctantly assigned with the task of preventing a third world war after temperamental protests break out in Pakistan.
Robbins plays Secretary of State Walter Larson; a highly functioning alcoholic who cares little about the violent under stirrings of covert terrorist organizations hidden within the bowels of foreign countries and more about fulfilling his questionable –most definitely- racist sexual fantasies. Within the first five minutes of the show, Robbins is tied up to a bedpost, begging a Cambodian girl to pretend to suffocate him with a pillow, or at the very least, allow him to pretend to kill her.
“Why do all of your sexual fantasies involve you getting murdered,” she asks him after refusing to play along.
“Why do all of your sexual fantasies involve you fleeing Cambodia in a cardboard container,” Robbins responds as facetiously as one can.
“That story wasn’t a sexual fantasy. That was my childhood.”
This conversation sets the tone for the rest of the pilot. The majority of the show’s jokes center on the worldly ignorance of the most important and thought to be well read American citizens, not so subtly putting the idiocy of government officials front and center in this fictional town square, allowing surrounding characters to continuously pelt them with verbal tomatoes.
While there were promising moments and scenes within the show, the episode still compartmentalizes itself into time old clichés.
Take Jack Black’s character, Alex Talbot; a low-profile jester who’s accidentally thrust into the underbelly of one of Pakistan’s most contemptuous regimes and forced to become one of the top American agency workers in the country.
Partnered only with Rafi, a driver for the various employees working at the American embassy, Talbot tries to gather as much information as he can about the unfolding regime without any prior knowledge of the country’s political landscape.
“Our son informs us that your ignorance of all things Pakistani is truly astonishing,” Rafi’s mother tells Talbot upon first meeting him. “A sight to behold. I can not witness it for myself.”
There’s no doubt that the show does an excellent job of pointing out every moronic aspect the American government employs in its foreign diplomacy, but despite being the constant target for jokes, there’s still a whiff of systematic racism that wafts in from time to time.
After General Umair Zaman takes over Pakistani television and asks for their people to help overthrow the Western influence in their land – after spurting out rumors of hormone controlling drones – Rafi’s uncle, a renowned psychologist, informs Alex that the man is certified crazy. Not eccentric, but absolutely loony.
It’s, unfortunately, not an uncommon connotation reflected in today’s media. The American officials may be overly sexual, victims to their own vices, and downright stupid, but they’re not crazy. A foreign leader, however, is without question, insane. Barbaric, even. It’s a form of racism that’s very much alive today, and the show decides to continue playing into that manifested hyperbole than use its satirical groundwork to question the reasoning behind it.
Still, despite it’s obvious flaws, the show certainly shows some promise. Most of the jokes did elicit an actual laugh and the points of satire may become more focused and apparent as the series wanes on.
The Brink is struggling to emulate iconic satire like Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, but until the show finds its own footing and own voice to shout from, it will remain a subpar homage.
“Never buy a depreciating asset. If it drives, flies, floats, or fucks, lease it.”
Good advice, Ari Gold.
Oh wait, wrong HBO series.
After getting rid of the visual diarrhea that was the Entourage movie, HBO has moved on to Ballers. From the trailers, it seems as though the show would be Entourage mixed with Hard Knocks, with The Rock, Dwayne Johnson, playing an Ari-type role. The series is centered around Johnson’s character, Spenser Strasmore, a retired NFL player who now works for a money manager. It’s crazy to think that Johnson is now a bonafide star, which speaks to his charisma, talent, and work ethic.
HBO chose the right guy in Johnson to lead the series. It’s absolutely believable that he was once a former football player. Yes, his acting chops leave a bit to be desired in some of scenes, but his charisma powers through regardless of the writing.
Strasmore is jolted from his humdrum retirement after a former buddy of his is killed in a head-on collision. Of course, this being HBO, it’s not just a simple head-on collision, it is a head-on collision due to a player arguing with his mistress. At the funeral Strasmore is forced to confront the reality about life after football, and he talks to some of his former buddies in the NFL about life, and most importantly, what to do with the money that they have left. Of course, because half of this show is fueled by testosterone, the talk of “funeral hos” comes up. As misogynistic as this show is, it sadly doesn’t seem out-of-place. With the NFL and its player’s activities recently, the tone of the show hits exactly where it needs to. Whereas Entourage’s forced machismo is laughable, the use in Ballers is a fitting portrayal of what the players probably feel, and what gets them into so much trouble in the first place. Yet, in spite of all of that, Strasmore seems removed from that world, and because it’s in such contrast, it makes him much more likable.
At the club, Strasmore’s buddy Ricky punches out a guy after screwing a bottle service girl in the bathroom. Ricky’s action get him cut from the Green Bay Packers and looking for a job come the next day. The rest of the episode revolves around Strasmore using his connections to set up Ricky with an interview. Of course, Ricky blows it, but manages to bungle himself into a job with the Miami Dolphins in the end.
What’s surprising about Ballers is how the NFL is featured front and center. Ballers uses real NFL logos, NFL teams, and NFL players. This show in no way portrays the players in a positive light. I think the show is actually shining a light on the off-field exploits of the player lifestyle, and the sad realities of the players who aren’t superstars, the players that you hear about being broke in a couple of years after retirement. With all of the bad press surrounding the NFL these days, I’m incredibly surprised that the league hasn’t tried to intervene and pull the branding from the show.
By the end of the episode, Strasmore lands a client in Ricky. In addition, Strasmore also lends $300,000 to a rookie who blew through his savings so he could get him as a client. This bankrupts Strasmore, so he’s taking a huge leap of faith with this move. This pilot episode doesn’t really offer a lot of substance, but I feel the setup could lead to something more interesting. Ballers provides an interesting, albeit dramatized look at the other side of professional sports. The half-hour is all set up, leading to the middling grade, but with Dwayne Johnson carrying the load, I think the show could be entertaining, but we’ll see in the weeks to come.
The following post contains spoilers for Season 3 of Orange is the New Black.
Orange is the New Black is a show set within the confines of a minimum-security prison. Apparently.
The food is bland, the monotonous scheduling of walking the grounds, working a menial job, and being told when to use the bathroom is soul-destroying. Not to mention, the constant tension between inmates and guards is enough to make anyone not want to get out of their creaking, pain-inducing bed.
In the third season of Netflix’s hit show, however, none of this is the case.
Litchfield prison, the fictional home to more than 200 minimum risk offenders, is catered to audiences as a summer camp for adults.
Friendships that would never exist outside of the institutional complex are formed over soggy green peas. Work hours are spent gabbing, dancing, and flirting with the various women ordered to waste their hours frivolously doing the same thing. And, of course, there’s enough experimental sex occurring to satisfy the horniest of inmates.
Not only is this depiction of prison life grossly inaccurate, it completely contradicts the hovering aura of the show’s first two seasons and portrays an incarcerated lifestyle that does nothing to explore the horrendous mistreatment of most women held within the U.S penal system.
One of the last scenes in the season finale follows the women as they make a run for the lake that lies just beyond the towering fences following an administrative mix-up. It’s on this secluded beach front that the inmates shed their work boots and heavy socks, pouncing into the water and jovially splashing each other. The hatred they have for each other seems to evaporate into thin air. The violent threats they scoffed at each other not even twenty minutes prior magically forgotten as they swim around the whimsical lake. Not only does it grossly contradict the rough and tough attitudes famously associated with inmates, but it forgets the foundation the show was founded on; fear.
“I’m scared that I’m not myself in here and I’m scared that I am,” Taylor Schilling’s Piper Chapman said in a moment of clarity during the show’s first season.
For most of the first season, Piper’s main story arc was learning to navigate the social intricacies of Litchfield without stepping on too many toes. She may have found solace in her ex-partner turned prison girlfriend Alex Vausse, but for the most part, Piper was scared, alone, and living under a sheet of constant anxiety.
For good reason, too. Harassing guards had found a new piece of meat to dangle in front of each other while other inmates put Piper through the ritual hazing process of sizing up the fresh face slinking through the hallways, trying to go unnoticed.
Prison is an ecosystem. There’s a hierarchy of power, the more carnivorous the predator the higher social standing they’re awarded.
Piper starts out as a blade of grass, but over the course of the past three seasons has chewed up and spit out the more ferocious dogs, taking the top spot for herself.
While the mobster mentality makes sense for someone serving an extended stay at a prison, the huddle around a campfire and roast marshmallows over spooky stories does not. Piper has become the court jester. She’s the one initiating a relationship with newcomer Stella (Ruby Rose) and the one mercilessly teasing Alex over her drawn out paranoia about possibly being killed in prison. Through Piper’s nonchalant attitude toward incarceration, it makes the entire debacle seem less contrite as a whole.
She isn’t scared anymore of the inmates she’s gotten to know pretty intimately. Instead, they’ve become like old school chums and they’re devoted to acting as immaturely as possible. In one scene, Piper jumps on top of a picnic table located somewhere on the prison grounds and nearly sings with glee as she tries to draw other women into her circle of illegal employees, wearing freshly sewn panties for a few days before getting her brother to sell them to, “perverts” online.
The scenario makes for a much more comedic show (surprising considering the series is now forced into the drama category for Emmy nominations because of its one-hour run time), but it seems reckless to turn the once fairly dramatic show completely on its head.
Orange is the New Black was never as grey in conundrums as HBO’s groundbreaking prison drama, Oz, but it wasn’t nearly as ludicrous as Wentworth Miller’s Prison Break.
The show addressed actual travesties occurring within the American penal system, wielding comedy like a flaming sword to keep audiences engaged and entertained. One of the most predominant themes in the third season was motherhood and the emotionally devastating affect it had on the women in prison. From the very first episode, where children are corralled into bleak hallways and mothers are hyper with joy at being able to spend the day with their children to Sophia and Gloria viciously fighting one another after their sons become friends and walk down a path of criminality, helpless to put an end to it, the honesty found within the motherhood theme is haunting.
The show’s third season isn’t horrendous. Not by a long shot. It’s enjoyable, funnier than the previous two combined, yet it’s not the same show it promised viewers it would be when it first aired two years ago.
It’s difficult to flick a magic wand and turn a emotional driven drama into a lighthearted hour long comedy.
Jenji Kohan and her staff of writers may have accomplished what they set out to achieve, but the show no longer provides the same level of mushy warmth the first two seasons served up on a silver platter.
Last week on Pretty Little Liars the Liars were trying to adjust to their post-kidnapped/torture life, while their family members tried to comfort them.
Hanna
The girls are on a tag-teaming phone call discussing the pros and cons of heading back to school that day. Hanna is the only Liar adamant about going back. While school is not her thing, this is not surprising since Hanna’s coping method usually involves taking control of a situation. And in this situation, she has control to ease back into a normal routine and attend school instead of staying home to mope. Even though the other Liars say they too will attend school, all three of them bail, leaving Hanna all alone. While walking into school by herself, Hanna runs into her former therapist Dr. S who is now a counselor at the school. Dr. S tries to convince Hanna to come to a session, but Hanna feels that therapy would only be beneficial if all of the Liars were present. So Hanna goes on a quest to collect the remaining Liars and cash them in for a therapy session.
Emily
Over at Em’s house, Sara has spent the night after her impromptu midnight visit. She walks back into Emily’s room after her tenth shower of the day, and I truthfully cannot tell if she looks like she is 15 years old or 30.
Sara realizes that at some point, she will probably have to go back to school, but she is scared because all of Rosewood considers her to be a feral animal. Emily assures Sara that she is not feral, she is just a lost puppy in need of some grooming. When Emily goes to stroke Sara’s cheek, Sara retreats like a feral animal. Emily takes Sara’s jumpiness as a sign that she should stay home from school and chill with Mama Fields and Sara for the day. After breakfast, Mamma Fields and the girls are lounging in Emily’s room and the horrible nature of Sara’s mother is further explained (aka chucking all of Sara’s shit to build a new yoga room). Her mom’s behavior is also the reason Sara ran away from home. Mrs. Fields is horrified by the actions of Sara’s mom, and offers Sara to keep anything of Emily’s that fits her. Except for flannels. ALL FLANNELS STAY WITH EMILY!
Later that night, Emily comes home to find Sara transformed into lesbian of the year, sporting a Justin Beiber haircut and wearing Emily’s old Shark sweats. Emily can’t figure out if she is freaked out or turned on.
Aria
Aria is spending her morning at The Brew, which obviously means that Ezra is going to interrupt her with some pretentious quip. Channelling his former educator self, he advises Aria to skip school and spend the day in the back of The Brew writing about her experience of being tortured. Aria tells him yet again to fuck off with his writing suggestions, but takes him up on playing hookie for the day. Ezra comes up with yet another brilliant idea. He and Aria should call the local hospital/doctors office posing as Rosewood PD to gain intel on Andrew which includes obtaining his Social Security Number. There should be so many issues with this plan. First, why would a detective be calling a physician to obtain medical information on a criminal? Wouldn’t it be the prison nurse/doctor. Second, Rosewood is not that big. At this point, wouldn’t the sole hospital be familiar with who the cops are in the sole town Police Department? Third, did Ezra really ask for the hospital to give out a patient’s social security? The man is already arrested, you should have that information. To my relief, there are some residents of Rosewood that loosely follow HIPPA laws, and they do not reveal any health information to Ezra. They do tell him though that the date and location of Andrew’s birth is locked in a vault in the center of the earth due to his adoption. Aria takes the news of Andrew being adopted as a sign from Heaven that he is indeed Charles/A.
Spence
Toby is over at the Hastings estate and tries to convince Spencer to warn Ali off of his new partner Lorenzo. Toby witnessed some Lorenzo/Ali chemistry in town earlier that made him uneasy. Through a cafe window, Toby observed Ali lightly tap a soccer ball back to Lorenzo. Lorenzo was so overwhelmed with Ali’s ball handling skills, calling her a young Megan Rapinoe, and begs her to be the new Youth Leader for the girl’s soccer group. Ha, yeah, like the moms of Rosewood would ever be okay with that. Toby relays this scene to Spencer and asks her to keep Ali on a leash because she is the devil and all bad things happened because of her, and she will never change.Toby has become so spectacularly boring this season, I have a hard time even watching him on screen. Spencer mulls over Toby’s request and instead talks Ali up to Lorenzo when they later meet.
Spencer leaves Toby’s delightful company to gently interrogate Jason about the seemingly nonexistent Charles DiLaurentis. While Jason cannot recall anyone of that name, he does remember his childhood imaginary friend Charlie, who his father sent away when he was younger. Spencer thanks Jason for the intel, feeds herself some scooby snacks and races to the other Liars.
All Together Now:
Hanna, Aria and Emily are at Dr. S’s office waiting for Spencer to arrive. Spencer barges into the waiting room and spews out the news about Jason’s imaginary friend Charlie. The conversation is cut short though when Emily gets a facetime request the from burner phone she leant Sara. It turns out to be a video of A standing over Sara with a knife. A threatens to kill Sara if the Liars do not leave Dr. S’s office in the next 30 seconds. And now comes the Andrew dilemma. If Andrew is in jail, and Andrew is A, how did A facetime a Scream-esque video from Emily’s room.The Liars rush to Emily’s house to check on Sara, leaving Dr. S. high and dry. Sara is alive and safe, although is suffering from dry skin due to her excessive showering. Spencer starts Nancy Drewing out, and charges to the DiLaurentis house to get some answers about Charles. After a full sweep of the house, Aria discovers an old picture of the DiLaurentis boys and it is confirmed, Charlie was not imaginary.
Back to Andrew though, due to the fact that there is zero evidence against him and he has airtight alibis for everything, he is set to be released. The girls happen to be in the town square just as Andrew is leaving the jail. Aria charges forward to confront him and wow, those few days in jail aged Andrew into a Zombie.
Andrew whines that all he wanted to do was be Aria’s saviour and knight in shining armour, and this is how he is repaid? He leaves them with this nugget of wisdom “Other towns have nice toxic dumps. Rosewood has you.” So many thoughts on this line. First, do that many other towns really have toxic dumps? Are the towns surrounding Rosewood so full of industrial plants that they are just pumping out their toxic waste into nice toxic dumps? Also, how does one determine if a toxic dump is, or is not nice? So many questions Andrew, and so little time!
Andrew exits, and the girls are left alone. Standing there as a group, Hanna forces the girls to open up to each other about what happened while in the Dollhouse. Hanna reveals the psychological torture she had to endure. On a regular basis, Charles forced Hanna to choose one of the Liars to torture. She was scared to reveal this to her friends, because she thought she ashamed that was the reason one of her friends had to endure pain. They realize that Charles played this sick game with each of the girls, but he never physically hurt them. It was all a mind game to prove that when pushed to the limit, they girls would turn on each other.
As I said last week, this show has become fucking dark.
Hanna Quotes of the Week: “Well you’re a doctor, can’t you subpoena them?”
Questions:
1) Was Hanna’s imaginary friend Mr. Biscuit a human, or a dog?
2) We learn the Liars are on track to graduate in three weeks. Who wants to make bets if this means three episodes, three seasons, or well never?
USA Today has revealed the cover to the first novel of Rick Riordan’s latest series Magnus Chase and The Gods of Asgard: The Sword of Summer.
Doesn’t Magnus look a little bit like Kurt Cobain?
This latest adventure focuses on Magnus Chase, cousin of Annabeth Chase from the Percy Jackson and The Olympians books. Set in Boston, Riordan opens the world of Norse mythology to readers of all ages. I for one am excited to meet a whole new set of gods!
Here’s the official synopsis for The Sword of Summer:
Magnus Chase has seen his share of trouble. Ever since that terrible night two years ago when his mother told him to run, he has lived alone on the streets of Boston, surviving by his wits, staying one step ahead of the police and truant officers.
One day, Magnus learns that someone else is trying to track him down—his uncle Randolph, a man his mother had always warned him about. When Magnus tries to outmaneuver his uncle, he falls right into his clutches. Randolph starts rambling about Norse history and Magnus’s birthright: a weapon that has been lost for thousands years.
The more Randolph talks, the more puzzle pieces fall into place. Stories about the gods of Asgard, wolves, and Doomsday bubble up from Magnus’s memory. But he doesn’t have time to consider it all before a fire giant attacks the city, forcing him to choose between his own safety and the lives of hundreds of innocents. . . .
