associatevidiot

[associatevidiot]

So, I wrote a feature film script in which the Muppets crash the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Last year, I was invited to appear on a podcast. This turned out to be a grievous error for everyone concerned. The fine folks at The Incomparable decided that the Muppets had been off movie screens for too long, and drafted panelists, yours truly included, to pitch their ideas for a new Muppet movie.

I love the Muppets. I can't remember a time when I didn't love the Muppets. And I got an idea for a new Muppet movie so, well, gonzo that I just couldn't resist it.

But when it came time to actually pitch the thing to my fellow panelists and the listening audience, well ... you can either listen for yourself above -- my pitch is the first on deck, so you won't have long to wait -- or just watch the following, and imagine that, but even sweatier and more incoherent.

The whole thing should have ended there, possibly with me going off and joining a monastery or some other sensible course of action.

But no. No, I actually went ahead and wrote an entire screenplay.

I've done this sort of thing before, of course. And just like that occasion, I can't say the result is good, exactly. But I sure had fun writing it.

Disney hasn't had such a great track record with the Muppets. Save for the 2011 reboot movie, which was sweet, and that recent Haunted Mansion special, which was a lot of fun, the franchise has kind of flailed around, with Disney seemingly unable and/or uninterested in viewing the Muppets as anything more than yet another piece of IP.

So why not lean into that? Why not make a movie in which the Muppets, in their classically self-aware way, find themselves adrift in the clutches of their soulless corporate masters, striving for one more shot at the big time and wondering what they're doing wrong?

What if they get curious about why their studio stablemates at Marvel are ruling the pop-culture landscape while they're gathering dust? What if Dr. Bunsen Honeydew has a potentially disastrous and life-threatening way for the Muppets to enter the MCU and ask that question directly, because of course he does?

And what if, within the MCU, there's some lurking force ready to seize this opportunity for its own nefarious ends?

Along the way, I got to draw some interesting parallels between the Muppet cast and some of my favorite MCU films and characters; indulge in some fun fill-in-the-blanks jumping into, backward, and sometimes forward (!) in beloved characters' timelines; and just, y'know, be silly and have fun at every opportunity.

Writing this was a fun way to escape into another world for a little while -- a happy, hopeful, kind world. I hope reading it gives you the same experience.

THE MUPPETS TAKE THE MCU (238KB PDF)

[associatevidiot]

The Conservative Terror of Broadened Hearts

I live in Virginia, where our new governor clinched his victory last fall in part by stoking white people's fears about "critical race theory." Literally, this refers to a legal and historical theory, never actually taught in Virginia's public schools, that racist beliefs have shaped the structure and influenced the actions of U.S. governments at the local, state, and federal levels. It's an interesting theory, with a lot of evidence to support it, and some legitimate pushback from actual, accredited historians that's also worth considering. But in practice, and in the governor and his party's actions immediately upon taking office, critical race theory means, "any ideas that might make white people uncomfortable, or suggest that the status quo is anything less than perfect."

The governor's campaign included "horror stories" from parents and children scarred for life by being assigned books in school that included graphic content related to race in the United States. Here's my horror story, and how it turned out.

I went to high school in Texas, literally on an Air Force base. Not exactly a bastion of bleeding-heart liberalism. In my ... junior? senior? ... year of honors English, our class was assigned Native Son, by Richard Wright.

At the end of the first major section of the novel ...

There's no delicate way to put this. You've been warned.

At the end of the first major section of the novel, its protagonist, a black man, rapes a white woman. He murders her. Then he beheads her, dismembers her, and burns her body in a furnace.

This shook me. Of course it would. It was intended to. For the first and only time I can remember, I just stopped reading for an entire day, and wandered through my life feeling dazed and slightly sick.

And then, having sat with that feeling, I went back and kept reading.

I finished Native Son. Then I read the next two books assigned in class, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, and saw the different perspectives they brought to the Black experience in America. By their comparison, I considered the limits (and the virtues) of Wright's brick-to-the-face approach to the goals he wanted to accomplish.

I went to college in Chicago, where Native Son is set. With the book still haunting my brain, I remembered that Wright had based it on a real Chicago murder case. I got curious.

So for a freshman year paper, I looked up the newspaper coverage of that case. I read the actual articles that Wright had drawn from -- sometimes word for word! -- for his book. I saw where he'd exaggerated the degree of overt racism in the newspapers' descriptions. And I saw the many places where he hadn't.

I read coverage of the case in the local Black newspaper, The Chicago Defender, and saw its reporters doing legwork to establish the defendant's alibi and argue for his innocence. (I also discovered an entire parallel world of Black-owned businesses, Black-focused comic strips, a peek into Chicago's then-thriving Bronzeville neighborhood.)

And I saw the right-wing Chicago Tribune mock and jeer at this still unconvicted man, this suspect, in subhuman terms that declared him guilty.

So, yes, Native Son horrified me. It left scars. It was a very well-written, but singularly awful and uncomfortable reading experience.

And it expanded my heart. It stoked curiosity. It widened my world and deepened my empathy, even for a protagonist that the book itself often seems to disdain as monstrous. My discomfort helped me grow as a person.

And that, I think, is what people like our new governor fear the most. Not that students might be emotionally scarred or get their feelings hurt by learning about the ways we have literally, physically hurt and scarred our fellow human beings in the past.

No, I think they're afraid that if we face these horrors, we might no longer be able to stick our heads in the sand. We might not be able to blithely defend the way things are.

We might learn from our mistakes and resolve to do better.

[associatevidiot]

Bachelor Chow: Mistake Pudding

I made some whole wheat biscuits last weekend, of the cinnamon raisin persuasion. But, goofus that I am, in my haste to fuel my household's tiny loud demanding humans with the carbohydrates they crave, I left out the baking powder. Y'know, baking powder, the chemical leavening agents that makes biscuits rise up all light and fluffy? Yeah. That. So I ended up with impeccably layered, butter-infused, sweet and tasty ... doughy, gluey, un-light, un-fluffy, dense round bricks. A whole bunch of 'em. What to do? I could have chucked them out, but that would have been an awful waste of a bunch of flour and butter. I salvaged a couple of them by chopping them into tiny cubes, toasting them in the oven at 300F for half an hour into crunchy sweet biscuit bits, and mixing them into some apple butter ice cream. (A story for another day...)

But that still left me with a heap of cinnamon-spiced hockey pucks. So, guided by the broad outlines of this recipe, I turned the rest of my breakfast disaster into a divine dessert.

Feel free to use this with any other sweet or neutrally flavored baking disasters you might suffer. Or I guess you could use good, properly leavened biscuits instead, but that presumes you don't eat biscuits until they go stale, a scenario so improbable as to be frankly laughable.

MISTAKE PUDDING

- 8 large biscuits, torn into chunks (maybe, I dunno, 4-6 cups by volume?) - 2 cups milk - 1 cup sugar or 1:1 equivalent sweetener of choice - 2T melted butter, cooled - 4 large eggs, beaten If you're not using cinnamon raisin biscuits, feel free to add... - 1/2 cup raisins or other dried fruit. - 2t vanilla - 1T cinnamon

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Got convection? Use it!

2. Grease a 13"x9" baking dish with a little butter or a neutral-flavored oil.

3. In a large bowl, soak the biscuits in the milk. Let 'em sit for 10 minutes, then stir again to make a horrifying biscuit sludge. (Trust me, it's going to turn out great.)

4. Combine the cooled melted butter, beaten eggs, and sugar or sweetener (along with the raisins, vanilla, and cinnamon if you need to add them). 5. Add the butter/egg/sugar mixture to the biscuit sludge and mix until it's all one revolting mass of goop of uniform color and consistency.

6. Pour said goop into your greased baking dish, and bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes. You're looking for a crispy, modestly browned top crust, and an internal temp of at least 200 degrees F.

7. Remove from oven, allow to cool slightly, then serve and MESSILY DEVOUR. Cold bread pudding is also amazing, so whichever temperature you prefer it, I'm not gonna judge you.

[associatevidiot]

Hi! I wrote the review above. So, first off: I’m sorry. Not sorry for enjoying the show, but sincerely sorry that what I wrote hurt you. I wasn’t trying to hurt you or anyone else, nor to be careless or flippant with my words, but I clearly did and was. I feel bad about that, sincerely, and I apologize. 

I’m the most boring of cis hetero white dudes, but I blunder through this world trying to listen and pay attention to the perspective of folks who lead different lives than I do, so that I can maybe become less of an idiot over time. I appreciate that you shared this with me, and I’ll do my best to take it to heart. 

We’ve obviously had very different lives, and we see the world differently as a result. You see things I overlook. You find real significance in things that sail right over my head (or under my nose). Clearly, I’d do well to look harder.

I’m going to try to address a few of the points you made. I’m not trying to say “you’re wrong, I’m right.” I’m not going to offer these up as excuses; just explanations for what I saw and what I wrote.

First off, “haters gonna hate.” When I wrote that, I was not thinking about folks from marginalized communities who might take issue with the ideas or presentation. If I had, I would not have included that tag, and I now feel compelled to lodge my entire foot deep in my esophagus. 

I was instead envisioning someone who looked like me getting all huffy because every last detail from the books hadn’t been faithfully captured onscreen. I like adaptations that take risks and try unexpected things. I don’t think the people who set out to make this show were like, “F--- Terry Pratchett, that guy sucks, let’s desecrate his life’s work.” I see too much affection for his work in the series for that -- a lot more affection and respect, indeed, than some of the previous projects with with Pratchett was happily involved. (For the record, I like the Going Postal miniseries quite a lot, and I think Michelle Dockery made an awesome Susan in an otherwise meh Hogfather.) 

I think the makers of The Watch wanted to try something new and different; I think they succeeded while still staying true to the heart of the books; and I’m not going to pillory them for that. But I’m most emphatically not saying “no one can ever disagree with me, mine is the one true interpretation!” This is how I feel. I understand people feel differently. That’s fine. I shouldn’t have made that taunt; it was a jerk move, and again, I’m sorry.

Second: I have Terry Pratchett to thank for helping me (again, boring cis hetero white dude) understand why treating people the way they ask to be treated, seeing them the way they ask to be seen, is just the right thing to do. I had barely any awareness of or interaction with trans folks when I read The Last Continent more than a decade ago. But Rincewind’s interaction, however oblivious, with the caravan of ladies who help him out -- the way he salutes them as “the nicest ladies I’ve ever met,” and how Pratchett makes clear just how much that means to them -- lodged in my heart and has remained there ever since. 

As for Cheery, what I wrote is what I saw when I read the books. I wasn’t thinking about larger ramifications or symbolism, because my life did not and has still rarely intersected with those issues. Doesn’t mean they don’t matter or aren’t important, just that I’ve been relatively insulated from them. In the books, I saw a nice, friendly person, good at their job, who the books portray as a trailblazer within her society, but also very specifically as a woman who happens to have a beard. Maybe I’m remembering wrong, but I recall a lot of well-intentioned jokes along the lines of “A beard? But she’s a woman!” I read (past tense, not present tense) Cheery in the books more as a feminist metaphor than a trans one. But I definitely see your point. 

Different people will read the same thing, or watch the same show, and draw different conclusions and interpretations. I did not see Cheery the way you did because it literally never occurred to me. That’s on me, and I thank you for broadening my perspective on the character.

Anyway, I like the show’s presentation of Cheery as non-binary; I think Jo Eaton-Kent gives a wonderful, deeply likable performance, and that the character’s essential competence and kindness remain intact from the books to the show.

Third: I don’t think the Watch books are “copaganda.” I worried that a TV cop-show adaptation of them would be. I don’t think this one is, and I’m relieved. I also don’t think it’s a realistic representation of contemporary law enforcement, nor that it’s trying to be one. It jumps through numerous hoops to create a world in which the cops aren’t agents of state violence acting with impunity, but underdogs trying to serve the powerless. And while I acknowledge that’s pure fantasy, if you’re going to do a cop show, that’s probably the most ethical way to do it at this point. I don’t read it as excusing or glossing over the real-world problems of policing. Instead, like the books, it offers a view of what policing could and should and perhaps ought to be.

Fourth: I respectfully disagree with your assertion that all the black characters are serial killers. I just don’t see that reading in the show. Captain Keel certainly isn’t, though I’ll grant you he’s not in the show long, and then only to die saving and thus motivating a white character, which is ... not ideal, to put it mildly. But for what little time he’s onscreen, he’s presented as a figure of selfless integrity and public spirit. Lady Sybil may be heavily armed, but the show explains why she’d feel the need to go through life that way: She saw her parents murdered in front of her, and was told that no one else would protect her. She doesn’t indiscriminately slaughter criminals; she tries, in however flawed a fashion, to educate and uplift them. (You can critique her approach to that, and I think the show doesn’t present it as unambiguously positive, but still.)  I’ve read a lot of Pratchett books, but I haven’t read them all. I haven’t read Men at Arms or Guards, Guards! I think Night Watch was the first Watch book I read, though they’d showed up in Monstrous Regiment, the first Pratchett book I read. So my picture of Lady Sybil in the books may be incomplete. But while the books I read definitely portrayed her as kind, intelligent, and steadfastly moral, most of them treated her as little more than Vimes’s wife. There were allusions to her size in what I read as a not-entirely-complimentary way; she didn’t tend to get involved in the action much, except occasionally to execute some skillful bit of diplomacy; and she mostly remained in the big fancy mansion she shares with Vimes, fretting about his well-being and nudging him to take care of himself. It seems I missed a lot in Sybil’s earlier appearances. Still, I think the Sybil on the show is as courageous and noble as she is in the books, and I think the series benefits by moving her more to the foreground. Note that I did not and have not praised the series for making Sybil thinner or younger -- just a more active and prominent protagonist.

As for Carcer, in Night Watch I recall him as basically just evil incarnate. A bad man who does bad things because he’s bad. I think the series offers a more complex, sympathetic, and human take on the character. It seems to be implying that while his methods are wrong, his motives may have some sympathy to them, and that intrigues me. 

Again, none of this excuses the fact that I hurt you or anyone else. I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone; I’m sorry I did. I just saw a TV show I liked, based on books I also liked, and wanted to celebrate that. I could have chosen a better and more thoughtful way to make my case, without antagonizing anyone. I didn’t, and I was careless and dumb in doing so. I’ll try to do better.

Why “The Watch” Is Worth Watching

Let’s face it: Most TV adaptations of the late Terry Pratchett’s satirical fantasy novels have been dreadful. Aside from some stellar casting here and there, the bulk of the previous, Pratchett-approved efforts to bring his Discworld novels to the screen have floundered under poky pacing, subpar scripts, and the lingering sense that the people making them looked down on the material, and felt entitled to half-ass it.

You can forgive Pratchett’s fans, then, for getting up in arms when the BBC and its American offshoot announced The Watch, a cop-show adaptation of one of the most beloved clutches of characters in Pratchett’s sprawling and interconnected universe. Talk of a “punk rock” spin on the material seemed like a leap too far from the books. Early photos and trailers appeared to confirm this, with characters and settings wildly at odds with the books’ descriptions. Even the author’s daughter, accomplished video game writer Rhianna Pratchett, greeted the show with a series of terse and decidedly frosty comments.

I’ve read a boatload of Terry Pratchett – not just the tales of Sam Vines and the Watch, but also Granny Weatherwax and her coven, and Rincewind the wizard, and William de Worde, and my main man Moist Von Lipwig. And in the wake of the past year’s protests against police brutality, and the ever-accumulating evidence of systemic injustice in American law enforcement, I’m not exactly clamoring for another dose of copaganda. So I ought to hate The Watch.

But I don’t. 

It’s fresh and clever and different. It looks and feels nothing like the books you saw in your head, but somehow it makes that strangeness sing. Lead adapter Simon Allen has threaded a tailor’s shop worth of needles to craft a startlingly ethical cop show that actually can make a fair claim to a punk rock ethos. And Allen and his team of writers and directors have remembered and honored the thing that makes Pratchett’s books so captivating. They’re laugh-out-loud funny, sure – but they burn quiet and white-hot with a rage against injustice and cruelty, and a bone-deep call for simple human kindness. So does The Watch.

Keep reading

[associatevidiot]

Please Stop Pressing the Button That Gives You Stuff But Kills a Random Stranger Until I’ve Fully Explained How It Works

With thanks and apologies to Richard Matheson

Good afternoon. I’m sorry to interrupt you at home, but I happened to be in the neighborhood, and — the payment you’re waiting for? Yes. Yes, I suppose that is why I’m here. 

Thank you. What a lovely home you have here.

You see, I represent an organization that would like to offer you an extraordinary and lucrative opportunity. I have here in my satchel a simple device for you. All you need to do, should you so choose, is press the red button on top of this wooden box, and you will instantly receive something you desperately want. And in exchange, a random person you don’t know, somewhere in the world, will—

Oh. I see you’ve pressed the button already.

My mistake. I should have explained before I showed you the box. You see, you press the button, you get something you want — just a moment, just a moment — and in exchange, a person you don’t know, chosen at random somewhere in the world, will die. 

… And you just pressed the button again.

Actually, come to think of it, may I see the box for a second? Hmm. Aha! Oh, goodness, what a mistake. You’ll have to forgive me, it’s been a long day. See the label here on the underside? This is the box that gives you a full tank of gas for your car, but in exchange, your grandchildren die in a drought-related famine or uncontrollable coastal flooding. Possibly both. Perfectly understandable. That one’s very easy to press. Surprisingly popular.

Yes, you have a full tank of gas now. Yes, since you pressed the button twice, the tank will automatically refill as soon as it’s empty. No, you won’t have to stop driving to refill. It’ll just happen. Honestly, that’s what you’re curious about? 

Sorry, sorry, I’m getting off track. 

Anyway. This box — let me just check the label, and yes, this is the correct box — has the button I was talking about. Press it, get neat stuff, a random stranger dies cold and alone in an unfamiliar bed, choking to death as their ravaged lungs fill with—

Wow, just no hesitation. Not even a little. I won’t lie, I was not expecting that.

No, I’m not saying that. It’s a very nice haircut. You look great. Much better. I wasn’t going to say anything before, but —

And you pressed it again. For steaks. For that package of steaks sitting on your counter.

Look, maybe I need to explain this better. You see, when you press that button, yes, you instantly get something you desire. But in exchange, an actual living human being dies. And not like a peaceful death, in their sleep, surrounded by loved ones after a long and fulfilling life. We’re talking ugly. Slow. Lonely. Often involving tubes in places no one wants tubes. And not all of them are old people, either. They could be young. Healthy. They could be children. Just the saddest, most miserable death you could ever, ever— 

You just pressed it again. I was — I was explaining and you just —

Of course, I understand. Your lawn’s not going to fertilize itself. 

It’s just — look, usually I make this offer, and people, you know, they think about it. And then they turn me down, and then the thought of having their wishes instantaneously granted gnaws at them until they call me back, and I bring the box back to them, and then they wrestle with the moral implications, and they press the button, and they feel so guilty and it’s just delicious. I savor it. So I hope you understand if I’m just a little crestfallen when you —

Will you stop pressing that button long enough for me to finish? Please? … Look, don’t talk to me about freedom. You’ve very clearly been exercising your freedom not to listen to me since we sat down. All I’m asking is just the simple basic courtesy of —

Stop it. Stop it right now. Just give me back the — give it back — no, I never said you could have it, the box still belongs to us, so just — stop, I see you trying to press the button again — just stop, okay! Stop it! Let go! Let —!

Look. Look what you did. It’s broken now. You broke it. 

