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mexcine · 3 years

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I’m All Right Jack (1959) review: I’m All Right Jack was reportedly the most popular British film of the year of its release, and has maintained its critical reputation in the decades since. While I found it interesting and entertaining, I was slightly underwhelmed by the film, largely due to several structural aspects of the film’s narrative.

The basic plot: Stanley Windrush, an Oxford graduate and a former serviceman, is the “poor relation” of a wealthy family and decides to “enter business” as a management trainee. However, he’s naïve, clumsy and outspoken, and is repeatedly rejected by various companies. Finally, his uncle Tracepursel suggests Stanley seek employment at Missiles Ltd. (a company Tracepursel owns), but as an ordinary worker. Stanley innocently clashes with the plant’s unions, but head steward Fred Kite (who has pretensions to be an intellectual analyst of the capitalist system) offers to rent Stanley a room in his own house and educate him in the ways of the working class. Spotting Kite’s sexy daughter Cynthia (who also works at the plant), Stanley accepts the offer of lodging. [This has little or no bearing on the plot, as Stanley and Kite have almost no interaction after this; and as noted below, even Stanley’s romance with Cynthia is jettisoned at the conclusion.]

Meanwhile, unbeknowst to Stanley, Tracepursel is conspiring with Sidney De Vere Cox to have Missiles Ltd. default on a contract to supply arms to a Middle Eastern nation so that Cox’s company can take over the contract (at a higher price, which they’ll split amongst themselves and buyer’s agent Mr. Mohamed). When Stanley unknowingly cooperates with a “time-and-motion” study man and reveals that Missile Ltd’s employees could work much harder, Kite calls a strike. This soon spreads across the nation, including to Cox’s company, so the scheme has worked too well. Tracepursel urges plant manager Major Hitchcock to negotiate with Kite to end the strike; since Stanley’s removal is a condition for a resolution, Cox tries to bribe Stanley with a bag of cash to “resign for reasons of health.” During a television broadcast about the strike, Stanley denounces both sides of the dispute as corrupt, and tosses the money into the air, which provokes a brawl among the studio audience. Stanley is arrested for his actions, chastised, and put on probation for a year. As the film concludes, he’s living at a nudist colony with his aged father.

One of the main flaws of I’m All Right Jack is that the film changes focus throughout—it’s not necessarily a case of an “ensemble cast,” the film almost literally switches back and forth between protagonists. Stanley Windrush seems to be the protagonist, but at a certain point—when Missiles Ltd. goes on strike—he almost literally vanishes from the screen for an extended period of time, and is replaced in the spotlight by union steward Fred Kite. There are also extended sequences focusing on Sidney De Vere Cox and Mr. Mohamed, with lesser footage (more traditional use of supporting characters) allotted to Tracepursel and Major Hitchcock, while Aunt Dolly appears only briefly and without much effect on the plot. A more traditional film would have centered on Windrush throughout, but his disappearance for much of the middle section of the picture makes the conclusion feel forced. I’m All Right Jack has a curious, “unhappy ending”—Stanley is reprimanded in court, and is last seen being pursued by amorous female tennis players at a nudist resort, his relationship with Cynthia Kite apparently terminated (she’s last seen, weeping, while Stanley is being dressed down by the judge, suggesting she still cares for Stanley).

Additionally, I’m All Right Jack has a needlessly complex and somewhat illogical plot. As noted above, Tracepursel and Cox’s scheme to have Missiles Ltd. default on an arms contract so Cox can take over the contract (at a higher price that will allow for kickbacks to those involved). Apparently as part of this plot, Tracepursel has his ineffectual nephew Stanley Windrush hired by Missiles Ltd. As it develops, Stanley’s naïveté results in a massive strike that shuts down Missiles Ltd. (but then spreads to Cox’s company and in fact nation-wide), but this was not something Tracepursel could have anticipated. He gives Stanley no instructions or advice, and it’s only purest luck that Stanley’s actions cause a strike--he’s by no means an agent provocateur (despite Kite’s accusation of him being exactly that) even unwittingly. He just clueless. Any number of alternate outcomes could have occurred as a result of his hiring.

There is some confusion about the film’s setting: it seems to be contemporary to 1959 when it was produced (the most notable auto in the film is Stanley’s tiny, 3-wheel 1958 Heinkel Kabine), but this would mean Stanley—who served in WWII in Private’s Progress (1956), which features the characters of Stanley, Major Hitchcock, Tracepursel, and Cox—is still unemployed nearly 15 years after the war is over, and is probably pushing 40 (in real life, Ian Carmichael was born in 1920 and did serve in WWII), which seems out of character. The narrator [E.V.H. Emmett, well-known in the UK as a newsreel narrator] specifically says “Industry! With tremendous opportunities for the young man…”

This is not to suggest I’m All Right Jack is a bad film—it’s amusing and well-acted, and contains a significant number of interesting ideas. Barbs are tossed at unions, management, the government, political parties, advertising (detergent Detto and snack bar Num-Yums, both with obnoxious jingles), and so on. Unionism is attacked mercilessly: Missiles Ltd. has 2 unions, so if one is granted higher wages, the other can request an increase in pay, and then the first one has its turn again, etc. Stanley stumbles across a group of men who play cards all day in a hidden spot (they can’t be fired but have no work to do), the unions resist cooperating with time-and-motion studies and reportedly assaulted a previous investigator, and so on. While management and ownership is also depicted as corrupt and/or inept, this could be explained away by labeling Tracepursel and Cox as anomalies. Working-class opinion presumably supports the principles of the strike (although the most prominent union members shown are Kite’s toadies, and his own wife is certainly not on his side, as she leaves him!), large crowds—whose placards identify them as the “Housewives League” and “Empire Loyalists”--are shown applauding Stanley’s actions (“Three cheers for Mr. Churchill and Stanley Windrush!”) as they sing “Land of Hope and Glory.” The conservative “Daily Express” newspaper headline reads “Salute Stanley Windrush,” while the Labour-oriented tabloid “Daily Mirror” has a large photo of Stanley and Cynthia (emphasizing her bust) and the clever “Stanley Strikes Lucky” headline (referring to his romance with Cynthia). Tracepursel says Stanley has the press on his side--some papers for ideological reasons, but others apparently only interested in gossip.

The political content of I’m All Right Jack is mild and even-handed (basically, a plague on both houses). Curiously, Ian Carmichael also appeared in Left Right and Centre in 1959, a film that’s focused more specifically on politics and while it’s still balanced in its depiction of the political parties in the UK—the protagonists are more or less evenly split between Conservative and Labour—it points out the differences between them more clearly than I’m All Right Jack.

Trivia note: I was mildly shocked to see some nudity in I’m All Right Jack, in the opening and closing nudist camp scenes. It’s bare rear-only nudity (and only of women), shown from a distance and in a non-sexual manner, but it was surprising nonetheless.

I’m All Right Jack is well-made and has a strong cast. The comedy is mostly subtle and character-based: the chief exception to this is Stanley’s slapstick tour of the Num-Yum factory, in which he’s repeatedly urged to sample the product and finally ends up vomiting into a mixing machine. The film briefly pokes fun at advertising (the “Detto” detergent and “Num-Yum” billboards and musical jingles) but drops this rather abruptly. Not all of the verbal and character humour works—one of Kite’s union cronies stutters, and the “joke” is that you think he’s going to say a profane word based on the first letter but he doesn’t (“F-f-f-f…friend”).

Ian Carmichael was somewhat typecast as a well-meaning but naïve and bumbling member of the upper class, and he is reasonably effective here. Peter Sellers’ Fred Kite is a much more complex character, mispronouncing large words, lauding the Soviet Union, reminiscing fondly about the “very good toast and preserves they give you at tea time” at Oxford (where he attended a summer session in 1946). When his wife (well-played by Irene Handl) and daughter Cynthia (Liz Fraser, also good) leave him, Fred’s home life goes to blazes (sink full of unwashed dishes, etc.) and he gains additional audience sympathy (although he isn’t a really unsympathetic character earlier, just a self-important and overly enthusiastic labour union representative). Dennis Price, Terry-Thomas, Richard Attenborough, and Margaret Rutherford have clearly-defined supporting roles and play them straight. Further down in the cast in very minor roles are Esma Cannon, Wally Patch, and John Van Eyssen (who appeared as Jonathan Harker in Horror of Dracula, 1958, if you’re wondering why he looks familiar).

I’m All Right Jack is a fine, entertaining film but perhaps slightly over-rated in terms of its overall importance. Still, recommended.

#British comedy #british cinema #comedy film #Unions

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haddonfieldproject · 4 years

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<<PREVIOUS⏺<<CONTENTS>>

1.2.25 SATURDAY NOVEMBER 1st, 7:17 AM

Haddonfield, Illinois

“Oh my God I feel so much better!” Ophelia Tate said, leaning her seat back with a groan.

“Totally,” Jack seconded, pulling the station wagon into the parking lot of a Liberty Burger fast-food chain. “It's amazing how a shower can wake you up too, I hardly feel like I was up all night at all.”

He pulled the car into the drive-thru lane and rolled down the window.

“Now we can go check out the hospital first, and then sleep the rest of the day.” Ophelia said, sitting up straight to look over the menu board.

“So you’re saying taking a shower at the Truck Stop was a good idea?” Jack smiled.

“Maybe,” Ophelia rolled her eyes.

Jack threw his hands up in exasperation. “Come on? Can’t I get some credit?!”

“Even a broken clock is right twice a day,” Ophelia smirked

“Welcome to Liberty Burger, can I take your order?!” The speaker below the menu board squawked.

“Hold on one second,” Jack called out, rolling his eyes at his wife. He turned to his son, who was sitting in the back with his ear-buds in again. “Damon, do you want anything?”

“Not from here,” he groaned.

“Well here is where we are so if you want anything to eat for breakfast, here is where it's coming from.” Jack replied and looked at his wife. “Thanks babe. Do you know what you would like?”

“Number six,” she answered, “no cream or sugar for the coffee, I don't want to be too jittery when I meet all of the staff.”

“Okay,” Jack called out to the speaker, and then he looked back at his son, “Damon?”

Damon rolled his eyes, “I guess an egg and cheese biscuit is fine.”

“Go ahead with your order,” the speaker barked.

“Do you want OJ to drink?” Jack asked his son.

“What time is it?” Ophelia asked, she picked up her phone and swiped to see if it had gotten enough charge yet to turn the thing on.

Nope...still dead.

“Fine,” Damon sighed.

“It's close to half passed seven,” Jack said to his wife and then leaned toward the speaker, “OK I'll have a number six combo...”

“What to drink with that?”

“Coffee please.”

“Cream and sugar for the coffee?”

“No thank you.”

“Okay.”

“I'll have a number eight, no combo, I don't want any hash browns.”

“OK.what else?”

“And I'll have a number four combo.”

“What to drink with that?”

“Orange juice.”

“OK..anything else?”

“I'd like another small OJ please.”

“OK..anything else?”

“No, that's it.”

“16.42, please drive around to the first window.”

🎃

Jack did, and before long they were cruising in town, munching on their fast food breakfast.

“I wish it wasn't still raining so hard, we could see the town better.” Jack said.

“It's pretty though,” Ophelia said, “look there's a post office.”

“Whole town looks like a Norman Rockwell painting,” Jack said.

“Who?”

“Norman Rockwell...he's got all the paintings in the doctors' offices, I'd figure you'd know who he is.”

Ophelia shook her head and pointed to her right. “That's like the tenth church we've driven by.”

“You know the one of the kid who's looking over his doctor's degree while taking off his pants because he's about to get a shot in the ass?” Jack asked.

“Oh yeah, I love that one, it's cute” Ophelia answered.

“That's Norman Rockwell.”

“This is the turn right?”

“Yep,” Jack answered, flicking the turn signal on and turning left at a traffic light with a green sign that read: OLD RESERVOIR RD E.

On the right they passed a LITTLE EGYPT CREDIT UNION. It has an electronic sign with a marquee. The letters on the sign read:

HUSKERS HOME THIS SAT

...and then changed again...

VS WCHS ‪730P‬

Ophelia was reading the sign when Jack tapped her shoulder. He was pointing to the left. There was a white sign that read C.R. 4679, as in the designation for the county road, and next to it, one of those familiar blue signs with the big white H, under which was an arrow pointing up.

“The hospital is right up here, we'll be there in a sec.” Jack said.

Ophelia pulled the sun visor down and looked at her face in the mirror, inspecting her bleary looking eyes, she saw Damon dozing in the back seat with his ear-buds in. She turned around and smacked his knee. His eyes opened.

“Take those things out of your ears we are---”

“Whaaa?” He interrupted, taking the ear bud out of his left ear.

“Turn that off, we are almost there.” She said.

“There's the cemetery,” Jack pointed across Ophelia toward the left.

Damon and Ophelia looked that way. Indeed there was a cemetery

REINCOURT ACRES, a sign read.

“That's one spooky ass cemetery,” Damon said quietly.