Sometimes, the only way to start a new life is to die.
Head over to USA Today to read an excerpt. The Sword of Summer will be released October 6, 2015.
KILLJOYS -- "Bangarang" Episode 101 -- Pictured: (l-r) Aaron Ashmore as John, Hannah John-Kamen as Dutch, Luke Macfarlane as D'Avin -- (Photo by: Steve Wilkie/Syfy)
Overwhelmed by the number of new space shows on Syfy? Well considering that their most acclaimed show was Battlestar Galactica, it’s not surprising that the network is looking to replicate the same kind of success. Last week The Workprint’s Jen Stayrook reviewed Dark Mattersaying it could fill the void that Firefly left in viewers hearts. With Killjoys added to their roster, Syfy is bringing a little bit of badass space comedy into the mix with swashbuckling bounty hunters who do everything from find people, locate items, and take on assassination contracts.
Killjoys’ pilot doesn’t disappoint. The premiere spends its time developing a solid introduction to a universe run by a mega-corporation with a population in the brink of a class war. Our main character is Dutch (Hannah John-Kamen), a level five Killjoy (reclamation agent), who works for an independent company called the R.A.C. (Reclamation Apprehension Coalition). The coalition’s mission is simple: always get the job done no matter what. Her partner-in-crime is John Jaqobis (Aaron Ashmore), a level three agent whom she recruited after he tried to steal her spacecraft.
KILLJOYS — “Bangarang” Episode 101 — Pictured: Hannah John-Kamen as Dutch — (Photo by: Steve Wilkie/Syfy)
Dutch and John get into serious hot water when the junior agent takes a job that goes awry real fast. Without spoiling too much, the duo get into all sorts of trouble and unexpectedly become targets as well. The pilot offers glances into the backstories of both characters that leaves you wanting more. Dutch is running from a complicated past that unfortunately manages to catch up to her while John has serious unresolved family issues that surfaces in a dangerous ways. Despite that, the two appear to genuinely trust each other though I’m sure as the series progresses that bond will be tested.
It is real pleasure to see such a kick-ass female lead on Syfy and we can thank Michelle Lovretta (Lost Girl) for that. Dutch, being the experienced Killjoy, shows of her fighting skills early in the episode but is also intelligent, sexy, and fiercely loyal. She helps John out because he’s her partner even after his royal screw up. Her character reminds me a bit of Bo from Lost Girl in that both women are strong and soft at the same time. But while Bo tends to use her sensual succubus abilities to neutralize enemies first, there’s no question that Dutch is a real fighter.
The English actress does an admirable job in her portrayal of the senior reclamation agent. Ashmore in the meantime also holds his own as the reckless sidekick with some growing up to do.
KILLJOYS — “Bangarang” Episode 101 — Pictured: Aaron Ashmore as John — (Photo by: Steve Wilkie/Syfy)
While Killjoys packs a lot action and drama into one hour, what really makes this show work is the world building. The universe of The Quad ( the sector where Dutch and John work) jumps from dystopian settings to barren desert landscapes to a wealthy garden party. We also have religious monks, freedom fighters, slavers, assassins, and a talking ship to boot. Dutch and John also meet a few more colorful individuals (including Luke McFarlane’s D’avin) with secrets of their own.
As a new series, Killjoys looks to be promising and at the very least entertaining. If the series can provide enough of a larger story arc amidst the adventure/warrants of the week, I will happily keep coming back.
Watch the trailer now:
Killjoys airs Fridays on Syfy at 9/8 central.
Follow @niixc on Twitter for more. Images courtesy of Syfy.
This week’s episode shined light on the intricacies of celebrating Father’s Day in a household where each of the four kids have different fathers, one of those kids has two fathers, and the heads of the household are two lesbians.
Mariana:
Mariana is on a two-week winning streak of having the storyline I care about the least. Truthfully, if all of her scenes were cut out of this episode I don’t think I would have noticed. Mariana is invited to celebrate father’s day with her abuelo and the rest of her mother’s family, but she decides not to go. While aimlessly walking around San Diego, Mariana runs into her mother Ana who asks her why she isn’t as the Father’s Day soiree. Marianna literally responds “Because I am embarrassed, of being your daughter.” Damn Mariana. That is COLD. Her mom did do a lot of fucked up shit, but still. Harsh.
Ana tries to explain that Mariana is not a bad person and she should not be ashamed of her mother’s misgivings. Mariana stops Ana in her tracks and confesses that she lost her virginity to Wyatt, a boy who is not her boyfriend. Moreover, Wyatt is a boy she barely knew! Um, Mariana, that is a complete lie. Wyatt was in the hospital with you when Stef was shot, helped wash dishes with you after a family dinner at home, and he walked you home after you got wasted at a party. Lets not forget, he was your sister’s fucking BOYFRIEND! God Mariana, you are the worst. And that is the entirety of Mariana’s storyline this week.
Callie
Callie is spending her Father’s Day with her birth father Robert’s family. Robert, the man who refused to give up custody of a daughter he just met, so she could be adopted by a loving family, because he thought Callie was his property. She invites Jude along, but Jude politely declines stating “he’s not my dad” and comments that it is a bit weird that Callie is spending Father’s Day with a man she still doesn’t call dad. This prompts Jude to invite his father, Donald, to the Adams-Foster’s Father Day event. Callie flips a shit that the man who killed her mother by drunk driving will be in their house and promptly leaves.
Callie spends the day on Robert’s yacht, and to everyone’s surprise, Callie addresses Robert as “Dad.” Things get awkward though pretty much every time Callie’s sister Sophia opens her mouth. Sophia is freaking out that her parents are going to send her to a gay transversion camp in Montana, except for crazy people. She comes to this conclusion based on the fact that when she walks into a room her parents stop talking or change the topic. Sophia, if this was the criteria for being sent away to a crazy camp, I would have been sent to one twice a year. Turns out Sophia isn’t being shipped off to Montana, all of the whispering was really about her parents impending separation.
Jude
Donald arrives for dinner with a rather anemic bouquet of flowers for Lena and Stef. Jude is so excited for his father to be there, but he is worried that the topic of his dad being in prison will come up. Connor and his dad, Adam, come to the Adams-Foster household for Father’s Day (don’t ask why, just roll with it). He tells his father that Jude doesn’t want his father to know he is gay. They all go to the backyard, and have a Very Awkwardly Special Father’s Day dinner (hosted by two lesbians). While Connor’s dad semi-interrogates Donald about his prior work experience, the entire table is trying to ensure Donald’s past does not emerge. Just as the conversation is about to get super awkward, Brandon saves the day by walking into the Father’s Day brunch looking like absolute shit.
After the meal, Connor’s dad helps Lena bring in the dirty dishes. He then proceeds to explain to Lena, the lesbian mother principle, that after consulting LGBT experts, it is in Connor’s best interest to never come out.
In the nicest and kindest way possible, Lena lets Connor’s dad know that his son’s gay cat is out of the bag. Adam storms out, upset about his son’s outing. Stef, confused by his anger, asks him why it matters who outed the boys. And just like last week, the awesomeness of the Jonnor storyline makes up for whatever that Mariana storyline was, producing this dialogue:
Adam: Cause I happen to care about what people think. Okay?
Donald: About you or your son? Seems like its his business, who knows.
Adam: What, you want your son being bullied too?
Donald: No. I want my son to be proud of who he is. And getting bullied at home is worse than anything he’s gonna face out in the world.
And with that, Donald pullls ahead for the best dad of the episode award. While walking his father to the bus, Jude and Donald run into Robert and Callie. Donald tries to engage his daughter in a conversation, but Callie will not bite. With his head hung low, Donald concedes, and heads to the bus. Jude is furious with Callie; probably the angriest that he has ever been on the show. He lays into Callie that the man she keeps shitting on was the one that actually raised them, and was there for them, while Robert only came into the picture a few months ago and almost forced her to live in his castle. Oh Jude, you never disappoint.
Jude’s speech combined with Robert confessing that he cheated on his wife and is a horrible person, gave Callie the push she needed chase after Donald and catch him before boarding his bus.
Brandon
Brandon’s storyline this season is so entertaining. I may only like it though because of my hatred for all things Kat. Over at Idyllwild, Kat’s face tells you all you need to know about her feelings on the piece Brandon wrote.
She decides to verbalize them to Brandon anyway:
Kat “Your melodies are anemic, your rhythmic statements are mundane and your intervals are reductive. The whole piece is utterly jejune.”
Oh Kat, I don’t think I could possible hate you more. But wait.
Other composer boy (who I will refer to as Doucheface Composer) tells Brandon to come to a party because Brandon needs to “chillax.” He offers Brandon a floor to crash on so he doesn’t have to wake up at the “crack of ass” but there is “one condish.” Brandon needs to come for just one beer (is there even such a thing).
Drunk music camp parties seem AWESOME. Brandon gets there and Kat invites him for Tequilla shots. The two get sauced (at least Brandon does) and play some drunken chopsticks. The only thing that would have made this night better is if someone slipped him a pot brownie again! Kat starts spewing some BS about how she needs to love Brandon (“I need to love you”) in order to make their music. She also throws caution to the wind and says screw early morning practice, they should sleep in! Well that was all a play. Brandon wakes up late to a bunch of yelling texts from Kat. He gets there and she is ranting about how lazy Brandon is and how he doesn’t care about this project. She tells the teacher that she wants Doucheface to be her composer and then slyly asks Brandon what was he doing last night that was so important he wasn’t preparing. I still don’t get why he didn’t call her out for being at the party too.
In Other News:
AJ (the kid who got Callie fired last week) is arrested for tagging buildings with the stolen spray paint. Callie gets Stef to help AJ out which results in Mike becoming AJ’s new foster dad.
In our last episode of Total Divas (“The Fat Twin”), all the Divas set women back at least 70 years by focusing way too much on their boobs at the expense of thinking of themselves and other women as whole individuals.
Cameron, jealous of Nikki’s implants, visited a surgeon to discuss getting her own augmentation, wore model implants in her outfits for a week to test drive the idea and, after all that hard work, decided to keep what she had (to be a role model to others, especially young girls), though she’ll still accept her outfits being stuffed when she’s in the ring.
Nikki enjoyed picking on Cameron for being jealous and hid her model implants right before The Funkadactyls went out onstage. Obsessed with the twins matching body types as well as faces, Brie went on a juice cleanse and forced Nikki to join. However, Nikki cheated on the diet and the twins decided they don’t have to be 100% identical (not to mention with the huge cup size difference, they can’t be without Brie stuffing her top or a retoucher photoshopping her a larger pair.
Natalya doesn’t like dressing sexy, despite her in ring attire, yet she’s desperate to have her fiance, Tyson, get his mind off both his knee injury and WWE, and fuck her brains out anyway. When that didn’t work, she pressured him into marriage, a great way to turn your man on, lemme tell ya’. His heart in the right place, Tyson responded by trying to force their wedding, on the spot, at a courthouse — which Natalya threatened to leave him for. Tyson finally got the message, planned a surprise romantic evening at home complete with candles, flowers and strawberries and asked Natalya to get into her lingerie for him.
JoJo looked concerned for Nikki for seven seconds in a scene.
Will we focus on body parts again this episode? We’ll find out as we watch. As usual, Matt Perri will watch with me and give his color commentary.
Tampa, FL
Eva Marie and JoJo’s Hotel Room The Divas are getting ready for the gym by putting on Bronzer. Eva Marie, obviously not fearing self-described lioness Nikki, says, “I have to make my chest shine a little for going to the gym because John Cena might be there.”
Hotel Gym Eva Marie and JoJo are doing Planks, which, naturally, evolves into them putting each other into headlocks for the sole purpose of reminding us that they’re actual wrestlers.
The girls briefly meet Joe Anoa’i (AKA WWE’s “Roman Reigns”) who is wearing a sweat suit and headphones. JoJo introduces them as the new Divas. The girls go back to working out by themselves and Eva Marie, showing good taste in guys (and noticing my wrestling crush, sorry Matt!), tells JoJo. “He’s the reason we wear Bronzer.” (MATT: Christ, Eva, why don’t you just wear an “Engaged, But Single” sign around your neck from now on?)
Natalya and Tyson’s House Natalya and Tyson are in the pool, she appears to be hugging him and says, “This is my wrestling hold for you, try to get out,” (MATT: Oh, so hot.) and he claims he can’t, then easily breaks it. She whines that he ripped her hair and that she will no longer swim with him.I’m beginning to think the reason he doesn’t jump her bones all the time is that he thinks of her as a mother figure.
Speaking of mothers, the phone rings and it’s Cheryl, Tyson’s mom, on the phone.
Natalya tells the camera that it’s her birthday week and as an added bonus she will be in her hometown of Calgary for a match on RAW that week. However, she realizes she will have to spend time with “the mother-in-law from Hell”. Cheryl insists they stay with her for that week instead of a hotel room. Even though she has a small, one-bedroom apartment and until they “seal the deal and get married”, she insists Natalya sleeps with her in her bed, while Tyson sleeps on the sofa. Natalya makes Tyson promise he will tell his mom they will stay at a hotel. I’d do the same. (MATT: Yeah, but we’ve been in this boat before and it didn’t go as planned.) Of course this being a reality show, I bet we can all guess what happens later with these two. They hug and she playfully pushes him into the pool. (MATT: Natalya has a line that’s even more creepy: “I’m not there yet, with Cheryl, that I wanna share a bed with her.” I know nobody who gets to “that level”. Ever.)
New York, NY
Cameron and Naomi’s Hotel Room Cameron is dismayed the Naomi isn’t dressed, accessorized and ready to go. Naomi tells the camera that, despite being opposites, they are like very close sisters. Naomi argues that as it their day off that they stay in. Cameron, having not heard a word Naomi said, suggests they go shopping for a new purse and jacket for Naomi. Naomi tells the camera, “When Cameron and I were in development together, we just connected, had a good bond, and just feed off each other and I knew we’d make an awesome team.” Famous last words, Naomi, you apparently didn’t read this episode’s title.
Cameron insists that she have new fashions as she’s a Diva, Naomi points out that as a Diva she might have to look sharp, but as the real life, day to day woman, Trinity, she’s fine with being more casual. Cameron insists she’s getting a new purse and jacket. Naomi grunts in frustration and Cameron gets pissy, telling her not to grunt at her. So, to sex things up a little, Naomi grunts over and over and over (MATT: Which sounds somewhere betweena Ford Crown Victoria’s engine revving up and a cow being electrocuted.) Prophetic Cameron cringes in horror and says, “I see where this friendship is going: right down the dang hole.”
Scotiabank Saddledome in Calgary, Alberta, Canada for Monday Night RAW
Backstage The Bellas are filming a backstage bit for the WWE App. Apparently, their story calls for them to be catty with the Funkadactyls. Nikki, who doesn’t realize she’s catty to everyone anyway, is thrilled. In this ridiculous segment, Brie tells the Funkadactlys to stop “being like them” and Cameron gives them the comeback of the year, “Girl, bye!” with them both snapping their fingers and turning and leaving like they’re synchronized swimmers.
After the shoot is over, the girls (MATT: Who are suddenly friends…) compare weekend plans. The Bellas are going to their great grandmother’s for the weekend. Introducing the tension into their segment, Brie mentions she’s going to see their dad — the first Nikki has heard of this. Brie tells her to come along with her. Nikki declines as he has been battling addiction, and after her parents divorced, he was in and out of her life. Cameron tells her that life is short and that she should go (MATT: You know, because arguing a point with Nikki totally works.) but Nikki declines agan.
Natalya tells the camera “I’m so excited to be back in my hometown. This is a once in a lifetime event as this is where I started wrestling in front of 10 people, I was nobody back then, and now it’s kind of full circle.”
(MATT: Natalya. In her hometown. On her birthday. This is gonna end well.)
Ringside Michael Cole announces that Natalya is there tonight in her hometown AND on her birthday. A fan even has a Happy Birthday Natalya sign. Natalya is in a tag team match partnered with Kaitlyn vs The Bellas. Natalya said they Bellas taught her to be a Diva, and she taught them how to wrestle. The Bellas win and the ever-so-classy Michael Cole, rubs it in by reminding us that she got beat in her hometown, adding that “Natalya is gonna remember this birthday for a long time.” Natalya is shown faking tears in the ring. (MATT: THERE’S NO CRYING IN WRESTLING!) I’m hoping Natalya will go all Alicia Fox and kick the announcer’s ass after breaking their table, but that doesn’t happen. (MATT: Cole had an entire heel turn where he got beat up, but you have a point.)
Natalya and Tyson’s Hotel Room Natalya tells him “I wish you’d throw me down on the bed right now,” and he complies — with a side headlock takedown that nearly breaks her neck. His phone rings and, rather than enjoy a romantic moment with his fiancee, he answers it and, of course, it’s his mom. Natalya: “His mom is a nice mild mannered woman until it comes to him, and then she wants to have him all to herself,” As it’s obvious Tyson is being talked into things by his mom, Natalya, who wants to celebrate her birthday week, throws her phone down and starts following Tyson who is nervously walking away with his phone. Tyson tries to shoo Natalya with his hands, tells his mom they will “see her soon”, then walks into another room and closes the door. Way to support your fiancee on your birthday! Natalya complains on camera he can never turn his mom down…so he leaves the hotel AND Natalya to go stay with his Mom.
Los Angeles, CA
Random Boutique Opening The Funkadactyls are there with their men, all dressed up, Cameron grabs Naomi and has them pose for the cameras on the way in.Naomi says Cameron is focused on the glamor, whereas she is focused on wrestling techniques. Inside, Cameron is posing like it’s the Oscars and Naomi gives up and sits downwhile their boyfriends vanish into thin air like JoJo. (MATT: Boutiques. So important, they have red carpet openings.)