Are you happy? You ruined it. You ruined everything. Yes, yes, I will get out of your house. Gladly. Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ, what is wrong with you? You just had to ruin it.

… No, you may not press the button on the other box some more.

[associatevidiot]

Things I, a Moderate Liberal, Actually Like Quite a Lot About America

Hello! Moderate liberal here. I happened upon this post detailing a list of things that I, a liberal, supposedly hate about America. So I thought I’d quickly run down it, point by point, to see how it checked out. 

1. The U.S. Constitution I love the U.S. Constitution so, so much. The First Amendment in particular. I love the Constitution so much that I even respect the parts that make very little sense to me. (The Second Amendment could, at the very least, have used a decent copy editor. So much confusion just from a couple of awkwardly placed commas.)

2. Liberty Love it! 

3. Freedom Same thing as liberty, but hey, I also love it!

4. Success I have no problem with success! Success is great! I wish success for all who strive for it. Now, conflating success with virtue -- saying that you must be a good person just because you succeeded, or a bad person because you didn’t? Not a fan of that.

5. Big Trucks Eh. I don’t see the point of them unless you need one for your job, in which case I’m all for big trucks. But I don’t hate them so much as roll my eyes at them. Also, I think we can all agree that monster trucks are awesome, and the world is a better place for having them.

6. Capitalism It’s got its downsides in its rawest, least fettered form, but it’s also been responsible for unleashing unprecedented human prosperity, and lifting millions out of poverty. And it’s way, way better than, say, the idiocy that is Communism. Capitalism, like pro sports, simply needs good referees.

7. Free Markets I love free markets! I’d like to see more of them. Free markets in health care. Free markets in broadband. Free markets everywhere, without regulations designed to protect established incumbents at the expense of scrappy up-and-comers. I’d like to see free markets filled with companies that work hard every day to do right both by their employees and their customers, lest a competitor swoop in and outperform them.

8. Wealthy People I like wealthy people! Good for them! I don’t begrudge anyone the ability to live in comfort. And, hey, if they’ve got a little money left over to reinvest in the country that helped them become wealthy, that’s great, too!

9. Economic Prosperity You caught me. I actually favor grinding poverty and misery for all! Ha. No. I love economic prosperity. I’d like more of it for myself and, well, for everyone. Which is why I favor things like single-payer health care and investments in education and infrastructure to help said economy prosper.

10. The Rule of Law I love the rule of law! I love the way it protects the powerless from the powerful. I love the way it allows appellate courts to overrule bad laws made by bad or misguided people! I’d like to see the rule of law applied equally to every citizen of our great nation.

11. Traditional Values As a married guy and a father, I have to say, I love devoting my life to the woman I adore with all my heart, and working with her to raise our children to be kind, thoughtful, polite, compassionate, inventive, thrifty, and hard-working.

12. The American Flag Love it. The stars. The stripes. The color scheme. The swell of pride and awe at the thought of all the sacrifices made and all the greatness achieved and all the hope inspired by that banner. 

13. The Founding Fathers They certainly weren’t perfect. But they gave us the Constitution, which was pretty amazing. Also, Ben Franklin alone is impossible not to love. Dude took air baths in the nude and slept his way through the wives of the French aristocracy, AND invented bifocals. 

14. Guns As a fan of firearm-intensive cinema from John Woo to John Wick, I can confidently say that guns are freaking awesome. In real life, I prefer my guns in the hands of people who’ve been thoroughly trained in how to use them in defense of others, and not, say, indiscriminately placed in the hands of troubled people who might shoot up a movie theater or an elementary school or their families or themselves.

15. Limited Government Depends on your definition of “limited,” but I can certainly see places where too much government is both possible and undesirable. Next!

16. Religious Freedom A Mormon acquaintance of mine recently posted about how her stake had opened their place of worship to Muslims who needed a place to pray because someone who didn’t like religious freedom had burned down their mosque. That story choked me up. I love religious freedom, and the moment someone proposes a law to dictate what you can and can’t say or do in church, I’ll be right there to oppose it.

17. Homeschooling Eh. Doesn’t seem necessary to me, but hey, it’s a free country. 

18. Private Schools See No. 17.

19. Christian Schools See No. 17. Plus, if your faith is so strong that you need to shield it from the outside world wherever possible, maybe your faith is not that strong?

20. Entrepreneurs Steve Jobs, whatever his failings, is a hero of mine. Ditto Jim Sinegal, founder of Costco, and Warren Buffett, head of Berkshire Hathaway. I love people who take risks, start businesses, and create jobs. 

21. Ronald Reagan Ronald Reagan is, alas, kind of a dirtbag. The Screen Actors Guild elected him to lead them, and he promptly sold them out to get a sweetheart deal for himself. Then he spent the Blacklist era casually tossing his professional rivals to the Congressional wolves to further his own career. That said, he had the guts to advocate for reasonable gun control after being shot, and he really got the danger of nuclear war and worked hard to prevent it. For that especially, I’ll always be grateful to him.

22. Donald Trump Guilty as charged. Mostly because Trump has a demonstrated history of treating other people horribly. But you can’t get that messed up without a really awful childhood, so deep down, I just sort of feel sorry for him. He doesn’t seem like a truly happy person. I wonder if he ever got down on the floor and played with any of his kids when they were little. I really hope he did.

23. Mike Pence Guilty as charged, but again, mostly because Pence has a documented history of not taking good care of the people he was elected to serve. But that said, I hope Mike Pence lives a long, happy, and prosperous life! I just hope he does so far from any position of political power.

24. Country Music Johnny Cash is a freaking genius. June Carter Cash is amazing. Patsy Cline is gorgeous. Darius Rucker has an amazing voice. Garth Brooks’ “We Shall Be Free” gives me a lump in my throat every. Dang. Time. Hank Williams was awesome. I could go on.

25. Rush Limbaugh That poor, sad man.

26. The Tea Party I may disagree with them, but hey, good on them for engaging in democracy! That’s the way to do it.

27. Lower Taxes I would love lower taxes. I just don’t want anyone else to suffer so that I can have more money.

28. Old-Fashioned Light Bulbs Actually, yeah, I do hate these! Why would anyone want to waste money on something designed to break way, way sooner than it needs to?

29. Jesus The idea that one man would lay down his life to redeem the sins of all mankind awes me to my core, and inspires me to try to lead a more Christlike life myself. I wish everyone acted more like Jesus!

30. The Bible There’s some pretty good stuff in there! Definitely don’t hate it.

31. The Christian Faith I was married in a Baptist church by a Methodist minister who is, no foolin’, one of the best people I know. Christians can be really great people, and any faith that inspires them to be that way is A-OK in my book.

32. The Drudge Report Well, OK, I’m not a fan, but I also roll my eyes at the Huffington Post, so...

33. John Wayne I can’t recall a more thrilling introduction to a character than the way the camera swoops across the landscape to reveal young John Wayne in “Stagecoach.” And “The Searchers” is just fantastic. Like Vin Diesel, Wayne simultaneously manages to be a kind of bad actor and a really good actor, and I love him for that.

34. Alex Jones ... Yeah, guilty as charged. Mostly because he claims murdered kids were fake actors. That’s not cool, man! I know you’re a red-faced amalgam of beef sweats and conspiracy theories, but have a little decency.

35. NASCAR ... They just go around in a circle! Over and over and over! 

36. Tupperware Why would anyone hate Tupperware? It’s great!

37. Big Cheeseburgers I will fistfight anyone who maligns big cheeseburgers. They’re one of my favorite food groups.

38. Football Three words: “Friday Night Lights.” So good.

39. Clint Eastwood If for nothing else, I’d love Clint Eastwood for “Unforgiven.”

40. The Army

41. The Navy

42. The Marines

43. The Air Force I’m the very proud son, brother, and grandson of Air Force vets. My grandfathers flew with bomber crews in WWII and Korea. My dad was a fighter pilot for 30 years. I grew up on Air Force bases with the Sound of Freedom overhead. If you say I hate the Air Force, you and I are going to have words. I love the other branches of the service only slightly less. (: Also, does this mean liberals love the Coast Guard? Because those guys are great.

44. Ron Paul Eh. I don’t think he means any harm.

45. Rand Paul Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, especially about government overreach in regard to the surveillance state.

46. Marriage

47. Family

48. Babies For the above three, please see answer 11. Also, don’t these kind of overlap with “traditional values”?

49. Wal-Mart Every Wal-Mart cashier I’ve ever spoken to has a story that will break your heart. Every single one. Every time. 

50. Flag Pins I have no problem with wearing the flag, as long as you act in ways that honor it.

51. Steakhouses For my bachelor party, I went to a steakhouse and ate a tomahawk ribeye the size of my head. Don’t you dare tell me I hate steakhouses. I’m from Texas. Them’s fightin’ words.

52. Chuck Norris Seems OK to me.

53. Bottled Water  I drink it all the time!

54. George Washington Owning slaves is about the only blemish I can think of for this otherwise sterling example of humanity. And he was at least less of a jerk about that than most people at the time. On the whole, Washington was a great man who truly loved his country and did right by it.

55. The 1st Amendment

56. The 2nd Amendment

57. The 10th Amendment We have already established that I love the Constitution. All of it. Even the parts I disagree with.

58. The Pledge of Allegiance Eh. It’s kinda silly when you learn the history behind it, but it does no harm, and I like the idea of having shared cultural touchstones that unite us as Americans.

59. McDonald’s I applaud their clean restrooms and tasty smoothies.

60. Coca-Cola Not my favorite, but I don’t hate it.

61. Fried Food Fried okra is perhaps the best possible form of any vegetable.

62. Muscle Cars I’ve seen all but one of the “Fast & Furious” movies. Muscle cars are awesome.

63. Charlie Daniels I would prefer not to live in a world that didn’t have “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” Come on, that song is great.

64. Dolly Parton Who hates Dolly Parton? Who could possibly hate Dolly Parton? She’s great.

65. Duck Dynasty Eh. Kinda dumb idea for the TV show, but hey, good on those folks for starting a successful business and enjoying its benefits.

66. Johnny Cash We have previously discussed this. 

67. Sarah Palin I’m very happy that Sarah Palin can live her life in freedom and ease, far from the levers of power. I wish her and her family nothing but the best.

68. Cheesesteaks Again, who could possibly hate cheesesteaks? They have meat! And cheese! And bread! 

69. Sean Hannity ... yeah, guilty as charged.

70. Rodeos They’re pretty fun! And man, it takes a LOT of skill and hard work to be good enough to compete in one.

71. Cadillacs What am I supposed to hate?

72. Barbie Dolls Shrug. 

73. Ted Cruz ... Okay, for real now, does anyone like Ted Cruz? I mean, John Boehner called him “Lucifer in the flesh.”

74. Fiscal Sanity I love fiscal sanity so much. I’d like to see more of it. I try to practice it in my own life and budget.

75. Charlton Heston Ben-Hur and Touch of Evil exist. Your argument that I hate Charlton Heston is invalid.

76. Israel I’m of Jewish descent, and I’ve seen pictures of Dachau just after it was liberated. Nope. Don’t hate Israel.

77. Benjamin Netanyahu Don’t hate the guy, but fine, I dislike him -- mostly because I think he’s bad for Israel.

78. Miners Brave, hardworking folks doing an awful job to dig up stuff we need? Good on them.

79. Loggers As long as they plant more trees than they cut down, we’re cool. People need wood. I get it.

80. The Coal Industry The folks who dig coal out of the ground? Nope. The folks who profit off their misery while cutting corners on their safety? Kinda, yeah.

81. National Sovereignty In order to hate this, I would have to fully understand what it implies.

82. National Borders Well, I mean, I’m not dying to return to the age of the supercontinent Pangea, so no, I don’t hate borders.

83. Uncle Sam Love him.

84. The Washington Redskins The name, yes. The actual players, no. Lotta Redskins fans among my in-laws. I respect that!

85. Small Businesses Love ‘em. Want to do more to help them thrive.

86. Self-Employment My brother’s self-employed. I love my brother. Ergo, I love self-employment.

87. Harley-Davidson Motorcycles They’re pretty cool. And made in the USA. Don’t hate ‘em.

88. Military Veterans Please see 43 above,

89. The Phrase “Islamic Terror” Well, yes, but only because it makes life more dangerous for the soldiers trying to protect us from radical Islamists like ISIS.

90. Big Families Eh, it’s a free country. They can do what they like!

91. The Bible Belt Is this even a thing anymore? Whatever. Don’t hate it. Free country.

92. The Creation Museum Mostly I just think this is kinda dumb. But then, I think ignoring science gives God and his majesty short shrift.

93. The 10 Commandments I love ‘em! Especially “thou shalt not kill” and “thou shalt not bear false witness.” 

94. Anyone That Is Pro-Life I have dear family friends who are pro-life. They adopted two kids and gave them a fantastic, loving home, and they volunteer to help give other babies that same chance. I couldn’t be prouder of them.

95. Anyone Who Disagrees With Them See above. Also, I’ve had some great discussions with people who disagree with me on Facebook. If you really listen to people without trying to judge them or change their minds, you can learn a lot!

96. Hard Work It’s not, you know, always fun, but it’s definitely a good thing!

97. Patriotism I refer you to the Sound of Freedom above.

98. Winning I like winning! It’s fun! I just think when winning becomes your highest goal, you’ve lost sight of more important things.

99. The Truth I went to journalism school. The truth is my religion. 

100. The American People How could I hate myself? I’m an American person, too! In fact, last I checked, 53% of the American people either were liberals or were willing to vote for one to be President. We are large. We contain multitudes. And that’s beautiful.

[associatevidiot]

So, I wrote a full-length screenplay in which Dominic Toretto and his crew battle the Universal Monsters with the power of street racing and FAMILY.

... No, seriously.

TL;DR: Read the entire 180(!)-page screenplay (PDF, 369KB) for 

THE FAST AND THE FRANKENSTEIN

Author’s commentary after the jump. Don’t read it yet if you don’t want to be spoiled...

Wait, what? Is this a joke?

Nope. Not a joke. This is a real 180-page screenplay in which, well, see the headline.

But it’s, like, a spoof or a parody, like Airplane!, right?

Hell no. I have grown to sincerely love the big dumb cinematic Labrador retriever that is the Fast & The Furious saga, and I would not disrespect it for cheap laffs. This is a scrupulously in-character, in-continuity story that’s designed to fit as neatly as possible between Furious 7 and The Fate of the Furious, without interfering with or ruling out anything that happens in the latter.

I mean, it is absolutely ridiculous and absurd, but only in the specific ways that any Fast & Furious movie would be ridiculous and absurd.

Why the Universal Monsters?

After Furious 7 came out, I started wondering where the franchise could possibly go from there. I mean, besides outer space, which we all know they’re saving for the magnificent conclusion of Part 10. Brian Grubb at Uproxx posted an uncannily prescient prediction for Part 8, involving both Helen Mirren and a submarine. (Along with a few casting ideas I unabashedly stole. More on that in a second.) Some other genius went and made a fake trailer for Fast to the Future, which I sincerely hope series screenwriter Chris Morgan has pinned to his idea board. 

But in the absence of Dom Toretto in a DeLorean, and with Universal trying to turn its monsters into a Marvel-style shared universe of their own (with help from Chris Morgan!), the next logical step for the franchise seemed to be a crossover in the grand tradition of Abbott and Costello. It’s alarmingly easy to update the likes of Dracula and Dr. Frankenstein to fit within the ever-expanding contours of the Fast & The Furious series. 

And once I did, I found that Dracula and Frankenstein’s Monster carry some intriguing thematic and metaphoric weight for a series that has changed radically since it began, and for Dom Toretto at this point in the series, freshly and irrevocably parted from the best friend who’d come to define him. No, seriously, there is a genuine emotional character arc in this film about street racing and monsters.

But also, The Rock fights The Wolfman. Because come on, that is awesome and you know it.

Who returns for this chapter of the saga?

I couldn’t use the Shaws, since I knew they figured in Part 8. And obviously I couldn’t include Brian or Mia. The core crew includes Dom (of course), Letty, Hobbs, Roman, Tej, Ramsey (who was surprisingly fun to write), and help from Mr. Nobody.

And who are the guest stars this time around?

As Dr. Vic Frankenstein, amoral rogue geneticist for hire:

NICOLAS CAGE. He’s got gearhead cred from Gone in 60 Seconds, and let’s face it, he should have played a mad scientist years ago.

As Vlad Dracula, immortality-obsessed Romanian warlord:

KEANU REEVES. Have you seen John Wick? You should see John Wick. Everyone should see John Wick. Also, he’s eerily ageless and quietly intense, he’s a talented stunt driver, he can fight like a demon, and there’s also the small matter of his role in Bram Stoker’s Dracula back in the day.

As Frankenstein’s Monster:

JOHN CENA. Look at this guy! He already looks like he was pieced together in a laboratory. And yet, if you’ve seen him in Trainwreck, you know that he can offset his imposing physical presence with an endearing, earnest sweetness.

As Abi Van Helsing, renegade ex-Interpol agent and monster hunter: 

LUPITA NYONG’O. She’s awesome. She’s a colossal geek. She has the best voice. And she ought to be a huge star in a movie that doesn’t require her to do mocap. Zoe Saldana’s getting lonely in the very, very thin ranks of black female action heroes.

Does this script pass the Bechdel Test?

You’re dang right it does.

Is something wrong with you?

Yes, very probably. Now go read and enjoy. 

You’re welcome, America.

[associatevidiot]

Ron Swanson in The Good Place

A soothing waiting room. Gentle music plays. RON SWANSON opens his eyes.

Ron sees a wall in front of him, bright green, with a message in big white letters: DON’T WORRY. YOU’RE GOING TO BE OKAY.

Ron looks around. Hears the gentle music, and the gentle gurgling of the relaxing water feature in the corner. Ron’s eyes narrow. He does not believe the message.

A door on one side of the room opens, and MICHAEL, architect of this neighborhood of The Good Place, appears.

MICHAEL: Ronald Ulysses Swanson? We’re ready for you now.

Ron’s eyes narrow further. Bureaucracy. He rises warily and proceeds into Michael’s office, scanning the room for signs of danger. MICHAEL sits down behind his desk and gestures for Ron to take a seat. Ron does so, noting with contempt the inferior workmanship of his non-wooden chair.

MICHAEL: Ron, I have to tell you, we’re just so excited to have you here. Now, I imagine you must have some --

RON: I’m dead, aren’t I?

MICHAEL: ... Well, yes. Yes, that’s it exactly.

RON: And I’m in Hell.

MICHAEL: What? No? No, no, no! The farthest thing from it.

Ron snorts in contempt.

RON: I know your ways, deceiver. Go ahead. Get on with your torments. [beat] If Tammy One or Tammy Two are somehow involved -- and this is Hell, so I imagine they both already had vacation homes here -- I ask only for a large stick and time enough to whittle it into a sharp point. Two minutes, tops.

MICHAEL: Mr. Swanson, I’m afraid you’re terribly mistaken. You’ve lived an exemplary life. You were an outstanding husband and father to Diane and the girls, you helped countless people through your lifelong career in government --

Ron shudders at the word.

RON: I see the torment has already begun. Go ahead. Do your worst. I’ve been ready for this moment since I was five years old.

MICHAEL: Again, Mr. Swanson, please, you are not in Hell. Although I can see how perhaps you might think that -- you died of injuries sustained after you fought a mother grizzly bear and knocked her unconscious so that you could carry her and her three cubs to safety from a raging forest fire. We’ve ... frankly, we’ve never seen anything like that here.

RON: In Hell, you mean.