“Language,” Ophelia hissed.

“It's only because of the rain and fog,” Jack said.

“It's pretty creepy,” Ophelia agreed. “Bet you could catch a ghost or too in there.” She added.

“Whole damn place is a ghost town,” Damon said.

Ophelia laughed at the pun in spite of herself, “Language,” she said simply.

“It's small, nice, and away from everything,” Jack remarked, looking at Damon in his rear-view mirror, “Which will be good for you.”

Damon rolled his eyes.

“There's the hill,” Ophelia said, pointing straight ahead, “and a sign.” She was referring to the fact that the road they were traveling on took a sharp right turn, disappearing behind the bluff of a steep and rocky hill. A gravel road cut to the left, essentially forming a T-junction. A white rectangular sign with a black arrow and black lettering pointed to the left reading: FRENCHLICK RESERVOIR.

Under that was a blue sign with white lettering and an arrow pointing to the right reading: HADDONFIELD CO GEN HOSP.

Below that was a yellow diamond with a black arrow pointing to the right, under which was another rectangular yellow sign with black letters reading: CAUTION SHARP TURN 15 MPH.

Jack let off the gas and pointed to the left. “Apparently, from what I read online, the old reservoir down there for which this road was named dates back to when all of this was a French colony back in the---”

“JACK WATCH OUT!!” Ophelia screamed.

This was followed quickly by a gasp from Damon, “What...the...fuck!”

Jack and Ophelia didn't bother this time to correct their son's language.

Jack stood on the brakes. The car skidded for a few feet on the wet asphalt and came to an abrupt halt about twenty yards from the turn.

A woman...or maybe a young girl, was walking---staggering to be more exact--in the middle of the road. The rain matted her hair over her face, and also soaked through what looked like a hospital gown. It was so saturated in fact that it had become essentially see-through, and in the soft gray morning light, the red of her nipples was visible as well as the dark patch of her pubic hair. One of her arms was in some kind of metal brace and cast which gleamed in the light of the station wagon's headlights. Her other arm was covered in blood, which ran down the side of her bluish gray skin, and dripped from her fingertips.

“Oh my God,” Ophelia breathed. The figure looked very much like a ghost.

Ophelia opened the door and hopped out. Jack un-clicked his seat-belt and opened his door as well. “Stay here,” he said to Damon.

“Yeah right,” Damon replied, and opened his door also.

“Ma'am!?” Ophelia bellowed. The girl had no reaction except which to stagger to one side suddenly, seeming that she was about to fall over unto the wet road but she corrected herself, swaying momentarily the other way before righting. They could hear she was muttering something.

Ophelia reached her first. “Ma'am what is your name?” She reached out to her hesitantly. The girl was young—older teenager. Her face was busted up pretty bad, her nose most likely broken and it had already been set and bandaged, but the rain was peeling some of the bandage off now. There was bruising around the eyes suggesting it had happened some time before. Ophelia put her hand on her shoulders and the girl stopped walking. Jack splashed up beside her, followed by Damon.

“She must have escaped the hospital!” Jack called out.

No shit, Ophelia thought, “Ma'am, do you know where you are?”

The girl had stopped walking, but she kept muttering, but now they could hear what she was saying.

“We blew his ass up....we burned his ass....he's on fire but he's still walking...burn fucker...burn...”

Ophelia felt a tightening in her chest. She reached down and lifted the girl's right wrist with her left hand, it was the one with the brace and cast. The hospital band was wrapped around her forearm above the brace but the rain had smeared all of the lettering, she couldn't make anything out.

“These damn county-fried doctors!” Jack began, “They never know how much shit they're giving these patients. First thing you're gonna need to do Ophelia is monitor their...” he stopped suddenly, cocking his head to one side. “Wait. Do you smell smoke?”

“...blew his ass up....burned that fucker....still walking towards me though...just won't die....”

Damon sniffed, “Totally...and look!”

Ophelia took a whiff too. Definitely smoke.

She looked up to where Damon was pointing. Straight ahead from the direction the girl had been coming.

At first it looked kind of like fireflies, dancing out from behind the steep bluff of the hill. Damon took off running towards them, his father followed. Ophelia didn't need to follow to know what they were, she had seen a sight like that before when she had been working a forest fire outside of Woodsboro, California about two years before.

Embers.

Ophelia looked over the girl's hand. It was all tore up, broken fingers, a broken wrist, her pinky fingertip looked like it had been surgically re-attached. All of the wounds that had been stitched were oozing blood, suggesting she had gotten quite a workout with the arm since it had been patched up. She looked at her legs. Her knees were scraped up, and the front of her gown was filthy, as if she had crawled through the mud on her belly.

“Can you tell me your name?” She tried again. The girl still muttered.

“kept coming....even when he was on fire....I hope the fucker burns...we blew his ass up...”

“Holy shit!” Jack called out.

Damon and Jack had come around the hill. There---just as the maps and the descriptions on the internet had told them---about four hundred yards away and across a gated parking lot, was the hospital.

Or what was left of it.

It was a white rectangular building, pretty typical of any hospital in any town in America. At the top of the building, spanning it's face in blue lettering read: HADDONFIELD COUNTY-GENERAL MEDICAL CENTER. In the front center of the building was a large overhang marked with red lettering that read: EMERGENCY.

Below that you would assume to see the front doors of a lobby or annex of some kind. Instead, Damon and Jack saw a jagged hole, as if a bomb had exploded there. Out of the hole spit the flames of the most hellish inferno the two of them had every seen. Thick black smoke rose up out of the hole as well as out of some of the broken windows nearest to the front entrance. The parking lot was void except for two or three cars. Not an ambulance or fire truck to be seen. The two could actually feel the heat from the fire hitting their faces, even though they were so far away.

“Do you have your phone?” Jack asked his son, raising his voice over the relentless sound of the rain.

“It's in the car!” He yelled back.

“Go call ‪911‬!” his dad exclaimed.

Damon turned and sprinted back around the hill.

When he came in full view of the car, and his mom, and the young lady she was trying to talk to, whose bare ass he could now see hanging out of her sopped hospital gown, he held up. In the far distance beyond them, he could see the lights of a firetruck.

Two firetrucks..and maybe a police cruiser.

He began to hear the siren as well. They were coming towards them.

Ophelia squeezed the young girl's shoulders. “Honey, I can't help you if you don't tell me your name!” She said more firmly.

The girl's eyes settled on Ophelia's face for a moment, then rolled up into the back of her head. She tossed her head back and bellowed, “STOP FOLLOWING ME YOU MOTHER-FUCKER!”

Ophelia's heart skipped a beat.

Damon caught his breath.

The sirens grew louder.

Ophelia felt the girl go weak at the knees and she caught her, moving her hands down to hold her up by the armpits. “Whoa...easy.” She said.

The girl tossed her head back again and screamed a second time—- a blood curdling scream that slowly morphed into a wrack of cries and sobs.

NEXT>>

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psychosistr · 5 years

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The Haunting in St.Canard- Chapter 1

Summary: Drake Mallard, mild-mannered suburbanite by day, masked vigilante by night, moves into a cozy new home with his daughter Gosalyn and his partner Launchpad. However, things take a turn for the mysterious when he discovers why no one has ever stayed in the house for long...

Notes: So, for anyone who’s been following me, you’ve probably seen the art work leading up to this. This story is based off of an RP I’ve been doing with @abbythegamergirl and it’s going to be a haunting/murder-mystery with different endings. Enjoy!

Next Chapter->

The sun shines high above the calm suburban neighborhood within the city of St. Canard, Calisota. A moving truck is already parked in the driveway of one house when the car containing its new residents pulls up to the building.

Or, rather, careens over the curb and screeches into the driveway after clipping the moving truck’s fender. The workers near the truck shout angrily at the driver of the car as the family inside steps out.

The first to exit the car is the driver, a tall red-haired duck dressed in a pilot’s outfit. “Oops, heheh, sorry about that, fellas!” He offers his apology with a lopsided smile, rubbing at the back of his neck as he tries to laugh off the fender-bender.

The next to step out of the vehicle is the passenger in the backseat, a young girl duck with red hair pulled up into pig-tails and dressed in a purple jersey. “Woah, keen gear!” She say while looking at the big house. “I get the big bedroom, right?!”

“So you can turn into your own personal dump? I don’t think so.” The final occupant says when he exits the car. He’s the oldest duck of the trio, that much is made clear by the lines along his forehead, and though he’s significantly shorter than the other adult in their group he’s clearly the one in charge (despite the pink sweater and green sweater vest that make him seem far less intimidating). “WE will pick the rooms, while YOU get started unpacking the boxes in the living room.”

“Awww, no fair!” The girl pouts while folding her arms over her chest. “Why do I have to do all the hard work?”

“Hmm, maybe because SOMEBODY decided it would be fun to mix up all of the packing labels?” He asks while narrowing his eyes at her, leaning down to her level with a mildly-irritated scowl.

She gives a slightly-nervous attempt at an innocent laugh. “O-Oh, yeah, right..gee, wonder who could’ve done a thing like that..?” She runs off into the house. “Anyway, yeah, I should PROBABLY get started on those boxes, huh? Don’t wanna have dinner without the silverware, right?”

The older duck sighs and stands up straight, shaking his head. “She’ll probably get to her videogames and say she’s earned a union break or something…” He mutters before going over to his companion to help him smooth things over with the movers.

While the adults discuss money due for damages, the red-headed girl goes inside…and proceeds to walk past every single one of the boxes that the movers have already brought in.

“Lets see..” She says to herself while looking around. “Knowing dad, he probably had those guys hide all the good stuff..” She goes up and down the stairs a few times as she explores the new house, opening up various closets and bedroom doors to see if she could find a few boxes in particular. She even checks the attic and throw a covering sheet off of some boxes to check the hidden ones as well, only finding a bunch of model airplanes and books.

After a few minutes, she starts to get annoyed at her lack of results..

“Aw, come on!” She complains while kicking the corner of a rug in the downstairs hallway. Doing so, however, reveals an odd line in the otherwise solid floor. “Huh?” she shoves the rug aside more until she reveals- “Keen gear! A trap-door!” She tries pulling on a small dip in the floor that looks like a handle, but it doesn’t budge. “Rats! Must be locked..” She looks the small wooden hatch over carefully for any signs of a keyhole or some other type of lock. “Maybe there’s a hidden switch around here somewhere!”

Temporarily distracted from her quest to find her video games and/or sports equipment, the girl starts pushing at every old painting she can find on the walls to see if it will trip the door. After setting every picture off-kilter, she moves her focus to a large bookshelf at the end of the hall and begins pulling each of the books off of the shelf in a similar attempt to trigger the lock.

“One of these has to be a fake, right?” She asks herself while moving the books on the lower shelf. “Seriously, ‘The Unofficial Biography of Scrooge McDuck’? Who’d wanna read that?” She picks the book off of the shelf with a hopeful smile, but it quickly turns into a pout when the book slides out without any sort of click or whirring sound. “Dang it..” She’s about to move on to another row of books, when something in the space she just revealed catches her eye. “Huh? What’s that?”

She kneels down and starts shoving armfuls of books out of the way, moving everything aside until she’s able to clearly see that there’s a decent-sized hole behind the shelf. What’s even more interesting, though, is what she finds INSIDE of the hole.

“A jack-in-the-box?” She ponders while pulling the item in question out of its hiding spot.

Sure enough, it looks to be a rust-red jack-in-the-box. It’s outlined with faded white trim and has an image of a star on the front. The old turn-crank handle looks well-worn, likely from many years-worth of use.

“Wonder if it works?” Curious, the girl grabs the handle and begins to turn it slowly. The notes come out tinny and warped, like something out of a horror movie about a haunted fairground or a serial killer clown. “Way creepy..” She mutters as she continues to turn the handle. However, when she reaches the end of the song that would normally lead to the “pop”, the lid doesn’t move. “Looks like it’s busted after all. At least the song sounds cool.”

Before she gets a chance to try winding the box again, a frustrated shout from another room startles her. “GOSALYN MALLARD!!!”

“Oh boy..” She sets the box down and stands up. “Guess they finished swapping insurance cards..” She then turns around and starts walking back towards the source of the voice. “Coming, dad!”

When she leaves the hallway, everything is still for a minute.

Then, in an oddly delayed reaction, the lid of the jack-in-the-box suddenly pops open. There is no visible spring inside or any sort of doll or puppet as one would usually find in such a classic childhood toy.

What happens, though, is much more startling: A shadow begins to spread upward along the wall, the light making it look as if it were climbing out of the jack-in-the-box. It grows and grows in height until it stands tall enough to reach the ceiling- actually, it ended up hunching over slightly due to its massive height.

The shadow looks rather frightening, resembling something vaguely duck-like but with much longer and much thinner limbs, as well as a beak of sharp, pointy teeth.

It looks around the hallway for a moment, turning its head in different directions, before it “walks” along the wall in the same direction the girl from earlier went.