Tampa, FL
John Cena’s House Nikki is in Dining Room #17 looking at a historical photo in Cena’s house and wrongly guesses who Churchill and Stalin are, completely mixing them up. Cena tells her that one of the men she guessed is FDR. Nikki, attempting to show that she has a brain inside her skull, says, “FDR doesn’t look like himself in that photo,” (MATT: HOW CAN SHE SAY THAT WHEN SHE COULDN’T IDENTIFY ANY OF THEM?!) Cutting through that bullshit, because WWE is touring through China, Cena starts giving her arbitrary Chinese lessons – which will work so well since she has such a command of the English language. Nikki goes full Ditz and says, “It’s difficult learning a different language, I know some Spanish but Chinese is literally, like…CHINESE.” He is teaching her how to order red wine, she’d prefer to learn dirty words instead. (MATT: You know, the important stuff.) She doesn’t elaborate, so we don’t learn if she wants to curse Cena out or tell him to ride her like a Shetland pony in Chinese.(MATT: Cena’s kitchen is huge and has like seven electric wine cellars. Every single time I see his house, I can’t believe he uses any of what he’s got.)
Pot Stirrer John asks how her dad is, knowing full well she hasn’t talked to him in a long while. (MATT: It’s either that or we watch Nikki struggle through Chinese words like “Wo” and then complain because it’s “literally, like Chinese”.) He questions her motives and she says if she talks to him, she will forgive him and then history will repeat itself so there’s no point. She listens to him even when he suggests she should apologize to him for not returning his texts. Though she exasperatedly tells him that he is “such a man”, she has her arms around his neck and its obvious she will talk to her dad sometime soon.
Calgary, AB – Canada
China Rose Restaurant Since this is our Chinese themed episode, Cheryl, Tyson and Natalya have to go get Chinese food for lunch. Natalya says it’s a horrible day as it’s raining. As an extra suprise Tyson’s sister, Valerie, is there to make it “the birthday from Hell” for Natalya. (MATT: Not yet. WWE hasn’t had her job to Valerie. We’re close, though.) Natalya should take a cue from what I did for my last birthday: I had three birthday dinners on separate nights, and was able to shape my own guests lists, so that I got to see people I wanted to at them. (MATT: Our credit card companies adored us this year.)
Valerie and Cheryl grill them about why Natalya is staying a hotel.Natalya is already furious and tries to say she has a limited amount of time to see people, and Valerie and Cheryl insist that family comes first. That may be, but if Natalya’s real hometown (as opposed to kayfabe) is Calgary, shouldn’t she in theory have her own family to visit also? Nattie and Tyson tell her Mom they’ve been together 12 years. Valerie, who looks like the bastion of responsibility, suggests they have kids. Cheryl steps in and tells her daughter that’s not happening. Natalya shushes Tyson as he’s saying something to his mom. She complains on camera that she, and not his mom should be the special woman in Tyson’s life. Valerie asks if they’ve considered premarital counseling and both deny they have any issues to work through.
(MATT: The entire scene is so fucking uncomfortable, I can’t even bring myself to describe Tyson’s Mom, stroking the back of her son’s neck. *SHUDDER*)
Tampa, FL
Random Hotel – Gym The twins grab free weights and start lifting. Nikki has been thinking about what Brie said about their dad, Nikki is ready to reach out to her dad. Nikki wants Brie to come with her if she goes to see her dad, and Brie readily agrees. Brie is excited that Nikki is willing to try. But she wants to do it in baby steps. This is totally gonna work with cameras all over the place.
WWE Training Facility The Funkadactyls are in the ring to practice a new dance routine. Naomi wants to get some new steps in, Cameron, who criticizes Naomi for “knowing dance stuff”, attempts to teach Carmon how to dance.Cameron wants the moves to be refined with sexy poses thrown in to “work the face, work the camera.” Naomi disagrees and says, “We need to do more than just prance around the ring for a minute.” Cameron tells the camera that they’ve been catty and fighting a lot lately. (MATT: Over what? Naomi’s reluctance to go shopping? What is this even about?)
Brawley, CA
Bella Twin’s Nana’s House The twins were raised in large part by their grandparents, Nikki says they were the biggest influences in her life. The twins, their nana and their brother, JJ, are holding hands and saying grace. Nikki delights in telling Nana that even Brie and Daniel have a composting toilet and they can even use the water recycled from that to grow their own vegetables. Nana is horrified by this and tells Bryan to call her for some reason. (MATT: Brie and Nikki pig out and have wine so I guess they’re over their weight issues.)
Calgary, AB – Canada
Hawaiian Heat Tanning Natalya’s friend, Jaret, owns the store. Jaret has an amateur wrestling background and trained her. That explains the quality of her ring work. (MATT: HEY!) Jaret asked if she brought a bikini, he tells her she doesn’t have to wear one, hitting on her so hard, she must notice. She wears a pink bikini that he just can’t stop complimenting. It’s obvious he wants to compliment her figure, but he doesn’t and he sprays the tan on her. It comes out looking good (I’m impressed this show had a safe way of getting a tan on instead of showing a tanning booth) and he says they should get dinner sometime (read get drunk and have a night of sloppy sex) instead.
Brawley, CA
Cemetery – Papa Bella’s Grave JJ and the Bellas take flowers to their grandfather’s grave. Brie, dressed casually, sits with Nikki, dressed like she’s going to a club. Nikki says this is the first time they’ve come to the grave site since his funeral 6 years ago. The twins wonder what he would have thought about their careers. With their dad deserting the twins their grandfather stepped into the dad role, Nikki says he helped shape the woman she is today. Nikki (MATT: Who just can’t stop herself from bringing up her relationship.) says, “It makes me sad that he will never get to meet John. John is the first amazing guy that I have ever been with and I just think they would have been best friends.” The gravestone’s epitaph contains a phrase their grandfather would use to describe the moon and stars.
Calgary, AB – Canada
Natalya and Tyson’s Hotel Room Natalya gets a call from Tyson in the lobby, she goes to meet him in a beautiful formal-length purple and black dress. She’s happy she can spend a day to celebrate her birthday just with him. At the lobby, she’s surprised he’s not wearing the black suit she bought him. He responds, asking why he would wear it to his sister’s place. Brainwashed Tyson is spouting how good it is to see family. I don’t think they’ve seen one member of her family the whole week. She wants to go out for a nice dinner, he says Valerie is making a nice dinner, his whole family is there and they can go out for a nice couple’s dinner whenever. Natalya says if they aren’t having a private dinner, one that she specifically bought the dress for, that she’s going back up to her room. Showing he knows nothing about women, he asks what he will tell his family. She tells him, “Tell them I’m spending the night here, watching Nancy Grace.” At this point, she should be ordering Lobster Thermidor with a side of caviar and the most expensive bottle of champagne she can find from room service, hopefully with a credit card that she is an authorized user on, but only Tyson is liable for paying. (MATT: Uh…*AHEM*)
Tampa, FL
Pole Position Raceway The Funkadactyls, JoJo and Eva Marie are going go-karting on their day off, because apparently all WWE Diva’s contracts say you must spend a day off with at least one other Diva doing “stuff”. Eva Marie points to the winner’s stand and declares she’ll be standing on the top box when this is over/ Cameron and Naomi jokingly say they will win instead. “I know that I don’t look like a go-kart driver,” Cameron says on camera, “but I win everything and if I don’t win, I’m definitely going to have a boo-boo face.” They race and an employee comes over to tell them their scores. JoJo is third, Eva Marie is second (to her great shock) and Cameron wins. (MATT: Even though she forgot to “work the camera, work the face.”)
Naomi congratulates Cameron, who’s pissed that Naomi doesn’t sound sincere. Naomi tells the camera that this “isn’t the Daytona 500”. Cameron continues to push and Naomi goes for the jugular and says, “I’m the one who wins the matches.” Cameron agrees, but then presses that she’s the good one on the mic. Naomi foolishly says she is great on the mic also. They keep arguing and Naomi pushes Cameron, Cameron pushes back. They trade off pushes, and I’m kinda bummed they didn’t wreck the store. (JBL: FUNK IS ON A ROLL, DANIELLE!!!)
Calgary, AB – Canada
Trib Steakhouse Still wearing the purple dress, Natalya meets Jaret for dinner. (MATT: What happened to Nancy Grace, champagne and caviar?) She says as Tyson blew her off, she was going to have a nice dinner with Jaret to catch up. She mentions that he insisted on making all the arrangements which is nice. Turns out that Jaret had a plan: they have a table in a private room with no other diners (MATT: Smoothie…definitely a smoothie…) which is amazing, considering how fancy Trib is. He asks about her day, she says it’s terrible and that she’s about to have “a knock-down, drag-out with” with Tyson and that “if he doesn’t watch it, he’s gonna get punched in the nose.” Jaret is smiling from ear to ear hearing this. She also says he’s a mama’s boy who takes her for granted.
“You have to ask yourself if this is what you want, because you’re a beautiful girl, you have lots of choices,” he tells her. He tells her she “needs someone who treats you like a princess, takes you out for nights on the town and maybe reserves an entire restaurant for you”. OK, if he reserved the entire place, he’s either rolling in dough or maybe this place just got approved to reopen by the Board of Health after some violation. Jaret tells her that they’ve always had a connection, that he has feelings for her and he doesn’t want her to marry Tyson. Nattie says she’s overwhelmed but the poor bastard continues pouring his heart out, telling her that he has nothing to lose by telling her how he feels and that “We only regret the things we don’t do, not what you end up doing.” (MATT: This was one of the most human moments I’ve ever seen on this show.) Tilt at that windmill, brother!
Brawley, CA
Random Park Nikki is dreading seeing her dad, Jon. “It’s too late now, unless I jump in the pond and swim away, right,” she asks nervously. Her dad abandoned her, and her boyfriend who she thinks is the perfect guy has a name that’s phonetically the same to her dad’s. Can’t wait to see if they seem alike personality wise. Brie and JJ hug him but Nikki won’t.
Jon cuts to the chase and asks Nikki why she feels the way she does. Nikki says he can be selfish, and has been in and out of their lives since the divorce. She’s in tears, Brie’s in tears and Jon is crying a bit, too. Jon, who does sound a bit like Cena in how he reasons says, “I don’t have an excuse for you, there is no excuse for the pain I put you through.” (MATT: Cena says that?!) Jon taps into more self-awareness than Cena has showed thus far, says, “I fell and I hate myself for that and I will never stop telling you how sorry I am for how that happened.” He thanks her for opening up and says he will try harder on his end. (MATT: Cena is more heartfelt than this guy.)
Monday Night RAW / WWE Main Event
Backstage at Main Event Jane Geddes, SVP WWE Talent Relations & Development and Mark Carrano, Senior Director, WWE Talent Relations are laying out the matches for the night. The Bellas will team with AJ against the Funkadactyls and Kaitlyn in a tag match. Naomi says she doesn’t want to work tonight and, when Cameron asks her why, she specifically says she doesn’t want to work with her. Jane and Mark decide to talk to the Funkadactyls separately. “At this point, I’d rather go to work and start from the bottom by myself and be happy then come to work and be successful and work with her and be pissed off every week,” Naomi states. Cameron says that is unprofessional, Naomi says Cameron is unprofessional all the time, and they keep arguing despite Jane and Mark being uncomfortable for it. Jane says it’s not up to them. Stephanie McMahon is the Head of Creative, so she will set up a meeting with them and her if they like. Cameron storms out.
Out in the hallway, Cameron describes the meeting and Natalya seems concerned that Stephanie will be getting involved but Cameron doesn’t seem to care. Jane tells The Funkadactyls that Steph wants to meet with both of them. Cameron outlines the beef, Stephanie yells at Naomi for pushing Cameron. Naomi sits there and takes it and doesn’t rightfully argue that they were both pushing each other. Naomi could have and should have asked if the cameramen who were filming for the show could show the roll. “When you are in public you are WWE Divas, I will not accept unprofessionalism,” Steph says. Furthermore, says she will have them work in singles matches before making “any drastic decisions about what the future holds.” Naomi thinks she will excel and is happy about it.
Mark outlines their new matches, Naomi will work with Alicia Fox and Cameron is with Aksana. Seamstress Sandra tries to ask what is wrong and Naomi is rude, “you need to work on that gear!” “Your gear is going to be affected by your attitude,” says Sandra. (MATT: I really hope Sandra’s getting paid a shit-ton of money for the abuse she takes.)
Backstage at Monday Night RAW The Bellas are watching their guys’ tag match (John Cena and Team Hell No vs. The Shield) in a private room. Nikki says, “I get so turned on watching Jon wrestle half-naked, muscles bulging, sweat dripping down his chest,” while Brie notices Daniel’s hair and lumberjack outfit look good.
Main Event Alicia Fox and Naomi’s match is up. Backstage, all the Divas (minus The Bellas) and Jane watch the match. Seamstress Sandra appears to have wussed out as the costume Naomi wears is blue, sparkly and something that looks great on her. Jane asks Natalya what she thinks, she says Naomi, “is doing good, but looks a little winded. Not like in her other matches, her conditioning is not where it needs to be.” Naomi leaps off the top ropes and instead of hitting Alicia, she blows the spot and nearly lands on her own face. Cameron is, of course, all smiles. “She totally miscalculated, this is not what you want the boss to see,” Natalya tells the cameras.
Jane asks a visibly nervous Cameron if she is ready, and Cameron says she is, “I was born ready.” “This is my first singles match tonight, I may not have the wrestling skills yet, but I have my charisma to make things happen,” she tells the camera. Naomi watches Cameron backstage, saying Cameron should slow down because she’s blowing her moves. At the end of the match, she looks like she’s visibly in pain. “As horrible as she’s been to me this week,” Naomi says, “it’s really hard to watch her struggle.”
Naomi sees Cameron in the hall and asks if they can talk. Naomi apologizes and says she didn’t like working without her. Cameron agrees and they both start crying and hugging. Naomi says they have to fix the tension. They agree they both bring something to the partnership and that they should tell Mark and Jane they want to stay together.
This week’s hugs goes to – Natalyaand Nikki. Natalya can’t even stand up for herself to have the plans she wants for her own birthday week. Her fiancee was uber-nonsupportive and she deserved better. Meanwhile, while the show is scripted, I’m convinced of Nikki’s pain, maybe even the fact that she hadn’t said any of this to her dad before is real. I don’t know how much she wants to have her father in her life, but I feel for her and hope this situation resolves in a way that’s healthy for her.
This week’s punches go to – The Funkadactyls – Cameron and Naomi Cameron, it’s just a game, one moment in time, winning or for that matter losing at go-karts isn’t that big a deal, especially when bragging hurts your real life friend and coworker. Naomi – not only could she have been the bigger person, but starting the shoving then ignoring Cameron right until RAW was just silly.
(MATT: I hated the Funkadactyl crap. It was so pointless and forced. The rest of this wasn’t bad.)
Okay, kids. So here we are in week 4 or week 5 of The Bachelorette or whatever the hell week we are in of this dumb-ass nonsense show, and it is just getting weirder and weirder every single episode. Last week’s shananigans were so stupid I couldn’t even stomach them, so I didn’t write up a review. Actually, that is only half-true. My cat couldn’t stomach the shows stupidity, so he decided to walk across my keyboard after I had written 3/4 of the review, instantly deleting every last morsel of mockery goodness. My cat is very smart and I was very annoyed, and there was no way in hell I was re-writing that over again, so instead, here is your VERY short overview of the debauchery that took place on last week’s show …..
Kaitlyn takes Clint outside and tells him she is done with him and that she no longer trusts him. She then announces to everyone at Testosterone Mansion that he will be leaving, and Clint’s boyfriend JJ turns his back on Clint and sides with Kaitlyn, saying publically to Clint: “You need to apoligize to everyone for your bad emotional energy.” Clint is pissed off because his boy-toy didn’t stand up for him, and he and JJ have the girliest dude-break-up outside that I’ve ever seen in my life. I don’t think I have ever witnessed two men standing SO close together as they had the most overdramatic, dumbest conversation on earth:
JJ: I said something rash. I’m sorry.
Clint: Don’t touch me. I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you. Get the fuck outta my face. I told you shit about me. (Like that you’re GAY???)
JJ: Guess what. I told you shit no one else knows either. (The gay thing?)
Clint: You’re a piece of shit. You’re about to make me lose my cool and I’m not okay with it. You didn’t back me up in there.
JJ: Okay. Have a good night.
Clint: Hey I wish you the best of luck here. That tie really goes good with your shirt. Piece of shit.
I’m not joking. That was their conversation. Then Clint got into the sad limo and left the show, and JJ went into the “confessional / interview” to talk about what just happened, but he got up and walked out because he was sobbing so hard he couldn’t speak. So he cried and cried and cried, and then he SLAPPED HIMSELF IN THE FACE and said to himself: “Son of a bitch. Suck it up.” So that happened. All the men inside, meanwhile, made jokes about the JJ/Clint breakup being the worst in Bachelor history. This whole thing is so incredibly dumb. They were obviously trying to see how a gay bachelor storyline might play out for the future, and either paid these two dudes off to make this drama occur, or put them on the show for that reason solely. Either way, nothing about this was any form of real, just like the rest of this scripted show.
The rest of the show is in NYC, where the men take part in the worst Rap Battle known to man. After the rap show, Kaitlyn “runs into” Nick, who was on the show during Andi’s season. Apparently the two struck up a friendship over social media, and he came back because he just “had to meet her and see if this could be something.” He wants to stay. She wants him to stay. She tells him she needs to think about it. She tells the other men what happened. They are not happy. They do not want him to stay. She leaves the men and goes to make out with Nick for a while, because that seems normal and like the right thing to do. Sure. The next morning, she decides to keep Nick around and goes to tell him. She tells the cameras “I’m, like, shaking right now. I’m shaking.” She is always “shaking” about something.
Jared and Kaitlyn then have a one-on-one date at The Met, where he reads her a lame poem that makes her feel better and they kiss and he gets the rose. They end their night by flying in a helicopter over the Statue of Liberty, and Jared tells cameras “that’s the night I fell in love with her.” Another lame group date takes place with the men auditioning for a walk-on role in “Aladdin” with Kaitlyn. They all suck in their auditions, but Chris the dentist wins and he and Kaitlyn do their 5 second part on Broadway. They literally walk on, stand there, and then walk off. They make out and he gets the rose.