MICHAEL: Mr. Swanson, again, you’re not -- okay, look, maybe it’d be best if I gave you the tour. The cozy, charming streets of Ron’s neighborhood. Michael points to various shops as smiling people wave hello to Ron. Ron remains unimpressed.

MICHAEL: ... and we have all the amenities you could possibly need for your new life.

RON: In Hell.

MICHAEL: No, Mr. Swanson, for the last time, you’re not in Hell. You’re in the Good Place.

RON: There are other people here.

MICHAEL: Well, yes, obviously. ... Are you referring to Sartre? Because believe me, he did not end up in The Good Place.

RON: And ... that.

Ron points to one of the many, many frozen yogurt shops lining the main avenue.

MICHAEL: Frozen yogurt? Everyone loves frozen yogurt!

RON: Frozen yogurt is ice cream that lacked the fortitude to fully commit. Frozen yogurt is a quitter and a lie.

MICHAEL: ... Perhaps I’d better show you your new home. We’ve built you a beautiful, rustic log cabin with acres of surrounding wilderness, a lake for fishing, a woodworking shop...

Ron is almost tempted.

RON: Does it have room to bury my gold?

MICHAEL: Gold? Mr. Swanson, there’s no need for gold here. We don’t have currency of any kind. Everything’s free. No one has to work a day in their new life if they don’t want to. Isn’t that wonderful?

Ron’s nostrils subtly flare. Communism.

RON: Suppose I believe you. Suppose that you truly do wish to make me happy.

MICHAEL: That’s all we could possibly want for you.

RON: Then send me somewhere else.

MICHAEL: Mr. Swanson, I -- I don’t understand. Induction into the Good Place is an incredibly rare honor. No one has ever rejected it for thousands upon thousands of years.

RON: If this is the Good Place, is there another place? Somewhere else I could go?

MICHAEL: Well, yes, but you definitely don’t want to--

RON: Send me there.

MICHAEL: Mr. Swanson, I really must insist that you reconsider. The Bad Place is --

RON: -- doubtlessly better than an eternity in your Godless hippie torturescape.

MICHAEL: ... Are you absolutely certain, Mr. Swanson, that this is the only way you could possibly be happy? Don’t you want to take a few days and try it out first?

RON: Send me right away, please and thank you.

MICHAEL: ... All right, Mr. Swanson. If that’s what you wish. I ... I really hope you’re happy there.

Ron vanishes. Michael stands alone, crestfallen. He looks at his hands.

MICHAEL: Do ... do I stick these in my pockets now? I kind of want to stick these in my pockets. It feels right. You know what, I’m just gonna do it.

THE BAD PLACE. Fire. Sharp things. Darkness. The cacophonous howls of the tormented. Ron stands on a pile of bones and rusted implements, shuts his eyes, and breathes a deep, contented sigh. From nearby, someone screams:

TORMENTEE: That bear has two mouths!

Ron’s eyes snap open. His eyebrows rise. This, he’s gotta see. Ron hustles in the direction of the scream, passing a huge, muscular demon, BELPHEGOR THE SOULFLAYER, who is raising a massive, wicked-looking axe over a huddle of terrified souls. 

BELPHEGOR: Now, prepare for the smallest taste of eternal -- hey!

Ron has snatched Belphegor’s axe from the demon’s hands.

BELPHEGOR: That -- that’s mine! Give it back!

RON: Son, if you’re not going to use it properly, you shouldn’t use it at all. [beat] You’re letting your arms and shoulders do all the work. You want to keep your back straight and use your hips more. That’s where the real power is.

BELPHEGOR: Uh ... wow, I never really ... thanks?

But Ron is already dashing away.

SIX WEEKS LATER: Ron Swanson, the pelt of a two-mouthed bear draped over his head and shoulders, rides a three-headed dragon over the sulfrous pits of the Bad Place. Far below, he spots Belphegor, tormenting souls with a brand new axe. Belphegor and Ron make eye contact. Ron nods convivially. Belphegor nods back, with collegial respect. This fulfills all of Ron’s social interaction needs for the day.

Ron soars off into the pitch-black skies, unable to keep the giddiest of smiles off his face, giggling like a small, delighted child. 

[associatevidiot]

Bachelor Chow: Whole Wheat Biscuits

Every so often, on a Saturday or Sunday morning, I like to make a massive quantity of biscuits. Warm, flaky, tender biscuits, just ready to be split open and filled with eggs, cheese, bacon, maybe a shot of sriracha ... You’re drooling right now, aren’t you? It’s OK. So am I.

Since I like to try to eat healthier, I make my biscuits with 100% whole wheat flour. (Since I like to defeat myself at every turn, this recipe also calls for two entire sticks of butter.) Through trial and error, I Frankensteined together some of the recipes and techniques from Southern Living’s May 2014 issue -- super tasty, but not whole wheat -- with the sturdy foundation provided by 100 Days of Real Food’s whole wheat biscuit recipe. 

Note that unlike pretty much every other recipe on the Internet, this one is not accompanied by painstakingly art-directed photos of the food in question. If you need to look at pictures to convince you that you want to eat fresh hot homemade biscuits, you don’t really want to eat biscuits.

THE EQUIPMENT

A big mixing bowl.

A digital kitchen scale. No offense to measuring cups, but measuring things is the worst. Digital kitchen scales are cheap, easy to use, and let you just dump stuff into a bowl until you reach a predetermined magic number. Dumping stuff into a bowl is fantastic.

A box grater. Do not, I repeat, do not try to use a food processor for the grating-related portion of this recipe. The results will be ... suboptimal.

Measuring spoons.

A whisk, or failing that, a good-sized fork.

A dough whisk -- once you use one, you will understand why you ever bought it, and be so very happy that you did -- or some kind of mixing spoon or spatula.

A great big sturdy rolling pin. (If you have any pent-up aggression or frustration, you’ll enjoy this recipe.)

Sharp biscuit cutters. (Don’t use an upside-down glass. You need a sharp cutter so that the edges of the biscuit aren’t sealed -- otherwise, it might not rise well.) A good board scraper could also work, if you like square biscuits, and will definitely come in handy with the cleanup.

Purely optional but recommended: No-cut kitchen gloves, so that you can grate stuff without also grating your own fingers.

Also optional but handy: A basting brush.

A large baking sheet, lined with parchment paper. If you have a large roasting pan with high sides, use that instead! The higher the sides of the pan, the less room the biscuits have to expand anywhere but up.

An oven. (Obviously.) If you don’t have a full-sized oven, you can easily halve this recipe and squeeze the results into a Breville or other mini-oven.

THE INGREDIENTS

DRY TEAM:

18 oz. white whole wheat flour

20g vital wheat gluten

8 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

2 sticks unsalted butter, frozen solid, plus another tablespoon or two to melt at the end

WET TEAM:

Either...

2 cups milk

2 T white vinegar (or lemon juice, in a pinch)

Or ...

1 1/3 cups milk

2/3 cup Greek yogurt

Or...

2 cups buttermilk

THE INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 475 degrees. If you’ve got the option to go convection, feel free -- but maybe knock the temperature down to 450 degrees in a Breville, lest the tops get a bit too dark. 

If you have room in your freezer, pop your box grater in, next to that butter you’ve frozen, to get it nice and chilly.

If you don’t have or aren’t using buttermilk -- which can get thick and gloopy, and can require a little more patience to knead into the dry ingredients -- combine milk and vinegar OR milk and yogurt and let them sit out at room temperature for 10 minutes. The acid in the vinegar or the yogurt still gives the baking powder a stiff kick in the pants to make sure your biscuits rise nice and high.

Using the scale, measure out 18 oz. of white whole wheat flour. Regular whole wheat flour works fine, too! Use the scale again to add vital wheat gluten, which gives your whole wheat flour a little extra structure and durability to support higher-rising biscuits. (The rule of thumb here: 1.5 teaspoons, or 5 grams, of vital wheat gluten per 1 cup of whole wheat flour -- which works out to 1 tablespoon for each 2 cups of flour.)

Add baking powder -- feel free to be inexact and a little generous with it! -- and salt. Whisk or mix together until they’re well-combined.

Don your no-cut glove and grate one stick of butter, then the next, directly into the flour mixture. (Thanks, Southern Living!) Work quickly -- the colder the butter when you pop these in the oven, the better the results. When the butter’s all grated, mix it with the flour until the whole thing’s kinda clumpy and well-combined.

Take a minute to run your very cold hand under warm water until you stop wondering how much exposure to a frozen stick of butter it takes to develop frostbite.

Once the aforementioned 10 minutes are up, make a well in the middle of the dry ingredient bowl, then pour in the bogus “buttermilk” and mix until you don’t see any more dry flour in the bowl. (A dough whisk makes this part almost obscenely easy. Just sayin’.) The resulting dough will be wet and kinda goopy, and that’s OK. 

Spread flour over a clean flat surface with plenty of room to maneuver. I like to use a small stainless steel strainer to scatter the flour more evenly. Get some flour on your rolling pin, and on your hands.

Dump out the thick, wet dough onto the floured surface. Scatter more flour on top. Quickly flatten it out, using your fingertips instead of your palms to transfer as little heat as possible. 

And now, the fun part. Grab your rolling pin like a mighty war club and THWACK THAT DOUGH FLAT. Yep. Just straight up Bam-Bam Rubble that thing. Pretend it insulted your mother or owes you money or something. When the dough’s good and flat, fold it over in thirds, then THWACK IT AGAIN until it’s flattened out. J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, in his wonderful cookbook The Food Lab, suggests you fold the dough in thirds both lengthwise and widthwise, creating nine layers; then roll it flat and repeat, creating 81 layers. I find this an efficient way to quickly create a whole bunch of layers. Layers are good.

When you feel you’ve sufficiently thwacked the dough, roll it out to between 1/2 inch and 1 inch thick. Thinner means more biscuits; thicker means fewer, but higher-rising biscuits. (I favor the latter.) Cut as many biscuits as you can from the dough, pressing straight down when you cut -- no twisting! If necessary, ball up the scraps, thwack, fold, thwack, fold, roll, cut, and repeat until you’ve used everything up. Tiny weird mutant biscuits made from the remaining dough are perfectly acceptable.

Place your biscuits on a parchment-paper-covered baking sheet, close enough to touch each other -- with no room to spread out, they’ll be forced to spread upward. If and only if you have the time and space, pop the biscuits and their tray into your freezer for 10 minutes or so. I’ve found that colder biscuits going into the oven tend to rise higher; not sure whether that’s the temperature, or just that the resting period has relaxed the gluten within the biscuits.

Bake your biscuits for 15 minutes.

If two whole sticks of butter just aren’t enough for you, melt another tablespoon or two in the microwave. Immediately after the biscuits come out of the oven, brush the tops with melted butter, just to increase your odds of an eventual heart attack. (Arguably worth it.)

Let biscuits cool just enough to MESSILY DEVOUR without hurting yourself. 

Prefer sweet to savory? Add 6T of your favorite sweetener -- sugar, brown sugar, coconut sugar, allulose -- plus 2T of ground cinnamon and 1/2 cup raisins to the dry team, and 2t vanilla to the wet team, for not-too-sweet cinnamon raisin biscuits.

This recipe will make a whole pile of biscuits -- enough to feed a smallish army. Store any extras in the freezer in a zip-top bag once they’ve cooled down. Pop frozen biscuits in the microwave for 30 seconds to a minute to thaw and warm, then treat them like you would any other piece of toast in your Breville or oven-type toaster to get them nice and crispy again.

[associatevidiot]

So, I wrote a Fantastic Four movie.

(Pictures by Jack Kirby, words by Stan Lee, feelings all over the place.)

The Fantastic Four, the First Family of Marvel Comics, have never had a good movie adaptation. Roger Corman’s was risible, Tim Story’s films were mostly bad sitcom plots, and Josh Trank’s colorless, Croenenbergian take apparently ignored all the, you know, fun. 

You can call the Fantastic Four jerks. You can say they’re nearly impossible to adapt. I disagree. I think you can make a great FF movie, the same way you make any other great comic book movie: Find the emotional core that made people connect with the characters in the first place, and focus on that.

And since I have poor judgment, insufficient shame, and too much time on my hands apparently, I decided that rather than just saying that, I’d try to do it.

TL;DR: You can read the whole 126-page script here. I realize there is not a chance in hell it will ever even come close to the vaguest idea of getting made. I wrote it for fun, in a little less than a month -- because the story grabbed my brain and wouldn’t let go until I let it out onto the page.

If you’re interested in some behind-the-scenes writer commentary -- and I realize that’s presuming a lot on my part -- read on.

First, a few caveats

I haven’t seen Corman’s or Trank’s films. To my lasting regret, I have seen Story’s version. (Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, and the Silver Surfer were pretty good. The rest? Uggggggh.) I’ve also read this excerpt of Max Landis’s unfilmed draft, and this description of Jeremy Slater’s original draft for Trank’s film. Both seem like they’d be fun to read, but I’ve worked hard to avoid even the appearance of ripping off any element of their scripts or the other films, aside from the common elements all the movies draw from the original comics. Any similarities between my take and any scripts, filmed or otherwise, are coincidental and entirely unintended.

That said, I took a few crucial insights on the characters from the brilliant run by Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo, which made me fall in love with the FF to begin with. Waid is a genius at revealing things about decades-old characters that feel completely fresh and novel, yet somehow obvious in hindsight. My story wouldn’t work without his take on Reed Richards, and the final scene of my script leans heavily on a monologue he wrote in the first issue of his run. 

I also lifted a few cool ideas from Grant Morrison’s gloriously weird and unsettling Fantastic Four 1234, drawn by Jae Lee. 

The origin

We live in a dawning age of private space exploration. Cash prizes spur companies and inventors to reach and race for the heavens. Cosmic rays remain a very real concern for astronauts hoping to reach Mars or beyond. So while they might not be doing it to beat the Commies into space, it’s not exactly implausible for our heroes to take a hasty rocket trip right smack into the middle of a cosmic storm. (Or was it a cosmic storm...?)

The tone

You can take these inherently goofy characters seriously without turning them into dour, monochrome fugitives, outcasts, and killers. And you can have fun with the concept without treating the FF like “silly kids’ stuff” and sticking them into bad sitcom plots. (Oh no, the Devourer of Worlds has come to destroy the planet -- and right in the middle of my big wedding!)

My script tries to treat the FF like real people with believable motivations, caught in increasingly far-out situations. They succeeded on the comics page because they were convincingly a family -- with all the ups and down any family might face. Plus, lots of people live amazing -- or, no less impressively, just plain ordinary -- lives every day while dealing with injuries, illness, or disabilities. I think the Four carry a lot of intriguing thematic weight when you look at them in that light.

But we’re also talking about a stretchy man, a see-through lady, a fire guy, and a rock guy fighting a metal-masked monologuist in a green miniskirt who wants to break his mom out of Hell. How can you not have fun with that?

Reed Richards

Again, all credit to Mark Waid’s run for helping me understand Reed Richards. He’s not an aloof egghead. He’s not cold or arrogant. He just doesn’t always think, which is an interesting characteristic for a genius. He doesn’t always consider the consequences of his actions until it’s too late -- but he genuinely cares. He’s haunted by his mistakes. He’s afraid of the person he might be if he didn’t care. And he’ll move heaven and earth to try to make up for the things he’s done wrong. 

Susan Storm Richards

How do you keep Susan from being overshadowed by her genius husband? Make her the brains of the operation. Not the mom, but the MacGyver: Focused. Organized. Inventive. She harnesses Reed’s far-out concepts in the service of actual, concrete plans. She holds everyone together when they’re falling apart. Her story’s about going from being overlooked and underestimated to becoming impossible to miss. (And naturally, a smart person who thrives on logic and structure would make a great computer programmer.)

I had the idea that Susan and Johnny’s parents were rescue workers: a firefighter and an EMT. And that they both died unexpectedly while responding to some unexpected disaster, when Susan and Johnny were just kids. Their loss would force Susan to grow up fast, to plan for everything -- and leave her obsessed with protecting the people she loved, because she knows she could lose them in an instant.

Johnny Storm

In contrast, the same tragedy would make Johnny even more reckless and daring. If you could go at any minute, why not live life to the fullest? Burn as bright as you can? (Having parents in the fire and rescue community who died in the line of duty might also buy Johnny a lot of leeway with the cops. Which he’d need.)

Johnny’s both incredibly shallow and deeper than he looks -- cocky and confident, but with zero ego. He’s a flirt, but not a creep; he rolls with every punch and comes up smiling; he’s everybody’s friend. And as a little brother, he shows affection through teasing, which doesn’t always come across the way he intends it.

Ben Grimm

Being Jewish, like Ben is, no longer carries quite the social stigma it did when he was created in the 1960s. And life’s no longer quite so hardscrabble as it was when Jack Kirby was growing up. So what, nowadays, would give Ben that burden of feeling like an outsider when he was growing up? What would make him feel isolated, get him into fights, make him fiercely loyal to friends like Reed who love and support and accept him without question?

In my script -- and I’m not saying this is how I interpret the character from the comics -- Ben Grimm is gay. And it’s not a big deal.

He’s still the same guy he’s always been. Same wonderful blend of oversized grouchiness, never-say-die determination, and puffed-up pride that masks his insecurity. He’s just no longer trying to steal Sue from Reed (ugh), and instead of being in love with Alicia Masters (more on her in a sec), they simply get to be friends -- like they ended up being in the comics.

No romance for Ben this time around. Sorry. (Not a lot of romance for anyone, if it makes you feel any better.) But I’ve got ideas for the sequel...

Alicia Masters

Like Susan, Alicia gets a pretty raw deal in the original comics, though subsequent writers have done their best to fix that. She’s a girlfriend, or a victim, or a supervillain’s daughter, or a soap opera plot point.  

As I planned out the script, I realized it failed the Bechdel test. Hard. Poor Susan, stranded in a sea of guys. Enter Alicia. Fearless. Funny. Full of agency. I feel I could have done Alicia more justice; I worry that she’s a manic pixie dream girl. But it was fun to write her, and I tried to make her as awesome as I could.

I recently heard a great episode of Invisibilia about blind people who’ve taught themselves, and are teaching others, natural echolocation. Not quite Daredevil-level -- although, as Alicia mentions at one point, she does know a good lawyer -- but they’ve still managed to rewire their brains to actually see via sound. 

Combine that real actual thing that exists with a hoary bit of sci-fi nitpicking -- if you turned invisible, no light would reach your retinas, and you’d be blind -- and all of a sudden, Alicia’s not just a friend for Susan, but an important part of the plot and the action.

Doctor Doom

Doctor Doom is not a grouchy blogger. Doctor Doom is not snide yuppie corporate scum. Magic alien goo does not drive Doctor Doom insane. Doctor Doom is the protagonist of a Shakespearean tragedy, and the hero of his own story. 

Again, you don’t have to stray too far from the original Kirby-and-Lee origin for the character.  Victor Von Doom doesn’t hate Reed Richards because Reed stole his girl, or his glory. At a crucial moment, Reed was right, Victor was wrong, deep down Victor knows this, and Victor cannot ever accept it. He respects Reed; therefore, he must destroy Reed, because Doom has no equals.

They could have been friends, but Victor went through some terrible stuff as a kid, and he cannot ever be wrong, and he has to be in control of everything, always, and he cannot ever ask for or accept help except on his own terms. 

So while Reed ends up fluid and flexible and adaptable, Victor locks himself in a rigid iron cage. He will win. He will be the best. Because he has to be, or else he’s nothing.