It reaches the living room, where the girl is being lectured by the older duck, and hides behind a sofa so that it can watch and listen without being noticed.

“Honestly, Gosalyn, I gave you ONE job!” He fusses at her, finger pointing in a classic scolding gesture. “Did you unpack anything at all, or did you just decide it would be more fun to redecorate the walls and give me an ulcer?!”

“But dad!” She tries to defend her actions, holding her hands out in front of her in a plea for him to listen. “I’m telling you, it’s not like that! See, I found this trap door- come on, I’ll show you!” Before he has a chance to protest, she grabs him by the hand and drags him into the hall where she found the odd door. “See?” She points down at the lines and the handle. “There’s gotta be some sort of hidden switch around here to open it up, right? It’s probably a secret crypt, or a treasure-room for pirates, or the hidden cryogenic storage facility of an alien race that crash landed here, or-!”

Her father kneels down and inspects the sealed door. “It’s the old boiler room.” He explains calmly.

“Boiler room?” Gosalyn’s excited smile instantly drops into a confused frown.

“Yep. The realtor told me this place used to have a boiler, but it exploded years ago so they had to seal up the room.” He stands and pulls the rug back over it. “Probably for the best- who knows what sort of disgusting mess is festering down there?” He looks around at the mess of pictures on the wall. “Now, I want you to start straightening these ouuuu-WHAT?!” He spots the mess of books on the floor from the bookshelf at the end of the hall and turns a mild glare on his daughter. “Gosaalyyynnnnn..” His voice holds a very clearly frustrated tone, warning the girl of an impending lecture.

She gives him a nervous and somewhat embarrassed smile. “I, uh..maaayyybee thought there was a secret book-lever or something..?” She offers by way of explanation with a small, nervous laugh. Sensing a lecture still ready to be launched at her, she quickly moves over to where she left the jack-in-the-box and picks it up. “But, look, I found this behind the shelf! There’s a secret hidey-hole back there!” She looks at the open lid curiously, peering into the dark, empty box. “Weird, it wouldn’t open before..”

That, at least, seemed to shift her father’s attention briefly. “A hole?” At a nod from the red-head, he walks over to the shelf, nudging books out of his way on the floor, until he’s kneeling in front of the shelf that she points out to him. Leaning his head down so he can see between the shelves properly, he finally sees the hole. “Huh, would you look at that..” He reaches back to feel the rough edges of the crudely carved crevice. “That certainly wasn’t in the home-owner’s report..”

“Probably violates some sort of health-code rule or something, huh? You should call him up and see about getting some money back!” Gosalyn suggests with an air of being extremely helpful.

“You’re right, this should get me at least-” He finally figures out what she’s doing and turns to her with narrowed eyes. “Nice try, Gos, but you’re still-”

Thankfully, she was saved by the bell- literally.

The doorbell rang and she set the jack-in-the-box down to go investigate. “I’ll get it!”

“Gosalyn!” He shouts after her, but she’s already down the hall and heading for the front door by the time he’s on his feet again.

She reaches the front door and opens it, the other male duck already heading for the door too by the time she grabs the doorknob. Once the door is open, they see a family waiting on the other side consisting of an obese duck in a Hawaiian shirt, a slender yellow goose in a blue dress and white apron who was carrying a lemon Bundt cake in a clear container, a red-haired and slightly chubby white-feathered goose boy in a red shirt, and a much smaller goose boy with more yellow feathers in a green shirt and big red glasses.

“Howdy, neighbors!” The overweight duck says cheerfully with a smile and a wave. “We’re the Muddlefoots!” He introduces himself and his family, pointing to each of them as he speaks. “I’m Herb, that’s Binkie, and our little guys here are Tank and Honker!”

The older duck enters the room around the time the larger duck begins his introduction. “Nice to meet you.” He says politely, but without sounding anywhere near as excited as the other duck. He extends a hand towards him in another show of politeness. “The name’s Drake Mallard. This is my daughter, Gosalyn, and our..uhh..roommate, Launchpad McQuack.”

Herb takes Drake’s hand and shakes it up and down rapidly, jostling Drake’s entire body in the process. “Nice t’ meetcha, Drake-a-roonie!”

Binkie smiles and hands the cake she’s carrying to Launchpad with a bright smile. “It’s always so nice to meet our new neighbors!”

“Hey, it’s always nice getting’ free cake, too!” Launchpad replies with a grin, licking his beak at the delicious looking cake.

“Oh, thank you, dear.” Binkie smiles more. “The last neighbors liked it, too!”

“There are other new neighbors around?” Launchpad asks while opening the lid and dipping a finger along the frosting to try some.

“Oh, well, no.” Binkie’s smile doesn’t falter as she shrugs. “I just meant the last neighbors that moved into this house. That was what, two months ago, dear?” She asks while looking up at her husband.

“You got it, Binkums.” Herb agrees with a nod. “They just moved out a couple weeks ago. Such a shame, too- they were the longest lasting neighbors we’ve had in years!”

Drake, who had been preoccupied with trying to keep his “roommate” from eating anymore of the cake, stops and looks at them skeptically. “They moved out after only two months? Why? Gas leak? Bug problem?”

“Ghost problem’s more like it..” The youngest goose in the family mumbles, earning a rough elbow to the ribs from his older brother. “Ow..! It-it’s true, though..”

“No one wants to hear your dumb nerd theories, Honker!” The heftier child rolls his eyes at his nerdier brother.

“This place is haunted?!” Gosalyn’s gasps, but it sounds more excited than scared- the smile on her face plainly showing her thoughts on the matter.

“Oh now, don’t you mind our little Honker.” Binkie giggles and pats her son on the head. “He’s one smart cookie, but he gets a little carried away with his ‘paranormal investigation’ shows!”

“Gosalyn’s the same way..” Drake mutters. “Well, thanks for stopping by, but we REALLY need to get started unpacking.”

“Feel free to come over if you want some free burgers and hot dogs sometime!” Herb offers as a final farewell before he and his family leave.

On the way out, though, Honker takes one last look over his shoulder. When he does, his eyes widen and his face goes pale as he spots a tall, ominous shadow standing behind the family. “Waaah!!!!” He quickly runs past his family and heads for the safety of their own house.

Drake and his small family look behind themselves, but see nothing. “??”

“Huh, must’ve seen a spider..” Drake closes the door before looking at Launchpad and Gosalyn. “Now, are you two thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Um..how many slices of cake we should have before dinner?” Launchpad offers after thinking the question over for a minute.

“That’s what I was thinking, too!” Gosalyn grins, her and Launchpad sharing a high-five.

“The answer to that question is NONE- you’ll spoil your appetite.” Drake says while setting the cake down on the living room coffee table. He ignores the resounding disappointed pair of “aww”s and begins pacing the living room with a hand placed under his chin in thought. “To have such a high resident turn-over rate in a common suburban neighborhood so far from the downtown area is extremely unusual. There must be something devious driving denizens out of this deceptively domestic domicile!”

Launchpad, who had been trying to creep closer and snag a piece of cake, suddenly freezes up when he hears Drake’s alliteration. “Y-You don’t think this place is *gulp* HAUNTED, do ya, DW?”

“Of course not, LP.” Drake brushes off his friend’s concerns casually, side-eyeing him in a silent warning to stay away from the cake. “But, cracking this residential riddle is certainly a job for-” He tosses a smoke bomb that he appears to have pulled out of nowhere onto the ground and, when the cloud of purple smoke dissipates, he is instead wearing a purple costume with a large hat, cape, and dark mask. “DAAARKWIIIING DUCK- the masked hero of Saint Canard!”

The smoke disperses into the air of the confined living room, making all three residents cough violently.

“Daaaaad, can’t you go one day without gassing us?!” Gosalyn manages between coughs.

“Sorry, yeah, that’s my bad!” Darkwing coughs as well from the smoke and stumbles over to open a window. “I forgot the AC wasn’t on yet!”

While the house’s new residents busy themselves with clearing the air, the shadowy figure that had been eavesdropping on their conversations creeps back towards the jack-in-the-box still sitting in the hallway.

“A hero…a pilot…and a curious girl…” A deep voice that seemed to come from the shadow itself said quietly as it reached the still open box-shaped toy. “Perhaps they are the ones that I have been waiting for…”

The shadow climbs back into the box and closes the lid behind itself. However, before the lid closes completely, a small object slips out: A photograph that lands face down on the floor before blowing about and winding up between the pages of one of the books still lying open on the ground.

The book seems to close by itself to keep the photo from blowing away, but leaves at least half of it sticking out, revealing the faces of a rat with a pair of goggles and an electrical plug-shaped hat and a duck with a large smiling beak and a jester-themed cowl.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Meanwhile, upstairs in a dusty attic littered with cobwebs and freshly-moved boxes, something begins to stir…

A rustling is heard through the otherwise quiet room, a shifting in the corner visible among the unmoving boxes…

The shifting turns out to be a white figure, round and blob-like in appearance as it rises up into the air, appearing almost like a sheet-

Actually, it turns out that it IS a sheet.

A sheet that had been draped over someone as he slept..

A hand pushes forward to knock the sheet off of its drowsy wearer. “Okay, dress-up time’s over.” A voice says with a chuckle as the sheet falls away.

In its place is a much creepier sight of what the sheet cartoonishly resembled earlier:

A ghost.

The ghost is a translucent blue color and has the body of a duck with an exceptionally long beak. The ghost is also clad in a jester-themed costume with lines that clearly indicate that it once had a color scheme that is no longer visible in its spectral state.

All-in-all, the ghost does not seem very threatening in appearance at all- one could even be forgiven for thinking it was merely a regular person if not for the translucent state of its blue body and the fact that it had a classic ghostly-tail instead of legs.

The spirit stretches his limbs and gives a loud yawn, its head rising off of its neck slightly in the process before he taps it back down casually with one hand. “Whooo, that was some nap, eh, Sparky?” When he doesn’t receive a response, he looks around curiously. “Sparky? Megavolt?” He floats over to an outlet in the wall nearby and claps his hands. “Up an’ at ‘em, Sparky!”

The outlet sparks a few times before a large bolt of electricity shoots out of the outlet. The bolt bounces around the room a few times until, with a loud yawn, another ghostly body forms in the air.

This ghost is a rat in an electrically-themed suit, complete with a plug-shaped hat, goggles, and an outlet on his chest. He seems to be in a far rougher physical state, though, as he is missing an arm and, when he opens his eyes after he finishes yawning, he is clearly missing an eye.

“Quackerjaaaaack…don’t call me Sparky..” The rat ghost mutters in annoyance as he stretches and shakes off the last remnants of his own drowsiness. “Is it morning already..?”

“More like afternoon by now, Megsy.” The clown ghost says while looking over the new boxes in their attic. “And look! We’ve got some new toys!”

The electrically themed ghost seems more awake now, a smile slowly spreading across his face. “You mean..?” As his excited grin grows, sparks of electricity travel along his shoulder to form a silhouette of his missing limb, both his real and fake fist flexing in anticipation.

“I sure do, buddy.” A grin that’s equal parts excitedly mischievous and darkly sinister spreads over his beak. “It’s PLAYTIME.”

Next Chapter->

End Notes: Keeping the first chapter short and simple to introduce the main characters. Hope you like it so far :)

#quackerjack #megavolt #darkwing duck #drake mallard #launchpad mcquack #gosalyn mallard #quackervolt #drakepad #Haunting in St.Canard #ghost!au

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thethespacecoyote · 6 years

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I just wanted to write a thing where mob Jack saves pregnant detective Rhys from a burning building, thats all this is

Jack was about ready to go home.

He hadn’t even bothered to dress up in his usual duds for this job, merely slinging one of his blazers on over a shirt. After all, a little evidence-burning wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary. Even if said “evidence” was an entire warehouse down at the harbor.

Whatever. Jack had the dockworkers union paid off anyway. No one would suspect a thing until the cops came to investigate the smoking, burnt-out ruin.

Jack watched idly as his men moved in and out of the warehouse’s entrance, laying explosives and salvaging anything of value left inside before they blew the whole thing sky-high. The damp, night air kissed his skin, making him crave a cigar to warm himself up, but he hadn’t brought any with him. This was supposed to be a quick job. Torch the warehouse and anything left inside so Jack could curl up in bed for the rest of the night.

It’d been a little harder to get proper sleep lately, and Jack had always slept decently enough for someone with countless murders on his conscience. Didn’t help that the new detectives nipping at his heels were a hell of a lot less fun than their forebear. Jack pursed his lips at the memory of the last time he’d seen his sorely-missed Detective Somerset, who’d just had to go and get himself knocked up and thus ruin Jack’s fun by taking leave of his job. Jeez. Total buzzkill. Jack was really gonna let him have it as soon as he came back.

If he came back.

Jack hissed into the night air, feeling a little antsy. He watched as one of his underlings moved the last crate of explosives in through the door, before turning to his guard. Wilhelm grunted in response and cocked his eyebrow.