This brings us current to this week’s episode. Nick finally arrives at Alcoholic Mansion to meet the men. They are now in San Antonio, Texas. He walks in and says “Whats up, guys?” Which is met with the most awkward silence ever. He tells them: “Look, I’ll keep this simple. I’m not here to cause drama. I dig this girl and Id like to get to know her more. She is a cool chick.” He clears his throat 3 times in a row and starts sweating. The men start grilling him, one by one, like he is on trial for something. “Why now? We heard you and Andi are still hanging out.” “You had your season already. Why you need another one?” “You called her a cool chick. Is she a cool chick, or is she an amazing woman?” Ooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhh. Your witness?
Nick sidesteps their questions or gives vague answers, then tells them “I hope you can respect why I’m here.” All the men talk into camera about how upset they are that Nick is there. During the cocktail party, different people take Kaitlyn aside to spend time with her. They are at major league baseball field, and JJ takes her aside first. He picks her up piggyback style and they run around the bases. Josh uses his time to tell Kaitlyn he doesn’t trust Nick, and that he is full of shit. “Do you trust me?” she asks him. “Your actions don’t match your words”, he threatens. “You’re gonna make me cry”, she retorts. Kaitlyn wonders out loud to cameras if it was perhaps wrong to let Nick join the group.
Rose Ceremony happens, on the ball field. The guys are lined up like a baseball team starting lineup. It is apparently freezing cold and the windiest day ever in creation, because these men are acting like the biggest pussies I’ve ever seen assembled in one place. Their teeth are chattering, they are holding onto each other for dear life, its like they have never felt a breeze before. Take it down a notch, boys. Its Texas, not the North Pole. Kaitlyn keeps Nick, and sends home Jonathan and Ryan. Congratulations Jonathan. You made it further than most black men. You are a pioneer.
Ben with an H. initial has a one-on-one date with Kaitlyn. She keeps referring to him as “Ben H” to camera, and it drives me batty. She picks him up in a pickup truck and they go to the oldest Dance Hall in Texas to join a 2-step competition. Even though they get tapped out of the contest in round two, they have a blast drinking beers and hanging out with the other couples and dancing together. Kaitlyn says “he is a handsome, handsome man.” Wow, that’s deep. They have dinner on the rooftop and talk about past loves and he gets the rose. They kiss a lot, and they both feel lucky to have each other.
There is a Group Orgy … Date … involving 10 men. Yes, 10. They all put on silly Mariachi Band costumes, and write and perform mariachi songs to Kaitlyn, to serenade her. They do this in front of a crowd outside. Ian goes on and on about what a great singer he is, then chokes once again on his performance. He hangs his head in shame during his camera interview and acts as if it is the absolute worst thing that can happen to a person. Nick wants to be more “grandiose” with his song, and takes Kaitlyn up to the balcony to sing to her. His voice is awful but he doesn’t care and enjoys making a fool of himself for her. His lyrics include “We have such a great connection, it gives me such a huge erection.” Umm, ewww! The guys all seem to gain more respect for Nick after his horrible solo (Really? THAT’S how you gain respect with these tools?), except for Josh, who looks like he might blow Nick’s face off at any second.
The guys take some private time with Kaitlyn. Josh asks her to please cut his hair, to show her that he trusts her, since apparently she used to cut hair for a living or some crap. So she cuts it into a half-mohawk type thing, before the cutters give out on her and stop working. He goes back inside and all the guys laugh their asses off at his half-finished Mohawk. Nick and Kaitlyn use their private time to make out really heavy once again. When he returns, Josh approaches him in front of the other dudes. “I don’t trust you. Something is off. ” Nick tells him “you don’t need to trust me. Kaitlyn needs to trust me. If she doesn’t trust me, I’ll be sent home.” Josh doesn’t like that response, and he goes to find Kaitlyn to speak with her more. He tells her that nobody in the house likes Nick or wants him there, and she gets mad, asking “Not one person likes him? So everyone is lying to my face?” Josh comes back and tells the guys he was in a camera interview, but they know he is lying because they looked out the window and saw him in the church with Kaitlyn.
Kaitlyn comes in and asks the men if they are being honest with her about Nick. They say yes. She says “Josh do you feel they are being honest? ” “Id like to think so”,, he says. “What? You literally just told me that nobody is being honest with me.” Josh tells K that everyone feels the same way as him, and NONE of the men back him up. They all just sit there and act like they have no idea what he is talking about. He tells Kaitlyn he is confused, she says so am I, and oh my god, WHO CARES ABOUT ANY OF THIS?????
Shawn and Kaitlyn have a one-on-one date, and they go kayaking on the river in San Antonio. Lots of kissing and intimate moments. He tells her he felt bad for Josh last night because none of the guys backed him up. He shares about a serious car accident he was in 5 years ago where he almost died. He starts to tear up talking about it. He tells her “I’m falling in love with you.” she says to cameras “I feel that was my husband telling me he loves me for the first time.” She whispers back to him that she feels the same way. They have a romantic dinner, then back to the tiny boat with fireworks in the sky .
Now, for no reason whatsoever, the show has decided to make Ian into a total asshole who is randomly going to tell Kaitlyn off. This is coming out of absolutely NOWHERE, kind of like the whole Clint and JJ are Gay thing, that they just randomly DROPPED once it played out into nothing. Now, suddenly, Ian is telling the camera: “She doesn’t understand who I am, and who I am is a great catch. I could be the bachelor of this country, of the world. San Antonio will be my last stand on this journey. I want to go home.” Okay, over-dramatic asshole. Where the fuck is all this coming from?
There is another cocktail party, because these people don’t do enough drinking. She makes a speech about how important honesty is, then Ian tells cameras “She wants the truth. She can’t HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!!!!! ” Okay, relax there, Jack Nicholson. Calm yourself. Then he says “she isn’t even half as hot as my ex-girlfriend.” Seriously, this dude is just randomly a complete dickhead for no reason. Makes no sense.
During the cocktail party, Joe and Kaitlyn make out and she tells him she likes kissing him. Then she takes Jared into her hotel room and they make out some more, and he tells her he is falling for her. She says “that makes me so happy” Meanwhile Ian is still yammering on to the cameras: “I have a lot of sex. A lot of sex. I’m going out of here guns blazing. I don’t find her that interesting. I have lots of sex.” Did he say something about a lot of sex?
Finally, the show ends with another “To Be Continued”, as Ian blasts into Kaitlyn and insults her like mad as she sits there taking it in. “I came here for love. It’s difficult for me being with guys who are making poop, fart, and sex jokes. That doesn’t work for me. I came here expecting to meet the girl who had her heart-broken, not the girl who wants her field plowed. I feel like you’re here to make out with a bunch of dudes on TV. Bringing Nick in, I don’t question his intentions, I question yours. I see you as a surface level person at this point, and I wonder if you really are that shallow, because I see nothing beyond the surface.” HOLY CRAP ARE YOU DONE YET? STOP TALKING AND TAKE A BREATH ALREADY!!!! CHRIST!!!
So that’s it, folks. I’m guessing the producers paid this dude off too, to randomly turn on her and insult her and leave, just to make things interesting. Either that, or everyone on this show is a complete loon who changes personalities at the drop of a hat.
NEXT WEEK: JJ smacks himself a few more times in the face and sobs about Clint. Ian tells Pimp Daddy Chris Harrison that he has a lot of sex. Kaitlyn finally gets her field plowed. (I’m serious. I think her and Nick have sex next week, and everyone freaks the hell out. Good times.)
We are 24 hours removed from Money in the Bank and I liked the show.
In my review, I gave it 3 1/4 stars but my opinions were pretty much the same as Scott and Bayless. It had some major problems and some weird, arbitrary booking that made next to no sense.
Sheamus won Money in the Bank for some reason after Bray Wyatt attacked Roman Reigns for some reason and Renee Young is a platinum blonde for some–wait. No. Renee’s hair color changed because Ambrose is just a lucky fuck who jobs to TV monitors but gets what he wants in private.
We got two really great matches in Ambrose/Rollins and Cena/Owens…but the rest of the show is a prime example of what’s been driving WWE fans nuts.
Look, I get wanting to shake things up, but if we’re gonna be random and different, give Kofi the case. Even that makes more sense than Sheamus grabbing it. Bray fucking with somebody else? Where’s that gonna lead? Nowhere. It’s gonna be eight weeks of Bray saying a bunch of cryptic shit in the middle of a room of Vick’s Vap-o-Rub and then he’ll lose three matches in a row.
So what was the point of any of this? I guess we’ll see…
We begin with the Dusty Tribute from MITB followed by the video package.
We are LIVE(!!!) from Cleveland, Ohio for WWE Monday Night RAW!!!
Michael Cole, JBL and Byron Saxton are the guys at the desk.
Seth Rollins starts us off with a promo…and we’re already on a break because of the first portion.
Hopefully, this isn’t what’s to come. Rollins welcomes us to “Monday Night ROLLINS”. He says that he acknowledges Ambrose and how much of a fight he brought to the ring last night. But, he still beat Ambrose — and he did it all by himself. He says that he knows he really hung on and won but he needs to recognize those who got him to the top. He thanks himself for his own win. Over and over and over again. But, wait…he’d like to thank Seth Rollins…and Seth Rollins…and Seth Rollins…and, wait — he left somebody out. Seth Rollins. He says he can’t thank J&J Security or “The Devil’s Favorite Dinosaur”, Kane. He didn’t need Triple H or Steph because he’s that good. He says that he should pretty much be in the Hall of Fame now. He says that Johnny Manziel and LeBron James aren’t bringing titles to Cleveland. He says he’s leaving town and bringing the title with him…
Dean Ambroses’s music hit. He marches down to the ring and attacks Rollins, puts him in the ring, then clotheslines him out the other side. They fight over the Announce Desk and Ambrose kicks him away. Rollins retreats and leaves. Ambrose grabs a chair and a mic and gets in the ring. He says that he got beat last night because the title slipped through his fingers…but Rollins shooting his mouth off reminded him of how much fun it was torturing Rollins. He’s gonna be in the ring until Rollins gets back into the ring.
After a break, Ambrose is still in the ring.
Backstage, Rollins bumps into Triple H and Steph. Triple H tells Rollins that things have been taken care of. Steph can’t believe what Rollins is saying and says that Rollins doesn’t need them. Rollins says that he wants to know what’s next. Triple H says that they are making that decision. Rollins says that he should have a say and Triple H tells him that Rollins won all by himself, so Rollins should trust them to make a choice.
Meanwhile, Ambrose is still hanging out because we’re 30 minutes into a wrestling show that doesn’t need wrestling. Sheamus shows up and says that he’s a winner while Ambrose is a loser. He says that The Authority told him to come down and kick Ambrose’s head off his shoulders.
MATCH #1: Dean Ambrose vs. Sheamus Sheamus knocks Ambrose down, then starts kicking at Ambrose’s injured knee. Ambrose comes back with forearms and a lariat on a whip. Ambrose puts Sheamus in a corner but Sheamus fights out and the fight spills outside. Once the match gets back inside, Ambrose hits a lariat. Sheamus quickly comes back and takes control. After a break, Sheamus is bending Ambrose’s knee but Ambrose kicks out of it and fights back with some punches. Sheamus just clips his knee and tries the Cloverleaf but Ambrose escapes and tosses Sheamus away. Sheamus comes back at Ambrose who hits a Swinging Neckbreaker. Ambrose nails Sheamus with a corner forearm and follows up with a Bulldog. He goes top rope but Sheamus clips his knee, grabs him and hits the Rolling Senton. Sheamus locks in the Cloverleaf but Ambrose don’t tap to nobody and gets to the bottom rope. Ambrose rolls outside so Sheamus starts hitting Ten Beats but Ambrose counters and returns the favor. Sheamus angrily elbows out of it and tries a BROGUEOUTOFNOWHERE but misses and Ambrose kicks him. Ambrose goes top rope with a flying elbow and nearly gets a fall. Sheamus comes back with a kneelift but Ambrose hits the Rebound Clothesline. He goes for Dirty Deeds but Sheamus rolls out of the ring and grabs the MITB case, leaving. All of the sudden, Randy Orton’s music hits and he stalks Sheamus back to the ring. Ambrose grabs Sheamus, tosses him back into the ring and rolls him up for a highly unlikely Distraction Pin to win it at 10:50. WINNER: Dean Ambrose
RATING: **. Your MITB “winner”, ladies and gentlemen. Weak finish to a match where Ambrose practically no-sold everything Sheamus had to offer.
Orton beats up on Sheamus, post-match, whipping him into the crowd barrier and ringpost, then hits Vintage Orton. He goes for the RKO but Sheamus blocks it and rolls out of the ring with his case.
Backstage, Rollins bumps into J&J Security, calling them “Harry and Lloyd”. He says that he hates to be the guy that says, “I told you so”, but he’s that guy. He calls himself “good” but, hey, if J&J want to tell him who his next opponent was, he’ll have them back in his fold. Noble says it’s Joey Mercury. Rollins mocks Noble and says he’s busy living his “WCW glory days”. Mercury says that Rollins is afraid to face him. Rollins scoffs at this but Mercury says it’s the truth because he already lost to Mercury and Noble once and he’s afraid of being embarrassed again.
Cole and the announcers pay tribute to Dusty Rhodes and we get clips of him in NWA.
R-Truth is out, dressed in a sheet and has a toilet plunger for a scepter. He’s on commentary…but soon learns he’s wrestling Barrett. Truth isn’t happy at all, but enters the ring.
MATCH #2: R-Truth vs. King Barrett Barrett kicks Truth’s head off, then punches away at him. He sets up for the Bullhammer but Truth just rolls him for the win at 22 seconds. WINNER: R-Truth
RATING: Two fuck finishes in a row. Barrett is so beyond dead, it’s not even funny.
Post-match, Barrett his ROAL BULLHAMMA MIGGAL then gets on the mic and still declares himself “king”, because that’s apparently still a thing.
Machine Gun Kelly is backstage and a bunch of Divas and Heath Slater pretend they like him. Paige interrupts the party and asks if she can see the Divas right now. Kelly walks off.
NEXT: Kevin Owens is here.
Kevin Owens is out for a promo and says that Cena’s not here tonight but that he’s insulted that Cena thinks that Owens needed his endorsement following his loss at Money in the Bank. He says that he KNOWS he belongs in WWE. He doesn’t need Cena’s approval. He says he isn’t a sore loser, Cena’s a horrible winner. Cena wanted to show Owens up by getting that “handshake” at the end. That’s why he kicked the crap out of Cena. He says that he will always be the guy that beat John Cena…that’s why he wants a re-match — and he wants the United States Championship. Usually, Cena would come out and issue his challenge, but he can’t. So, Owens issues his own “Open Challenge”…and it’s…
Dolph Ziggler.
Ziggler hits the ring with Lana and actually fixed his “Megadeth” jacket. Ziggler says that Owens made his night. He will never defend John Cena but Owens has some guts talking about sacrifice. Ziggler says he’s been through hell to get where he is now. He says that he’s gonna give Owens a fight right now. Lillian Garcia announces that the match is for the NXT Championship — but Owens interrupts her and says this isn’t a title match. Somehow, Ziggler’s pissed off at this, which makes no sense at all since it would be like an MLB team challenging for a minor league championship, but whatever.
MATCH #3: NXT Champion Kevin Owens vs. Dolph Ziggler (w/ Lana) (non-title) It’s a brawl to start, then we go to break. When we come back, Ziggler breaks from a headlock, but Owens puts him back to the mat for a Reverse Senton. He follows by dropping Ziggler’s body on the top rope and gets two for that. He whips Ziggler into the turnbuckles, then stomps and taunts him. Ziggler gets back up and punches away, then sends Owens over the top rope. Owens get up first and tosses Ziggler into the timekeeper’s pit. Ziggler struggles to get back in and barely makes it back into the ring. Owens attacks but Ziggler hits a DDT. After another break, it’s another Owens headlock. Ziggler breaks free again but Owens just continues to mow him down. When Owens goes into the Cannonball, Ziggler counters with a Superkick and gets two. Ziggler goes for a Fame-Asser and hits it on the second try, getting two. Ziggler tries a corner splash but Owens hits Suplex City instead, then a Cannonball. Ziggler kicks out at two. Owens tries a Pop-Up Powerbomb but Ziggler counters into a Zigg Zagg, nearly getting a fall. Ziggler runs at Owens only to see Owens kick Ziggler and hit the Pop-Up Powerbomb to win this at 15:14.
WINNER: Kevin Owens via Pop-Up Powerbomb
RATING: ***. Not a bad match, but it didn’t need two breaks. That really broke up the momentum of this thing for me.
The Divas hang out backstage and talk boys and take Selfies because they’re CHICKS. Paige makes a huge speech about how awful the Bellas are. Summer shuts her up and says it’s all about Paige. Alicia Fox agrees. Paige continues to rant. Naomi is also hesitant to trust Paige…and this goes on and on…and on…The Bellas interrupt and Nikki dares the Divas to side with Paige. They all stand around, apathetic, then leave, one by one. Then Paige leaves. The Bellas act cool and that’s just…whatever. Seeing all the women backstage reminds me of how empty and vapid the Divas Division has become.
MATCH #4: Randy Orton vs. Kane Crowd is dead for this as Orton attacks. Kane fights back, then hits a big boot and headlock. A big, long headlock that sucks half the match. Orton counters with a side suplex but misses a knee drop. Kane hits a Sidewalk Slam for two. Kane puts Orton in the corner and Orton collapses after hitting the buckles. Kane slugs away. Orton fights back but Kane grabs Orton by the throat. A bunch of clunky counters later and Orton clotheslines Kane in the corner. Orton hits a Powerslam in Stride, then goes for Vintage Orton but Sheamus’s music hits and he walks down to the ring. Kane grabs a mic and says that he is making this match a No DQ match. So Sheamus attacks. Kane joins. Big boot by Kane and we’re done with whatever the hell that was at 4:26. WINNER: Kane
RATING: DUD. This match was fucking terrible. It’s a shitty match involving Kane who’s a shitty wrestler in order to push this weird Orton/Sheamus “rivalry” that has no heat whatsoever.
TONIGHT: We get “answers” about why Bray Wyatt interfered in the MITB match.