Kudos again to Mark Waid for what I think of as Waid’s First Law of Doom: No matter how far away you banish Doctor Doom, no matter how badly you think you’ve defeated him, in six months he’ll be running the place and coming after you again. Like Ben Grimm, he never gives up. And that’s weirdly admirable. Even if Doom himself is most definitely not.

Also, he totally talks about himself in the third person. If you can’t do that with Doctor Doom, the undisputed all-time greatest supervillain in comics, why even bother?

The Marvel Cinematic Universe

Because geek hope dies hard, my script is set in the same continuity as the other Marvel movies. There are no Avengers cameos; just a few mentions and allusions here and there. (Including Alicia’s role in something you may have seen in Age of Ultron, which made too much sense not to include.)

There’s a Stan Lee cameo. And a surprise appearance by another longtime Marvel mainstay created by Kirby and Lee. And, of course, a post-credits sequence.

The Casting In My Head, Because Oh God I Am Such a Nerd

Reed Richards: Donald Glover. He’s got the wit, the intelligence, and a deep well of pain. Backup candidate: Ben Whishaw. Appropriately slender, keen, and haunted.

Susan Storm Richards: Gugu Mbatha-Raw. She was awesome in Beyond the Lights. Backup candidate: Gillian Jacobs. She’s funny, she’s soulful, and I bet she’d kick ass.

Johnny Storm: Dylan O’Brien, or go home.

Ben Grimm: Man, this one is tough. I dunno, Oscar Isaac? He’s got that blue-collar rough-and-tumble sweetness about him.

Alicia Masters: Not a clue, honestly. Greta Gerwig?

Doctor Doom: Tom Hardy all the way. He has experience playing supervillains and acting behind a metal mask. He can be seductive and witty and menacing. He’s got a great voice. And he knows how to have fun with a role.

The Sequels

In my mind, this is the first part of a trilogy. SPOILERS FOLLOW, so if you haven’t read the script yet, consider doing so first, then coming back here.

Part two has Doctor Doom escaping from the Negative Zone -- to ask the Four for help in saving the world. Annihilus and his Annihilation Wave want to invade and conquer the Earth. The Four and Doom travel to the Negative Zone to stop the invasion.

At which point Doom, of course, immediately sells them out. He’d agreed to trade them to Annihilus as slaves to build dimension-conquering tools, in exchange for leaving Earth alone for Doom to conquer. (So, in a sense, Doom was telling the truth about saving the world.) But when Annihilus turns around and double-crosses Doom, the Four must once again work with their worst enemy to stop an alien horde from over running the earth.

Part three begins in a world just like ours, except that it’s ruled by an absolute god-king: Doctor Doom. Reed is a lowly janitor with a crappy life -- but he knows something’s wrong. He regroups his friends, they storm Doom’s palace, they defeat Doom -- and then they learn that they’ve just damned the entire planet. 

Galactus, Destroyer of Worlds is coming. Doom captured the Big G’s shiny silver herald, stole the Silver Surfer’s Power Cosmic, and used it to reshape reality to spare Earth from Galactus’s hunger. (And, you know, set himself up as omnipotent king of the world. But still.) 

But what neither Doom nor the Four know is that Earth has one last hope: A set of instructions for building warriors who might stand a chance of defeating the Devourer of Worlds, sent in the shadow of Galactus from a dying civilization, bounced across the universe from star to star in the form of surges of cosmic radiation ... just like the storm that transformed Reed, Sue, Ben, and Johnny.

I have no plans to write either of these scripts. I have other stuff to write. 

But never say never.

[associatevidiot]

• You gain thirty pounds just living in the city. You don’t know why. You begin to think the calories, like droplets of lard, have suffused the air. At night you shut your windows tightly. But in the twilit moments before you finally fall asleep, you hear an oozing, a slithering. In the morning, the edges of your windows glisten faintly, and smell of fresh-made tortillas. You give up and join a gym. 

• Everywhere the signs are in English and Spanish. You, an English-speaker by birth, feel this is only sensible; Spanish was here first. You learn a little Spanish. Enough to begin to translate the signs. Enough to realize they do not say the same things as they do in English. Enough to be exceptionally kind, considerate, and polite to native Spanish speakers from that day forward. Enough to stop reading the Spanish on the signs. But not enough to ever forget the things it promises. 

• At 4 p.m. on the Air Force base, the National Anthem plays. Everyone stops what they are doing. They have no choice in this. The Anthem does not give them one. The lucky ones have been watching the clock. If they are driving, they have pulled over to the side of the road. If not, they sit frozen and helpless behind the wheel as their car slows, veers, drifts gently or not-so-gently up over the curb and into a tree or a house or an immobile clutch of unfortunate pedestrians. Pilots do not take off or land within five minutes of the National Anthem playing. The government has mandated this, from painful experience. The days when the National Anthem plays are the good days. Once in a very long while, Lee Greenwood’s “I’m Proud to Be An American” plays instead. If you stand outside the razorwire-topped fence on one of those days, safely outside its range of influence, you can hear the distant screaming, and watch the fires bloom beyond the tarmac, behind the old hangars.

• You can see the Davy Crockett Hotel at night, its neon sign glowing green behind the Alamo. But do not try to find it. Every street, every map, will defy you. Do not ask people if they have ever stayed there. Almost none of them ever have. And the rest, well, you don’t want to hear their stories. Especially the ones about room service.

• Every Halloween night, the ghost of Carrie Nation storms back into the bar of the Menger Hotel, hatchet at the ready, prepared to smash it up all over again. However, the ghost of Teddy Roosevelt, still believing he’s training with the Rough Riders at Randolph Field, is already there, drinking. It gets ugly, fast. There are fisticuffs. And eventually, making out. You can try to tell them to get a room, but they will not listen. They will never listen. 

• Point at the menu at Chris Madrid’s, and sing a high, shrill ululation to the clerk at the register. If you do so successfully, they will make you a burger so immense, so awe-inspiring in its ragged aggregation of dead cow, that it possesses its own irresistible, fatal gravitational pull. It will draw you past the event horizon of its bun, into its meaty depths. You will become one with the burger, and it with you. Eventually, someone else will finish whatever fries you didn’t eat. No sense in letting them go to waste. Those things are delicious.

• Each year after Fiesta, they drain the river for a week. Do not look at the mud left in its temporary absence. You will not like what stares back. Or what happens when it follows you home that night. Be glad when the water is restored. Be glad for the constant purr of the tour boats’ motors, and what they keep lulled to sleep.

• The Witte Museum is haunted by the restless spirit of its tough, independent, take-no-prisoners founder. She poured her heart and soul into its founding and its maintenance, and even now she cannot bear to let it go. Stand in the darkened atrium late at night, in the silence and the stillness, and you can hear her whisper softly to you, apologizing for how unimpressive the exhibits have gotten.

• When you reach the section of the Insitute of Texan Cultures where all the writing is all in indecipherable runes, and the photographs of immigrants all show pallid faces with round black eyes and what look like gill-frocked necks, turn back, and make for the exit immediately. Especially if there’s a sign advertising a demonstration of native folkdancing anytime in the next 30 minutes. (There’s a reason those folks never get a booth representing their culture at the Folklife Festival. Though not for lack of trying. They are a patient people. Someday. Someday.)

• You don’t want to know how the San Antonio Spurs keep winning championships. Trust us. Those aren’t plays scrawled in Gregg Popovich’s notebook. That isn’t leather binding its cover. And that hungry look in the Spurs Coyote’s eyes isn’t a trick of the stadium lights.

• A Night In Old San Antonio is a fun-filled, food-filled festival fit for the entire family. A Night In Old, So Very Old, Dark and Ancient San Antonio is something else entirely, and best avoided.  Although that one gordita stall’s still pretty good.

san antonio gothic

it is eleven o'clock on a december night. the sky is blanketed in cloud, grey cloud through which nothing is visible. it is light enough to see by. it is always light enough to see by. when is the last time it has been dark? when have you last seen the moon? the stars? you cannot remember.

you are walking alone across the plaza in front of the alamo. it is deserted, yet there is movement- in the corner of your eye, just out of sight. what is it? who is it? you do not know.

you are driving down the highway. there seems to be a large amount of highway. where is the exit? the road is shaking with heat; the sky is so very blue. there are many exits, but none of them are right. the road goes on forever; the road never leaves the city limits.

the afternoon buzz of cicadas is deafening. you cannot hear a thing above it.

there is an abundance of soccer fields. there are so very many soccer fields, and so very many blank-eyed children and yelling parents. the grass is steaming. the sky is smoking. we will go for ice cream, when the tournament finishes. if it finishes.

there is a taco cabana where your house used to be. the woman at the counter greets you by name.

there is a perpetual redness at the top of the tower of the americas; day and night, the bloody light spears the downtown sky.

[associatevidiot]

The Problems and the Promise: Classifying "Agents of SHIELD"

Agents of SHIELD didn't kill your dog.

Agents of SHIELD didn't ruin your childhood, attack your family, or set your house on fire. At the very worst, it's a big-budget, highly hyped disappointment that's improving more slowly than it probably should. (So, sort of like the Healthcare.gov web site.) But you wouldn't know that from the vitriolic reception it's gotten in some quarters of fandom.

At this point, you can't swing a LOLcat on the Internet without hitting eleventy billion "How to Fix Agents of SHIELD" essays. And, well, this is another one, sort of. Agents of SHIELD has real problems -- just like seasons four, six, seven, and (arguably) one of Buffy. 

Or seasons one and four of Angel.

Or the first few (and some of the last few) episodes of Firefly.

Or whopping chunks of Dollhouse. 

Or the first 20 minutes of The Avengers. 

But (also like Healthcare.gov, oddly enough) these flaws don't mean the whole thing's worthless and should be scrapped. Should the flaws have been there in the first place? In the comfort of hindsight, from all us folks not involved in actually making the damn thing, probably not. But things are getting better. Some things have actually been good all along, and just get overshadowed by the problems.

And with a little time, patience, and luck, there's every reason to believe that showrunners Maurissa Tancharoen, Jed Whedon, and Jeffrey Bell, and undoubtedly stressed-out and sleepy overlord Joss Whedon, can turn Agents of SHIELD from something that's merely "pretty good and fun" into the towering, ass-kicking bundle of awesomeness we were all dreaming of since the show was announced.

So let's talk about what's been holding Agents of SHIELD back thus far -- and just as importantly, what it's already getting right.

PART ONE: IF THIS BE DISAPPOINTMENT...

These Characters, These Conundrums Joss Whedon knows how to introduce characters: through their actions. He proves this in The Avengers. Even if you've never seen another Marvel movie, you'll know each character's deal within their first five minutes of screen time, because of the careful way Whedon establishes what they're doing, and how it reveals their driving motivations and relates them to other people.

Tony Stark's building stuff and being rich, witty, and kinda irresponsible. Black Widow's weaponizing the incorrect assumptions of men who think they're tougher than some sexy little woman. Loki's getting into people's heads and turning them to his own ends. Nick Fury's demonstrating his bravery and cunning in going toe-to-toe with a god. Hawkeye's keeping watch from on high, literally removed from everyone around him. Captain America's turning frustration into self-improvement in an old-timey boxing gym. Bruce Banner's helping the desperate while shying away from the authorities (and scaring the crap out of the supposedly unflappable Black Widow). And Thor's literally soaring down from the heavens to shrug off authority -- while taking care not to actually hurt anyone -- and deal with his brother.

Agents of SHIELD's pilot does this, too -- but only for blue-collar superman Mike Peterson, who'll turn out to be the guest star of the week. He's window-shopping for toys with his son, taking a keen interest in his upcoming birthday, so we know he's a good dad. He knows the hot dog guy by name, so he's a part of the neighborhood -- but he's buying hot dogs on the street with his son instead of going to a restaurant, so he's probably not rich. And when trouble breaks out, after making sure his son is safe, he runs toward danger and tries to help. 

We instantly know more about Mike Peterson than we do, eight episodes later, about most of the show's regular cast. Their introductions:

Grant Ward: Does spy stuff in Paris -- but he goes through the motions like a robot, making no real choices, so all we know is he's good at fighting and does exactly what he's told. What little that tells us about him is super boring. (Contrast Ward's introduction to James Bond's in Casino Royale's opening chase scene. The way Daniel Craig's Bond plows brutally through obstacles while the man he's chasing nimbly circumvents them tells us so much about Bond's character.)

Agent Coulson: Steps out of a shadowy corner and exposits a bit. He's a little better, since his dialogue and attitude show us that he's warm, irreverent, and at ease navigating bureaucracy. But we've already had four movies to get to know him. And most of the new stuff we learn about him comes from other characters talking about it.

Skye: Takes a video with her phone. Talks to a guy in a cafe, where she tells him all about herself. Telling, not showing.

Fitz and Simmons: Introduced being adorable and babbling about science-y things. So we know their role, and what they do, but again, not who they are.

Melinda May: Doing paperwork. She sits at a desk for her entire opening scene. Talks so vaguely, with such a complete lack of affect, that we have no idea what her deal is.

In short, these aren't people -- they're functions, waiting for the actors and the writers of future episodes to fill in their blanks. And subsequent episodes have definitely begun to give each of them more depth. But Agents of SHIELD would have been a lot more fun if we knew who they were from the start, not by what someone told us about them, but about what they told us through their actions.

Armageddon: ABC! It seems like you can't have a show on ABC if it's not shot in the same warm-tinted, slightly gauzy cinematography that the network pioneered with Desperate Housewives. Seriously. Go watch any scene from Scandal, Nashville, or Once Upon a Time, and see if you can note any significant visual differences between them.

And watching Agents of SHIELD, you can practically smell ABC's terror at doing anything original or edgy or distinctive that might potentially alienate some corner of the potential audience. All the characters are really, really good-looking, and they all mostly get along, and any potential rough edges they might have are sanded down to make them more appealing and likable. Who cares what their inner lives are like, as long as they're taking their shirts off?

This is the creative equivalent of throwing every single ingredient in your refrigerator into the Crock-Pot, in the belief that because there's at least one thing in there that everyone will like, the resulting dish will be a masterpiece. It's a recipe for blandness and boredom.

Chloe Bennett's Skye is the poster child for this, unfortunately. I'm not trying to bag on her: She's shown several times over in the series that she can be charming, funny, and even moving, and she looks way better in her skivvies than I will ever look in mine. But her previous stint as a decoy love interest on Nashville suggests she was more ABC's casting choice than Team Whedon's. And casting her as a renegade computer hacker who lives in a van just doesn't work.

She's too perfectly coiffed, dressed, and made up to look the part -- presumably at the network's insistence -- and her strengths as an actress don't extend to "snarky anti-establishmentarian." Her attempts to Fight the Power just come across as a spoiled teenager complaining about social ills she read about on Buzzfeed. Again, that's not her fault -- she's a decent actress in the wrong role. We should have Lisbeth Salander, but we're getting Blair Waldorf. And that decision has ABC's fingerprints all over it.

The show has begun to fight back against this smothering layer of network mayonnaise, but it's a slow and grueling battle. After their struggles on Dollhouse, Team Whedon's likely both weary and wary of fighting with a network over what a show should be. In this case, they seem to have surrendered entirely to ABC, and then started a covert resistance to sabotage the new regime from within.

But you'd think Marvel Studios, which has demonstrated a pretty great track record of championing strong characters in emotionally resonant stories, would offer Team Whedon a bit more help in standing up to ABC's apparent demands for the TV equivalent of smooth jazz muzak.

The Overdog Dilemma Joss Whedon's fundamentally uncomfortable writing about winners. As I wrote about Dollhouse back in the day, Whedon populates his shows with misfits, loners, and outcasts, the little gals and guys struggling against powers much bigger and badder than themselves. The freaks. The weirdos. The rebels. 

Now, with Agents of SHIELD, he's telling stories about a well-funded team of supercompetent government agents flying around the world on a massive high-tech jet, with seemingly endless resources and absolute authority. And his unease with that premise shows.

You can see Whedon and his writers straining, week by week, to escape from their own premise. (Perhaps S.H.I.E.L.D. comics legend and literal real-life escape artist Jim Steranko could give them some pointers?) Look, Coulson's disobeying orders! Look, he's creating friction with other agents who want him to toe the line! Look, everyone's talking about what a team of misfits and weirdos Coulson has assembled to go off and do their own thing without answering to the higher-ups! (Again, more telling, very little showing, and a surprising lack of consequences, beyond verbal threats, for this supposed rebelliousness.)

It's kinda cute, and it's slowly beginning to work. And the trailer for the upcoming Captain America sequel seems to hint at corruption and a coup within SHIELD, so there might be natural opportunities to turn the team into the kind of outcasts Whedon loves to tell stories about. But for now? It's kinda awkward watching Whedon try to convince himself that he is not, in fact, currently getting paid millions of dollars by The Walt Disney Company to make a sequel to the third-highest-grossing movie of all time.

Enter: The Fun Police! One of Agents of SHIELD's biggest problems stems from the difference between the comic-book and movie versions of S.H.I.E.L.D.

In the comics, S.H.I.E.L.D. did stuff like this:

(Art, scripting, and dangerous levels of mind-blowing awesomeness by Jim Steranko. Image ganked from noted awesomologist Chris Sims.)

But in the movies, SHIELD's thus far been set up as a foil for Marvel's heroes, basically swanning in to say, "Hey, stop that!" whenever they threaten to do something really cool.

"Hey, Tony Stark, quit flying around in your armored suit! Captain America, why don't you just have a nice nap and listen to a baseball game? Thor, whatever you do, you mustn't pick up that hammer!"

The Avengers is a notable exception, but even that's portrayed as some crazy rebel idea on Nick Fury's part, while everyone else complains about what a terrible idea it is to have noble, heroic people with superpowers join forces to fight a global threat.

In short, the movie version of SHIELD is actively trying to stop the exact thing we came to these movies to see -- a mission that has unfortunately carried over to our heroes on Agents of SHIELD. If they do their jobs right, absolutely nothing interesting will ever happen. No one will ever get or use superpowers, touch a mysterious alien artifact, or try to be a hero without government supervision.

Because, boy, who'd ever want to see THAT happen on television?

The Shrinking Universe! The final blow we can strike against Agents of SHIELD is its seeming disconnectedness from the larger Marvel Universe. Oh, sure, someone namedrops at least one Avenger at least once an episode -- but beyond that, the confines of the show seem claustrophobically small, despite its occasional and admirable ventures into location shooting in Paris and Stockholm. (More of that, too, please. California backlots may be cheap, but they're also boring, and they look like a bajillion other TV shows.)

Even if you subtract the stuff that various movie deals forbid Marvel from mentioning in its self-produced stuff -- mutants, Latveria, Atlantis, etc. -- Team Whedon still has a huge, wonderful, crazy world to play with. And even if it's prohibitively expensive to bring in obscure-but-beloved Marvel D-listers like Sleepwalker, Speedball, or Squirrel Girl, you could at least have characters drop a reference to Pym particles or the Wakandan delegate to the U.N. or the new fashion line from Janet Van Dyne.

If people are watching this show, they already like big, crazy, improbable stories about brightly colored superheroes. They're already comfortable with ARC reactors, gamma rays, the Bifrost, and the Super-Soldier Serum. This may just be ABC's meddling again, but in some regards, Agents of SHIELD seems like it's running away from its own premise.

PART TWO: JOSS IN THE NICK OF TIME

Despite all these real -- but surmountable -- issues, Agents of SHIELD has a lot going for it that its more obvious dings and dents tend to obscure.