“Gonna take a walk. Keep an eye on these doofuses and make sure they don’t blow themselves up, huh?” Jack opened his jacket to show off the golden handle of a pistol shoved into his coat pocket when Wilhelm looked at him skeptically.

“I don’t need a frikkin’ babysitter, I can handle myself for a couple minutes,” Jack growled as he turned on his heels away from his guard and the rest of his scrambling men, walking down one side of the warehouse. He kept a respectable distance from the walls, just in case someone screwed up and detonated the explosives a little too early. Considering Jack only really trusted himself to do anything right, it seemed a valid concern.

He stuck his hands in his pants pockets, slouching into his stride as he walked through the misty night, the streetlights above him foggy and casting less light than they might usually. He tried to keep his mind clear of any unpleasant or annoying thoughts, idling casting his gaze about the deserted docks in front of him. There wasn’t much in this particularly spot apart from the warehouses, and the only noises he could make out were the distant sound of sirens and the hum of the freeways.

Jack was about ready to turn around and walk back to properly wrap this night up, when something near the end of the warehouse glinted in the faded moonlight. Jack stopped, recognizing the gleam of a car fender, then the short length of a grey-blue hood. He slid his hand into his jacket, fingering the handle of his gun as he started to approach once more. As he grew closer, got a better look at the car it became more and more familiar, sending a prickle of apprehension into his gut.

It was definitely Detective Somerse—Rhys’ car. Jack knew the license plate well, from pictures his men had snagged of the omega’s personal life. But Rhys wasn’t inside. In fact, as Jack looked around, he couldn’t see him anywhere. What the hell? Had something happened to him?

Jack peered through the dim window, eyes landing upon a sheaf of papers clipped onto a manila envelope. Was Rhys on a job?

No. That couldn’t be. Rhys was supposed to be on maternity leave. Jack hadn’t seen him out in the field in weeks now, for good reason. He was supposed to be away, tucked in his home nice and safe and getting chubby on ice cream pickles.

Jack’s heart plummeted as he turned away from the car, a sick suspicion rising up from his stomach as he raced back down the length of the warehouse back to where his men were gathered. He waved his arms and shouted, trying to grab their attention.

“Hey, assholes, wait! Don’t set it off yet, don’t—“

Jack couldn’t get any more words out as the building besides him suddenly detonated. The sounds of shredded metal and shattering ground blasted into his ears, nearly knocking him off of his feet. He stumbled forward, his stomach twisting itself in half as he watched flames explode out through the windows, littering the ground with shards of glass. Jack’s heart leapt up from the pit of his stomach into his throat, choking him as he watched the warehouse go up in flames.

“Damn it…damn it!” Jack snarled, deaf to the shouts of his men as they raced towards him. He wasn’t about to give up now, not when Rhys could still be inside that frikkin’ place. If Jack didn’t go and check if he was still alive, he would never forgive himself.

Jack stripped his blazer off his body as he raced into the warehouse’s side entrance, the heat emanating from the burning walls already too much to bear with the additional layer. He wrenched open the door and stumbled his way inside, coughing at the smoke that billowed out.

“Rhys!” He called, his voice scratching against his throat. The interior smelled awful, of burning raw materials and blast residue. He prayed that he was crazy, that maybe Rhys had never entered the warehouse at all—or that if he had, he’d been far enough away from the blast as to not render Jack’s rescue futile from the start.

The alpha dodged some broken glass and rounded a pile of wooden crates knocked askew in the explosion, only to find a pallet stacked high with reinforced concrete slabs standing in his way. Some pieces had already fell and cracked onto the floor, covering it in scattered rubble. Flames licked around on the other side, quickly eating at the structure holding them in place—yet even the smoke pouring in from all around couldn’t mask the figure lying limp and prone on the floor besides the stack.

“Shit, Rhys,” Jack scrambled forward, voice muffled by the hand clamped over his mouth. His leather shoes squeaked as he skidded to his knees besides the body, knocking away the bits of debris laying over the detective’s legs. For a moment Jack’s eyes swam too much to see whether he was breathing, but a press of fingers beneath Rhys’ jaw thankfully confirmed a fluttering pulse. Moments later the detective’s eyelids twitched, revealing bleary eyes that looked up at Jack without full understanding.

“Wh…what happened…” Rhys moaned before a rough cough cut across his words. His stomach, noticeably rounded beneath his uniform, shook with each gasp. Jack’s heart clenched with worry—smoke and blunt-force wounds weren’t exactly good for unborn pups—as he stripped off his shirt and pressed the balled material loosely over Rhys’ mouth and nose.

“Easy…easy cupcake, just breathe, I’m getting you out of here, ‘kay?” Jack assured as he slid his hands underneath Rhys’ legs and back, supporting him the best he could while remaining mindful of his belly and any potential injuries. Jack’s muscles strained as he heaved, swaying to his feet with Rhys cradled in his arms. The omega moaned into the shirt as he tried his best to hold it to his face. Jack turned his head and coughed, his lungs starting to hurt now from the heat and oily smoke as he rushed back towards the entrance, desperate to get back out into the cool night air.

“Boss!” Wilhelm grunted as Jack shouldered his way back out of the warehouse, his hands grabbing onto Jack’s shoulders and pulling him away just as a second, earth-shattering explosion burst behind him. Rhys cried out and flinched in the alpha’s arms as the building’s door nearly blew off its hinges, sending debris and busted glass scattering out over the ground.

“H-holy shit,” Jack gasped, casting a look behind him at the burning warehouse, before returning his attention to the omega in his arms. Rhys curled into Jack’s chest, cheek pressed up against one tattooed pec as he took deep breaths of the damp air. He held Jack’s shirt balled up in his hand like a teddy bear, something for his trembling fingers to cling onto.

“Rhys? Rhysie, you okay?” Jack crouched, laying the omega carefully down on the ground while keeping his back supported. Without thinking, Jack rested his hand atop the omega’s stomach, cupping the ample swell beneath his clothes.

“I…I think so…” Rhys gasped, his hand too coming to touch his belly, not bothering to push away Jack’s palm. “The…the baby…”

Jack ground his teeth together, his neck prickling with instinct. God. Rhys and his pup could’ve died in there. If Jack hadn’t been in just the right place at just the right time, the kid would’ve been frikkin’ toast. The thought made him want to cling on to Rhys and never let go, even if he was supposed to be on leave. Even if they sat clear on two opposite sides of the law.

But he decided instead to do the next best thing. He looked up at Wilhelm who hovered above them, awaiting a command.

“Bring the car. We’re going back to my place. With him.” Jack slid his arm back underneath Rhys’ legs, managing to pull him up into his arms again even with the adrenaline starting to drain from his body. He could hear sirens off in the distance, steadily growing louder as the flames consuming the warehouse licked higher.

Jack moved in the direction of the car as Wilhelm raced on ahead to start it. He really wanted nothing less than to tangle with the cops tonight—especially as the only one he really cared about needed his help.

Whether Rhys wanted it or not.

#spacetext #long post #omegaverse #fanfic #boy i love this stuff #rhack #tftbl #mpreg

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flauntpage · 6 years

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The Ultimate Ranking of the Best Hockey Films Ever

Great hockey movies are hard to come by.

There's what first comes to mind: Slap Shot and Goon and Miracle. Though there's more bad than good: The Love Guru, MVP, or the boring-as-sin Sudden Death.

One thing that's fairly certain is that hockey movies tend to represent the experience of the wealthy white and male demographic, the one that also populates the sport itself.

The NHL says that "hockey is for everyone," and yet many believe that official motto to be one of the league's myths. Fines for on-ice gay slurs are pocket change for the privileged. Ice Girls' bodies are still exploited for a male audience. Social change within the hockey community is diminished yet commodified into sloganeering. And while the NHL was one of the first pro leagues to partner with the You Can Play project, many feel hockey's rate of change to be glacial. Commonplace hockey myths suggests NHL owners don't make much money off the game or that enforcers are necessary to police on-ice behaviour, exactly the kind of myths that are reinforced in hockey movies.

Some of the best hockey films are lesser known yet they question our assumptions about the game. Like the assumption that Russian players are "enigmatic" or that men are inherently better and more entertaining on the ice than women, or that hockey is a unifying force in communities or across a nation.

Should Slap Shot and Goon stand as the best of the best if they reinforce hockey's monoculture? Are Miracle and Youngblood and Mystery, Alaska just reselling the myths we've been buying?

Great hockey movies are out there. It's just time to reconsider the rankings.

1. RED ARMY (2014)

Gabe Polsky's Red Army does what few if any films have done: provide a real glimpse at the life of Soviet hockey players inside the Iron Curtain. It comes across as the most honest portrayal of the Soviet Union's relationship to hockey, and depicts how dramatically Russian-style hockey changed the sport.

The documentary succeeds as the best hockey film on this list because it weaves together sports and politics, it asks its audience to challenge their assumptions about certain hockey myths, and it expertly uses hockey footage and commentary to tell a compelling story.

Polsky, through intimate interviews with the famed Russian Five and goalie Vladislav Tretiak, captures such a personal account of the players that audiences feel they've learned something about the players of the historically tight-fisted Soviet organization. Whereas hockey myth-making has portrayed Russian players as robotic, or as self-interested divas, Red Army does well in illustrating the Russian Five and their goaltender as sympathetic individuals with six different points of view.

Vladislav Fetisov, the first Soviet player to play in the NHL, is a star in the film, and Polsky's dynamic with him on camera is a big part of what makes Fetisov's scenes work so well. The director asks Fetisov questions and often the player will not initially answer but only react with a facial expression—moments Polsky uses to splice in visuals and recordings to provide an answer to what Fetisov doesn't say. When he asks Fetisov about the Soviets' disappointing loss to the United States in the 1980 "Miracle On Ice," for instance, no words are necessary. The best moments are when it's "show" rather than "tell."

Red Army illustrates the conflicting approaches to coaching between Anatoly Tarasov and Viktor Tikhonov, the varied personal politics of the players, and it highlights the politics that drive hockey-related decisions in nation-building. Its use of historical footage and ability to tell a compelling, real-life story is unmatched in hockey films.

2. CANADA-RUSSIA '72 (2006)

The second-best hockey film is one in which Canadians are finally self-effacing about one of their greatest on- and off-ice triumphs embarrassments. In Canada-Russia '72, the CBC dramatization relives the famed Summit Series of 1972 when for the first time Canada's best professional hockey players took on the powerhouse Soviets.

Released in 2006, the three-hour film casts a critical eye on the resentful, obnoxious, and violent behaviour of the Canadian exhibition team that eked out a victory in the eight-game series. The historical event is understood by many Canadians as an affirmation of the country's dominance in hockey. But Canada-Russia '72 paints everyone from Alan Eagleson to Harry Sinden to Phil Esposito as petulant and crude in their pursuit of beating the surprising Soviets. What was supposed to be a walk in the park turned into a national identity crisis. But rather than portray the Canadian victory as a case of underdogs exhibiting perseverance—and free-market capitalism defeating communism—Team Canada is viewed here as the Apollo Creed to the Russians' Rocky. They win the contest but the victory feels empty.

"You know Ms. Fournier, the average Canadian might never forgive us if we lose this series," says head coach Harry Sinden to the fictional media relations character. "But the rest of you intellectuals? You'll never forgive us if we win, will ya?"

The hockey in the film is terrific to watch. Entire sequences are reproduced from documentary footage that seem natural rather than staged. Recognizable beats maintain a degree of tension regardless of the fact that we know the outcome. The audience is privy to a great deal of dramatized behind-the-scenes moments that provide new context.

In one of the film’s most effective (and probably exaggerated) examples of the Canadians' arrogance, a young Soviet boy offers Esposito a Lenin pin in exchange for his hockey stick. Esposito instead offers him a stick of gum. The boy says in Russian, which Esposito doesn't understand, "You cheap son of a bitch."

When Sinden gives his big speech in the dressing room ahead of Game 8—a moment typical of sports dramas, intended to rile the players and the audience—he says, "We win this game, we win the series. We vindicate ourselves and everything we stand for." That line might be heard as inspiring in a straight-forward sports drama. Instead, it sounds like what Canadians "stand for" in hockey is upholding the assumption that Canadians are the best at it.

Canada's victory celebration in the film is muted. It's more relief than national pride. As Canadians, we've been buying the line Sinden voiced, that we were vindicated by the win. But the film succeeds because it throws that myth in the trash.

3. NET WORTH (1995)

There is one scene in this film that stuck with me since 1995 despite only watching the CBC television miniseries the one time. Detroit Red Wings general manager Jack Adams is negotiating with Gordie Howe over the star's one-year contract. Howe's wife Colleen had just prompted her husband to ask for an extra $2,000 over last season rather than his usual ask of a $1,000 raise. Howe is manipulated by Adams and folds. Adams smiles and tosses the signed contract in the drawer.