Backstage, Kane walks and runs into Seth Rollins. Rollins congratulates Kane on his victory tonight and rubs in the fact that he lost, so tonight’s “victory” must have put him in a better mood. Rollins just rants about how cool he is and how much Kane sucks. Kane says that Rollins won one match. A true champ wins over and over, night after night. Rollins says that Kane’s always needed help, whether it’s from Paul Bearer or The Undertaker. Kane grabs Rollins and says to never mention his family again. Rollins tells Kane never to touch him again and says that he hopes that Kane is his next opponent because Kane needs to be put out of his misery.
DUSTY MEMORY: His Hall of Fame moment.
Ryback’s at ringside to do commentary with the guys.
MATCH #5: Big Show vs. The Miz Miz goes to take off his sunglasses. Show attacks. Miz bails and takes off his sunglasses. Show chases him around the ring. Miz escapes. Show chases again. Miz enters the ring. Show chases and then enters the ring, faking a leg injury. Miz attacks and Show pushes him in the corner as the crowd chants “THIS IS AWFUL” which part of the crowd somehow mistakes as “THIS IS AWESOME”. Show slaps at Miz’s chest, then whips him into the corner. Miz boots him on the charge but Show grabs Miz and tosses him out of the ring. He beats on Miz and tosses him into Ryback. Ryback isn’t happy. Meanwhile, Miz slides back into the ring and it’s a countout. WINNER: The Miz via countout
RATING: DUD. This RAW has been a giant piece of shit in terms of actual wrestling matches.
Post-match, Ryback chases Show from the ring. Yay?
When we come back from break, it’s Roman Reigns on the way to the ring as Cole announces…
AT BATTLEGROUND: Bray Wyatt vs. Roman Reigns
Roman says he got very little sleep because of what happened at Money in the Bank. He says he wants Wyatt right now and tells him to get down to the ring. Instead, it’s Wyatt, live from the Steam Room of Doom. Bray does his usual shtick. Roman’s not interested and tells him to get down to the ring. Bray won’t and says that the MITB case was supposed to be his. Instead, Roman ruined his chance. Bray rants and raves about how nothing is paradise and that him and Roman are “opposites”. He has a picture of Roman and his daughter from that PSA that aired. He says that him and Roman are just getting started.
AT MITB: Dusty Finish with the Divas
MATCH #6: Paige vs. The Bella Twins (Nikki & Brie) in a 2-on-1 Handicap Match Paige tries to attack, but the ref holds Paige back. Finally, Brie tags Nikki and Paige just presses her, punching away. She chokes Nikki on the ropes but Brie trips Paige from the outside. Nikki pins for two. Tag to Brie for a Missile Dropkick. Two count. Another long chinlock spot. Paige finally breaks it and hits the running knee. Two count. Tag to Nikki and they double team Paige, dropping her on the mat, face-first. Two count. Nikki kinda apathetically kicks at Paige, then puts on Head Scissors. Paige counters with a Bridge Pin but Nikki kicks out and tags Brie who accidentally clocks her sister on a double team attempt. Brie gets up and runs at Paige. Paige kicks her and hits a series of clotheslines, then kicks at Brie’s head. She tosses Brie into Nikki and hits the Ram-Paige. Nikki saves the pin, then tags in and hits a forearm and Rack Attack to win it at 5:34. WINNERS: #BELLASWINLOL
RATING: 1/2 a *. Too slow, and boring as hell. The match is uninteresting. There isn’t anything left here.
TONIGHT: We will find out who Rollins’ next opponent is.
NEXT: MGK performs! So, it’s a good time for me to start dinner.
Anyhow, Machine Gun Kelly performs. Garcia says that he’s “Cleveland’s own” which is weird since nobody seems to care. The performance fucking sucks. Why is this person here?At the end, Kevin Owens attacks him after MGK shoves him and hits a Pop-Up Powerbomb into a part of the stage. He just stares, then walks off. Everyone tends to Machine Gun Kelly and we actually get a replay. PLUS, a “moments ago” thing when we come back from break.
Cole plugs “Terminator: Genesys”.
MATCH #7: The New Day (Xavier Woods, Big E & Kofi Kingston) vs. Neville & WWE Tag Team Champions The Primetime Players (Titus O’Neil & Darren Young) Young and Woods start off and Young finally manages to hit a strike or two before Kofi tags in. Young kicks at Kofi who tags Woods back in. Young clotheslines him and tags in Titus who drops Young on top of Woods. Kofi flies at Titus. Kofi gets dumped across the ring. E attacks and Titus tosses him from the ring. Neville splashes everyone outside. After break, Woods has Young in a headlock. In and out tags as New Days works Woods over with kicks and a headlock. Tag to Woods and a double axehandle from the top rope. Two count. More Young peril. Young breaks a headlock and it’s a hot tag to Neville who kicks away at Woods. Neville kicks him in the head, then dropkicks everyone in the heel corner. Woods and Neville counter one another until Neville puts Woods to the mat. Neville goes for the Red Arrow but it’s chaos when guys come in to botch it. Titus hits Clash of the Titus. More chaos and Young hits a Gutbuster on Kofi and it’s Neville to finish it with the Red Arrow to win it all around 9 minutes. WINNERS: PTP & Neville
RATING: *1/2. This wasn’t terrible but incredibly disjointed. Neville didn’t really fit here and the match really suffered after he became involved.
Post-match, we get a look at Cena/Owens and ANOTHER look at Owens destroying the idiot rapper. Apparently, Kelly was badly hurt.
Backstage, Dean Ambrose throws darts at a picture of Seth Rollins. Kane interrupts. Dean laughs and says he can’t picture Kane as a champion. Kane says he’s been champ, unlike Dean. Dean says that’s true…but that was THEDEMONKANE, not kiss-ass Kane. Dean says that, in the end, Kane’s just doing a job and he’s loyal to The Authority. Dean says he lives for moments like last night. He says he liked getting a taste of the title at MITB and he says he won’t stop until he finally has the title. Dean asks what Kane lives for. Kane stands there, a bit taken back.
NEXT: We find out who Seth Rollins will fight next.
DUSTY MEMORY: Dusty ranting a lot.
TONIGHT: Dusty Rhodes: Celebrating the Dream on WWE Network
The Authority hits the ring. Steph apologizes for what happened with MGK. Cleveland cheers the concept of MGK getting beat up as Steph says that Owens will be reprimanded. They are announcing who Seth will face next. Triple H says that a lot of WWE superstars feel as though they deserve a shot…but it won’t be J&J or Kane or Dean Ambrose. Steph asks Triple H who it could possibly be.
Seth Rollins’ music hits and he makes his way down. He shakes hands with Triple H and Steph and then gets a mic. He tells them that it doesn’t matter who gets picked. Rollins says that they’ve been right about him all along. Nobody is capable of beating him. He’s ready to beat his next opponent. He will make The Authority proud. Triple H says that might be true. Rollins has beaten everyone. He even beat Ambrose with no help. Steph says that she’s proud of him, too, but that he’s ripe for the pickin’. Plus, he’s been testing their patience as well.
Triple H says that they invested a lot in the future and in him and, sometimes, you need to step back and check out your investment. Sometimes, you put pressure on a piece of coal. If it’s worth something, it won’t crumble, it will become a diamond. Triple H asks if he’s ready for the pressure. Seth nods and smiles and says that he’s ready…
…and Brock Lesnar’s music hits.
Brock makes his way to the ring (with a brand-new shirt reading “SUPLEX CITY” – remind me to scoop that fucker up) with Paul Heyman. They get in and shake hands with The Authority. Seth can’t believe it and just stands there in blinking disbelief, looking sick to his stomach. Brock and Seth just look at one another. Rollins backs up a bit with Brock matching his steps. Rollins gets out of the ring and leaves.
He slowly walks to the backstage area as Brock just stares a hole in his head from 50 yards out. Cole says that Brock Lesnar will face Rollins at Battleground.
We go off the air.
OVERALL: The Lesnar bit was a nice bookend to an otherwise blah show. It was basically Kevin Owens being used as sugar to coat the flaming dogshit that was the mid-card. Honestly, Sheamus with the case isn’t compelling. Neither is his beef with Orton or Orton’s match with Kane that took a left-turn into stupid. I don’t buy the PTP as tag champs and the mis-match with Neville was just odd to me. The Divas division is a dumpster fire…I mean, you look at WWE and they’re patching the ship’s hull with Scotch tape they’ve bought in bulk. Even as good as Lesnar is, I’m kind of wanting to know how he went from being a casualty of Stephanie McMahon because he straight up murdered the crew of RAW to being a guy they can trust. Nothing on this show makes any real sense anymore.
**Spoilers through the fifth season finale of Game of Thrones**
Well, that’s it, folks. Another season down and now we’re left to wait an entire year until a handful of questions can be answered and another hundred characters can die. The season five finale of Game of Thrones, “Mother’s Mercy” was a gruesome affair, probably the most brutal of any Thrones finale, and it felt fitting given the tone of the entire season. I don’t know if they’re making salary cap room for season six or what, but goodness, HBO. I see where you stand on happiness.
Winterfell
Last week, Stannis did the unforgivable. He lost a significant amount of fans by listening to Melisandre, as well as half of his army and his wife. Things are bleak for Stannis, but still he presses on, determined to chase his destiny, even if it means sacrificing the rest of his loyal followers. As he stands outside of Winterfell preparing a siege, Ramsay Bolton and his men charge out of Winterfell and slaughter the Baratheon army.
Miraculously, Stannis survives the initial onslaught, even retaining enough strength to fight off two much younger soldiers. But that final act, as well as the loss of everything he had worked for, breaks Stannis, and he slumps against a tree, waiting for death. Brienne appears at that moment, in what feels like her first scene of the season, and gives an impassioned speech about getting revenge for Stannis’ murder of Renly. Resigned to his fate, ever the stoic Stannis, he tells her to go on and do her duty. Brienne pulls back the sword and slashes as the screen fades to black. If Stannis is dead, it would be the first fade to black death we’ve seen thus far, but I have a feeling there’s a reason for not showing the dead king. That being said, if Brienne did do her duty, that means that the winner of the War of the Five Kings is Balon Greyjoy and I think that is only because the writers forgot he was around.
While doing her duty, Brienne misses the signal she’s been waiting for all season, as Sansa finally lights a candle in the broken tower of Winterfell. GIRL. SRSLY. WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG. As soon as Littlefinger left, you should have lit that candle. However, it seems Sansa needed to pick her lock with a corkscrew first in order to level high enough to light a candle. I don’t make the RPG rules for Game of Thrones, but their skill tree is busted.
As Sansa returns to her room, she runs into our favorite Overly Attached Girlfriend who threatens to mutilate the poor Stark girl because goodness knows she hasn’t had enough of that, but Theon intervenes and booty bumps Myranda to her death. The pair of prisoners, like Stannis, soon realize they’ve made a huge mistake and jump off the side of a CASTLE WALL into a snow bank. Apparently Sansa forgot what happened to Bran in episode one.
Braavos
We start with Ser Meryn Trant being his usual, no good, very bad self while he beats young girls, and I have to sigh at this development. Yes, Ser Meryn is a bad dude. We all know that. We’ve known such for years now. Instead, I would have preferred a more complicated decision for Arya. Instead of having Ser Meryn visit a brothel to torture little girls, have her catch him doing something nice. Then when she gets the opportunity to kill him, she is torn between getting vengeance for Syrio or leaving him be. Naturally, driven by her need for revenge she would kill him anyway, which would still lead to her punishment from Jaqen. It would have been much more interesting to watch her internal struggle than her killing a dude who is so easy to hate. What happened to shades of grey, Game of Thrones? HM? Oh, and Arya’s blind, so…cliffhanger.
Meereen
Tyrion, Jorah, and Daario are writing a ballad about missing their Queen when Grey Worm shows up and is like, “What gives, you whiners? I almost DIED. Let’s go get her!” Daario reminds the Unsullied that he’s still kind of cut in half and that Meereen needs capable leaders while Dany is gone. Tyrion, Missandei, and Grey Worm are elected to stay while Jorah and Daario hop on horses to go find the woman they love. Tyrion then gets a visit from our favorite eunuch, Varys, and knowing what I know from the books, I was TERRIFIED something horrible was about to happen to Tyrion. Instead, they just chat. Phew.
Dany is vacationing in what looks like Northern Ireland with her eldest son and after visiting all the sights, Drogon no longer wants to be seen with her. He goes all scumbag Charizard and doesn’t listen to Dany because she doesn’t have enough city-conquering badges and he’ll use Fly when he damn well pleases.
When Dany finally gets sick of Drogon’s teenager shit, she decides to go off and look for food herself, except instead of food she accidentally bumps into a Dothraki khalasar. They circle her singing, “Ring around the Khaleesi, pocket full of arakh-ies. Stabby, stabby, the Queen falls down.” And then Thrones ends another segment on a cliffhanger.
Dorne
Down at the docks of Sunspear, everyone is saying their goodbyes, apologizing for all the attempted murder like any normal group of soon-to-be-in-laws. Doran brings his favorite chair with him to bid the Lannisters and his son adieu and Ellaria gives Myrcella the most awkward goodbye kiss ever seen on TV. Jaime and Myrcella then share a moment on their boat and the former decides that now is the best time to tell her the truth about her daddy. Myrcella is all, “Silly Uncle Jaime, everyone knows you’re my Papa Bear.” Jaime is relieved and gets to understand how Stannis felt while awkwardly hugging his daughter. The fuzzy good feelings last all of ten seconds because then Myrcella gets a bloody nose and collapses. Gotta figure Cersei is going to be pretty upset about Jaime’s ability to return her daughter. He’s 0 – 2 in protecting his children. Ellaria and the Sand Snakes stand on the docks cackling over poisoning the princess and as the scene ends we don’t know if Myrcella is dead or just sleeping, so…cliffhanger.
King’s Landing
After days of licking water off the floor like a dog, Cersei finally gives in to the High Sparrow and confesses her sins. She conveniently omits her nearly lifelong affair with her twin brother, but hey, Cersei can be a convincing liar, especially when she wants to get back to her suffering son. In order to atone for her incest and adultery, Cersei is forced to walk naked through the streets of King’s Landing until she reaches the Red Keep.
I make no secret of my love for both Cersei and Lena Headey, but there’s no way anyone can argue that Headey didn’t NAIL that scene. Her mixture of disgust, despair, and determination was nothing short of brilliant. As the crowd throws food and other questionable things at her, she looks up to the Red Keep for strength, and I felt as though I could see her thought process. “I’m almost to Tommen. Almost to Tommen. Tommen. Tommen.” With her hair shorn, feet bloodied, and body covered in feces, the hated Cersei Lannister became sympathetic. However, Kevan Lannister and the rest of the Small Council have no such concern for the Queen Regent as she stumbles through the Red Keep doors. Only Qyburn rushes to her aid, offering support. He then introduces her to the newest member of the Kingsguard, whom I assume will come in handy when Cersei has her trial against the Faith Militant.
Castle Black
Jon and Sam have a heart to heart in which Sam asks to head to Oldtown with Gilly and the wee baby Sam so that he might train to become a maester and be more useful to the Night’s Watch. Jon hesitantly agrees and is glad the end of the world is working out well for someone.
Melisandre then returns to the Wall with news of Stannis’ defeat, as well as the death of Shireen, which hits Davos so hard that I hurt more watching his reaction than seeing the death itself.
Ah, and now we’ve reached the moment that book readers have been waiting for since the Red Wedding. Jon is doing his Lord Commander mail duties when Olly bursts through the doors with a smile on his face because there’s a wildling who knows about Jon’s uncle Benjen. Jon leaps from his chair in excitement; if he can find his uncle, maybe then he’ll have someone to turn to for advice on how to unite crow and wildling. Finally! Except, when Jon gets to the wildling, he instead finds a sign labeled, “Traitor.” The brothers of the Night’s Watch take turns stabbing Jon through the chest, ending with an “Et tu, Olly” moment, and Jon collapses to the ground, lifeless. For what it’s worth, I refuse to believe he’s actually dead.
Random Thoughts
I got played HARD with the “Previously on Game of Thrones” segment. At first I was mad they would remind us of both Benjen and Syrio, because it felt like a spoiler. By the time Olly appeared with news of Benjen, I was simultaneously excited to finally learn what happened to uncle Stark and annoyed that the shock had been ruined for me. However, I was trolled just as hard as Jon.
Every single plot ended on a cliffhanger. Every.single.one. You don’t want to give the fans ANY satisfaction, HBO? ANY happiness?
When Jon falls to the ground and the camera zooms in on his face, you can see what looks like a final breath, but then also a subtle change in his eye color. Now, maybe I’ve spent too much theorizing about the outcome of Game of Thrones, but I cannot help but read into that action.
ABC Family’s Shadowhunters have added to their ranks Jade Hassouné, Curtis Morgan, Joel Labelle, and Jordan Hudyma.
Morgan plays Emil Pangborn and Hudyma is Samuel Blackwell, both are shadowhunters and followers of Valentine Morgenstern. Labelle portrays New York werewolf pack member Alaric and Hassouné is fairy knight Meliorn.
I am really loving the diverse casting!
Jade Hassoune as MeliorneCurtis Morgan as PangbornJoel Labelle as AlaricJordan Hudyma as Blackwell
As always we have even more behind the scenes content for you!
Shadowhunters is based on The Mortal Instruments book series by Cassandra Clare and follows 18 year-old Clary Fray as she discovers the world of the Nephilim (humans with angelic blood) and their battles against demons who seek to overtake the mundane world. The series will air on ABC Family in 2016.
Veep Season 4, Episode 10 “Election Night” Air date: June 14, 2015
Of course Veep wouldn’t have settled for something as simple as winning or losing an election. This season has been a relentless gauntlet of setbacks and controversy for Selina Meyer–political quagmires over which members of her team have variously quit, been fired, or offered up as a scapegoat. It seems only fitting that the election outcome be mired in the same disarray and uncertainty that defines the series as a whole, but seemed particularly pervasive this past season. “Election Night” is the culmination of two entire season’s worth of Selina’s election campaign, and doesn’t buckle under the pressure. It’s a wonderfully tense, hilarious finale that provides some great character moments amidst the usual chaos of Veep.