The Return of ... Firefly! For years, the masses of fandom have gnashed their teeth and rent their cosplay garments, justifiably longing for new seasons of Firefly. Now we've got a series about a mismatched team of heroes -- including a wry leader with a troubled past, his strong, silent right-hand woman, a violence-prone bruiser who's not quite as tough as he looks, a shy, nerdy guy, and an ebullient girl geek -- trying to integrate a mysterious young woman on the run into their makeshift family unit.

They're living and working in a high-tech flying machine that transports them from job to job, and prominently features a lounge area, living quarters, and a medical lab right next to a cargo bay with a great big fold-down ramp.

In short, Team Whedon's taking Disney and ABC's money to recreate the closest thing they can to Firefly on a weekly basis. You're welcome, America.

Coulson Lives On the page, Phil Coulson began as an empty suit.

Go back and look at what he actually does in the first Iron Man. He's basically there to be a stand-in for any SHIELD agent comics fans might recognize -- so as not to give away the wink-wink nudge-nudge reference the movie was building to -- and to fulfill the expectation that a billionaire who returned from his abduction in Afghanistan and started jetting around in a tin suit would probably attract the government's interest. 

Good thing they cast Clark Gregg in the role.

Gregg has a natural warmth, a way of finding humanity and personality in the simple delivery of any given line, that helps him stand out even when he's supposed to be playing Just Another Guy. In the first Iron Man and every subsequent appearance through The Avengers, he embodies a delightful mix of steely competence and slightly dorky sweetness, all wrapped up in an unassuming package.

And even as Agents of SHIELD tries to force him somewhat awkwardly into being a dashing leading man, Gregg's rising to the occasion. The show's effort's to make Coulson a roguish, hard-edged badass don't always work. After all, part of the appeal of the character is the quiet, unruffled way he deals with catastrophes and gets his job done.

But the way Gregg underplays them, and mostly keeps Coulson soft-spoken and gentle even in the midst of a crisis, makes for a refreshing change from your typical leading man. Thanks to Gregg, Coulson's almost always the kind of guy you want to see more of. And even when the show does wrap up the mystery of his apparent resurrection, that performance should help to keep Coulson fun and fascinating to watch.

Lo, There Shall Come ... Melinda Melinda "The Cavalry" May is the ****ing man.

Stop and think about how subversive her whole character is for a moment. The biggest badass on network TV right now -- arguably one of the biggest badasses on television, period -- is a nearly 50-year-old woman of color. Ming-Na Wen wears the character's years and experience proudly, and lets them inform her performance, in ways that add a lot of depth and fun to what might otherwise be an underwritten part. More importantly, she manages to be cool as hell -- and, in a wardrobe consisting entirely of practical, borderline unisex secret agent gear, downright sexy.

It helps that, since we still don't know much about May's past, the writers have been forced to develop her character through action in the episodes since the pilot. She shrugs off knockout gas. She casually dislocates a few joints to get out of handcuffs. She executes three steps of a detailed plan before the other characters have finished discussing the first one. She casually invites a teammate into her hotel room for whiskey and furniture-breaking angst-sex (and gets treated by the camera like a man, while her male counterpart gets presented like women usually are, in the post-coital scene). And oh yes, she kicks downright unholy amounts of ass. You just know Wen's having a blast. So are we.

These Stereotypes, These Surprises Joss Whedon's shows excel at subverting our expectations about characters. He built the entire notion of Buffy around a blonde teenager girl getting stalked by a monster, only to turn around and kick its ass. Coulson himself is a classic Whedon character -- the buttoned-down bureaucrat who's tougher and funnier than he looks. And Agents of SHIELD is rarely more fun than when it's deflating what we thought we knew about its characters.

That's especially true for Brett Dalton (dear God, even his name has a chiseled jaw!) as Agent Ward. His best moment in the pilot came from getting apparently drugged by truth serum, and letting his tough-guy facade crack to reveal a gooshy, sensitive interior. And his later revelation that he was faking getting drugged the whole time gave his apparently wooden rule-follower a canny new spin.

The more we see SHIELD's characters play against type -- like watching nerdy Fitz prove shrewd and effective in the field, or seeing lab-bound, dutiful Simmons make an incredibly brave sacrifice for her teammates -- the more sharply defined they become, and the better the show gets.

Super Humans The flip side of having SHIELD as The Fun Police is the show's interest in examining how the strange world of Marvel intersects with ordinary people's lives. Even when the show featured an Asgardian in hiding, he wasn't part of the Thor films' royal intrigue -- he was just an ordinary immortal space god with a regular job, a soldier who put down his weapon to, um, hit on a succession of hot coeds. (Admittedly, this is not the least relatable of motivations.)

And when Coulson sits down with a firefighter who's just learned that he's about to die a horrible death from an alien virus, everything stops. The show gets quiet, just for a moment. And this one poor, lonely guy's bravery in the face of death carries as powerful an emotional punch as any moment Marvel's splashed upon the big screen.

Bring on the Bad Guys Yet another time when SHIELD takes flight: Whenever our team has an appropriately big threat to fight. Cracking down on ordinary folks with powers makes them look like bullies. Doing battle with a cunning conspiracy that's out to turn those same folks into unwitting weapons makes SHIELD outmatched heroes, and paints their Fun Police-y activities in a much more sensible light. 

If anything, we haven't gotten enough of the mysterious, evil group known as Centipede (a pun on the comics' and movies' SHIELD foe Hydra -- many heads vs. many feet?). Why the show couldn't just use Hydra -- already established onscreen in Captain America -- I don't know, but perhaps it's building to a bigger surprise. But Ruth Negga's calmly sociopathic Raina makes a great, creepy, unconventional villain, and I'm glad we'll see more of her -- and good-guy Everyman Mike Peterson -- in tonight's midseason finale.

With all the initial hype for the show, it's perhaps inevitable that Agents of SHIELD would initially disappoint. But while it's not a slam-dunk yet, neither is this series the total disaster its early critics would have suggested. I'm glad it's got a full season to stretch its legs, and -- given its success in key ratings demographics -- likely at least another season after that.

Think of Agents of SHIELD right now as scrawny Steve Rogers, pre-Super Soldier serum: It needs a lot of work, and it can be kind of awkward at times. But its heart is definitely in the right place.

[associatevidiot]

The Best Medicine

The young old man, the traveler, skidded to a halt and turned to heave the massive doors shut behind him. From the cold stone floor he plucked a flung spear and ran it through the handles, just in time. The doors jostled and boomed, the anger of his pursuers speaking through them. But they held.

The traveler breathed a sigh of relief, both his hearts hammering in his narrow chest, and brushed a way a swath of hair that sweat had plastered to his forehead.

"I was only looking for the gift shop..." he muttered, as if to the increasingly furious door. "That sort of reception can't be good for the tourism."

At the other end of the long hall behind him, something stirred in the shadows.

The traveler spun on his heels, goggled, grimaced, passing swift and irrevocable judgment on the decor. "Blimey."

The throne room stood open to the sulphuric stink that passed for air here, and the orange light that the open fire pits of the planet's surface seared onto the low and greasy clouds. The columns supporting the roof were carved identically, into the shape of some sere and brutal figure. And at the very height the throne at the far end of the chamber, past steps that disappeared into near darkness, a pair of coat-hot red eyes regarded the traveler, unamused. 

"What insolence brings you here?" The voice: a chisel upon a gravestone. The traveler swallowed.

"Not insolence," the traveler said, pointing at his shoes, beaming nervously. "Insoles. Very cushiony. Excellent arch support. Quite a lot of running in this line of work. I must've sprinted all over this ... lovely world of yours."

The figure upon the throne leaned forward, immense, the light from a pair of braziers sliding across his face: a mask of pitiless rock, the red eyes glowing cruel and intelligent beneath the savage outcropping of its brow.

"Look at you," the traveler said. "The great stone face. I should introduce you to my old friend Joe -- everyone calls him Buster, but I call him Joe. You'd get on like a house afire." The traveler paused, frowned, uncertain. "Or perhaps you'd set his house on fire," he added quietly.

"You have come very far," the thing on the throne said, "only to die."

The traveler looked offended. "Dying's easy. I've done it..." He paused for a brief, swiftly abandoned attempt at counting on his fingers. "... eight eight-and-a-half nine ten ... loads of times."

"Then you will not mind doing so again," said the thing on the throne.

The traveler held up a finger, bidding for time. "But you're right, I have come a long way to see you. I'd show you a map, except you people don't seem to have any, which I really think you ought to discuss with your tourism bureau. I've been all through the fire pits, and the games, and that horrid thing you people call an orphanage, and in the ghettoes among the Lowlies -- your word, not mine, by the way. I'd call them 'people.' Fred, maybe, or Sally. Or Ahmed! One of them had a nice, Ahmeddy sort of face. Yes, I've come all this way just for you, the boss, the top man, the head honcho, and do you know why?"

The traveler's eyes narrowed, and his smile vanished, and suddenly he seemed rather more old than young.

"I'm here to destroy you," he said.

For a moment, the creature on the throne said nothing. Then he threw back his head and laughed, long and contemptuous, his vast frame shaking with cold and awful mirth.

"Yes," said the traveler, unperturbed. "That's it exactly."

"Do you know, fool, who I am?" said the creature on the throne. "What I am?"

"You're the God of Evil," the traveler said, without missing a beat. "The prophet of the Anti-Life Equation. Betrayer. Subjugator. Corrupter. Got shot with a magic bullet, fell burning backward through time, and came back around to do it all again because you just. Won't Stop. You're a cancer in the tissue of the universe, waiting to spread. And you yourself just showed me the cure."

"You amuse me," the God of Evil grinned, and settled back into the shadows. "Perhaps I will have you broken. I have need of a jester."

"That's right!" the traveler smiled. "Because the God of Evil needs a laugh now and then, doesn't he? It's all right as long as it's you doing the laughing -- you with the clubs and the sticks and the power over all of them out there afraid in the dark. But what about when it's them, the little ones, who get the last laugh? What if they start laughing at you?"

"They will not," the God of Evil said serenely. But the traveler saw its huge, blue-gloved fingers clench on the arms of its throne. "They know the price."

"Right, right. Which is why the God of Evil goes about wearing knee-high boots and a ... shockingly tiny skirt. Honestly, does your mother know you're wearing that out? I mean, I'm not judging -- I've worn a skirt or two in my time, and they're dead comfortable, but I'd think in this place, with the draft, things could get a bit chilly ..."

The traveler shook himself, as if forcing his train of thought to switch tracks. "Anyway! They know the price of laughter. And so do you. Because it only takes one, doesn't it? Just one person to laugh at you. And then it'll spread. There'll be jokes about you, down there in the dark where even your eyes can't see. And even if you crush them down, even if you make them fear you, they'll still remember the time they laughed at you. They'll hold it inside like a warm light. They'll treasure it. They'll tell their children, and their children's children, and the jokes will live on. They'll outlive everyone who ever tells them and they'll just keep popping up, no matter how you try to squash them. The laughter will survive. The laughter will always win. Until one day, you won't be the God of Evil anymore. You'll be a punchline. And all it takes is just. One. Laugh. And that! That's why you're afraid."

The God of Evil's brow lowered, its mouth tightening to show teeth through stone lips. "You speak of fear?" it said. "Now taste it yourself."

Energy erupted from the God of Evil's eyes, slashing through the air, cutting a zigzag pattern toward the traveler.

But quick as a wink, the traveler's long slender hand flashed into his coat, and came out with a sort of wand, green and glowing and singing in high electronic tones. It met the energy and deflected it, again and again, sparks flying with every clash, as the traveler danced about, fencing with his own death, winning.

"A localized chronal displacement field!" the traveler beamed, delighted. "Haven't seen this in positively forever! We used to play this same game back in school. First one to get dematerialized had to walk all the way back from oblivion." He parried, and the God of Evil's energy darted away, singeing in lines and loops across the faces of the stone columns, then regrouped and came at him again. The traveler smiled on. "This is just the thing, actually. I spent loads of time setting up these beacons all over your lovely self-glorifying monuments, but until now I hadn't had any idea quite how I was going to power them."

He thumbed a switch on the green glowing device, and its tone changed, and the God of Evil watched, astonished and enraged, as the deadly energy stopped, trapped in a sizzling, struggling ball at the point of the traveler's wand. 

"Who are you?" the God of Evil seethed. And when the traveler held up a finger again, intent upon the controls of the green device, the God of Evil roared it until the question shook the whole of his terrible palace. "WHO ARE YOU?"

The traveler looked up. He grinned a victor's grin. "I'm Father Christmas. I'm the anti-Anti-Life Equation. I'm everywhere, everywhen, ready to stop you. And I can laugh you right off your throne." 

The traveler swept his arm and flung the God of Evil's energy out through the columns, into the hellish orange night. The beam lanced straight toward the top of a vast tower on which, like all its siblings on this nightmare planet, the face of its terrible ruler glowered from a glowing sign, ever watchful. 

The beam sparked a beacon, then zipped to another, and another, dancing away into the distance across the whole blackened, pitted, burning face of the planet.

And wherever it went, the face of the God of Evil, hundreds of stories tall, flickered upon the surface of the towers. Glitched. Changed.

Now it wore a bright red round nose and a brightly colored hat. Or ridiculous makeup, blue eyeshadow smeared crudely on the rocky brown, the loveless, lipless mouth outlined in cartoon red. Or a pair of glasses with false eyebrows, and a preposterous nose and mustache.

The God of Evil bolted from its throne, stalking down the steps, its voice full of a rage so intense it seemed to scald the very air. 

"You will die for this," it seethed. 

"Like I said," smiled the traveler, unafraid. "Dying's easy. Comedy is hard." He cocked his head, as a distant sound -- the fabric of space and time warping in and out, in and out -- began to fill the throne room, growing louder. "Ah. That's my ride."

And even as the God of Evil sprang forward, the traveler crossed the room in long quick strides and leaped out through the columns, into the fetid air. "Geronimo!" he cried, tumbling down the forbidding wall of the palace -- to be swallowed up by the open door of a blue box with a light on the top, a floating impossibility that vanished again, even as the God of Evil caught sight of it.

The God of Evil's screams of rage cracked the very walls of his throne room. But they could not entirely drown out the sound that rose from the desolate surface of the planet below, from every dark and pitiful hovel and dungeon cell, a wave building upon itself until it seemed it would never stop.

Joyous laughter.

[associatevidiot]

The Best Thing About "Toy Story of Terror"

For all the justified accolades heaped on Pixar since the original Toy Story in 1995, there's been one lingering critique: Most of their movies are, well, boy stories. Sure, they've created tons of terrific and memorable female characters -- even when, like Ellie in Up, they only actually appear in the film's first ten minutes. But the bulk of their narratives center on the concerns and tribulations of men and boys. Or, uh, guy-bots. Or man-cars. Or he-fish.

Brave is a happy exception, exploring the complexities of mother-daughter relationships in ways few major films ever bother to tackle. But Pixar infamously parted ways with original director Brenda Chapman halfway through the movie. And if you've ever seen Chapman, with her Merida-esque giant shock of frizzy red hair, you can guess that the project had a fair bit of personal significance for her.

Even The Incredibles, my favorite Pixar film, pays slightly more attention to Mr. Incredible and Dash than Elastigirl or Violet. (Although in fairness, Bob's arc during the film is to become more like his awesome wife, and fully engage in family life instead of leaving all the domestic stuff to her.)

In that light, last night's Toy Story of Terror special on ABC -- which doesn't seem to be available anywhere on streaming, most likely because Disney really, really enjoys money -- is a huge step forward for Pixar. 

SPOILERS follow...

Ever since Pixar, Randy Newman, and Sarah MacLachlan tore our hearts out and stomped on them 14 (!) years ago in Toy Story 2, Jessie the Cowgirl's been a uniquely poignant addition to the studio's stable of characters. With her love of action and adventure, she was already a big step up from the first Toy Story's sweet but passive Bo Peep. But in Toy Story 2, she mainly existed to drive Woody's story, and get rescued by him in the film's big action finale. And her narrative thread in Toy Story 3 largely focused on her relationship with Buzz Lightyear.

Either by design, or by the happy accident of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen being big-deal movie stars with busy schedules, Toy Story of Terror is all Jessie's story. And her narrative arc throughout its fast-paced, eminently entertaining 21 minutes has nothing to do with any of the male characters, and indeed could work for any protagonist of any gender.

The special's title is a knowing wink to the many horror-movie tropes it lampoons. (I caught references to Dracula, Night of the Living Dead, Psycho, Alien, and Predator, to say nothing of the fact that Timothy Dalton's wonderful Mr. Pricklepants has apparently spent a lot of time on TVTropes.com whenever Trixie's not using the computer.) And its whole premise is a wonderful, kid-friendly but toy-appropriate spin on the hoary horror plot of characters stranded in a spooky locale, picked off one by one, and captured by a sinister villain, there to subject them to some ghastly scheme.

But in another sense, this is a story about terror, and how to overcome it. Writer-director Angus MacLane remembers that Jessie's claustrophobic (after having spent years trapped in her packaging by a greedy collector), and makes her confront that fear to save the day.

Sure, she gets some moral support along the way from Buzz, Woody, and Carl Weathers' hilarious Combat Carl -- but in her very worst moment, she ends up saving herself, and by turn saving Woody, in a neat inversion of Toy Story 2's climactic scene. Not done with being awesome yet, she then singlehandedly conceives and carries out a plan to rescue the rest of her friends, using all her cleverness, courage, and physical skill to succeed. 

Joan Cusack, as she's done in all her previous appearances, beautifully conveys Jessie's very real fear and panic alongside her determination and pluck. Jessie's scenes of imprisonment are heartrending, and when she finds a way out in the end, it's a fist-in-the-air moment as potent as anything Pixar's put on the big screen. Best of all, Jessie's escape -- and her mantra, "Jessie never gives up. Jessie finds a way." -- might even give younger viewers a model to stand up to the things that scare them, too.

It's amazing that the Toy Story series remains this fresh, engaging, and heartfelt after nearly 20 years -- and that even now, Pixar's using it to break new ground in its storytelling. It shouldn't have taken Pixar this long to spotlight more than one compelling heroine. But let's hope it's the first sign of a lot more such stories to come.

[associatevidiot]

"Brooklyn Nine-Nine": A Solid 8, Maybe an 8.5

Oh, Andre Braugher, how I have missed seeing you be witheringly disdainful in a police precinct.

Braugher's on the short list of folks I'd watch recite the phone book. The man can turn even the simplest line -- "They have adorable chubby cheeks," for instance -- into a three-course feast. But who knew the erstwhile Frank Pembleton would make such a great comic team with Andy Samberg?

Braugher's subtlety and sheer dramatic presence shouldn't pair this well with Samberg's endearingly shameless goofballery. But somehow, in Fox's Brooklyn Nine-Nine, it does.

From left to right: Braugher's just spotted the ABC exec who demanded that Last Resort be more of a soap opera; Samberg hopes you'll forgive him for That's My Boy; and Melissa Fumero is imagining she's a giant robot.

Part of the credit for this inexplicable success owes to creators Dan Goor, a longtime Parks & Recreation writer, and Mike Schur, who co-created Parks. Fox's promos are eager to play up Brooklyn's biggest, crassest jokes, but Goor and Schur take care to fill the gaps between those gags with well-observed, sweetly human moments. Like Parks, Brooklyn isn't a finely tuned hilarity engine right out of the gate. But it's a damn sight closer than Parks was in its awkward first season, and if it becomes even half as funny down the line, we're all in for a treat.