Based on the book by David Cruise and Alison Griffiths, Net Worth describes the beginnings of the formation of the NHL Players' Association in the face of tyrannical owners who exploit the players and bust their attempt to form a union.

In one of the best scenes in the film, the Association's first lawyer spells out, one by one, the popular myths that the NHL sells—like Randy in Scream listing the rules of the horror genre. To all of them, the lawyer Milton Mound says, "Bull. Shit. When you sniff around a pile of money and the other side clams up, they are hiding something."

What's particularly memorable is the contrast between the PA's first leader, Ted Lindsay, and his Red Wings teammate Howe. Lindsay takes the first cautious steps toward achieving fairness with the league but Howe, the most recognizable hockey player across the US and Canada at the time, decides again and again not to use his influence to better the players' position. Howe's character effectively shows that NHL players themselves become indoctrinated by the myths of the game rather than demand the rights and the money they deserve. Hockey is for fun, after all. It's a boy's dream. At least that's what owners have been selling to everyone.

The film isn't afraid to make players and owners alike look bad in the eyes of the viewer. It challenges some of the great assumptions of the NHL, like the heroism of a star player or the father-knows-best style of management. Toronto Maple Leafs owner Conn Smythe is even represented as using racist language three times in the movie, the last of which the Jewish lawyer Mound responds with, "Smythe, it's hard to believe you fought against the Nazis."

Once you've seen Net Worth, you won't forget it.

4. INDIAN HORSE (2017)

No list of the best hockey films can be complete or accountable to the sport's troubled history without acknowledging its exclusionary and abusive nature. And no hockey film does this better than 2017's Indian Horse.

Situated within Canadian residential schools that abused and neglected Indigenous children, the film based on Richard Wagamese's book of the same name centres around the young boy Saul Indian Horse who is ripped from his family but attempts to lift himself out of the residential school life by teaching himself to play hockey.

"The rink became my escape," says Saul in narration. "The ice my obsession. The game my survival."

What the Canadian film does so well is illustrate how hockey has, since its inception, been a tool to help enforce white cultural dominance and nationhood. While Saul is eventually able to leave the school for a foster family, his new hockey team made up of fellow Indigenous players experiences the same kind of subjugation and violence at the hands of Canadians in the rinks and in the towns they visit. As the teachers at those schools tried to assimilate Indigenous children into Canadian culture, hockey players and coaches did the same on the ice—only "assimilate" is too kind a word for what took place.

Indian Horse's best hockey sequence is a montage in which Saul's Indigenous team defeats a local white team while Stompin' Tom Connor's song "Sudbury Saturday Night" plays on the film's soundtrack. Connor's music, most notably "The Hockey Song" which is ubiquitous in hockey and was recently inducted into the Canadian Song Writers' Hall of Fame, typically signifies to English Canada a sense of nationhood intended to unify people. Instead, the way the music is used signifies that neither the sport nor the country's identity can be appropriated by just one people. Saul and his teammates stake their own claim to the land and the game by playing skilled, virtuous hockey in the face of intolerance.

Indian Horse is not a story about a resilient "other" who succeeds despite the odds. Saul quits hockey despite pleas from his coach who appeals to Saul by pointing to the success of Indigenous NHLer Reggie Leach. The film reminds us the stories of the Saul Indian Horses are as important to see as the Reggie Leaches.

As Brett Pardy notes in his review, "This story makes it clear hockey is more often an extension of Canadian racism than a unifying force." This chapter of hockey's history, and Canada's, is as important as any other.

5. SLAP SHOT (1977)

The throne for best hockey movie has been Slap Shot's to lose for years, and yet it's trotted out again and again on best-of lists like it's a geriatric honouree at a Montreal Canadiens pregame ceremony. Its iconography and cultural impact is irrefutable but it's time to cede the throne to more inclusive films.

The movie's casual sexism and homophobia hits you like a brick when you watch now. Women are cast as wives and girlfriends only, portrayed as drunk hangers-on who complain while their partner lives out his extended childhood. One hockey wife is said to have slept with another woman and that prompts some players to wonder if that makes her husband gay. Paul Newman's character even exploits that information on the ice to manipulate the husband into giving up a goal against.

Women and their bodies are referred to with deplorable name-calling—and the thing is, that's kind of the point: to paint an accurate picture of men's pro hockey in the 1970s. Written by Nancy Dowd, whose brother played this level of hockey at the time, the film is a satire of commodified hockey culture and its spectacle of violence. And it gets major credit for that. But in revealing such naked truths about the game—like its casual intolerance—it reinforces to subsequent generations that hockey normalizes exclusionary behaviour. When Slap Shot has a chance in the end to say something progressive about women's roles in the story, it suggests that if only a hockey wife got a salon makeover, she'd forget her troubles.

But the film does have its transgressive points, allowing it to still survive among the top five. It's a sports movie about the economic malaise and widening rich-poor gap of the 70s, the resulting cultural frustration that leads to a blood thirst for violent entertainment, and makes a fairly bold statement with the Ned Braden striptease scene by criticizing the pandering to fans by the sport through the commodification of athletes and their bodies. The ambiguous ending, when the Chiefs win the championship while their jobs remain tenuous, even flips the standard sports drama narrative by questioning how we evaluate success and heroism.

But it's the fact that you can't watch Slap Shot without wincing or even turning off the film part way that pushes it down this list. Time is no friend of this film.

6. THE MIGHTY DUCKS (1992)

Despite The Mighty Ducks being pretty typical Disney fare, it was the hockey movie for a generation of young hockey fans who'd never seen The Bad News Bears. A championship game that didn't consummate with a fight but instead a skilled play. A coach who tells his player, "I believe in you, Charlie. Win or Lose."

The Mighty Ducks condemns the win-at-all-costs attitude of many hockey films while a team of lower-middle class kids beat the rich kids. It's one of the few to include non-white and non-male players on the featured team, and gives on- and off-ice screen time to just about every character.

The movie has a lot to do with classism in hockey, albeit in a sanitized way: The Ducks resent that their coach was once a (rich) Hawks player, one Duck calls his teammate and former Hawk Adam Banks a "cake-eater," and yet coach Bombay (Emilio Estevez) uses sponsorship dollars from his wealthy law firm to pay for necessary jerseys and equipment. In The Mighty Ducks, success in hockey still comes at the expense of your wallet.

It's a Disney-fied, contradictory mess but I'm still crying at that "I believe in you, Charlie" line.

7. THE ROCKET

Another film taking aim at Canada's national politics intersecting with hockey, The Rocket stands above the average hockey biopic by portraying Canadiens legend Maurice Richard as the tip of the Quebecois cultural spear during a time of division between French and English Canada.

Richard's personality in the film is an idealized portrait of French resistance in the face of English cultural dominance. The NHL referee who holds Richard's arms while a Boston Bruins player hits him with two free punches represents the English bias of NHL management who handcuff their French players. The Richard Riots—a politicized event often linked to Quebec's Quiet Revolution of the 1960s—bookend the film, couching the player's biography within the province's socio-political history.

When Canadiens coach Dick Irvin says to his team, "I need players who hate to lose," he's using a common sports maxim in reference to Richard. But those words could also describe how Richard embodies the attitudes of many Quebecers toward English rivals in politics and in the NHL.

The Rocket's sensitive approach to the story is seen too in the filming of the hockey scenes. The low-lighting of 1950s hockey arenas, the helmet-less players, and the cool colour tones give us a sense that Richard is alone in the cold of the rink.

Points go to any hockey movie that features a grown man crying in front of his teammates in a dressing room. The film hits the dramatic a little too heavily at times but is another in the genre that flips the standard sports drama finale by not concluding with the hero's team winning the ultimate game. This movie's about the NHL taking one step forward and two back.

8. THE GAME OF HER LIFE (1998)

Documenting the lead-up to the first women's Olympic ice hockey tournament in 1998, The Game of Her Life provides a rare and unique look at one of the most significant chapters in women's hockey history from the Canadian perspective.

Produced by the National Film Board and directed by Lyn Wright, the film charts Team Canada's ascent to its first Olympic Games and its disappointing loss to Team USA. These were the first Olympic matches between two of hockey's fiercest rivals, and the very real tension between the teams is set up well.

Among the best sequences is when coach Shannon Miller is meeting with players to tell them whether or not they made the team. Miller told me in an interview earlier this year that she relied on her experience as a police officer to prepare for the following day's roster cuts by recalling having to tell victim's families their relative had died. The elation and sorrow in that sequence is the heart of the documentary, and one of those roster cuts includes future Hall of Famer Angela James.

Though the documentary isn't beloved by all the Canadian players. Cassie Campbell, interviewed for the same story as Miller, told me she didn't appreciate the film's portrayal of her supposed modelling career (she took one class at age 16). "I was such a team player and yet I could feel the attention going to a small amount of us," said Campbell.

The rare glimpse into the women's game, the coverage of one of sport's most exciting rivalries, and the stark differences apparent between the men's and women's games makes The Game of Her Life a standout.

9. GOON (2011)

Another movie that may appear to rank too low on this list. But Goon, like Slap Shot, isn't standing the test of time well.

A fun story about a dim-witted Doug Glatt (Sean William Scott) who can't skate but can fight and protect the skilled players by intimidation, the independent Canadian film wants to sell the myth of the self-aware goon who violently avenges his teammates because the game is inevitably violent. It succeeds as fun and entertaining, as Doug is probably the nicest hockey player ever on screen, but its glorification of fighting and lack of attention toward the consequences of fighting just don't hold up, and it's only 2019.

The hockey scenes, though, are maybe the best in the industry—Liev Schreiber elevates everyone's game with his acting—and who doesn't shed a tear when Xavier Laflamme is set loose to score once Doug has punched out Schreiber's Ross Rhea? There's just too much cementing of boys hockey culture here, particularly with the casual homophobia. If you don't think the satire in Slap Shot helps normalize intolerance in the hockey dressing room, sit back and watch a group of actors riff on gay jokes for extended sequences while an implied gay character listens nearby.

Still, for a movie with questionable material, it has a lot of good writing and performances, and it's a satisfying experience where hockey fans get to interrogate their fandom and the role of violence in the sport.

10. MIRACLE

It's hard to fill out a roster of great hockey movies, and Miracle just makes the cut. There are better films, like Inside Out, that are hockey-adjacent. There are better films that few have seen, like Swift Current, which documents Sheldon Kennedy's experience of sexual abuse in junior hockey. And although Miracle has its charms, it embodies what's stale about hockey films.

Miracle is guilty of the most hockey movie clichés on this list. A group of underdog players beat the unbeatable team in improbable fashion. The players are bag-skated until they learn a valuable lesson. The coach dismisses the odds and relies on instincts and trust. The name on the front of the sweater is more important than the one on the back. A dressing-room speech inspires victory.

A great hockey film should do more than arouse national pride. It should relate to everyone in the audience, not just the high achievers and Type-A's. "This cannot be a team of common men," says Kurt Russell's Herb Brooks to the 1980 American Olympic team. "Because common men go nowhere. You have to be uncommon."

Canada-Russia '72 does everything well that this movie does but does it while questioning how history was recorded and how Canadians remember the events. Still, Miracle is among the best there is.

Honourable Mentions

The Sweater: This National Film Board short is a time capsule of 1950s French Canada, and in that context it's a staple in the hockey canon.

Swift Current: A hockey film only in part, the Canadian-made documentary on former NHLer Sheldon Kennedy charts his sexual abuse at the hands of the former junior hockey coach Graham James with startling detail. You won't be able to unsee this underside of hockey's history.

Inside Out: The Pixar-animated film touches briefly on the main character's relationship with hockey but it becomes a significant element to a beautiful story. If you need a good cry, sob heavily to this movie.

Blades and Brass: This 1967 NFB short combines NHL highlights with Tijuana Brass-style music. Why haven't you clicked through yet?

Goofy–Hockey Homicide: Almost 100 years ago, Disney thought hockey was a foaming-at-the-mouth celebration of violence, and the psychedelic approach of Hockey Homicide is truly a sight to see.

Dishonourable Mentions

Mystery, Alaska: A fun concept sullied by misogyny and an absolutely wretched Mike Myers Cameo.

Sudden Death: Some of you don't remember how boring this movie is and it shows. If you loved Die Hard, you're going to hate this.

Youngblood: A b-movie with a confused message about violence in hockey. Still, look for Keanu Reeves playing a French-Canadian goaltender.

The Love Guru: (I will not be sharing any thoughts about this alleged film, thank you for your understanding.)

Goon 2: The Last of the Enforcers: No thanks to the faux-Sportscenter panel of James Duthie and T.J. Miller. I've never fast-forwarded through a movie faster.

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports CA.

The Ultimate Ranking of the Best Hockey Films Ever published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

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poorguysheadisdoingwhatnow · 6 years

Text

Time For Heroes, part 2

Well, here it is. This one killed me to write, y’all, I am emotionally drained. Please enjoy.