Much of the episode takes place in the hotel suite “war room” as Selina and her team await the results of the election, while Dan and Amy have secured appearances covering the election as talking heads on CNN. Though the finale is largely focused on Selina and the election, all of the characters were still great tonight in their slightly smaller roles, from Jonah finally getting his fifteen minutes of fame as the face of workplace bullying and genital health, to Bill’s resentment and anxiety about his probable imprisonment. As for members of the core team, Gary and Mike offer up some amusing moments of physical comedy while Ben and Kent remain their usual bastion of delightful deadpan.
What really makes “Election Night” so great, however, is its emotion. Veep is as masterful with its quiet character moments as it is with explosive, profanity-laced meltdowns, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus runs the entire gamut as she reacts to every new twist and development. Her aloof, distracted introspection in the beginning of the episode gives way to a rollercoaster of elation and defeat as the results come trickling in, before exploding into the frustration and fury we know and love.
The heart of episode is the closure it provides for two of Selina’s closest relationships: Catherine and Amy. After spending much of the past two seasons (and her entire life, really) at the service of Selina’s career, Catherine made one of her biggest sacrifices yet by breaking off her engagement to her lobbyist fiancé last episode. In a brief reprieve from election results, the two get a quiet twenty minutes alone for what passes in the Meyer household as mother-daughter bonding (“It always feels so much longer with Catherine”), and Selina manages a sincere apology before returning to her usual self.
Amy’s loyalty, meanwhile, compels her to leave the talk show and see the election through at Selina’s side. Their reunion is beautifully understated and human–neither are really sure how to react initially, but Amy is the first person Selina turns to when the possibility of an electoral tie dawns on them. Finally unable to keep it together any longer, Selina breaks down sobbing into Amy’s arms. Veep is best known for its incredible dialogue and comedy, but these small, nearly wordless moments are the beating heart that makes it one of the best series on television.
We’ll have to wait until next season to see whether the house elects Selina as president, loses to O’Brien, or whether through a loophole in the voting process, Tom James becomes president.
“That whole scrotum situation is really working out for you, sir!”
I loved all the little one liners as the various results came in: “Okay settle down. A bowl of hair could win those states.”
“O’Brien can’t be president. He’s still contracted to be the KFC logo.”
Selina knows exactly who’s interrupting her “quality time” with Catherine, another great moment that speaks to how tightly knit the team is: “Get the fuck out of here, Kent!” “… Apologies.”
I’m sorry, I know Ant-man releases in just over a month but I simply cannot bring myself to care. As much as I love Paul Rudd, the excitement isn’t there for me. Therefore, I am looking forward to future Marvel movies and have decided to take it upon myself to begin casting characters whom I believe Marvel should include. With the exception of Captain Marvel and Spider-Man, none of the other characters in this list have even been mentioned, so Marvel, if you’re reading this, take note.
Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel – Katee Sackhoff
Movie(s): Only Captain Marvel for now, but I’d also guess Guardians 2 and Infinity War.
Spider-Woman was the hardest one to cast on this list solely because she’s such a complicated character. She’s conflicted and cynical, but also at times funny and sweet. I’ll say this: whomever is cast as Spider-Women needs to have a good rapport/banter with Carol Danvers.
Monica Rambeau/Spectrum – Gina Torres
Movie: Black Panther, Captain Marvel, and possibly Doctor Strange.
Look at her. LOOK AT HER. She’s perfect.
Adam Warlock/Magus – William Gregory Lee
Movie: Guardians 2, Doctor Strange, and Infinity War.
This was another difficult casting and I think it might be better to go with a relatively unknown for the good guy/bad guy Adam Warlock, so that’s I chose Lee. However, I’m open to suggestions, Marvel. Just run them by me first, obviously.
Phyla-Vell/Quasar – Emily Blunt
Movie(s): Guardians 2, Infinity War, and maybe Inhumans.
While I would be okay with Emily Blunt as Captain Marvel or Spider-Woman (or anyone), I’d really like to see her instead as the aggressive Phyla-Vell.
Richard Rider/Nova – Pedro Pascal
Movie(s): Guardians 2 and Infinity War.
I just think he needs to be in more things.
Cosmos – Nathan Fillion
Movie: Guardians 2
Brief Guardians of the Galaxy cameo aside, I’ve thought for a while now that Fillion should voice the lovable Russian canine, Cosmos. (I’m throwing in all sorts of Guardians characters that I’m all but certain won’t make the cut, but a girl can dream, right?)
Miles Morales/Spider-Man – Alfred Enoch
Movie(s): Civil War, Spider-Man, and Infinity War (and possibly a dozen other films).
Yes, I know that Marvel is already searching for a young, white Spider-Man, but Marvel is wrong. Miles Morales would be a better fit for the current movies, giving them the chance to wipe the slate clean from previous Spider-Man incarnations. Alfred Enoch is definitely capable enough to capture Miles’ complexity, especially since Spider-Man will be getting his own movie.
Kitty Pryde – Ellen Page
Movie(s): Infinity War and Inhumans.
Yes, yes something about not having the rights to X-Men but look: if they can get around that hurdle for Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver by making them inhumans, they can do the same for Kitty Pryde. The world needs more Ellen Page and I’ve enjoyed Kitty’s involvement in the current run of the Legendary Star-Lord.
Blackagar Boltagon/Black Bolt – Vin Diesel
Movies(s): Inhumans
It’s a pretty big rumor right now that Vin Diesel will take on the role of King of the Inhumans, which wouldn’t take away from his work in Guardians since Groot only says, “I am Groot” and it’s not like he has to kill anything. I am on board with that casting.
Because of the large amount of Marvel characters available for Phase 3 movies, obviously I am missing a ton. If there are any you would like to see added to this list, let me know in the comments. and I might just give in to your whims.
Following last week’s arbitration where Richard confessed that he had used Hooli equipment (albeit once) to work on Pied Piper; this week’s season finale opens as Hooli’s legal team goes through the house prepping for the all but inevitable acquisition. Meanwhile Jared’s Schrodinger conundrum, which led to a museum technician clinging to life at the bottom of a crevasse continues to play out live on their website (and in stunning clarity). This tragedy is generating a substantial number of viewers, but despite this morbid silver lining the gang is depressed about the company’s imminent loss. They weigh the option of destroying all the code they’ve built. Their Intersite debacle has already shown a pattern of incompetency and nuking the servers would prevent Gavin Belson from reaping any benefit from their tech. But Richard, ever the idealist, gives a rousing speech about how that notion goes counter to everything they stand for.
Viewership keeps climbing as various outlets provide links to their site. Eventually Manny Pacquiao (you know, that Filipino Legislator) tweets out their link to his two million followers. It’s a fantastic moment – right up until they realize they’ve become so viral that they’ll need to massively scale up their systems to accommodate for the increased traffic. This leads to a frantic series of moments where the group’s ingenuity and teamwork is showcased along with their pithy insults. Richard gets pulled away from this hysteria when their litigator informs him that the judge has moved the ruling up an hour. He heads to the courthouse but gives them instructions to keep the stream going for as long as they can.
Amidst the insanity of Gilfoyle knocking down walls, Jared tries to convince Erlich that he won’t sell his house – a decision he toiled over from his car to the front door earlier that day. We’re offered a deeper glimpse into Jared’s unflappable optimism and awkwardly cheery demeanor, as he’s able to grasp the beauty in the gritty chaos surrounding them. His ability to appreciate this environment, even as it’s in its dying days is absurdly humorous and touchingly enviable.
At the courthouse, Gavin and Richard encounter one another in the bathroom. Gavin one-ups the Logan Beekman power move of “straightening another man’s tie”, by actually knotting Richard’s for him. He gloats about winning the case; stooping so low as to taunt Richard with the original ten million dollars for Pied Piper.
Turmoil continues to abound at the Bachman residence as Gilfoyle pins the breakers open (a huge fire hazard). They implore Erlich to help, but he can’t due to his carpel tunnel syndrome. At that moment the realtor arrives with couple interested in Erlich’s property. After learning that they intend to tear the house down, Erlich slams the door in her face, dons his protective wrist guards, and gets down to coding – something he’s surprisingly adept at. In the words of Jared, it’s “magical.” With their combined effort, they’re able to keep the stream going well past their theoretical limit until rescuers come to the technician’s aid. They bask in their achievement as Erlich’s house burns from the literally on fire servers.
However this victory is short lived, as the arbiter begins to reveal his ruling saying that based on the contract Hooli has a right to Pied Piper’s underlying IP. Hearing this decision mixed with Belson’s smug attitude causes Richard to have a change of heart and he texts Jared to do, what just hours earlier, he told them not to do – destroy everything. Those in the house read the text, now bummed about its actuality.
And then the curve ball happens. The arbiter goes on to detail that the contract Donald (aka Jared) signed was in violation of a number of California laws and that Richard’s contract too was not valid – thus Hooli has no claim over anything Richard created, especially not Pied Piper.
It’s at this moment that anyone watching the episode started yelling at their TV for Richard to text Jared the new update. But Mike Judge has screwed with us for the past nine weeks and he’s certainly going to do it during this episode, so we’re left to stew in the juices of Richard’s decision as we wait for him to connect the dots. When finally, after painstaking seconds that feel like hours, Richard realizes the error of his ways the toying with us really begins. Unfortunate circumstances befall Richard one by one as he tries desperately to get back to the house before they nuke the system. Luckily these unfortunate circumstances are lightened with a series of procrastinating tasks back at the house that make a person laugh for the simple fact that’s easier than pulling your own hair out. Since we’ve been toyed with such heartbreaking pitfalls over this season, the fact that Pied Piper might nuke their system and have to start from scratch seems to be a very real possibility. Richard arrives seconds after Gilfoyle has clicked the button. “Uh-oh.” But the code doesn’t work due to Dinesh’s bad or Gilfoyle’s poor hardware – either way Pied Piper is saved.
The fallout from the lawsuit is felt in other areas of Silicon Valley. Gavin now has to face a very upset board or directors without a viable Nucleus product. Nelson’s meteoric rise at Hooli may be on the verge of hitting even greater heights. And at Raviga, Laurie has purchased Russ’s share of Pied Piper from him – something that has dire consequences. Later that night, Richard gets a call from Monica, and while we hoped the call would inform Richard that she quit her job at Raviga – it’s decidedly more realistic. Those at Raviga (her and Laurie) had “an emergency board meeting” and Monica, siding with Laurie’s newly acquired 2 board seats, stabs Richard in the back ousting him from his role of CEO mere hours after winning his case.
But in all honesty can anyone blame them? Richard may be brilliant, but he’s no CEO. He lacks the cutthroat attitude and general business acumen to keep Pied Piper alive. With all of the struggles they’ve endured from this season, it makes sense. Perhaps this crushing personal blow might be the final push he needs to become a shrewd businessman but that’s wishful thinking that I’ll have roughly 42 weeks to mull over.
Monday night at Sony’s E3 press conference a long awaited announcement finally happened. Final Fantasy7 is being remade.
Final Fantasy 7 will be available first on Playstation 4 and head to other platforms at a later date. You can see the official announcement trailer below.
Does dead mean dead on Game of Thrones? The Workprint’s Jen Stayrook digs into what death means in Westeros.
**Spoilers through the fifth season of Game of Thrones–Major character death discussion**
Game of Thrones has been absolutely bananas this season with killing off characters. Clearly they must be making salary cap space for next season because even book readers have been appalled by the massacre wrought by showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. We were told at the beginning of the season that things would get brutal in George R. R. Martin’s fantasy world and I, like many book readers, held my head high. I had survived the Red Wedding. I had read all of the books and the new chapters of The Winds of Winter. Surely, I was safe. I have already suffered; surely the show could not compare to what I had seen. Alas, I am a sweet summer child and I know nothing.
That’s the thing about being a Game of Thrones fan; no one is safe. The moment Ned Stark lost his head, fans the world over realized this wasn’t your average fantasy tale. Things were about to get real. That being said, there have been enough characters who have escaped death to question whether or not a certain main character may yet live. Not long ago, Thrones‘ author said in an EW interview: “If there’s one thing we know in A Song of Ice and Fire is that death is not necessarily permanent.”
And Martin is right. In the world of Game of Thrones, we’ve learned that someone is not dead until we have watched them die in painful, gruesome fashion. Think of all of the main character deaths we’ve seen thus far: Ned, Khal Drogo, Robb, Catelyn, Joffrey, Oberyn, Ygritte, Tywin, Ser Barristan, Shireen, the list goes on and on and on. There’s a saying among book readers that “Someone is not truly dead until we’ve seen it.” And that’s certainly true in Martin’s novels. There are several instances in the books of “fake” deaths. Davos, Bran, Rickon, Theon, and Arya all have moments when readers thought they were dead, only to find that somehow they had managed to survive. In the show, however, such fake outs haven’t really occurred. With the exception of Stannis in the most recent episode, we haven’t seen a “fade to black” death. (Which means Stannis could also be alive.)
How then, could our new favorite Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch still yet live? We saw him stabbed repeatedly by his brothers of the Night’s Watch, once in the heart, and then bleed out slowly over the snow as the life drained from his puppy dog eyes.
The coincidence is not lost on many fans that Melisandre happened to arrive at Castle Black just before Jon’s stabbing. Red Priests, like Melisandre and Thoros of Myr, are capable of bringing someone back from the dead through prayers, as Thoros had done several times with Beric Dondarrion. Moreover, as we saw just last night in the season five finale, necromancy is a magic used in Westeros. Qyburn brings Gregor Clegane back to life as the new Kingsguard, Ser Robert Strong. And finally, there’s the issue of warging. Warging isn’t heavily covered in the show, but we have precedence of a person warging just before death. Orell, the wildling who traveled with Jon and Ygritte was a warg and after Jon kills him in his escape, Orell wargs into his eagle, dive-bombing Snow, clawing at his face.
The prevailing theory for Jon Snow’s resurrection is that Melisandre will use her connection with the Lord of Light to bring Jon back. Thoros of Myr brought Berric back from much worse, so a few vicious stab wounds should be a piece of cake for the Red Woman. For comparison’s sake, here’s what Berric has “survived” through:
Impaled through the chest with a lance, by Ser Gregor Clegane, “The Mountain That Rides”, during the Battle at the Mummer’s Ford.
Knifed in the belly.
Shot in the back with an arrow.
An axe driven into his side.
Captured by Lannister soldiers, they executed him for treason – but unable to decide whether to hang him or stick a dagger through his eye, they just did both.
Cleaved through the torso by a sword-stroke from Sandor Clegane, “The Hound”, during a trial by combat.
Of course, we also know that Ghost is still at Castle Black since he so conveniently rescued Sam and Gilly from other diabolical members of the Night’s Watch. Even though we don’t see the telltale white eyes of warging in Jon, there is a possibility of seeing such early on in season six. Worst case scenario, Jon dies and joins the army of the White Walkers, reuniting with the awesome Karsi in the process.
There’s a recent EW interview with Kit Harington in which the actors proclaims that “Jon is dead.” As much as I hated Jon in the beginning, I cannot believe this to be true. We spent five years following Jon as he grew into a hero and if that was all for naught, no matter how rooted in reality we want Game of Thrones to be, it is still a story with a purpose. He can’t be dead. Call it denial, insanity, misplaced hope, whatever, but Harington is an actor, an actor who wants to sell his abilities. Completely dismissing his death with rumors of survival would ruin his final scene.
Besides, Harington has done the whole, “I don’t even know if I’m still alive” bit before. In an interview with Extra, the actor said, “If they keep killing characters at this rate… you’re going to have to have a whole new cast… that’s the funny thing isn’t it… because we’re going back for Season 5… I can’t even tell you if I’m in Season 5.”
I suspect keeping Harington’s appearance on the set a secret will prove a fruitless task. He’s much too big of a name to hide, so in a few month’s time we’ll get our answer about whether or not Jon Snow is really gone from Westeros. Until then, what is dead may never die, but rises again harder and stronger.
Talltale and Skybound is set to deliver the background story of Michonne, the iconic character from Image Comics’ The Walking Dead comic book series with The Walking Dead: Michonne – A Telltale Games Mini-Series.
The story will “explores her untold journey during the time between issues #126 and #139.” The mini series will span three episodes and allowing players to “discover what took Michonne away from Rick, Ezekiel, and the rest of her trusted group… and what brought her back.”
“In many ways, Michonne herself is a reflection of the world of The Walking Dead. She is brutal and cold on the outside, but deep beneath what is broken, she remains hopeful, trying to claw her way out of the darkness that surrounds her,” said Robert Kirkman, creator of The Walking Dead. “In our effort to bring the world of the comic and the world of the Telltale series closer together, there is no greater character than Michonne to help bridge that gap.”
“Michonne’s complexity and range make her an ideal lead for the compelling interactive drama fans have come to expect from Telltale,” said Kevin Bruner, Co-Founder and CEO of Telltale Games. “With this mini-series, players will experience Michonne’s challenges first-hand, and the choices they make will shape her journey. We’re incredibly honored by Robert for the opportunity to share this untold story in The Walking Dead universe.”
And Barrett already jobbed to Truth on the Money in the Bank Kick-Off Show.
Let’s see who wins and loses this thing…
We start with a Dusty Rhodes memorial. We ring the bell ten times as WWE’s roster is on the entrance ramp to pay their respects.
Then we get the MITB sizzle reel, showing who’s on the card as well as snippets from past matches.
We are LIVE(!!!) from Columbus, Ohio for WWE Money in the Bank!!!
Cole, JBL and King man the big desk while Marcelo Rodriguez and Carlos Cabrera have the Spanish Desk.