I'm a sucker for characters who are super-great at one thing, and terrible at everything else. That's Samberg's Det. Jake Peralta: An overgrown manchild who excels at solving crimes, in part because he loves puzzles, and in part because he loves being right. Samberg strips away any hint of meanness from what could've been a total jerk, replacing it with boyish enthusiasm and a cheerful lack of self-awareness. Somehow, the fact that Samberg's visibly struggling not to crack up and break character as he makes a teddy-bear nannycam deliver a tortured monologue about the ordeal of life undercover just makes the joke and the delivery even funnier.

Similarly, Braugher's by-the-numbers Capt. Ray Holt could've been a total stiff. But Braugher and the writers make sure that Holt actually does have a sense of humor, and that he takes subtle delight in deflating all of Peralta's rebellious shenanigans. Remember Bugs Bunny convincing Daffy Duck to shout that it was, in fact, duck season? That's the Braugher-Samberg dynamic here, and it's a whole bunch of fun to watch.

So is the rest of the cast, starting with Terry Crews. Between Arrested Development and The Newsroom, Crews has been demonstrating way better comic chops than you'd expect from a guy built like a piece of construction equipment. Here, Goor and Schur play to that contrast by making him a devoted family man whose love for his baby daughters has left him too rattled to go into the field. He doesn't get enough to do in the pilot, but his reaction to Samberg's reassignment to the file room is a great bit of cliche-inverting.

Melissa Fumero also does some great, subtle work as Samberg's super-competitive rival on the detective squad. Her understated demeanor plays well against Samberg's broad goofiness, and she manages to completely sell one punchline just in the way she eats a sandwich. With few lines and exactly one facial expression, Stephanie Diaz drops intriguing hints that her ferociously intimidating cop is maybe just really bad at people skills. And even in his limited screen time, Joe Lo Truglio makes a great impression as the department's sweet-faced, hapless walking disaster. Chelsea Peretti's frankly demented civilian aide seems to have strolled in from another, broader show entirely, but somehow that ends up working just fine.

In short, Brooklyn seems like it might develop the deep, complex character bench that makes Parks & Recreation so consistently funny. Watching the wildly diverse personalities of Pawnee city government bounce off each other in various combinations is one of Parks' great joys, and I hope Brooklyn will take the same approach.

And like Parks, Brooklyn isn't afraid to work in a dash of sincerity amid all the laughs. The pilot includes a superb, surprising twist that instantly gives one of the characters new depths and makes the show more interesting.

In short: Not bad for a pilot, especially on Fox, and a great start to the television season. Now, if they can just get Braugher back into an interrogation room...

[associatevidiot]

Norse Tragedy: Analyzing Marvel's "Thor"

Thor (2011) Directed by Kenneth Branagh Script by Don Payne and Ashley Miller & Zack Stentz, from a story by Mark Prostevich and J. Michael Straczynski

On the surface, Marvel's Thor is a big, goofy superhero movie about a gigantic slab of blond beefcake who hits bad things with a hammer.

It's rife with corny slapstick, silly one-liners, and canted camera angles (which director Branagh explains as his attempt to capture the energy and dynamism of the comics he read as a kid). There's a charming sweetness to the whole film, from the delightful chemistry between stars Chris Hemsworth and an otherwise checked-out Natalie Portman, to the warm, soaring score that closes out the film. 

But when you peel that surface away, Thor is a heartbreaking tragedy about a guy who sets out to do the right thing, and winds up destroying his entire life by his own hand. 

His name is Loki.

It's tough to figure out what Loki really wants. Nearly everything that comes out of his mouth in the course of the film is either an outright deception, or a shading of the truth designed to serve Loki's agenda. He doesn't get that Richard III moment to monologue and let the audience in on his plans. As Loki, Tom Hiddleston has to play the complex emotions behind the deceit. The exceptional job he does at that task helps hold Thor together, even when Loki's plans don't initially seem to make sense.

So what does Loki want? To uncover that, we have to look at what he doesn't do. He screws over his brother, attacks his best friends, invites hostile intruders into his own kingdom, betrays and murders his unwitting biological dad, and tries to blow up an entire planet ... but he never, ever tries to hurt his father, Odin (Anthony Hopkins). Even if Odin weren't, you know, a god, Loki would still worship him as such.

The universal, human thing Loki wants helps to explain why Thor succeeds despite its occasionally ridiculous trappings: Loki wants to be a good son. His tragedy lies in thinking, incorrectly, that he has to prove that worthiness -- and in the way he sets out to do so. For Loki, brotherhood, and sonhood, is a zero-sum game.

Act I: In Which Everything Looks Like a Nail

We first see Loki as a child, alongside his brother, hearing Odin regale them with the fairy tale of noble Asgard's war to defend the universe from the aggression of the Frost Giants of Jotunheim.

Odin speaks in terms of defense, and there's a weariness in his voice as he mentions the cost of the war. This man doesn't relish battle; he just loves the peace it secures. He holds his sons' hands. He practically beams at them, even when he's trying to be stern and regal.   Odin's a pretty great dad.

But he's also bringing his kids into his heavily secured treasure vault, full of massively powerful weapons that can destroy entire planets. The Tesseract that causes so much trouble in Captain America and The Avengers comes from this room. Keen-eyed comic fans have also spotted the Infinity Gauntlet, which pretty much lets its weilder run the universe. So kids probably shouldn't be in here, even with adult supervision. Clearly, Odin loves his kids to the point of indulging them more than he should.

We can tell right away that Loki's the quiet kid, the me-too brother, already in his older brother's shadow. Loki's first line of dialogue is a question; young Thor's is a statement about wanting to go smack around some Frost Giants when he's older. Thor's not two-faced, or a bully -- you can tell from the warm smile he gives his little brother that he genuinely likes and loves Loki. But when Odin tells the boys that one of them will one day be king, Thor's the first to say he's ready, with Loki running to catch up.

So when the film immediately leaps ahead to a massive coronation, we're not surprised to see Thor about to ascend the throne. Unfortunately for Asgard, at this point, Thor is ... well, he's kind of a lovable asshole.

You know the type. They rub you the wrong way with their boorish behavior, but you just can't dislike them, because you know they don't act that way out of any actual malice. 

Thor has plenty of good qualities: He's brave, he loves his brother and parents, and he's loyal to his friends. In a male-dominated warrior culture, he treats shieldmaiden Sif as an unquestioned equal in his merry band of ass-kickers. He hungers for adventure, not conquest.

But there's a reason why Thor carries a hammer instead of a sword. He's dull and blunt and completely unsubtle. (Loki, keen and sharp, carries daggers: the weapon of an assassin, the knives you quietly twist.) Thor has a big ego, a hot temper, and reacts emotionally instead of thinking through potential consequences. Remember the old saying that to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail? Thor has a very big hammer.

When he enters the arena to claim the throne of Asgard, Thor showboats like he's just won the big football game, tossing the awesomely powerful hammer Mjolnir in the air and playing to the adoring crowd. His friends roll their eyes; his mother's fondness mingles with embarrassment; and his dad is clearly wondering whether he picked the right son for this job. Thor, grinning ear to ear, clearly has no such doubts. His lack of seriousness about taking power suggests how entitled he feels to the throne.

(Sif's on the same side of that throne as Loki and Frigga, Thor's mom, as Thor approaches. Clearly, Thor sees her as a sister. Thanks to the awesome Jamie Alexander, whose subtle and charismatic performance as Sif takes Portman's to the woodshed and back, we'll be able to tell that Sif doesn't think of Thor quite so platonically. This, too, tells us something about Thor. First, he's dense enough not to see what's going on right under his nose. And second, while his later romance with Jane Foster shows that he obviously likes women, at this point Thor's so in love with himself that he can't possibly notice or fall for anyone else. He'll show the first signs of interest in Jane only after his ego's taken its first big hit.)

Odin begins his speech hesitantly, as if he's both choked up with pride for his son, and concerned that he's not yet ready to take the keys to the kingdom. We don't see Loki until Odin speaks the words, "my heir;" Loki's eyes are downcast, his jaw working as if he's swallowing back jealousy and regret. And his sideways glance as Odin continues speaking suggests that Loki knows something about that stealthy cadre of Frost Giants simultaneously breaking into Odin's treasure room to steal back their people's power source, the Cask of Ancient Winters.

We don't find out for certain until later that Loki enabled this invasion. He says he only wanted a bit of mischief to spoil his brother's big day, and keep his "idiot brother" away from the throne for a while. But that's not the whole truth. While envy does drive Loki -- there's a reason his costume's predominant color is green, after all -- his concerns go beyond spiteful pranksterism. Loki knows what we can all see now, what Odin clearly sees himself (even with one eye): Thor isn't ready for the throne, and crowning him king will end badly for Asgard. 

Think about that for a second: Loki is absolutely right. He may not have the purest, most selfless motives in preventing Thor from taking the throne, but he's doing the right thing to protect his kingdom. 

Unfortunately, at this point, Thor and Loki are mirror images, both suffering from a lack of self-awareness. Thor is arrogant, but Loki's jealous. And while Thor confronts every problem with forthright aggression, Loki tries to solve everything through trickery and schemes. Both of them feel that their own innate qualities -- Thor's strength and courage, Loki's intelligence and foresight -- entitle them to the throne. By the end of the film, only one of them will be able to confront and conquer these flaws, and become a better person. (SPOILER ALERT: It ain't the lord of lies and illusions.)

As Thor takes the oath of office, so to speak, from Odin, he swears to guard the Nine Realms (sincerely); to preserve the peace (with inappropriate ferocity); and to cast aside all selfish ambition -- and here Branagh cleverly cuts to Loki -- and devote himself only to the good of the realm. Thor affirms this last one too casually, with a big grin and a fist-pump, completely missing the doubt in his father's voice. To Thor, blinded by ego, he is the realm, and whatever he wants to do must be good for Asgard.

(Chris Hemsworth has been a big damn movie star from the moment he stole those heartbreaking first ten minutes of J.J. Abrams' Star Trek. His performance as Thor is warmer, smarter, and more perceptive than you might expect from anyone who looks like he was built entirely out of ridiculously handsome fire hydrants. In contrast, anyone surprised at the subtlety and power Anthony Hopkins brings to his turn as Odin must have been in a godly restorative coma for the past twenty-five years or so.)

But Thor's big moment gets crown-blocked by the invading Frost Giants. Their heist fails spectacularly, thanks to Odin's jumbo-sized security guard, The Destroyer. When Odin, Thor, and Loki survey the damage, Odin's sad; Thor's pissed; and Loki, not surprised in the least because he planned the whole thing, is mostly intrigued by the stompy metal giant with death rays for a face. It's tough to determine whether he's even remorseful about the security guards the Frost Giants killed. Thor is arrogant because he doesn't conceive that his actions have a cost to himself or others. Loki is arrogant because he knows about that cost, but thinks his ultimate goals justify it.

Unlike his elder son, Odin doesn't take attacks on Asgard as an affront to his pride. Odin tries to give his sons a quick lesson about the theory of proportionate response, the same strategy that helped keep us all alive and un-nuked during the Cold War. When your enemy strikes you, you strike back in as exact a kind and scope as you can. But you don't escalate. Response in kind has a grim fairness. Escalation inspires bitterness, and shuts down any efforts at communication. 

Thor makes a decent point that the Frost Giants could have done a lot of damage with any of the vault's apocalyptic goodies. That sincere interest in protecting others, at least in the abstract, helps make Thor likable even at this point in the script. But in a clever mirror of the earlier scene with young Thor and Loki in the same spot -- all the players occupy the same positions as their younger selves -- Thor still wants to go bash in some Frost Giant heads, just as he did as a boy, whether Odin has a truce with them or not.

Seeing this finally tips Odin into yanking back Thor's promised crown, at least for now. In one of countless great, split-second moments from Hiddleston's performance, you can see Loki just barely holding back a smirk at this.

At this point, Loki's gotten exactly what he wanted. Thor's made an ass of himself in front of Odin, and his coronation's been cancelled. So why doesn't Loki stop his plan now?

For one thing, Loki's strategy isn't finished yet. He's too proud of his ability to be the smartest guy in the room to call it off before he's had a chance to admire how it all plays out. For another, we'll see throughout the film that "stopping" and "enough" are concepts Loki grasps poorly. He'll get what he says he wants, over and over, but those successes will never satisfy him. No external reward ever could.

Thor responds to Odin's rebuke by throwing a king-sized temper tantrum. He projects his anger on the Frost Giants and their impudence, but he's really just a spoiled kid, mad at his dad for witholding that shiny new toy. Like many kids, he focuses on the punishment to avoid contemplating the offense. Hemsworth's face shows you that deep down, Thor knows he screwed up -- but he's too proud to admit it.

When Loki tells Thor that his moment to be king will come, "some day," I actually think he means it. Loki's plans change as the situation changes, and right now, his plan works like this:

Get the Frost Giants to invade Asgard.

Stop Thor's coronation.

Get Thor to charge off, do something rash, and get in just enough trouble with Odin that his coronation gets further postponed.

Make Loki look like a good son in comparison, by making Thor look like a bad son.

I don't think Loki wants his brother banished -- just, you know, royally grounded. Maybe Thor loses the keys to the goat-cart for a few centuries or something.

To further this, Loki starts telling Thor exactly what he wants to hear. (Watch Sif's bullshit meter hit the redline as she listens to this.) Loki caps off this flattery with some classic reverse psychology: "Dad would NEVER let you go charging into Frostgiantville alone! You DEFINITELY shouldn't do that!" And when Thor decides to do exactly that, Loki does a convincing bit of facepalming. It's not clear whether he's just trying to conceal his delight, or exasperated that yes, his brother really is this dense.

Then Thor says "we're going to Jotunheim," and Loki realizes he's been roped into this misadventure, too. He was OK with his brother running off and getting himself in trouble. But Loki is not quite so sanguine about putting himself in harm's way. He can't quail, or back out, without making himself look as insincere as he actually was. Throughout the movie, Thor will keep inadvertently screwing up Loki's plans in ever-escalating ways -- and Loki's lies will keep blowing up in his face.

Note that when Thor's friends correctly tell him just how dumb his plan is, he doesn't bully or intimidate them. He inspires them, rallies them, and reminds them with only a touch of shamelessness about their friendship and their past adventures. He may be a hotheaded clod, but Thor's also a good leader with a fundamentally big heart. You can see why even his wiser friends can't help but follow this knucklehead into battle.

(Reason No. 1 why Thor is the most feminist movie ever made about an enormous muscleman and his giant hammer: Sif's hilarious, no-bullshit assertion that she, not Thor, proved wrong those who doubted her martial prowess -- and the way a slightly cowed Thor instantly agrees.)

So Thor and his pals ride off to the Rainbow Bridge -- a race of advanced supergods need to ride horses to get around because shut up, that's why -- to meet Heimdall, far-sighted guardian of the Bifrost, the gate between the Nine Realms of Ygdrasil, the World Tree. Loki gets notably punked here when he tries to sweet-talk his way past Heimdall, presumably because Heimdall is played by walking man-god Idris Elba, and Loki has never seen an episode of Luther.

But seriously, it makes sense that a god with the power to see everything, everywhere, would have no time for a god of illusions. When Heimdall says, "Never has an enemy slipped my watch until this day," his eyes flit briefly to Loki. He knows something's up.

Still, as much as Loki chokes back his embarrassment, he's won the long game here. He successfully concealed the Frost Giant invaders from Heimdall. The gatekeeper's wounded pride at this literal oversight compels him to let Thor go to Jotunheim, furthering Loki's agenda. The way the warriors Volstagg and Fandral snicker at Loki's apparent failure doesn't exactly salve his embarrassment, though. Like Thor, they can be jerks sometimes, even if they mean well.

(The script does a pretty good job of coming up with good reasons for Heimdall to keep letting people through the Bifrost, even when he shouldn't. If Heimdall did his job by the book, the entire movie would never happen. This makes Heimdall yet another Idris Elba character, after Stringer Bell and John Luther, who runs into trouble by trying to play fast and loose with the strictures of his job.)

When Heimdall tries to caution Thor about the dangers of Jotunheim, Thor shrugs them off. He's lived an entire life protected from consequences. That will soon change.

So Thor, the Warriors Three, Sif, and Loki blast through the Bifrost to Jotunheim, the ruined, frozen kingdom of the Frost Giants. (Reason No. 2 why Thor is the most feminist movie ever made about an enormous muscleman and his giant hammer: Like all the guys, Sif is wearing a warm jacket, pants, and armor that covers her entire body, including all the squishy vulnerable bits. No impractically sexy chain-mail bikinis here. Sif means business.)

Thor's not afraid to venture into enemy territory, but he also lacks empathy. He assigns his own crude motives to the Frost Giants -- they're cowards, plain and simple. And when he finds Laufey, king of the Frost Giants, he treats this huge, deadly, deeply embittered enemy with casual contempt.

To the movie's considerable credit, Colm Feore's Laufey isn't some one-dimensional villain. While he has no love for Asgardians, he doesn't want war any more than Odin does, and he tries to send Thor home without violence. Considering that Laufey will turn out to be Loki's biological father, it's amusing that everything the Frost Giant says is absolutely true: There's a traitor in Odin's house, Odin's a thief and a killer -- history, remember, is written by the winning side -- and Thor's just a brash boy who's looking for a fight.

When Loki tries to calm Thor down here, I don't know whether he's employing reverse psychology or not. He displays none of his previous honeyed cunning. Maybe Loki finds himself in the line of fire, or sees the situation spiraling beyond his control. The flat, insincere way Loki says "Damn," when Thor nonetheless lets himself get provoked into fighting makes it hard to tell. Again, Hiddleston's performance works so well because he plays these cards so close to his vest, and only lets the "real" Loki slip through at odd moments.

During the fight, Thor jokes, swaggers, and taunts his enemies. The Warriors Three and Sif fight more desperately -- and unlike Thor, who seems in this for his own personal satisfaction, they watch each others' backs.

(Sif fights with a collapsible spear that has points at both ends. All discussions of phallic symbols aside, her two-sided weapon makes a nifty symbol of her role within the group. She's a woman in an ultra-masculine warrior culture. She's had to prove her own fighting prowess, and clearly she has, since she gets treated by like "one of the guys" by Thor and the Warriors Three. Even eternal ladykiller Fandral never makes a pass at her. But in order to be a warrior, she's had to at least partly give up being a woman. The one time she appears anything but pants, her dress is made of metal segments -- yet another suit of armor. All her costumes take pains to cover the area over her heart, either with metal plates or what looks like chain mail. Even though Alexander's longing looks speak volumes throughout the movie, Sif can't express her feelings to Thor, for fear of no longer being seen as a worthy equal. Warriorhood, for Sif, is a double-edged sword.)

Loki, of course, fights with misdirection and illusion, little realizing that one of his own personal illusions will soon shatter.

A Frost Giant grabs Loki, and the god of mischief discovers that instead of being frostbitten, his skin turns the same blue as his adversaries;. Loki's genuinely shocked at this, and at the look of grim understanding in the Frost Giant's eyes. But Loki can't accept his flaws and vulnerabilities, ever. He's just realized he may be fighting his own people, but he brutally kills the Giant anyway. He has to protect his image of himself at all costs.

In his own way, so does Thor. He's having such a good time braining Frost Giants that he barely even registers when Fandral's badly hurt. He tells his friends to retreat, but he's clearly enjoying himself too much to leave the battle. Giant dog-monster busting out of the walls to chase his friends? Sorry, Thor's too busy taking on dozens of enemies singlehandedly. He even makes things worse by setting off an earthquake that threatens to swallow his retreating friends, too. (OK, maybe you can't really see why his buddies would follow him into battle.) Only when his allies are hopelessly cornered does Thor bother to notice, and even then he saves them in the showiest way possible, complete with an Iron Man-style Three-Point Landing of Badassery.