(notes: one of the scenes is pretty much the Bottom Line Reprise scene, but there’s a twist at the end)

Jack dabbed paint onto the canvas perhaps a little harder than necessary, unintentionally smearing it. He swore under his breath and rubbed at the spot with his paintbrush, but that only made it worse. Shit. He would just have to wait until it dried and try again. Maybe if he-

“There he is, just like I said!” Les was about as quiet as a hammer hitting a metal wall; his voice echoed through the empty theatre and Jack groaned.

He turned toward the rafters, where Les, Katherine, and Crutchie stood. “What’s a fella gotta do to get away from you people?”

“Jack, you can’t just hide in here forever,” Crutchie called, and then Jack heard the telltale thumps of a crutch hitting the wooden stairs. A few moments later, Crutchie was standing beside him, his hand hovering hesitantly over Jack’s shoulder, as if afraid to touch him. “We need you.”

Jack sighed. “What good would I be, Crutch? I ran and you almost got arrested. Hell, the only reason you didn’t was ‘cause of Davey. And now he’s in the Refuge.”

“That’s not your fault,” Crutchie said. Now he let his hand rest on Jack’s shoulder and was glad when he didn’t pull away. “He knew what he was doin’. Davey’s more of a fighter than we give ‘im credit for. He’s gonna be okay.”

“But what if he isn’t?” Jack sat heavily on the crate that held his paints and put his head in his hands. “You didn’t see ‘im, Crutchie. I don’t know what the Spider did to ‘im, but...he couldn’t even come to the window.”

Jack heard a sniff, but when he looked up he saw that it wasn’t Crutchie. Katherine and Les had come down from the rafters at some point, and now Les was quietly crying into Katherine’s skirt. She patted his head comfortingly and glared at Jack.

“Is Davey gonna be okay?” Les whispered.

“Your brother’s a fighter,” Crutchie said with a sideways glance at Jack. “He’s strong. And yeah, they might’a busted ‘im up a little, but that doesn’t mean he won’t be okay.”

“Did you see ‘im, Jack?” Les asked, finally letting go of Katherine and turning towards the older newsie. “Was he hurt bad?”

“I…” Jack stood up and put his hands on Les’ shoulders. “I couldn’t get close enough to ‘im. But there’s another kid in there--looks kinda like you, actually--that goes by the name Sticks...he said Davey’s hurt, but he’s on the mend. Crutchie’s right.” Jack knelt down beside Les and wiped the tears from the kid’s face. “Davey’s a fighter.”

“Yeah.” Les’ face was still red from crying, but he smiled. “Did’ja know that one time, these older kids were pickin’ on me after school? And Davey told ‘em off! They gave ‘im a black eye, but then they didn’t bother me anymore.”

“See? He’s strong,” Katherine said. “And look, Jack, this is why we came.” She reached into her skirt pocket and pulled out a newspaper. “This is the last piece of strike news we managed to print before Pulitzer shut it all down, but it could be enough!”

“Yeah.” Crutchie was grinning. “And we heard back from Brooklyn. Spot says he’s in. So now all we gotta do is tell all the newsies in New York. Get ‘em excited. Get ‘em ready to strike. Maybe a speech or somethin’.”

Jack shook his head. “I’m no good at speech makin’, you know that. Davey’s the talker. How’re we gonna do it without ‘im?”

“I can write you a speech,” Katherine said. “We gather all the newsies...maybe here! Would Medda let us use the theatre?”

“I can ask.” Jack could feel a small smile on his face. “This could really work. We could win.”

Les tugged on Jack’s sleeve. “If we win, does that mean Davey’ll get out of the Refuge?”

“If we win,” Jack said, ruffling Les’ hair, “we’ll make sure that every last kid gets outta that rotten place, including your brother. Now,” he turned to Crutchie and Katherine. “You guys go spread the word. Take Les wit’ ya. I’ll talk to Medda. We hold the rally here. Tomorrow night. And if we’re lucky, we’ll have a real special guest speaker.” He grinned. “I just gotta go convince old man Pulitzer to show.”

---

When Jack walked into Pulitzer’s office that evening like he owned the place, he honestly didn’t know what to expect, especially considering he hadn’t even made it that far the first time. But now, a lady with red hair and glasses actually let him through the doors and led him up the stairs. He followed her through an ornate door and suddenly he was in the fanciest room he had ever seen. But Jack didn’t have time to marvel at the gold-plated grandfather clock that ticked in a corner, or the enormous windows that overlooked the city, because standing behind the desk was just the man he had come to see. Jack took a deep breath and stepped forward, plastering a grin on his face.

“Afternoon, boys!” Jack threw a mock salute in the direction of the other men in the room. They looked uncomfortable.

“And which Jack Kelly is this?” Pulitzer asked with a sneer. “The charismatic union organizer...or the petty thief and escaped convict?”

“Which gives us more in common?” Jack laughed to cover up his nervousness.

“Impudence is in bad taste when crawling for mercy.”

“Crawlin’?” Jack said. “That’s a laugh. I just stopped by with an invite. Seems a few hundred of your employees are rallyin’ to discuss recent disagreements. I thought it only fair to invite you to state your case straight to the fellas. So, what’d’ya say, Joe? Want I should save ya a spot on the bill?”

“You are as shameless and disrespectful a creature as I was told,” Pulitzer said. He glared at Jack. “Do you know what I was doing when I was your age, boy? I was fighting in a war.”

“Yeah? And how’d that turn out for ya?”

“It taught me a lesson that shaped my life. You don’t win a war on the battlefield. It’s the headline that crowns the victor.”

“I’ll keep that in mind when New York wakes up to front page photos of our rally.”

“Rally ‘till the cows come home!” Pulitzer was smiling now. “Not a paper in town will publish a word. And if it’s not in the papers, it never happened.”

Jack was getting angrier, but he tried to stay calm. “You may run this city, but there are some of us who can’t be bullied. Even some reporters.”

“Such as that young woman who made you yesterday’s news? Talented girl. And beautiful as well, don’t you think?”

Jack scoffed. What was Pulitzer getting at? “Yeah, I’ll tell ‘er you said so.”

“No need. She can hear for herself. Can’t you, darling?” Pulitzer gestured to a chair that sat next to his desk, and Jack could practically feel his blood boiling when Katherine stood up, tears in her eyes. “I trust you know my daughter, Katherine.”

Jack barely heard what Pulitzer said next; he was still too shocked. Sure, now that he thought about it, Katherine being Pulitzer’s daughter made a little sense. But if she was related to this money-grubbing scum, why would she care so much about the newsies’ plight? Was she doing it for her father? What did she have to gain?

“Jack, I-” Katherine started to protest, but Jack just cut her off with a glare.

Pulitzer chuckled. “Don’t trouble the boy with your problems, dearest. Mister Kelly has a plateful of his own.” He gestured to a darker corner of the office. “Wouldn’t you say so, Mister Snyder?”

And when the man who had tormented him for years, who had never given up hunting him, no matter how many times he managed to escape, stepped out of the shadows and into view, Jack thought he would pass out from fear. As it was, he turned and tried to run from the office, only to be stopped by the Delancey brothers, who held his arms iron-like grips. And Jack could do was try (and fail) to control his breathing as Snyder stepped closer, an evil grin on his face.

“Hello, Jack,” he said. Jack couldn’t speak past the lump forming in his throat.

“Does anyone else feel a noose tightening?” Pulitzer asked. He paused. “But allow me to offer an alternate scenario: you attend the rally and speak against this hopeless strike, and I’ll see your criminal record expunged and your pockets filled with enough cash to carry you, in a first-class train compartment, from New York to New Mexico and beyond.” He turned to Katherine, who just shook her head. “You did say he wanted to travel west, didn’t you?”

“There ain’t a person in this room who don’t know you stink.” And as he forced the words out, Jack glanced around the office, and he noticed that not only was Katherine close to crying, but the redheaded lady who had met him at the front door was frowning deeply. She looked like she wanted to say something, but stared at the floor instead.

“And if they know me, they know I don’t care,” Pulitzer said in a disinterested tone. “Mark my words, boy. Defy me, and I will have you and every one of your friends locked up in the Refuge. Besides,” he looked at Snyder, “isn’t there already one in there? Davey, isn’t it? Smart child, from what I’ve heard. But I’ve also heard that he isn’t doing too well at the moment.” He turned back to Jack. “Do you really want your arrogance and disobedience to be the reason your friend doesn’t make it out of there alive?”

Jack opened his mouth to say something, anything, but Pulitzer just cut him off. He wasn’t interested in what Jack had to say because he knew he had already won. “Gentlemen,” Pulitzer gestured to the Delanceys, “escort our guest to the cellar so he might reflect in solitude.”

The two brothers nodded, and despite Jack struggling for all it was worth, he couldn’t break free. They muscled him down a set of stairs into a dark, dusty cellar. There were boxes and other things scattered around the dirty space, but the most incredible was the massive, old printing press that sat in the middle. Morris threw Jack against it and laughed when he gasped in pain.

“We been given discretion to handle you as we see fit,” the Delancey snarled. “So behave.”

“Oh, but just in case,” Oscar said. He pulled some metal from his pocket and slipped it onto his hand. “I’ve been polishin’ my favorite brass knuckles.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re real scary, Oscar,” Jack said with a dismissive wave of his hand. He knew he probably shouldn’t be antagonizing them, but he couldn’t help it. “You and Morris practice your lines together? Make sure they’re coordinated?”

Morris shoved him against the printing press again, and Jack just managed to stifle his gasp when the sharp edges dug into his side. “Shut it, Kelly.”

“What? I’m just sayin’ that maybe you should get some new material.”

And then Jack found out that as tough as he was, he couldn’t hold his own forever against two angry brothers with brass knuckles on their hands and murder on their minds. Fuck, this was going to hurt.

---

Jack guessed Pulitzer probably hadn’t counted on the fact that the small window in the cellar was just big enough for a teenage boy to squeeze through if he didn’t eat daily and his job involved walking miles around the city every day. Once the Delanceys had finally left him alone, Jack had managed to stay awake long enough to take note of the window. Then he had passed out.

When he came to, his head was pounding and his ribs ached, but he slowly stood. There was no time to waste. With more than a few grunts of pain and quiet curses, Jack got the window open and slid through it, ignoring the pressure it put on his chest. Then he was moving as fast as he could toward the lodging house.

“Specs!” He called, barreling through the front door. The other newsie hurried down the stairs from the bunkroom and stopped in his tracks when he saw Jack.

“Where did’ja go?” Specs asked. “You look like shit.”

“Thanks. Specs, I need your help. I need everyone’s help. We gotta call off the rally.”

“What?” Specs’ confusion was clear. “But Jack-”

“No.” Jack cut him off. “It’s Pulitzer. He threatened everyone. Me, Davey, all of us. He’s plannin’ on gettin’ everyone arrested at the rally. We gotta call it off.”

“Shit.” Specs nodded. “Okay. I’ll send everyone out. We’ll make sure no one shows up. But, Jack...what should we tell ‘em?”

“...the truth. That way...they’ll know we’re not backin’ down. But we can’t risk anyone else gettin’ taken away.”

“Alright. What about Davey?” Specs asked. “You said Pulitzer threatened him, too? What’s gonna happen?”

“I’m gonna...I’m gonna get ‘im out.” Jack sighed. “I gotta get ‘im out.”

“Let me tell everybody what’s goin’ on, and I’ll come with you,” Specs said. “We’ll get ‘im out together.”

Jack just nodded.

A little under an hour later, Jack and Specs (with Race and Blink close behind) were heading for the Refuge. As the four of them approached the grounds, Jack could feel his heart sink.

“Fuck,” Blink whispered, echoing what they were probably all thinking. “There are so many bulls.”

It looked like Snyder had upgraded his security. Cops roamed all around the Refuge. It would be impossible to get to the window without being seen. Specs put a hand on Jack’s shoulder.

“We can’t help ‘im, Jackie,” he said. “Not without them takin’ us all.”

“But-”

“Jack, please.” That was Race. “We can’t get ‘im now, but if we follow through? We’ll get ‘im out soon.”

“Besides,” Blink said. “Would the Spider wanna give up his leverage so quickly?”

“Yeah…” Jack tried to mentally reassure himself. “Alright, we’ll head back to the lodgin’ house. He’ll...Davey’ll be fine.”

God, he hoped they were right.

---

When they got back to the lodging house, the last person Jack expected to be standing in the main room was Katherine.

“Hiya, Kath,” Race said, giving her a small wave. “Whatcha doin’ here?”

“I need to, um...I need to talk to Jack,” she said.

“I don’t wanna talk to you,” Jack said. He ignored the confused looks his friends were giving him.

“Jack, please.” Her voice was quiet, pleading. “Everything that’s happened...I promise I can explain.”

“Hey, uh…” Specs corralled Race and Blink toward the stairs. “Let’s give them some privacy.”

Then the three were gone, and Jack and Katherine were alone.

“You got five minutes,” Jack said. “Startin’ with why you didn’t tell us Pulitzer was your father.”