And we are starting with the MITB Contract Match…
MATCH #1: Randy Orton vs. Neville vs. Kane vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Kofi Kingston vs. Sheamus vs. Roman Reigns in a Money in the Bank Ladder Match It’s a Pier Six to start with Kofi avoiding everyone to set up a ladder. He starts to climb — and everyone turns around, sees him and pulls him down, stomping a mudhole in him. Every single guy starts climbing but each guy gets pulled down by somebody else. Kane and Sheamus clear the ring. Sheamus knocks Kane down and climbs the ladder. Kane gets to him and pulls him down, knocking him to the mat. Ziggler enters the ring and DDT’s Kane. He climbs the ladder but Sheamus stops him. Ziggler tries the DDT but Sheamus counters into White Noise. Reigns enters the ring with a ladder but Sheamus kicks him out and takes the ladder. Orton attacks but Sheamus nails im and sends Orton into the crowd barrier outside. Sheamus grabs another ladder — but fails to see Kofi climbing the ladder. He nearly grabs the case but Sheamus comes in to pull him down and knocks over the ladder. Sheamus sets the ladder up in the corner, picks Kofi up in White Noise but Kofi counters and kicks at Sheamus’s legs. Kofi gets on the top buckle and flies at Sheamus who catches him. Neville enters the ring and it’s chaos with Sheamus getting dumped. Kofi sets up a ladder but it’s not centered. He climbs and him and Neville fight each other off of it. Roman pulls Neville down, then knocks Kofi off. Roman moves the ladder and battles Kofi, powerbombing Kofi into the ladder that Sheamus put in the corner. Neville rushes at Reigns and tries a Frankensteiner but Reigns counters it and powerbombs Neville into Kofi!
Reigns climbs the ladder but Kane rushes in to stop him. Kane hits a Chokeslam off the ladder. Kane climbs and Orton gets in, hitting an RKO. Orton climbs the ladder but Kofi is up, grabbing Orton’s leg. Orton falls and hits the RKO on the way down. Orton looks up — and Neville springboards to the ladder! He climbs but Orton gets up, yanks him down — AND RKO’S HIM! Wow. Sheamus gets in and climbs and actually has his hands on the hook of the case — but Orton pulls him down and knocks him to the mat. Orton climbs again but Sheamus pounds on his back and it’s a fist fight until Sheamus nails him with a Brogue Kick. Sheamus sets up the ladder and here comes Ziggler to fight him off. Ziggler grabs the case and NEARLY unhooks it but Sheamus gets in the way and it’s a brawl at the top of the ladder. Sheamus climbs and grabs the case hook but Ziggler punches him. Sheamus grabs the case but Ziggler’s had enough and climbs around, putting the Sleeper Hold on Sheamus — then hits a HUGE Zigg-Zagg off the top of the ladder! Neville hits the top buckle and hits the Red Arrow but appears to have injured his wrist on the fall. Ziggler and Neville both begin their climb up the ladder and battle at the top. Finally, Ziggler is knocked off! Neville grabs the case…but Kane is there to pull him down. Ziggler comes in and hits a Superkick on Kane.
Ziggler and Neville grab the ladder and run at Kane who just destroys the two with it. He baseball slide kicks it into them from the inside. He turns around and Kane eats a Superman Punch from Roman Reigns. Reigns hits a Suicide Dive to everyone…and then the New Day shows up, putting Kofi back into the ring. They toss a ladder in and stand guard as they watch Kofi climb. Suddenly, Reigns nails them all with a Sitting Dropkick. Kofi is near the top. Reigns races in and starts pulling him down. Kofi struggles with Reigns until Reigns grabs him and POWERBOMBS HIM INTO EVERYONE OUTSIDE. He goes for the ladder and has his hands — Wyatt Edit…what the holy hell? Bray Wyatt shows up, knocks the ladder down and hits Sister Abigail on Reigns. He leaves. Sheamus climbs and fights off Nevill to grab the case and win the match at around 21:00. WINNER: Sheamus
RATING: **3/4. Too much of these guys just laying around doing nothing. And, really? Sheamus? I like Sheamus a lot but this is random as hell with a twist that makes no sense whatsoever as Sheamus really doesn’t fit into the title picture.
Renee Young interviews Paige backstage. She says she will bring “change” to the WWE Divas division “for Dusty” whatever the hell that means.
MATCH #2: Nikki Bella (champion) vs. Paige (challenger) for the WWE Divas Championship The two women lock up a couple times then battle in the corner with Paige kicking at Nikki’s head. Nikki gets out of the ring, clutching her cheek, then gets back in only to have Paige toss her out the other side. Paige his a 360 Flipping Kick off the mat, then gets up on the crowd barrier. Nikki grabs her and drops her, face-first. She rams Paige’s back into the edge of the mat, then rolls her into the ring for a two count and chinlock. Paige breaks and hits a Sunset Flip. Nikki rolls out of it but Paig e knees her in the face. Two count. Nikki recovers and hits Body Scissors. Paige breaks but Nikki knocks her down and it’s Chinlock of Doom #2. Paige breaks and hits a High Kick to Nikki for two. Paige goes for the PTO but Nikki counters into a Spinebuster for two. Nikki misses a splash in the corner and Paige elbows her. Paige hits a modified version of the PTO but Nikki breaks it as we suddenly get a random shot of the Divas watching the match backstage. Nikki slams Paige to the mat and goes for the Rack Attack but Paige fights out and goes for the PTO but Nikki counters and kicks out. Nikki hits an Enzuguri of sorts but Paige kicks out. Nikki tries the Rack Attack but Paige counters and hits the Ram-Paige! Two count! Paige puts Nikki on the top turnbuckle but Nikki knocks Paige off. The two brawl in the corner, both on the second rope. They knock one another off — and it’s another Twin Magic spot…but, this time, Paige rolls up Brie and WINS! Oh, but wait. No. The ref sees that Paige pinned Brie. Brie pulls tissues out of her bra, which is the only thing redeeming about any of this. Paige kicks her to the mat. Nikki comes in, hits the Rack Attack and wins at 10:45 or whatever. I stopped the watch far earlier. What a joke. WINNER AND STILL CHAMPION: Nikki Bella via Rack Attack
RATING: **. We already had a Dusty Finish. Now, it’s a Dusty Finish plus the fact that the ref didn’t DQ Nikki meaning Nikki just wins no matter what plus the fact that Paige is reduced to a crying wreck after that…how fucking stupid does the Divas Division need to get?
Oh, good. The Miz is here. He yells a lot. And he’s at ringside. We’re being trolled tonight. I can’t wait until Miz costs Ryback the title.
MATCH #3: Big Show (challenger) vs. Ryback (champion) for the WWE Intercontinental Championship Ryback hits a Meathook right away but Show dodges Shell Shock and rolls outside. Ryback rolls out and attacks Miz, sending him into the announce table. Ryback gets back in the ring but Show hits a Flying Bus, knocking the wind out of Ryback. He slaps Ryback’s chest, then slams him. Ryback fights back but Show just shoulder tackles him. Ryback fights back again and hits a Cross Arm Breaker. Shows breaks and Ryback hits a HUGE suplex. Warrior Splash gets two. Ryback goes for the Meathook but flies into the Chokeslam but Ryback kicks out at two. Show sets up for the KO Punch but Ryback ducks and goes for the Shell Shock. Show kicks out and hits the KO Punch…but Ryback rolls out of the ring. Miz goes for the attack but Show gets in his way. He rolls Ryback back in — then Miz attacks Big Show for the DQ at 5:30. Sigh. WINNER: Big Show via DQ
STILL CHAMPION: Ryback
RATING: 1/2 a *. This show is quickly collapsing.
We get the sizzle reel for Owens vs. Cena and here we go…
MATCH #4: NXT Champion Kevin Owens vs. WWE United States Champion John Cena (non-title) The two hold up their belts to start, then grapple with Cena hitting a shoulder tackle. Owens returns the favor. Owens starts throwing some punches and puts Cena in a headlock but Cena breaks and hits a clothesline to Owens’ nose. Owens hits an immediate dropkick and Senton, getting two. Cena hits a dropkick and hits Moves 1 and 2. Owens dodges #3, then hits Cena’s first three moves! He goes for the 5KS and hits it. He goes for the AA but Cena counters with the STF. Owens gets to the rope to break, then tries the AA but Cena counters into a reverse suplex, getting two. Cena tries to follow up but Owens hits a Codebreaker, nearly getting a fall. Cena hits Move #3 and goes for the 5KS, hitting it. He goes for the AA but Owens reverses and hits a Lesnar-like German Suplex. Owens follows with a Corner Cannonball, getting two. The two trade punches until Owens grabs Cena and drops him on his back, getting two. He puts Cena near the turnbuckle and goes for the Flying Senton but Cena gets his knees up. Cena puts Owens on his shoulders and puts Owens to the mat, face-first. He gets a two count. Cena sets for the AA and hits it but only gets two. Cena yells at the ref for a slow count but the ref tells Cena to back off. Cena puts Owens on the top turnbuckle and goes for the AA again but Owens counters and Powerbombs Cena! TWO COUNT. Owens goes for the Pop-Up Powerbomb but Cena counters it on the way down, then runs at Owens who hits a MEAN Superkick and gets two. Holy shit. Cena elbows Owens then hits a Tornado DDT for two. Cena misses a Flying Legdrop. Owens hits a Driver and, AGAIN, nearly gets a fall. Cena’s in the middle of the ring. Owens misses a Moonsault and Cena hits an AA! 1…2…3KICKOUT. What a match. Cena lifts Owens up and places him on the top buckle again. Cena goes for the Superplex but OWENS COUNTERS IT AND REVERSES IT IN MID-AIR. NEAR FALL. Owens grabs Cena who counters and hits the STF. Owens breaks it and tries a Sunset Flip. Owens won’t fall so Cena flips and hits a Sitting Powerbomb! NEAR FALL! Cena runs at Owens who grabs him for the Pop-Up Powerbomb AND NEARLY GETS THREE!!! Owens punches at Cena, telling him to stay down. He shoves Cena into the ropes for another Powerbomb but Cena hits the Springboard Stunner and the AA to win this at 19:13. What a match. WINNER: John Cena via AA
RATING: *****. This one was just as great as the last one. What a match.
Post-match, Cena and Owens go face to face. Cena shows his respect for Owens and hands him the NXT Title. He offers his hand and Owens shakes it. Cena goes to raise Owens’ hand but Owens knocks him down with a kick. Cena rolls out of the ring. Owens powerbombs Cena into the edge of the mat, then goes in the ring grabs the U.S. Title and drops it with Cena who’s being tended to by the entire referee staff and a doctor. Owens laughs like The Joker and goes up the ramp.
Renee Young is backstage and promises us an update on Cena’s health. She has Dean Ambrose backstage. Ambrose says he’s not an animal. He took what was his and, tonight, he will be the World Champ.
Cole, JBL and King talk about Dusty Rhodes and we get his memorial tribute again.
AFTER RAW TOMORROW: Dusty Rhodes – Celebrating the Dream
The New Day is out for their match. They say what happened to Kofi wasn’t fair and ask fans to give him “clap therapy”. He’s absent…for now.
MATCH #5: The New Day (Xavier Woods & Big E) (champions) vs. The Prime Time Players (Darren Young & Titus O’Neil) (challengers) for the WWE Tag Team Championship Young and Woods start off but Woods elbows Young in the face and it’s quick in-and-out tags with a Mudhole Stomp in the corner. Big E throws Woods into Young with a Sitting Dropkick. Woods hits a legdrop while Big E hits a Warrior Splash. E puts on a Abdominal Stretch. Young breaks but still gets beat up in the heel corner. Woods tags in and splashes him and hits a front facelock. Young breaks but gets kicked in the face and it’s a side headlock. Young fights out but ends up getting double-teamed again by Woods and E as they destroy Woods with a clothesline. E misses a rush and hits the corner post instead. Tag to Titus and he shoulder tackles Woods, then sends E out of the ring. He hits a backbreaker on Woods, then tosses him across the ring. Titus tackles Woods and nearly gets a three count but E interferes. It’s chaos with Titus hitting a Sitting Powerbomb…for the win?! Wow. Time around 5:31. WINNERS AND NEW CHAMPIONS: The Prime Time Players
RATING: *. This was awful. Darren getting his ass kicked and Titus coming and destroying everyone by himself — then somehow winning the titles? Just nonsensical on every level. That, and there wasn’t much to it. They had the time to dedicate to this thing and they went a whole five minutes.
We visit the CNN WWE News Desk where we revisit who won the MITB case.
We get the build-up reel for Ambrose and Rollins.
Rollins walks backstage and J&J is behind him. So is Kane. Kane says that he’s been waiting for this moment and tells Rollins that he’s dug his own grave. He says that the future is history. Steph and HHH are there as well. Steph says that they’re still behind Rollins…but if Ambrose wins, they’ll have nobody to blame but him. HHH tells Rollins to clear his mind and stand on his own two feet. He wants Rollins to show everyone why HHH chose Rollins.
MATCH #6: Dean Ambrose (challenger) vs. Seth Rollins (champion) in a Ladder Match for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship Ambrose clotheslines Rollins to the mat and chops at Rollins’ chest. Ambrose drops some elbows and hits a Crosslock. Rollins breaks and Ambrose rushes him in the corner. Rollins kicks at him and stomps at him in the corner. Rollins sends him out of the ring. Ambrose gets back in, sends Rollins outside the ring ropes and chops at his chest. Ambrose hits a standing clothesline then runs at Rollins who trips him and sends Ambrose into the buckle. Ambrose rolls out of the ring. Rollins body slams him and goes for a ladder. Ambrose flies into the ring and then dives outside, nailing Rollins. Ambrose grabs a ladder and heads to the ring. He puts the ladder against the mat and tries to toss Rollins into it but Rollins scales the ladder and jumps on the mat. It’s chaos with Ambrose somehow sending the ladder into Rollins. He puts the ladder in the ring but Rollins pulls him down. They trade climbing spots over and over, then they both go up two sides of the ladder. Ambrose knocks Rollins off the ladder, then folds it and sets it up in the corner.
Ambrose tries to suplex Rollins into it but Rollins doesn’t budge. He fights out but Ambrose counters and hits an Arm Hook Suplex into the ladder. Ambrose sets the ladder up in the corner and hits a Flying Elbow Drop into Rollins and then kicks him out of the ring. He sets the ladder up again but Rollins comes in with a chair and hits Ambrose’s knee with it. Rollins climbs the ladder but Ambrose stops him. Rollins kicks him away and stomps at his knee, then drops the ladder on him. Rollins puts Ambrose in the corner, then kicks at Ambrose’s knee. He takes the ladder and rams it into Ambrose’s knee. More hurt knee spots as Rollins works on the knee of Ambrose with the ladder. Rollins picks Ambrose up but Rollins pulls him down and wraps Ambrose’s knee around the steal pole, then hits a Figure Four to honor Dus–uh, Ric Flair, I guess. Back in the ring, it’s ANOTHER Figure Four by Rollins. Ambrose fights back with slaps, telling Rollins to bring it on. Ambrose turns the Figure Four around. Rollins breaks.
Rollins puts Ambrose up on the top buckle and stomps away at Ambrose’s head. He grabs the chair again and whacks Ambrose’s knee HARD. He climbs the buckle and stomps right on Ambrose’s chest. Ambrose just hang there as Rollins sets up a ladder and climbs. Ambrose finally gets loose and knocks the ladder over. He punches at Rollins until Rollins knocks him back. Ambrose goes for the Rebound Clothesline but Rollins pulls the ladder up, knocking Ambrose flat. Dean Ambrose gets up and takes the chair and just throws it at Rollins. Ambrose goes for a Superplex but can’t handle the weight of Rollins. Rollins tries to go for a Springboard but Ambrose knocks him down and then nails him with a hard clothesline. He goes to town on Rollins, hitting quick punches, then clotheslines him out of the ring. Rollins tries for the backstage area but Ambrose chases him. They fight. Rollins fights Ambrose off, then runs to the ring to set up the ladder. He picks it up — then throws it Ambrose, who ducks. He gets in the ring. Rollins fights him off and Ambrose hits the Rebound Clothesline.
Rollins gets out of the ring and the two fight into the crowd. Rollins manages to fight off Ambrose and lose him about 20 rows up, then goes under the ring for a ladder. He sets it up on the Announce Desk but Ambrose appears out of nowhere to fly at Rollins and knock him down. The ladder is set up as a bridge to the ring. Rollins goes for a Powerbomb but Ambrose fights out and hits a Back Body Drop on Rollins who flies into the ladder. Ambrose goes under the ring and pulls a ladder out. He sets it up in the ring with the crowd cheering him on. Ambrose begins his climb which is ultra-slow…but Rollins picks him up for a Buckle Bomb. Ambrose fights out of it and the two fall out of the ring. Ambrose clotheslines Rollins over the Spanish Announce Table. The two get to their feet and fight it out until Ambrose hits Dirty Deeds! Dean gets to his feet and climbs into the ring. Ambrose climbs the ladder again…very slow. He’s almost there….then Rollins runs in with a TV monitor and nails Ambrose in the knee with it. Rollins gets to his feet and he begins to climb…but Ambrose is up and stops him…Rollins kicks Ambrose off — then hits The Pedigree! Rollins sets up the ladder again and climbs, grabs the title and — Ambrose gets up and grabs at Rollins…Rollins kicks him, gets off the ladder and runs at Ambrose, who sidesteps him.
Ambrose crawls to the ladder but Rollins pulls him outside, sends him into the Bridge Ladder, then hits two Buckle Bombs into two sides of the crowd barrier. He goes under the ring, gets a bunch of chairs, then puts them on top of that ladder that was bridging to the ring. He Powerbombs Ambrose into it and Ambrose is just plain out. He buries Ambrose under the ladder and bunch of chairs, then gets up and into the ring. He climbs the ladder and gets to the belt…but Ambrose is UP!!! He climbs OVER Rollins! They both get to the title and they BOTH fall with it…but Rollins is the one who comes down with it in the end to retain at 35:41. WINNER AND STILL CHAMPION: Seth Rollins
RATING: ***1/2. Another “Dusty” style finish. Three in two weeks. Just, no. In any case, the finish, the first ten minutes and the last bit before the finish when the match really slowed to a crawl (plus the “TV-monitor-takes-out-Ambrose” but) brings this match down from what WAS going to be *****.
Post-match, Triple H comes out to congratulate Rollins while JoJo comes out of nowhere to interview Seth. He rants about how he’s the best of all-time and how he’s awesome. The show ends with Ambrose glaring at him.