As the Frost Giant army closes in, Odin arrives to save Thor's bacon. But in a way, he's too late. Thor's already provoked the Frost Giants into renewed war. The peace Odin hoped to preserve is lost. The embarrassed way Odin hisses "Silence!" at Thor when he arrives is pretty dang hilarious, though.

(Let's take a moment here to ponder any real-world parallels for the story of a brash, simplistic, not especially bright son who, eager to impress his dad, reacts to an attack on his homeland by branding it an existential threat, and charging off to start an even costlier and more destructive war against the wrong enemy.)

Back in Asgard, we see Loki breathe a sigh of relief that he's escaped certain death, and then immediately start working the angles as Odin and Thor quarrel. Thor lets his humiliation at being scolded by his dad get the better of him, and he lashes out. Most actors would play this with growly adult rage. But Hemsworth tightens up his face until it's puffy and red, and lets his voice rise to a near-screech. He's rather cleverly mimicking a child throwing a temper tantrum.

Thor breaks Odin's heart with words the son seems almost instantly to regret. Again, it's tough to tell whether Loki's attempt to intervene here is for his own benefit or Thor's; most likely, it's yet another attempt to make Odin see him as the good son, the good brother who's calm and reasonable when his older sibling's angry.

This time, Thor doesn't fight back, doesn't argue, when Odin reads him the riot act. He has enough self-awareness to know that Odin is right. As for Loki, we see his hangdog look just after Odin says to Thor, "You are unworthy of the loved ones you've betrayed." If Odin thinks that a bad son betrays his loved ones, clearly, Loki does not want to fit that description. And when Odin banishes Thor, and enchants his hammer to be liftable only by a worthy wielder, Loki gets a glimpse of exactly what Odin does to bad sons, and perhaps worries that he'll get this same treatment, too. (He won't, as it turns out. Instead, he'll inflict it on himself.)

But the moment Thor's gone, Loki sobers up, and the wheels in his head start turning. We've reached the end of Act I, and Loki's gotten everything he wanted. His brother won't be taking the throne anytime soon, and Loki is now, by default, his father's good son. But he's had to lie, backstab, and start a war to get here. Even in his grief, and Thor's absence, Odin's still focused more on Thor than on Loki. And now Loki's wondering whether he's good enough to be "the good son" ... and just whose son he really is.

Act II: The Gods Must Be Crazy

Thor's shortcomings as a film and a script rest with its primary human characters. On paper, they're not so much characters as useful roles: Exposition Scientist, Love Interest, Comic Relief. The film gets around this shorthand by casting actors talented enough to fill in those considerable blanks.

Skellan Skarsgard does worried and sweetly paternal like no one's business. Even in The Avengers, as a brainwashed slave working on a weapon of mass destruction, his Dr. Selvig is just so charmingly excited about it all.

Natalie Portman, even when she's clearly just picking up a paycheck, brings a natural warmth and intelligence to Jane Foster. Remember, the erstwhile Ms. Hirschlag has co-authored two different scientific papers on chemistry and psychology, the first while she was in high school. If you're going to cast a Hollywood actress as an astrophysicist, you could do a lot worse.

And Kat Dennings manages to effortlessly steal every single scene she's in as Darcy Lewis, even when she's just mumbling wry lines in the background. She can get laughs just by nonchalantly reloading a Taser.

Still, they mostly serve as foils for Thor to help develop his own character. Heck, aside from adding laughs, Darcy's only in the movie so that it'll just barely pass the Bechdel Test.

(Reasons No. 3 and 4 why Thor is the most feminist movie ever made about an enormous muscleman and his giant hammer: It passes the Bechdel test, apparently by design. And in a film with no less than four stunning lead actresses, the only actor to parade around half-naked for sex appeal's sake is Hemsworth, in the frankest example of the female gaze in major filmmaking this side of Magic Mike. The flabbergastingly curvaceous Kat Dennings, meanwhile, wears a lot of coats and sweaters.)

Suffice to say that when Thor arrives on Earth, he starts acting like Loki again, covering up for his own shame and self-recrimination by lording it over others. He's charming, and capable of being polite and gallant. But he can also be rude and thoughtless. He doesn't want to believe this banishment is his own fault. It's all a mistake. He's still better than everyone else. He has to be.

Meanwhile, in Asgard, Loki's still looking at his hand and freaking out. Like Thor, when he begins to feel guilty -- when the Warriors Three question who told Odin where they'd gone -- he begins to lash out, act imperious, and project the blame on others. He excoriates the guards who "should be flogged for taking so long to tell [Odin]."

But then Loki does something remarkable. For this scene and the one that follows, he tells others the truth. He loves Thor, he says, but his brother is too reckless and arrogant to rule Asgard. And plying Odin to bring Thor back from banishment won't teach his brother anything. You can tell he's being honest in part because he's not smiling. He lets his mask slip, lets his simmering anger show through.

Alas for Loki, even when he speaks truly, the people who know him see deceit. As he stalks off, Sif notes -- also correctly -- that he's always been jealous of Thor. Hogun the Grim, whose defining character trait is his lack of time for anyone's bullshit, adds that Loki could have easily snuck in those Frost Giants. Foppish ladykiller Fandral and boastful glutton Volstagg, both defined more by their vanity, express doubt that Loki could be so treacherous. Like Loki, they're a little too familiar with self-delusion to start throwing stones.

Loki, meanwhile, is having an uncomfortable encounter with the truth. In the treasure room, he picks up the Cask of Ancient Winters, and finds himself revealed as a Frost Giant. He asks Odin what he is, and when Odin replies, "My son," Loki spits back, "What more?"

For Loki, just being Odin's son has never been enough, and never will be. He feels wrong, unworthy, overshadowed by his stronger, braver, more handsome and charismatic brother. And now his worst nightmare has just come true. There IS something wrong with him. He's an actual, literal monster -- the same boogeyman he was afraid of as a child. How can he be a good son when he's the son of Asgard's worst enemy?

When Odin explains how he saved baby Loki out of compassion, Loki can't believe it. To the eternal schemer, there must always be an ulterior motive. (In one of the script's most clever metaphors, Loki compares himself to one of the weapons held in reserve in Odin's armory.)

Odin expresses his hope that Loki would bring peace between Asgard and Jotunheim, but says that no longer matters now ... and Loki's heart breaks. Remember, he got Thor banished so that Odin would see Loki as the good son. But by starting a war, he's screwed up everything his father wanted him to do, whether Odin realizes that or not. He's disappointed his dad. He's a bad son.

So Loki has to redirect all his shame at his father. Just as Thor saw only aggression and combat, Loki sees only schemes and deceit. In an act of supreme chutzpah, the god of lies asks why his father didn't tell him the truth. But he doesn't listen to the answer.

Like Thor too preoccupied with fighting Frost Giants to see his friends in danger, Loki's too busy calling himself a monster, spinning the version of the story that fits his own feelings of inadequacy, to realize that an overwhelmed Odin is falling into a narratively convenient healing trance. (No wonder Anthony Hopkins took the role; rarely does one get paid to literally sleep through at least half the movie.) This only adds to Loki's guilt and horror. He's literally yelled his dad into a coma.

Thor will get his "second act low point" later, but Loki's arrives here. He's a monster who started a war, and he has disappointed his father to the point of death. This moment will drive everything he does from now on. Loki will stop at nothing, not even killing his actual father, to prove to his adopted one that he is both a good son and the best son. But he's so twisted up with shame and self-loathing that he'll do everything wrong, and end up with the very thing he doesn't want.

Meanwhile, on Earth, Thor is discovering Midgardian diner food, and growing increasingly charmed by this tiny mortal who dares to lecture him about not smashing crockery. Jane Foster is fearless and driven -- qualities we know by now that Thor respects. But she's still just sort of a useful pet to him at this point. So when he hears that his hammer's showed up in the desert outside the little town of Puente Antiguo, he has no qualms about bidding her a courtly farewell and heading off to get it back.

In the process, he just misses the arrival of Clark Gregg's unflappable Agent Phil Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D., fresh from the middle of Iron Man 2. In addition to providing useful connective tissue for the Marvel movie universe, Coulson's presence here represents an inspired thematic choice.

In Thor, Coulson represents his own sort of emissary from this universe's gods -- a seemingly all-powerful and capricious organization that (we will later learn) lives in the skies, blessed with advanced technology and led by an apparently omniscient one-eyed father figure. Like the gods, S.H.I.E.L.D. shows up to trifle in the affairs of mere mortals with no explanation or justification, often leaving damage and ruin in its wake.

But while Thor and his fellow gods are big, loud, and colorful, Coulson is small, quiet, and monochrome. And while Thor's power comes from the direct application of an enchanted hammer, Coulson's comes from the skillful, indirect use of bureaucracy, manipulation, and surveillance. Coulson is Loki gone good -- serenity and certainty in place of self-loathing and doubt. No wonder they'll both show up as mirror-image interrogators of Thor later on.

(It's worth noting that of the three main Marvel heroes he directly interacts with -- Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America -- Coulson is impressed and awed only by Cap, the humblest and most human of them all. To a god, other gods are old hat, but a truly worthy mortal is something special indeed.)

Back in Asgard, the Warriors Four head for the throne room to rat out Loki to Odin -- but find Loki sitting in his place. Having "killed" his dad, Loki is now trying to become him. What is a good son, after all, if not the image of his father? Loki greets his old pals with the words, "My friends," but even that's another lie, designed to emphasize the new distance between them. He puts on a show of concern and compassion, but it's all designed to intimidate them and cover his own tracks. 

The Warriors bow and smile through gritted teeth, but Loki's not done making them feel small. He swats away Sif's request to bring Thor back -- in the name of the people of Asgard and their security, of course, echoing countless despots throughout human history.

Again, Sif -- who asks the world to see past her exterior qualities and appreciate her inner ones, and does the same for others -- is ready to kick his ass, while Fandral and Volstagg understand Loki enough to try diplomacy instead. The Warriors Four leave, but Sif's glare makes it clear they're on to Loki. And anything that keeps Loki from acting the part of the good king, of making his father proud, is a problem that he'll have to quash.

Getting back the research S.H.I.E.L.D. stole gives Jane and Thor the same goal: Get to the hammer. As she gives him a ride out into the desert, Thor specifically notes and appreciates Jane's bravery. He praises her cleverness, and actually cares what she thinks of him. Like him, she's just lost everything that was rightfully hers at the command of the angry gods, and he recognizes that similarity. Until now, Thor's never suffered, never had even the smallest setback. (That's why he reacted so badly to his dad's initial rebuke.) You can't truly have empathy for others until you've experienced some kind of pain yourself.

Jane has opened up the first crack in Thor's preening self-regard. Rather than assigning his own motives to her, or seeing her as a way to help further his own glory, he recognizes her as an individual.

We cut to Loki and Frigga watching Odin as he sleeps, bathed in golden light. When Loki asks how long Odin's coma will last, Hiddleston's face reveals the subtext: Loki likes being in charge, and the longer Odin's out, the more time Loki has to prove himself worthy. His face stays flat and emotionless as Frigga explains that Odin lied to him so that Loki would never feel different. Odin obviously failed, because Loki's always felt different. And when Frigga mentions that Thor might come back, that Odin might have had a plan in banishing his other son, Loki panics a little. If Thor comes back, Loki's no longer king, and no longer the best son.

"There's always a purpose to everything your father does," Frigga says, but that only makes Loki think of himself as a stolen bargaining chip. To Loki, Odin's plans coddle and elevate an undeserving Thor -- but only use Loki as a tool or a weapon for Odin's own ends.

Reaching S.H.I.E.L.D.'s base amid a convenient storm, Thor bulldozes his way through a contingent of guards and a belatedly inserted Jeremy Renner cameo to get to the hammer. He may have softened a little toward Jane -- he even gives her his coat before the rain starts! -- but he's still the arrogant god, assuming he can solve every problem with brute force. But when he can't pry his own hammer out of the ground, that confidence shatters.

Like Loki, at the end of Act II, Thor is forced to confront his worst nightmare. Thor has always measured his own worth by his strength and power. He was good because he was mighty. So when he can't lift the hammer, when he sees himself as weak for the first time, he can't blame anyone but himself.

While Loki mistakes his father's love for disappointment, and sinks deeper into self-delusion, Thor accepts his father's actual disappointment, and takes to heart the ugly reflection it casts.

Like Loki, Thor's self-image has been shattered, and he will spend all of Act III trying to become a better son. But Loki will do it all to feel better about himself, to mend and burnish his picture of himself. Thor's seen the fruitlessness of that kind of vanity. It didn't win him back his father's love. If he can't help himself, he can at least help others. He'll become mighty by becoming good.

Act III: Hammer Time

One quick scene of Jane awkwardly paraphrasing Arthur C. Clarke later, we're back with Thor, in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, being interrogated by Agent Coulson. Coulson's speaking to him in the language of war, talking about battlefields and soldiers of fortune. But that's not a language Thor speaks anymore. The glory of battle's been proven hollow, since it can't win him a way home. Coulson asks, "Who are you?", and when Thor doesn't answer, it's clear that Thor doesn't know the answer to that question anymore.

When Coulson leaves, Loki reappears, first as a reflection in a one-way-mirrored door. The frame of the movie doesn't just tilt, but actually begins to warp around the edges like a funhouse mirror. That fits, because everything Loki says to Thor just reflects Loki's own feelings. To break Thor's spirit, Loki tells his brother that Odin is dead because of his grief over the war and Thor's banishment; once again, projecting his own guilt onto his brother. He also tries to drive a wedge between Thor and Odin:  "It was so cruel to put the hammer within your reach, knowing you could never lift it," Loki says. (Substitute "throne" for "hammer," and "claim" for "lift.")

Loki wants everyone else to feel the same pain he does. He thinks he's the only one hurting. But Thor sees his own pain reflected in others. From this point on, he's going to do everything he can to help ease their suffering, since he's lost hope of quelling his own.

"Can I come home?" Thor asks through tears, again like a remorseful child. But no, Loki says. The truce with Jotunheim depends on Thor's banishment, and Frigga doesn't want Thor back. The corner of Hiddleston's mouth quirks, as Loki once again tries to hold back a smirk. Thor actually apologizes, and thanks Loki for coming. You'd think Loki would be pleased.

But when Loki turns away, you can see the god of mischief's eyes go cold and hard. Getting what he ostensibly wants will never make Loki happy; he always needs more, because focusing on the next plan distracts Loki from having to take a hard look at himself. There's only room in Asgard for one good son. Loki can only avoid feeling like an inferior substitute if Thor never comes back. 

Actually, even that may not be enough. On his way out, unnoticed by the hordes of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents all around him, Loki petulantly tries to dislodge the hammer himself. He fails, of course, but brushes off his disappointment with a shrug. Thor failed, too. If Loki can't make himself the good son just yet, at least he's brought his brother down to his own level.

Dr. Selvig shows up to spring Thor with a cockamamie story that should never even remotely work. S.H.I.E.L.D. sees through the fake I.D. that Selvig provides in seconds. But Coulson lets Thor go anyway, and orders agents to watch him, as gods do. Part of this is narrative convenience; part of it is one benevolent god beginning to recognize another.

Having stolen Jane's notebook back during their exit, Selvig and Thor do what men who have suffered a loss often do: They go get drunk. Hammered, even.

Unlike Loki, Thor can admit to Selvig that he's been wrong. Loki reacts to feeling unworthy by trying even harder to make everyone else think that he is. Thor reacts to feeling unworthy by trying to make himself better. Unlike Loki, Thor has never doubted who he is or where he comes from. And now, even without the trappings of royalty or godhood, he can still fall back on the surety that he comes from a line of good and noble people. He can make that his identity and his guiding star.

Loki? Not so much. The Bifrost zaps him to Jotunheim, where he ensnares Laufey with lies wrapped in truth. Here's where we learn why he let those Giants into Asgard in the first place, and at this point we can believe him. Actually, at this point in the movie, we believe everything he says. It's logical that Loki would reach out to his actual father to help him slay his deceitful adopted one, and we know how much he craves an unimpeded path to the throne. But both we and Laufey underestimate Odin's hold on Loki, and how much Loki needs to see himself as the hero.

We get a brief round 2 between Loki and D.I. Luther -- er, Heimdall -- as the latter continues to prod at Loki regarding his suspicions about the Frost Giant attack. (Now I really, really want to see Ruth Wilson as Alice Morgan as The Enchantress.) But Loki turns the tables this time, relishing how Heimdall, who saw right through him before, couldn't monitor him during Loki's little chat with Laufey.

Loki uses the power of his new title to bully Heimdall into swearing fealty. The prolonged silence before Heimdall assents marks the gatekeeper as yet another problem Loki will have to deal with.

Thor carries Selvig, somewhat the worse for drink, back to Jane's trailer to sleep it off. As he does, Jane and Thor decamp to the roof of her makeshift lab. Thor reveals his newfound humility and gratitude, graciously returning Jane's notebook. When Jane despairs that S.H.I.E.L.D. will never let her research be published, Thor urges her to keep going, "because you're right." Again, he's helping others so that they won't have to feel the sting of failure as he has. And where Thor responded to Jane's courage, we can see Jane responding to Thor's curiosity and excitement about the pursuit of knowledge. Plus, you know, the six-pack abs. Those probably don't hurt, either.

(Reason No. 5 why Thor is the most feminist movie ever made about an enormous muscleman and his giant hammer: Thor woos Jane not with gifts or feats of strength, but with knowledge. He engages with her work, exchanges ideas, and helps to further her research, without ever making her seem like an idiot. Well, not scientifically, anyway.)

In Asgard, Heimdall summons the Warriors Four, and -- amusingly enough for an all-seeing god -- deliberately turns a blind eye to let them go to Earth and retrieve Thor. Loki sees the Bifrost activate, and knows something's up. And on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge, S.H.I.E.L.D. takes equal notice.

Thor? He's making breakfast with a dishtowel over his shoulder. The guy who started the movie ready to kill an entire species for hurting his feelings is now happily serving humble food to a pair of mortals. (And unlike the earlier diner scene, in which he smashes a cup of coffee to demand more of it, Thor handles the china very delicately. Being weak makes him appreciate breakable things.)

Loki now has an opportunity to deal with all his remaining problems -- Heimdall, the Warriors, and Thor -- in one fell swoop. Like Thor did at the beginning of the film, ego will drive Loki to recklessly invade another world, and cause hellacious property damage in the process. Unlike Thor, who at least had the courage to lead that attack, Loki will send a proxy. A big, stompy, metal proxy with death rays for a face.

No sooner have the Warriors reunited with Thor than the Destroyer rolls into town. And, well, let's just say there's a reason it's not called the Peaceful Negotiator. Or maybe it just has something against flagrant product placement. (For a tiny town in the middle of New Mexico, Puente Antiguo has a LOT of recognizable logos.)

Once again, Thor resists the call of battle. He could help fight the monster and win glory for himself, like he did in Jotunheim. But now he knows his limitations. By losing all hope, he's lost his ego, too. He'd rather help save other people who might get caught in the crossfire. In what admittedly feels like a suspiciously short span of time, he's learned his lesson.