“I didn’t think it was important.”

“What? You didn’t think it was important to tell us that you’re related to the guy who’s tryin’ to put us all outta work?”

“I don’t let who my family is define me!” Katherine’s voice wavered. “It wasn’t important because I’ve made this career without my father’s help. I don’t work for him because I don’t want that shadow hanging over me my entire life.”

“Why did you decide to cover a story that defied your father? How was that gonna help you?”

“Haven’t you been listening, Jack?” Katherine asked. She sniffed, but now her voice was stronger, firmer. “I want to help all of you, I really do. I want all the people like us--the kids who have to work hard to have a voice--to be heard by people who would never listen otherwise. I want things to change. I want things to get better.”

“I…” Jack was at a loss for words, and frankly, he felt stupid. In his anger, he had never considered any of this. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Katherine said. “I’m sorry any of this happened.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“We can still win. We just...need to figure out how.”

“Well, we can’t have a rally,” Jack said. “The bulls’ll arrest all the second we go public.”

“What if there was another way to spread the word?” Katherine looked thoughtful. “I have that speech I wrote for you for the rally. If we could find some way to print it, then maybe…”

“We could send it out to everyone!” Jack finished. “I know a printin’ press we could use that your father would never expect. And then we might win this thing and get Davey out.”

“The only problem is...winning the strike won’t get anyone out of the Refuge, will it?” Katherine asked. “We need a way to prove that that place is awful. Evil. That no one should ever be sent there again.”

Jack thought of the rooftop, of the countless nights he had spent drawing by moonlight when the nightmares kept him awake. “I think I have just the thing.”

---

If it wasn’t for Sticks, Jamie, and Dodger, Davey was sure he would have lost all his sanity in the Refuge the moment he arrived. Snyder hadn’t come for him again since that first night, something Davey was grateful for, but it also filled him with such apprehension that he could barely stand it. Was Snyder planning something? Had something happened to the other newsies? How was the strike going? There was no way to know, and that was what worried Davey so much.

He couldn’t do much on a broken ankle, but he didn’t let that stop him, no matter how much Jamie protested.

“If you don’t keep off of it, it might not be the same again,” he said every time Davey tried to stand up. “Did that knock to the head make you stupid?”

Davey just waved him off. He hated to admit it, but every time he lay down in the bunk, he felt useless. If he couldn’t walk, how was he supposed to help the others once he got out of this hellhole?

Now Jamie just grumbled every time Davey asked Sticks to help him up, and Dodger rolled his eyes every time Jamie grumbled. The two of them had some sort of unspoken language made up of looks, eyerolls, and completely random hand gestures, and Jamie most often employed it when he thought Davey was doing something stupid and Dodger had to calm him down.

Sticks, however, was more than happy to help Davey, because then he could ask for more stories while they were slowly pacing back and forth across the room together. Davey didn’t have a lot of stories about the newsies, considering he had only known them a few days, but Sticks didn’t seem to mind.

“Tell me more about Les,” he said one evening. They were sitting on the bed with Jamie and Dodger. Davey’s foot was propped up on the one pillow, at Jamie’s insistence. “He sounds real fun. I hope I get to meet him someday.”

“Yeah.” Davey leaned forward and ruffled Sticks’ hair. “I hope so, too. There was this one time…”

As Davey told the story, one involving Les’ less-than-successful attempt to hide a frog he had found at the docks from their parents a few months back, he noticed that Jamie and Dodger leaned forward to listen, which made him smile. He was glad that, even in the Refuge, they could find something to smile about.

“So then my mom found the box under our bed-” Davey cut off when the door suddenly opened. He heard Sticks’ quiet whimper at the sight of the Spider standing in the doorway, scanning the room with an evil glint in his eye. He finally settled on their bunk and smiled.

“Guards,” he said, and two goons appeared from where they had apparently been standing out in the hallway. “It’s time for some...rehabilitation. Get that one, there.” He pointed to Sticks, and Davey felt his blood run cold.

Sticks pushed himself into Davey’s side, but it did nothing. One of the guards grabbed him by his skinny arm and pulled him away from the bunk. Davey couldn’t help it; he stood up shakily, holding onto the bed for support.

“Davey, no,” Jamie whispered, but Davey wasn’t listening. He could only focus on Sticks, the kid who looked so much like his little brother. The kid who had tears streaming down his face and panic in his eyes as he struggled against the grip of a man who did his heinous job unfeelingly.

“Stop,” Davey said. “Don’t take him.”

“And what, pray tell, are you going to do about it?” Snyder asked. He approached Sticks and grabbed him by the hair. Sticks cried out, and all Davey knew was that he had to protect him.

He didn’t get farther than a few steps before the other guard shoved him to the floor. Stepped on his broken ankle. Davey screamed.

“Davey!” Sticks cried. He struggled harder, but the man holding him was so much stronger.

There were black spots in Davey’s vision, but he still tried to get to Sticks. He had to protect him. He had to-

The guard pulled a knife from nowhere and stabbed Davey in the gut.

Davey could hear cursing. It sounded kind of like Jamie, but his voice was far away. Davey’s vision was fading fast, but so was the pain from his side. Actually, all his pain was almost gone, already only a dull ache. That was strange. Someone knelt next to him. They were crying. A small hand grabbed his own. Oh, it was Sticks. Davey was glad he was there. Shit he was tired.

The last thing Davey heard before he closed his eyes was Snyder’s laughter.

“You have your friend Jack Kelly to thank for this, little rat,” Snyder said. But Davey was too exhausted to even wonder what that meant.

He closed his eyes.

---

They had really done it. Jack could barely believe it, and he knew that everyone else was still in shock. They had won the strike, and now the working kids of New York City finally had a voice. Jack looked across the square to where Katherine stood with Medda and Teddy Roosevelt himself, and he couldn’t recall ever feeling so full of hope. The fliers had been a success. “The Children’s Crusade”, Katherine had called the speech. Jack had paired with it one of his sketches of the Refuge, and they had spent all night using the printing press in Pulitzer’s cellar. The newsies had distributed the fliers the next morning.

And now, here they all were. Victorious.

Roosevelt proclaimed his decision to close down the Refuge, and Jack could barely contain his joy. He swept Katherine into a hug, and then he felt another impact to his side. He looked down, and Les was grinning up at him.

“This means we’re gonna see Davey again,” Les said with a happy squeak.

“Yeah, kid,” Jack said. “We are.”

The doors of the Refuge were just opening when they all arrived, and the crowd of newsies and other onlookers watched as a pair of policemen escorted Snyder down the steps and into a waiting cart. Everyone cheered.

Then, kids started streaming out of the place. Jack saw so many he remembered from his last stay. Some greeted him, some just nodded. A few younger ones ran right up and hugged him. This was a good day. A day of freedom and happiness, the first in a long while.

Soon, the stream of kids petered out. Jack could hear worried murmurs from his friends. He knew they were all wondering the same thing. Where was Davey?

Three kids, two older than the third, appeared in the entrance of the Refuge and walked slowly down the stairs. Jack recognized the youngest from his last visit. The kid who met him at the window with an enthusiastic grin and a message. The kid who looked just a little like Les.

“Sticks?” Jack made his way to the base of the steps, where the trio had stopped. Sticks looked up at him, and Jack noticed that his eyes were puffy. Actually, all three of them looked like they had been crying, though the two older kids hid it well. “What’s wrong? Where’s Davey?”

Sticks said nothing, only started sobbing and threw himself at Jack. The two older kids glanced at each other.

“Davey…” One of them said with a slight British accent. “Davey isn’t coming out.”

“What do you mean?” Jack heard Les ask. The kid had approached the group at some point with Katherine in tow. “Where’s my brother?”

The British kid just shook his head and looked at Jack for help, and suddenly the realization hit Jack like a train. He had been wrong. He couldn’t get Davey out.

“Jack,” Les said. “I want Davey. Where’s Davey?”

He couldn’t save Davey.

“Where’s my brother?”

Davey wasn’t getting out of the Refuge.

Tag list under the cut:

@disney-princess-sized

@crazymecjc

@whovininja567

@rhodochrositelesbian

@thewebernutter

@p00rguysheadisspinning

@soldmysoultofandomshelp

@scollace

@losers-yurio

@purplelittlepup

@marcellerambles

#newsies #david jacobs #jack kelly #katherine plumber #les jacobs #sticks newsies #oc #specs newsies #kid blink #racetrack higgins #tw death #angst #so much angst

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sassyshoulderangel319 · 6 years

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Favorite Newsies Quotes

Okay mostly Jack but ssshhh

In No Particular Order:

-I can’t spend my whole life dreamin’---though I know that’s all I seem inclined to do...

-Am-scray punk! She’s the King of New York!

-Basically the entire Once and For All song

-Jackie think about it---we’ve got them surrounded

-Joe’s a joik, ‘e’s a rattlesnake

-Get those kids to see we’re circling victory

-We’re doin’ somethin’ no one’s even tried---and yes we’re terrified...

-Write what you know, so they say---problem is I don’t know what to write---or the right way to write it ... It could practically write itself---and let’s pray it does---because as I may have mentioned I have no clue what I’m doing! (every writer’s lament)

-I never knew no one with a aptitude!

-Take it easy, it’s a bunch of trees.

-And we’ve got Jack!

-Why should you only take what you’re given? Why should you spend your whole life livin’ trapped where there ain’t no future...

-Where does it say you have to live and die here? Where does it say a guy can’t catch a break?

-We’ll get your pay back with some payback!

-Strikes ain’t fun but they sure is excitin’!

-Pay us a visit and see what we means, and when ya do we’ll kick ya halfway to Queens!

-Which Jack Kelly is this? The charismatic union leader or the escaped convict? ---Which one gives us more in common, huh? XD

-And if you’re gone tomorrow, what was ours still will be

-The world is your erster (Your fancy clam with the pearl inside!)

-Somewhere out there someone cares---go tell them!

-Courage cannot erase our fear---courage is when we face our fear

-Basically all of Seize the Day

-This is for kids shinin’ shoes on the street with no shoes on their feet everyday

-We’ve been keeping score---either they gives us our rights or we gives them a war!

-Every day we wait, is a day we lose

-And the things we do today will be tomorrow’s news!

-Basically the entire song of The World Will Know

-Write it in ink or in blood it’s the same either way!---They’re gonna d*** well pay!

-And the strike starts right d*** now!

-Dave, what the h***, did they bust up your brains or somethin’? If I recall, Dave, we all got our a**es kicked---THEY WON! ---Won the battle! --Oh come on.

-Once and for all if they don’t mind their manners we’ll bleed ‘em---once and for all we won’t carry no banners that don’t spell freedom!

-They think they’re runnin’ this town but this town would shut down without us!

-There’s change comin’ once and for all---you’re getting too old, too weak to keep holdin’ on!

-Don’t take much to be a dreamer. All ya do is close your eyes. But some made-up world is all you’ll ever see.

-Like all of Carryin’ the Banner.

-Plantin’ crops, splittin’ rails, swappin’ tales around the fire---‘cept for Sunday when ya lie around all day!

-Work the land, chase the sun, swim the whole Rio Grande just for fun!

-There’s a life that’s worth the livin’---and I’m gonna do my share!

-It’s a crooked game we’re playin’, one we’ll never lose---‘long as suckers don’t mind payin’, just to get bad news!

-Summer stinks and winter’s freezin’ when you works outdoors. Start out sweatin’ end up sneezin’---in between it POURS!

-When the bell rings, we goes where we wishes, we as free as fishes, sure beats washin’ dishes!

-How ‘bout a crooked politician? ---Ya nitwit that ain’t news no more!

-Why do old people talk? ---To prove they’s still alive?

-Love at first sight’s for suckers---at least it used to be...

-Even though we ain’t got hats or badges, we’re a union just by sayin’ so (and literally all of them are wearing the same type of hat...)

-Union’d we stand! Hey that’s not bad someone write that down!

-’Stead-a hawkin’ headlines we’ll be makin’ ‘em today!

-When you got a hundred voices singin’ who can hear a lousy whistle blow?

-We got a ton o’ rotten fruit and perfect aim!

-So The World said No---well the kids do to! Try to walk all over us: we’ll stomp all over you!

-Write it good or it’s back to wheezing your way through the flower show...

-All of Watch What Happens (and the Reprise)

-Picture a handsome heroically charismatic, plain-spoken, know-nothin, skirt-chasing, cocky little son-of-a---

-Then say to the others who did not follow through: you’re still our brothers, and we will fight for you.

-Behold the brave battalion who stands side by side, too few in number and too proud to hide.

-Once we’ve begun, if we stand as one, “someday” becomes “somehow” and a prayer becomes a vow.

-Wrongs will be righted if we’re untied.

-Proud and defiant we’ll slay the giant---judgment day is here.

-Nothing can break us---no one can make us quit before we’re done!

-I’m one highfalutin’ son of a gun!