OVERALL: Two great matches in the middle of a bunch of so-so garbage. It’s still a solid show. I’ll go ***1/4 for this.
**Spoilers through season five, episode ten of Game of Thrones**
There are many things to discuss from season five’s Game of Thrones finale. So many things, in fact, they probably all deserve their own post. Last night, amongst all the death and despair and dragons, we saw a new face. Well, kind of.
After Cersei’s walk of shame, Qyburn welcomes her to the Red Keep and is the only one to show any sympathy toward her situation. He then introduces her to the newest member of the Kingsguard, a large brute of a man who has taken a vow of silence. This unfamiliar knight picks up Cersei like she’s a toy poodle and carries her out of the room with a grunt.
But who is the new member of the Kingsguard?
We’ve already seen his face a few times throughout the series and I’m sure by his size many have already guessed his identity. In the books this knight is known as is Ser Robert Strong, but it’s a widely accepted theory that you know him as someone else. Remember this dude?
He’s Gregor Clegane, also known as “The Mountain,” and brother to our favorite Arya Stark travel companion, The Hound (who also may or may not be dead–common in Westeros these days). Last we saw Gregor, he was doing terrible things to the most charismatic character on the show–Oberyn Martell–in the trial by combat that sealed Tyrion’s guilt in King Joffrey’s death. Yet, at the end of that fight, Gregor looked like this:
If you haven’t guessed from this article thus far, Gregor wasn’t killed. Well, not completely. If there’s one thing we’ve learned about the Martells this season (besides that Oberyn was Obara’s father), it’s that they are adept with poisons. Bronn is poisoned in the ridiculous fight at the Water Gardens. Myrcella is also poisoned after being kissed by Ellaria. Oberyn, like his daughters, embraced a love of poison and even though he lost the fight, he did serious damage to Gregor, leaving the behemoth in Dr. Frankenstein Qyburn’s hands.
Throughout the fifth season of Game of Thrones, we’re treated to tidbits between Cersei and Qyburn, discussing the progress of the latter’s experiments. We know that Qyburn lost his status as a maester at some point because he dabbled in necromancy and other dark arts. (He was also rejected for the Defense Against the Dark Arts post.) Therefore, it stands to reason he isn’t afraid to create patient zero. Judging by the lack of speech and the purple around his eyes, Ser Robert Strong is likely to be a result of those experiments. Soon, Cersei will have a trial for her sins against the Faith and it wouldn’t surprise many for her to use her new friend in a trial by combat. I mean, he already has experience in winning such a fight.
WWE Money in the Bank comes to us on Sunday, June 14, 2015 from the Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio.
There are six matches on this year’s card including a match during WWE’s Kick-Off Show.
Here, now, are our predictions for the winners and losers…
KICKOFF MATCH: R-Truth vs. King Barrett
Danielle: Oh, god…I don’t even know why this match is happening. Barring some major character overall and improvement, Truth is the new JTG. Wade Barrett was much better when he was doling out “bad news”. Now, he’s a sad parody of himself who jobs to the likes of Truth when WWE is out of guys to feed him to. That said, I think they’ve humiliated him enough and he already was pinned by Truth at Elimination Chamber. I think Barrett finally adds one to the win column. WINNER: Wade Barrett
Matt: I have to agree here. Barrett’s been kicked around and beaten for a while now…and while I wouldn’t put it above WWE to job him to Truth “just cuz”, I don’t see that happening — though, this being a Kick-Off Show match is worrying since nobody cares. WINNER: Wade Barrett
Jared: Yup. This match is absolutely pointless as hell. Barrett should win in a squash. Why do we still have Kick-Off Show matches again? If it’s to rope people in, they’re not gonna be won over by the two biggest jokes of WWE. WINNER: Wade Barrett
John Cena vs. Kevin Owens
Danielle: They can’t leave well enough alone, can they? I’d like to be optimistic and say that Kevin Owens beats Cena again but I just can’t. WINNER: #CENAWINSLOL
Matt: Boy…I’m torn. On the one hand, Cena’s got an ego the size of Owens (see what I did there?) but Owens has so much heat and momentum that they wouldn’t DARE job him to Cena…would they? This match cannot, and I stress, CANNOT end in a DQ or countout. That’s a cop-out and would defeat the entire purpose of this. I am going to go out on a limb and say that Owens defeats Cena again. Anything less would really be a bad idea. WINNER: Kevin Owens
Jared: I’m gonna agree with Danielle. Cena’s got to “prove he’s a real man”. I think he wins here to set up a match for the United States Title at Battleground. WINNER: John Cena
MONEY IN THE BANK LADDER MATCH:
Neville vs. Sheamus vs. Randy Orton vs. Roman Reigns
vs. Kane vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Kofi Kingston
Danielle: Roman Reigns wins this all day and all night. I mean, look at this match. It’s mid-card Hell vs. Roman Reigns and Kane For Some Reason. I think Reigns pulls out the victory — but not before some chicanery involving the Authority. WINNER: Roman Reigns
Matt: This has to be one of the worst MITB Ladder Match set-ups I’ve ever seen. Ok, first, let’s cut the shit: Neville and Kofi are only here to fill space and so they can do high spots where they flip around and go nuts so that this thing doesn’t turn out to be a total dud. Ziggler isn’t going anywhere near the title again and neither is Randy Orton. Sheamus and Kane aren’t serious contenders and that’s why it’s easy to see that Reigns will finally get the first big push toward the title — and I still don’t know why. WINNER: Roman Reigns
Jared: I’m gonna go off-the-reservation insane here and say that Kane, with the help of The Authority in some manner, wins the MITB Ladder Match. This scenario makes the most sense to me as Kane will finally put the nail in Rollins’ proverbial coffin. WINNER: Kane
WWE DIVAS TITLE MATCH:
Nikki Bella (champion) vs. Paige (challenger)
Danielle: Total Divas starts in July — right when business will finally “pick up” for the Divas Division. I have a feeling Paige grabs the title here so that Nikki and John have some sort of “falling out” again. I have no idea. WINNER: Paige
Matt: Paige should win it here. I’m tired of Nikki winning matches because she’s John Cena’s slam-piece. That said, Nikki’s gonna keep the title because she’s Cena’s slam-piece. Hopefully, that means we’ll get actual, viable talent from NXT to take the title off of Nikki in the future. WINNER: Nikki Bella
Jared: I don’t care. I just don’t care. At this point, the Divas division is a total loss and WWE doesn’t care to fix it. I will, however, say that Nikki wins this. WINNER: #NIKKIWINSLOL
WWE INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE MATCH:
Ryback (champion) vs. Big Show (challenger)
Danielle: Ok, 1) I don’t care and 2) Big Show’s a giant joke. I’d like somebody to explain to me why Big Show’s even in the title picture, let alone in WWE. WINNER: Ryback
Matt: I can’t explain why Big Show is here either. This is one of the most boring “feuds” I’ve ever seen. I wasn’t a fan of The Miz initially being the one that Ryback feuded with, but at least it kinda makes sense in that The Miz is a chickenshit heel who STILL loves to pick fights with even the biggest guys. I cannot see a reason why Big Show would even win this. WINNER: Ryback
Jared: Ryback wins this and wins this handily. It makes no sense to match these two and it would make even less sense for Big Show to go over. Ryback has all the momentum, so he’s not about to drop the title to a guy who has made more face changes than the T-1000 in Terminator 2.
WWE TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH:
The New Day (champs) vs. The Prime Time Players
Danielle: This one’s easy. I have a feeling that The New Day has overstayed their welcome. I don’t think they’re as popular and loved as WWE thinks they are. I think the titles go to O’Neil and Young. WINNERS: The Prime Time Players
Matt: Disagree. Titus is clunky and stiff and Young is awful and needs more work before becoming somebody believable enough to challenge for any gold. I mean, hell, Los Matadores could have been in this match and it’d be the same thing. As much as I really don’t get why everyone adores The New Day (they’re “mediocrity-as-the-norm” at its finest), I think they win. WINNERS: The New Day
Jared: And that’s why I’m saying that PTP wins the titles here. I think it’s good for their pairing. They don’t have a lot of momentum but I think it’s time for The New Day to lose the things. WINNERS: The Prime Time Players
WWE WORLD TITLE MATCH:
Seth Rollins (champion) vs. Dean Ambrose (challenger)
Danielle: I want it to be Ambrose. I know it’s going to be Seth. I think this is a delayed pay-off from RAW where Rollins went “rogue”. Seth Rollins wins and feuds with Roman Reigns…and that’s unfortunate. WINNER: Seth Rollins
Matt: It makes me sad that the picture shows Rollins with the title and that Rollins is being called “champion”. I’ve enjoyed Ambrose’s run with the title and I think he’s a fun champion. The pop when he grabbed the title was off-the-charts. That said, unless WWE is looking for a radical change, I think Seth retains because WWE are cowards afraid to try something new — and that’s a shame. A total shame. Rollins wins after the Authority helps him. WINNER: Seth Rollins
Jared: Rollins isn’t gonna lose the title until he jobs to Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam. This whole thing is so predictable. Rollins retains but I don’t think he will do it unless The Authority helps him out. WINNER: Seth Rollins
So, there’s our thoughts.
Tune in today at 5PM PST / 8PM EST to see who was right and who was wrong!
Pretty Little Liars‘ second episode of the Summer of Answers focuses on how the Liars are trying to deal with an unfathomable amount of trauma they have just endured.
The episode begins with the girls surrounding Spencer in her hospital bed, discussing the merits behind the theory of Andrew being Charles/A. This is one of only three scenes(four if you count Ali) where any of the Liars have an on screen interaction with each other. Toby and his new partner Lorenzo find and arrest Andrew, and upon searching his room discover Andrew kept a manifesto of how the Liars are representative of all things evil and the feminization of society.
For the first time in god knows how long, all of girls’ mothers were on screen, and actively involved in their daughters’ lives. The most interesting part of this episode was to see how the Liars were dealing with their trauma, and how their moms try to comfort and interact with them.
Hanna:
Out of all of the Liars, Hanna is having the hardest time being back in her room. Remember, the prison that A locked them in was a replica of their rooms at home. The wallpaper, the bedding, the furniture. They were all the same. Charles has stolen any comfort that the girls could grasp from being back in their childhood room. Everywhere she looks in her room, she is reminded of being kidnapped and tortured. Caleb is by her side, and asks Hanna if she is okay. And this is something that was asked throughout the episode to all the girls. NO! THEY ARE NOT OKAY! THEY WERE KIDNAPPED AND TORTURED FOR OVER THREE WEEKS!
Hanna takes charge of the situation, and decides to completely redecorate her room. She somehow gets her hands on a steamer, and her and Caleb rip down the wallpaper and toss out all of her furniture. Ashley is extremely concerned about her daughter’s well-being when she sees Hanna hauling her mattress down the stairs stating all of her furniture is ruined. Ashley tries to reason with Hanna, looking at Caleb for support, and Hanna isn’t having it:
Hanna: Don’t look at him. Look at me!
Ashley: How is it ruined?
Hanna: I just wanted to make a change and get rid of old furniture.
(Caleb and Ashley glance at each other)
Hanna: I said don’t look at him! Why do you keep looking back and forth. Why can’t I just have something I want? Does that make me crazy?
Later, Ashley finds Hanna sitting alone, crossed legged in the middle of her newly barren room. Ashley takes a seat beside her daughter and Hanna reveals to her mother the ‘games’ they had to play while kidnapped (classics like: “Truth or Dare,” “Who do you love more, me or her?,” “Who deserves water today, you or somebody else.”)
In my opinion, Hanna was the stand out character this episode. All of her actions throughout the episode were so true to her character. I also felt that I was able to connect, or at least understand her coping methods more than I did with any of the Liars.
Aria:
Aria’s mom, Ella, is helping her daughter sort out all of the drugs the hospital prescribed. Aria makes a sarcastic comment about how could she possibly need anxiety medicine and the mother-daughter duo bond over their need for sarcasm in time of conflict. Ella lets it slip that the police want to talk to the girls, but the Momma Liars came together and decided that their daughters will only talk when they are ready to which Aria eagerly blurts out “I’m ready!”
Before talking with the cops though, Aria needs to go clean her photography equipment at The Brew. Ezra joins her and explains to Aria how lucky she is. She has “an advantage over most people because he can write about it. Put it down on paper.” Wait, what? Ezra thinks that because Aria likes to write, she is more capable of dealing with her trauma? What the fuck? Aria pretty much tells him to fuck off with his pretentious sentiments saying that she just wants “ a nice big wall between before and after.” The scene then cuts to Emily at the shooting range.
Ella brings Aria to the precinct, where the authorities detail the case they have against Andrew (aka maybe, but most likely not, A). We learn that because of all the crazy amounts of money that has been put into torturing these four girls, the IRS IS NOW ON THE A CASE. Now questions about where A got the money to buy a silo, hire minions, shoot thousands of secret camera footage and purchase 500 masks will be answered. The IRS is on it, and the IRS will get to the bottom of it! Hearing this exciting news, Aria decides mid sentence to lie, change her story, and tell the cops that she saw Andrew’s face in the Kidnap Complex. Unfortunately, everyone who has any of the five senses could tell that Aria was letting out a big ole’ fib. In only the second scene of the episode to contain more than one Liar, Spencer pays a visit to Aria’s house. She is there to lend an ear while Aria rants about how stupid her false police report was. At least Aria understands how stupid she was. Ella later finds Aria taking photographs in the living room. She explains to her daughter that she understands why she lied, and that everyone wants Charles/A/Andrew to pay. She then delivers a line that could have come straight out of Dumbledore’s mouth:
Ella: Aria you’re very smart. But please remember, you are also very wise.
Spencer: In the Hasting’s household, Spencer is the one sorting out her own drugs. Veronica starts lawyer babbling about how unfortunately Mona won’t go to jail but rest assured, all is still right in the world. Spencer can’t concentrate on her mom, because the one pill that has let her have an ounce of sleep in over a month is missing. Veronica goes “Nope, nothing’s missing. I explicitly told the docs that you don’t need those pills.” And then comes the scene that exemplifies that Hasting’s mother-daughter relationship:
Veronica: Spencer you know you’ve had some issues.
Spencer: Mom, they gave me something at the hospital and it was the first night in forever that I got what a normal person would call sleep.
Veronica: Honey, you’re home now. You’re not in the hospital.
Spencer: I can’t believe that you did this.
Veronica: It wasn’t an easy decision.
Spencer: Okay, that makes me feel alot better.
Veronica: I will help you any way I can, but I am not going to face the chance of you having another problem.
The fact that that Veronica can’t address things Spencer has experienced, by referring to them as simply “issues,” and “problem” says it all. They are a family where they keeps things inside, because if they came out, it would be too messy.
Toby takes Spencer out for a sleuthing/romantic/1920’s picnic he asks Spencer what actually happened in the Complex. For the second time this episode, as soon as one of the Liars tries to process what has happened, it cuts directly to Emily at the shooting range. Spencer heads over to Aria’s house to hear Aria lament. Soon after, Ella calls for Aria to come downstairs, and Spencer is left alone with Aria’s sleeping pills, which she steals to help get some rest.
Emily
In the hospital Emily makes a visit to Sara who opens up to Emliy about how she was abducted. The truth behind A’s first real victim is revealed. A knocked her unconscious and kidnapped her.
When Emily returns to her house she is all business. She goes straight to the attic and cracks the lock to her father’s gun safe. Emily’s way of coping is to take control in protecting herself, which in this case is learning to use a gun. Pam Fields freaks when she finds out that Emily stole a gun and brought it to a shooting range. Pam asks Emily how she got the combination and the quintessential Fields mother-daughter dialogue unfolds:
Emily: I’ve used Dad’s guns before.
Pam Fields: Never alone, Emily. That is not a rule in this house, that is the law. You knew that, and yet you sneaked up here?
Like all the parents this episode, Pam tries to get her daughter to open up to her, or at least Paige. Against all the viewers’ wishes (well, at least mine) Emily told Paige that she is fine and she should stay away. I am still holding out hope that Paige will use her spidey senses and come back for Emily anyways.
Emily outfoxes her mother, and manages to rent a gun at the gun range. While pulling the trigger, Emily has flashbacks to the Kidnap Complex where she was forced to pick one of her friends to suffer, or all of them would suffer. Luckily, Pam gets there in time to bring Emily home and lightly interrogate her about her time kidnapped. Emily finally breaks down and tries to verbalize her emotions, and her attachment to Sara.
That evening Emily is strolling around in her father’s military jacket, and notices Sara lurking behind some bushes. Sara had found Emily’s address laying around in the Rosewood Hospital and decided to pay her a visit. Sara starts to open up about her past, and it is pretty dark.
Later, Emily calls Spencer to talk, and Hanna calls Aria to talk, and we end the episode how we started, with all the Liars together. They could not have picked a better song to for the last sequence of scene. Here are a few excerpts from the lyrics:
“where do we belong where did we go wrong if there’s nothing here why are we still here”
and
“Give us a little love, give us a little love. We never had enough, we never had enough.”
Final Thoughts:
This was a really difficult episode for me to recap. The show has changed. As soon as these girls were kidnapped and tortured for a month, the show had to change. Yes, A has been torturing the Liars for the last 5 seasons, but what happened in that complex is on entirely different level. For years, viewers have been engrossed in A’s manipulating of the life of these four girls. The incredibly heinous acts (such as killing Emily’s girlfriend) were interspersed with the more playful pranks (putting worms in Chinese food). The absurdity of some of A’s stunts combined with the mystery aspect of the show allowed these horrible things that were happening to the girls to be somehow easier to digest.
I just am not able to view the show with that lens anymore. I think a large part of this is due to the involvement of the parent’s this episode. Their parents now know, and for some reason, that makes it more real. It makes it something that has to be dealt with. It is no longer light-hearted.
Questions:
Did anyone else think that Ashley offered Hanna Dayquil and Liquor instead of Dayglo Wicker?
Can someone please tell me what Ella’s line “Aria you’re very smart. But please remember, you are also very wise” means?
Do you think it’s significant the episode didn’t end in it’s signature A-type scene?
Can any adult male move to Rosewood and not hit on a teenage girl? (I’m looking at you Lorenzo)