The Warriors try to stop the Destroyer, but fail. (Reason No. 6 why Thor is the most feminist movie ever made about an enormous muscleman and his giant hammer: Sif kicks as much ass as any of the Warriors, executes a cunning attack while they serve as a diversion, and saves Volstagg from certain death. She's never any less competent, or any more in need to rescue, than any of her male comrades.)

And when Thor realizes the fight is hopeless, he tells his comrades to retreat, prizing their lives over martial glory. Instead, he goes unarmed to face the Destroyer, and speaks through it to Loki. He apologizes for whatever wrong he's done, asking Loki to spare the innocent people around him. He offers his own life instead -- neat trick, turning the Norse  god of thunder into Jesus -- and for a moment, Loki seems moved. Right up until he has the Destroyer backhand the profoundly mortal Thor into oblivion.

Learning his true parentage has opened up an even deeper hole in Loki, consuming any love he had for Thor. Now, banishment's no longer enough. Loki can only be the good son in a world without Thor. Besides, if Thor comes back now, it'll ruin Loki's elaborate plan to win Odin's love once and for all, and prove his own worth. 

So killing Thor should be Loki's ultimate triumph. It's one of the last two obstacles standing between Loki and Odin's love and approval. But once again, Loki gets hoist by his own petard. As Thor lies dying, Odin's enchantment upon the hammer -- that it will grant the power of Thor to whomever is worthy of it -- activates. The hammer soars skyward, blasts into Thor's hand, and zaps him back to life and godhood.

Loki wanted Thor gone because he felt, rightly, that Thor didn't deserve to be the favored good son. But by exiling Thor, by forcing him to become compassionate and self-sacrificing, Loki has actually made Thor worthy of that exalted status. To Loki, the hammer's return is tangible proof that Odin loves Thor, and will always love Thor more than he loves Loki. 

(Note that while Odin, all-seeing even in his sleep, sheds a single tear, he doesn't awaken at Thor's noble sacrifice. Not yet.)

Thor promptly pounds the crap out of The Destroyer. But unlike his ground-shattering battle in Jotunheim, Thor draws the Destroyer into the sky, minimizing any further damage to the surrounding town. Thor could let his wrath against the Destroyer level Puente Antiguo -- but he's learned the wisdom, and the importance, of a proportionate response.

Coulson shows up, and the two gods barter as equals. Coulson proves that Midgard's gods can be merciful, too, returning Jane's notes and equipment as casually and capriciously as he took them.

But their encounter ends in a way that shows S.H.I.E.L.D.'s limitations as a pantheon. Thor grabs a visibly turned-on Jane -- seriously, I'm not sure to what extent the few sparks in Portman's performance owe to her pure enjoyment of being matched up with a strapping specimen like Hemsworth -- and rockets skyward, while Coulson impotently calls out, "I need to debrief you!" (Jane likely shares that sentiment.) Bureaucratic power may mimic divinity, but it can't help you sweep the opposite sex off their feet.

Meanwhile, Loki's got to work fast, before Thor screws up all his plans yet again. Having frozen Heimdall with the Cask of Ancient Winters, Loki uses the Bifrost to summon Laufey and his Frost Giant goons for some good ol' fashioned patricide. (Though not the kind Laufey is expecting.)

Freezing Heimdall also helps Loki ensure that Thor and his friends can't get home. Loki, of course, forgets that Heimdall is being played by Idris Elba, who promptly Idris-Elba's himself out of his frozen prison, stabs a pair of Frost Giants, and gets Thor and his team back to Asgard.

(Jane, after a seriously unprofessional makeout session in front of her colleagues, has to wait for Thor back on Earth. If Jane and the other humans were truly important to this story, they'd have a more central role in its climactic moments, instead of just standing around in the desert looking at swirly clouds.) 

As Thor speeds toward the palace, Laufey's goons break into Odin's chambers and make ready to murder him. (Reason No. 7 why Thor is the most feminist movie ever made about an enormous muscleman and his giant hammer: Frigga, perhaps because she is played by the excellent Rene Russo, unconcernedly picks up a big-ass sword and cuts down the first of Odin's attackers as if she were ordering takeout. She gets sucker-punched by the guy right behind him, but still.)

Just as Laufey's about to stab Odin with an ice knife, he's blasted into submission by ... wait, by Loki? Yes. What better way to prove he's a good son than by saving his father's life? What better way to prove his loyalty than by killing his biological father and disowning his entire Frost Giant heritage? Loki even calls himself "the son of Odin" before vaporizing his still-unsuspecting birth father. Even after he's betrayed and tried to murder his own brother, Loki still wants to be the hero.

Killing his Frost Giant pop won't be enough, though. Loki's going to use this as an excuse to make them all pay -- just like Thor wanted to after the initial attack on the treasure room. Only genocide will expunge Loki's shame at his impure ancestry; with no more Frost Giants left, Loki will become wholly Asgardian by default. Maybe then, when he's no longer a monster, when he's completed the war his father began, and wiped out the guys who tried to kill his dad, he'll be good enough for his father to love him. (Again, feel free to ponder any real-world parallels that spring to mind.)

Loki's too far gone to realize that he's become exactly what he was trying to prevent: A rash, arrogant, bloodthirsty king who will plunge Asgard into a needless war, all to appease his own vanity.

When Thor shows up, Loki knows his goose is cooked. Big brother's home, and he's going to tattle to Mom. Loki makes nice to stall for time and sucker-blast Thor out of the palace, then races for the Bifrost. With a weakened Heimdall off recovering from his deep freeze, there's no one to stop Loki from turning the Bifrost into a death ray that'll blast Jotunheim to smithereens. But just in case, Loki uses the Cask to freeze the Bifrost's workings, making it impossible to easily shut down.

Confronted by Thor, Loki starts to break down, his conflicted loyalties and rationales all swirling into one big vortex of crazy. "When Father awakes, I will have saved his life, I will have destroyed that race of monsters, and I will be true heir to the throne," he says. He's trying to disown his heritage, even as the blue light upon his skin and his growling voice make him seem more like the Frost Giants.

Loki taunts Thor about his big brother's past interest in wiping out Jotunheim. "I've changed," Thor says, but so has Loki. In trying to supplant his brother, Loki has become him, solving problems through aggression and brute force. And Thor has become Odin: Wiser, gentler, aware of the cost of anger and war.

"I never wanted the throne," Loki says, unconvincingly. "I only wanted to be your equal." But when Thor calls him "brother," offering that very equality, Loki slaps it away. "I'm not your brother. I never was." More importantly, deep down Loki feels like he never will be.

Loki quivers, he snarls, but tears begin to rim his eyes. He can't reconcile the way others see him with the way he sees himself. And since he's the god of lies, he trusts only his own judgment, and thinks everyone else must be lying. He wants to be the hero, but inside he feels like the villain. He's trying to play both roles at once, and it's tearing him to pieces.

And how does Loki goad Thor into battle at last? He threatens Jane. He's using Thor's reformation, his newfound empathy, as a weapon against him. But Loki's also revealing his own jealousy, his own need to be loved, and to not share that love with anyone else.

As they fight, Thor's frantic and deadly serious. Loki, like Thor in Jotunheim, is laughing, consumed by his own ego. And when their slugfest sprawls out of the Bifrost and on to the rainbow bridge, Loki casts an illusion of himself dangling over the void, and Thor makes himself vulnerable trying to save his brother. Even when he's offered proof of his family's love for him, right in front of his eyes, Loki just can't see it. It might as well be a mirage to him.

When Thor finally does get the better of Loki, he holds his rogue brother in place by pinning him to the ground with his unmovable hammer. It's a symbol of Loki's own shame, and of Thor's disappointment. Like Odin, Thor's testing Loki. If he were worthy, he'd be able to move the hammer. And Loki can't. (Loki's prone, dazed pose, deliberately or otherwise, echoes the aftermath of his later battle with a different musclebound foe -- one who stomps away from that encounter no less contemptuous of Loki's godhood.)

In combat, Loki tellingly creates false images of himself as a means of attack. Now, trapped in a situation he's not strong enough to change, Loki can only once again project his own shame onto someone else. As Thor watches the Bifrost overload, scorching Jotunheim, Loki taunts him: "Look at you. The mighty Thor. All your strength. And what good's it going to do you now, eh?"

But Thor's already passed this test, and he knows the answer: Give up what you want to protect others. He summons his hammer, and begins to smash the bridge. And that moment, the instant when Thor proves himself willing to lose his friends to save a bitter enemy, makes Odin wake up. Thor had already proven that he was worthy to lift the hammer. But now he's proved that he can also use it wisely.

Loki tries to appeal to Thor's selfishness to get him to stop; to Loki, this is just another example of his big dumb brute of a brother ruining everything. And as Loki tries to salvage his victory and stab Thor in the back, the bridge shatters, the Bifrost goes kablooey, and both brothers go flying into the air. 

Thor catches Loki as they fall, grabbing hold of his brother's spear -- and Odin is there to catch Thor. Looking up at his father, Loki makes one last, pathetic attempt to prove himself a good son. "I could have done it, father! I could have done it! For you!"

Odin, smiling sadly, with no trace of anger and every indication of forgiveness and pity, just says, "No, Loki."

Odin clearly means, "No, you didn't do it for me." But what does Loki hear?

If Loki hears instead, "No, you couldn't have done it," then he's just given himself proof that his father will always consider him a failure, no matter what he does. In that case, his decision to let go of the spear represents one last, petulant attempt to get back at his dad for not loving him enough. Here, at last, he'll do what he never did before, and try to hurt Odin, if only in the most passive-aggressive way possible. The guilt-tripping look on Loki's face as he falls away, and the way he blames Thor for letting him fall when next they meet in The Avengers, support this theory.

But if Loki hears what Odin actually means, then his decision to fall represents his one and only moment of anything approaching clarity in the film. It's Loki acknowledging his own mistakes, placing the blame correctly upon himself, and then deciding that he's not worthy of the love he's always craved. Faced with his own failings, Thor tries to reach out and help others; in this interpretation, Loki pulls away and hurts himself.

Either way, Loki's at least partly ignoring the truth, and choosing to interpret the situation incorrectly, which makes his fall from grace all the more heartbreaking.

Throughout the movie, Loki's been a bottomless pit of inadequacy, trying and trying to fill that void, and always failing. All the love and acceptance he's shown throughout the movie just can't withstand the gravitational forces of his own self-loathing. The crushing pull of that emptiness and self-hatred warps all the light and information around him. So it's appropriate that he meets his apparent end by getting sucked into a black hole.

Loki wants to be the good son; he ends up making himself the bad one. He wants to deserve a place in his own family; he ends up exiling himself from it. I think that's what makes Loki such a compelling character. Everyone knows what it's like to crave a parent's approval, or be jealous of a sibling. And because those understandable motives drive his every move, we never completely lose sympathy for him, even when his actions grow despicable. 

In Asgard, a feast celebrates the Warriors' and Thor's return, and the Frost Giants' defeat. (Stan Lee, himself a sort of deity of mischief, has already made a cameo earlier in the film. Co-creator Jack Kirby has long since gone to artists' Valhalla -- where, alas, he still cannot collect residual checks from Marvel Comics. But legendary Thor writer and artist Walt Simonson does turn up between Sif and the other Warriors at the feasting table.)

At his coronation, Thor played to the crowd and soaked up their adulation. Here, he stands apart from them, and has a quiet heart-to-heart with his father instead. Like Loki, Thor is now striving to be a good son. But unlike Loki, whose desire to please Odin stemmed from the illusion that he somehow needed to, Thor's desire stems from seeing his own flaws clearly, and accepting them. And unlike Loki, Thor knows that he doesn't have to be perfect, doesn't have to earn his father's love, to have it all the same.

These universal emotions, and the way the film conveys them through clever editing choices, terrific performances from Hiddleston and Hemsworth in particular, and a script far more deliberate and thematically resonant than its tag team of writers would suggest, make Thor more than just a campy popcorn spectacle.

We glimpse Loki in the post-credits teaser at the very end of the film, appearing in reflection, but still incapable of self-reflection. When we see him next inThe Avengers, he'll be making the same mistakes all over again. He'll try to please a far less benevolent and more abusive new father figure. He'll fail to recognize even the most explicit gestures of love and forgiveness from his brother. And whenever he even begins to realize just how enormously he's screwed up, he'll deflect the responsibility onto someone else, and smother his shame in anger and egotism. 

Every tragic hero has a tragic flaw. Loki's is simple: He lies to everyone. Especially himself.

[associatevidiot]

Late to the Party: God Help Me, But MTV's "Teen Wolf" Is Actually Pretty Good

Getting older, and acquiring a life along the way, has pushed me even farther from the vanguard of pop culture than I was before. And I was pretty dang far. Welcome to Late to the Party, where I'll occasionally discuss great TV I missed out on the first time around, just in case you haven't discovered it, either.

Shame has kept me silent until now, but I just gotta say it: MTV's Teen Wolf is a pretty great show.

I know, I know. It's a needless reboot of an ever-more-irrelevant bit of '80s pop culture flotsam, given a heavy gloss of Twilight for the basest of cash-in purposes, airing on a network that has basically become a 24-hour advertisement for skin care products, poor life choices, and venereal disease. And yet.

Under developer and Criminal Minds vet Jeff Davis, the show has neatly evaded all of the many, many opportunities it had to go horribly wrong. It's smart, funny, consistently surprising, unexpectedly heartfelt, and a great big goofy pile of spooky pulp fun.

Like the Michael J. Fox original, this Teen Wolf involves a lycanthropic high schooler named Scott McCall, who pals around with a brainy dork named Stiles. But while the show worked in more than a few wry references to its cinematic predecessor in its first season, any similarities between movie and TV show end there. This version throws in a Twilight-style star-crossed romance with the daughter of a local clan of heavily armed werewolf hunters; a pack of morally gray fellow loup-garous with their own agenda; and more supernatural weirdness than you can shake a stick at.

Also, for some reason, lacrosse. The lacrosse may be the strangest thing about this show. It gives Teen Wolf a chance to show something you don't often see on TV, and avoid the usual football and basketball cliches in the process. But otherwise, the less said about it, the better.

One suspects the show's producers cast Tyler Poesy in the lead role for his facial and abdominal resemblance to Twilight hunk Taylor Lautner. This did not turn out as badly as it might have.

Scott's fundamentally a good-hearted, brave kid with the moral steadfastness of a rock -- and the intellect to match. While you shouldn't expect to see Poesy among the Emmy nominees anytime soon, he has an earnest, puppyish sweetness that plays well against his character's dangerous nature, and he makes Scott's general lack of brains more endearing than aggravating. The show hasn't yet succeeded in making Scott feel truly scary or out of control, but he can muster a certain measure of heroic badassery.

So can his co-star Crystal Reed, as Allison, Scott's paramour of unfortunate parentage. (If you thought meeting your high school girl's father was intimidating, just imagine knowing that he has a garage full of automatic weapons, and his sole purpose in life is to hunt you down and bisect you with a broadsword.)

Far from a hapless, lovesick twit, Allison's smart and confident and plenty resourceful -- one of a welcome panoply of strong, complex women in the show's universe. As attached as she and Scott are to each other, Allison's her own independent person. I like that the writers actually have her character feel angry about the rare times she has to depend on Scott for protection. When she insists, "I can take care of myself," you know she actually can -- particularly when she's packing a collapsible crossbow in her purse. (And when Scott doesn't believe her, you know that he's once again being an idiot, albeit in believably human fashion.) Reed's quite winning in the role, and does a great job of conveying Allison's intelligence and determination.

As good as she is, the show's MVP trophy goes to Dylan O'Brien as Stiles. Week after week, he turns in a deeply funny, surprisingly affecting performance in what could've been a thankless sidekick role. Stiles is as smart as Scott isn't -- and perceptive enough to be keenly aware of his social outcast status, and his own capacity to screw things up for the people he loves.

There's an incredible scene toward the end of season 1 in which Stiles finds his dad, the local sheriff, up too late poring over crime scene photos with a glass of scotch. Dad's in a melancholy mood, reminiscing bittersweetly about Stiles' late mom; Stiles needs information from his dad to help Scott solve a crucial mystery and stop a supernatural Big Bad's bloody rampage. So Stiles deliberately plies his dad with more and more booze, just to loosen his tongue and get the info he needs. All the while, O'Brien wordlessly makes it clear just how sick, remorseful, and disgusted with himself Stiles is for doing so.

You don't expect that kind of sharp, understated drama from MTV, nor such depth to the characters. Heck, nearly everyone on the show, actors and characters alike, proves better and more interesting than they ought to be.

Colton Haynes' Jackson and Holland Roeden's Lydia start out as high school stereotypes -- mean jock and queen bee, respectively. But the show actively pushes them into more complicated moral territory. Jackson's never gotten over learning he was adopted, and his aggressive need to be the best stems from his fears that he's not good enough for anyone to really love him. Lydia's ditzy facade hides a genius-level intellect, emotional scars, and genuine bravery. (Yep. The smartest character on this show, by a country mile, is a girl. It's pretty dang awesome.) 

Even Tyler Hoechlin's hilariously broody werewolf leader -- imagine a cross between Eddie Munster and Edward Cullen who's spent a whole lot of time at the gym -- gets a few good moments of sarcastic disbelief amid his over-the-top smoldering. He's got a weirdly compelling, mismatched-buddy-comedy chemistry with O'Brien's Stiles, which the show never fails to exploit well. (The fans, of course, are shipping the holy hell out of these two. In keeping with its delightfully big-hearted approach to gay and lesbian characters, the show is completely cool with this.)

Davis and his writers take pains to make even their villains complex and believable, driven by understandable motives toward twisted ends. And the writers aren't afraid to toy with your sympathies; they can have two characters face off at different points in the season, and completely reverse which one of them you're rooting for in each encounter.

Even Shantal Rhodes, who won a contest for a walk-on role on the show, absolutely killed in her brief but memorable appearance. That's how much this show cares about, and encourages, good characterization.

And what about the scares? Horror fans rightfully complained that Twilight defanged vampires, but Teen Wolf isn't similarly toothless. You can only show so much blood and gore on basic cable -- if you want visceral horror from MTV, stick with Jersey Shore reruns -- but Davis and the writers have found clever ways to still make things creepy. They go for more cerebral, unsettling scares: Jarring hallucinations, unseen things prowling in the shadows, and in what may be the show's all-time freakiest moment to date, a live snake squeezing its way out of the corner of someone's eye socket.

More than once, the show has paid explicit homage to the elegant horror of classic producer Val Lewton, whose movies overcame miniscule budgets through shadow, suggestion, and their audiences' imagination. In Teen Wolf's case, having Highlander's Russell Mulcahy around as executive producer and frequent director helps give the show the style and energy it needs to skate past any financial limitations.

Teen Wolf's not without its flaws. Toward the end of its second season, the plotting gets muddled, filled with unexplained leaps of faith as it barrels toward its big finish. (How did that one guy come back to life, now? Oh, never mind, let's just keep moving.) The consistent characterization keeps the show from flying off the rails completely, but I did find myself wishing the creators had stuck the landing better. 

I'll be interested to see whether Davis and company can keep up the quality in the impending third season. The show's moving from Atlanta, whose woods gave the series a distinctively haunted and autumnal look, to L.A. It's losing the talented Haynes to a contract dispute, right when his character seemed poised for bigger things. And it's doubling its episode count from 12 to an unprecedented-for-MTV 24, which could tax the writers' ingenuity even further.

Still, the first two seasons -- available in full on Netflix, Hulu Plus, and MTV's site -- prove once again that you can't judge a book by its cover, a show by its title, or a teenage lycanthrope by his six-pack abs.