-I’m seein’ kids standin’ tall--glarin’ and rarin’ to brawl---ARMIES O’ GUYS WHO SICK WITH THE LIES GETTIN’ READY TO RISE TO THE CALL.

-What’s Santa Fe got that New York ain’t? Tarantulas?

-Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.

-Each generation must, at the height of its power, step aside and invite the young to share the day...

#Newsies #Guess who went and saw one of her favorite musicals?#me #the answer is me #me me me me me

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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The Many Saints of Newark: Undercover Cop Talks About Infiltrating The Real Sopranos

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The Many Saints of Newark has once again brought the crime family at the center of The Sopranos into the spotlight. But Giovanni Rocco had eyes on them for years. Under the alias of “Giovanni Gatto,” the New Jersey police officer was at the center of Operation Charlie Horse, a federal undercover task force that busted a boss and nine crewmembers of New Jersey’s DeCavalcante family, which The Sopranos’ DiMeo family is based on. Giovanni’s Ring: My Life Inside the Real Sopranos, co-written with Douglas Schofield, tells the inside story.

The DeCavalcante family is much more historically embedded in the mob than most people know, going back to the earliest days of the Black Hand and Mafia in America. Giovanni spent nearly three years undercover working his way into the hierarchy. The assignment ended when he was ordered by capo Charlie “the Hat” Stango to hit Luigi “the Dog” Oliveri, a made man, in March 2015.

Giovani turned his house into a fortress for months after the mob takedown. He still lives under the assumed name “Giovanni Rocco” for fear of reprisals against him or his family. Giovanni surfaced to speak with Den of Geek about the crimes, misdemeanors, and the latter-day saints of Newark.

Den of Geek: What years were you in Operation Charlie Horse?

Giovanni Rocco: That was 2012 to 2015.

What was the mob climate like at the time?

Active, it was as active as it’s ever been in New Jersey, and especially with the DeCavalcante, they were as active as they’ve ever been.

On The Sopranos, Carmine Lupertazzi says “Dons don’t wear shorts.” But you have capos having meetings at a pool in Vegas. What’s happening with this thing?

Charlie [Stango, a DeCavalcante family caporegime] had left me a message early on, when I first was introduced to him, and he decided he was going to start talking to me. And abruptly that ended. He had a nightmare, and that nightmare sparked him to turn around and leave me a voicemail saying, “Hey, don’t ever call me back, whatever you’re doing, if it’s illegal, if you’re doing something with my nephew, I want nothing to do with it.”

Knowing Charlie’s criminal history, he was a murderer, he was on parole for murder at the time, he was a gangster’s gangster. That was a very clear message he sent. So, maybe a month, I didn’t have any conversations with him, and I just maintained my criminal activity in the street. He kept his finger on my pulse by asking the Gambinos and people within the DeCavs to check on me, see what I was still doing.

Once he found out that I was still making money in the street, and everybody else was profiting from my actions and our actions together, he wanted back in, because a gangster’s thing is greed, right? Greed drives the underworld. So, he called me out to Vegas, and he wanted me to fly out to his house in Nevada, and he lived right outside the Strip, maybe 20 minutes. That’s why we were in the pool, because he was so suspicious of me at the time. We took off our shirts, we went swimming in the pool, and then once he saw, I guess he was comfortable thinking, “Okay, he can’t possibly be wearing a wire.”

You brought up the nightmare, is there a lot of superstition in the families?

It’s more intuition than superstition, I think. Superstition doesn’t play too many parts, but a guy has his intuition and he usually trusts his gut. And in that world, in the mafia world, that can get you killed in a minute. If I meet you, Tony, and we go out, things are great, then all of a sudden I get this bad feeling about you, now I got this gut feeling you’re not kosher, I can’t shake it. I’ve convinced myself that I don’t like you. And then that really drives the train.

Old school gangsters like Charlie, if they decide that you’re no good to them anymore, you know what I mean, “I’d rather cut my investment, I don’t feel right about this, just get rid of them.” Later on in the book, when I tell the story about the murder, originally it was two people that they wanted me to kill, Luigi at the end. I grew up in this life, I didn’t grow up in a gangster’s life but I was around gangsters enough in my neighborhood that I knew how it worked, and I knew how these guys were a hair trigger. I realized once they gave me the deed to kill Louie, if I didn’t do it fast enough, maybe they’ll look at me as weak, and maybe they’d decide not to do it.

Now, if they changed their mind and they pull the hit, well, what would you do? You’d get rid of me. The administration doesn’t want it getting out there that they’re trying to walk their guys. Because Louie was a made guy in the family at that time. And you get rid of all the evidence. And I was part of that evidence.

If you had done Louie, would that have been your button?

That would have been my button. It was explained to me later on. I even called Charlie out, a few times, I had said to Charlie, for evidentiary purposes, “Well, listen, if I do this, I kill this guy, yeah, that’s a good thing for the family, you all want this, this is what you want, but how does that leave me? I’m a nobody.” At that point in our relationship, he became offended, “What do you mean you’re a nobody? Don’t talk about yourself like that.” “Well, I don’t mean that, Charlie, where does this leave me with everybody? They’re going to come gunning for me, I’m killing a made guy in this family. I’m not a made guy.”

The Sopranos Didn’t Terminate Robert Patrick, They Busted Him Out

By Tony Sokol

Movies

How The Many Saints of Newark Almost Brought Carmela Soprano Back

By Alec Bojalad and 1 other

And he would get mad, he’d start yelling, “What the fuck are you talking about? You’re with me. You be the man you were born to be, you do what I tell you to do, and don’t worry about it. There’s going to be 50 guys waiting in line to pin medals on your chest.”

Eventually, he explained to me that the administration was changing hands, a new boss was coming in. It was most likely going to be Charlie “Big Ears” Majuri, who was a longtime member of the family, and he was going to take the seat from John Riggi, who was an elder gentleman, he was a longtime boss for the DeCavs. In November of that year, Charlie was going to get up from capo, possibly, to underboss, and that’s when he explained to me, he pointed to me in his house and said, “You’ll get up and you’ll get made as well” in November, when he was off parole.

I would have been the first to do that, wear that hat. So many came before me, Joe Pistone and Jack Garcia, we all tried to get that. But you can’t let your emotions get into it.

Getting to that point, almost being made, is there a temptation to go to the other side?

For me? No, there was never a temptation for me to go to the other side, because I knew how I lived, I lived a good life. My mother and father worked very hard to provide for us as kids, and they provided me with great morals, and that’s why I went as far as I did in my law enforcement career, that’s why I picked to be a good guy, I didn’t want to be a bad guy.

But it’s tough, when these guys are telling you that they love you, in the Italian culture, which was very familiar to me, and the bond of family is what they portray themselves to be, the gangsters. I identified with that side of it, I identified with their family, that’s why I clicked with their family so much, that’s why they found me, because I was just like one of them. But at this point in my career, I was a mature undercover. So, I was never drawn to their life or their money.

Where do you get 3,000 pills of ecstasy?

You can get them anywhere. I mean, in my career, who have I bought them from as an undercover? We’ve gotten them from Mexico, we’ve gotten them from China, we’ve gotten them from Hasidic Jews in New York. I mean, back in the day, in the 90s, they controlled a lot of the ecstasy coming in. Like any other narcotics industry, it’s out there, you just got to find it.

What are some of the scams that are working today?

Well, the scam changes, but the way they do it doesn’t change. In my neighborhood, everybody, today, it’s still the joke, “Oh, it fell off the back of a truck.” Well, those things still happen. Right? You look at it, and again, we’re talking union sites or construction sites. Now, Louie, I was giving him Timberland boots, and he might’ve been selling those Timberlands and North Face jackets, or whatever it is, materials that I’ve given him, he might be bringing them to a construction site, selling them, and he’s making his piece on it.

You look at everything. Even Bitcoin, they’ll always have a way to make money. Cell phones, technology, technology changes. Back in the day it was penny stock investments. Now it’s Bitcoin. They’ll figure out a way. They’ll massage it and they’ll figure out a way to make money on it, somehow, some way, that never dies.

When I was coming home from The Many Saints of Newark screening, there was a guy selling swag between subway cars.

That doesn’t change. And that guy gets a piece, and the next guy gets a piece, whoever he got it from. You’re dealing with the guy on the street level, where his piece is so small, but he’s just trying to survive, right? But the guys like me who brought it in by the truckload, or if we hijack something, if I brought a container of something in, or they brought a container, you make a bigger piece. If I get it right out of the container, I’m making a little bit more money on the guy that’s on a subway trying to sell it, you know?

You headed a street crew, is doing something like that easier because you had the police and bureau information coming at you?

No, I think it was a little bit harder. We never intended it to go that far into the family. Charlie put me in a specific construction company in New Jersey, because the guy needed help. Charlie put me there as protection. That’s how Charlie tested me. And then as word got back that I was doing a good job representing him, he got to the point where one day he called me up, and he was like, “Well, my son, Anthony could use a job, so get him driving a dump truck for the construction company.” And I did. And then eventually Charlie was like, “You know what? I’m going to put Anthony under you.” And I was taken aback by it. “Well, what do you mean? Number one, what do you mean by putting him under me?” You know?

And I made him explain those things. Because I never came into this saying that I was an expert on organized crime or I knew that life. I might’ve been familiar with some things from watching TV and what I heard as a kid, but I always made it known, I grew up in an outlaw biker culture. I didn’t grow up in an Italian culture like these guys did. So, there were a lot of questions I had from Charlie along the way. What do you mean you’re putting him under me? “Well, what do you think I’m doing here, Giovanni, I’m building a crew with you. I’m building a crew for you. You’re going to lead these guys. You’re driving this ship. You’re steering the ship.”

When I was young, I was a laborer and some jobs were mobbed up. Do you think those jobs were on the radar, could there be one of you sitting outside the carpenters’ shanty?

Could there have been somebody in my family?

No, a cop.

Sure. I mean, yeah. I worked construction on the side as a young cop when I was working narcotics in the beginning of my career. I would work job sites, if I wanted to infiltrate as an undercover, if anybody thought to infiltrate a union. But I don’t think they want to infiltrate the union. They want to infiltrate the crimes that are being committed in the unions. Yeah, that could have been easily done. If we had the cooperation of, let’s say your job site, if I knew there was a guy, we were looking for him, he might ask your job site, “Hey, can I put an undercover in there to look for this guy who’s wanted?” Not in your crew, but in the general area. You could easily infiltrate them. What goes on in the unions still goes on today. The docks in New Jersey and New York, and the ports, anywhere there’s a port job, there’s so much money involved there that the Mafia still has a stronghold on those places.

The Colombo family just got taken down on unions, two weeks ago, I think.

Yeah. And it’s funny, right? They say that the mob has died. The mob’s a dying breed, the mob is this, the mob is that. The mob has never gone away. The mob will never go away, because where there’s moments of social discord like there is today, that’s what the Mafia and the underworld in general feed on. That’s when they become their strongest.

Do you still look over your shoulder, and what precautions do you have to take?

I always look over my shoulder. I’ve always been hypervigilant from the minute I came on the job anyway. I was taught to do that. I take every precaution, even calling you and contacting you, all we had to go through to do that. Yeah. I’m always hypervigilant. My head is always on a swivel. I’m always aware of my surroundings. Things that I did operationally, situational awareness. I try to stay three steps ahead. Because you never know.

What did The Sopranos get right, and what does Donnie Brasco get wrong?

What I wish people would see is, now that I’m in the field of helping first responders and mental health, the message behind The Sopranos was: if you really look at what Tony does every episode, he went and saw his therapist, right? It was so about mental health and him growing up in organized crime. But at the same time, what did organized crime mean to him? How was he dealing with it? His background and how he was forced to grow up. And if you look at it from the mental health point, the two mirror each other, really.

You’re looking at law enforcement, you look at the underworld, all these guys have that persona of a man’s man. “I don’t ask for help, only weak people ask for help,” which is not the case. The Sopranos got that right. I think more people, after watching The Sopranos, if they were struggling with mental health, Tony brought that to the surface, with the Dr. Melfi episodes, the battles of delusion he had and all those things.

I know David Chase says that, and I’ll speak to what he says, The Sopranos is not based on the DeCavalcante family, but there’s so many similarities. Even the day I went on record, as I’m meeting the underboss in the meat market that we were in, it was just like Satriale’s in The Sopranos. And I couldn’t help but think, “I feel like I’m in a Sopranos episode, I feel like I’m going to get dragged into the basement.” I didn’t like the way The Sopranos portrayed Italian culture. They’re not that aggressive.

Joe Pistone, I can’t say there’s much he got wrong. I think in the end, Joe and I, and all of us undercovers, the one thing they got wrong was we didn’t get the thanks and the praise that we needed to get from our FBI counterparts. Joe got a check. I don’t know what Jack Garcia got. And then I got relocated. I’m grateful for the protection that they give me and provide to me.

But in the end, it’s almost as if you feel you did something wrong, because you got unplugged and you had to retire. A lot of people think there’s a lot of glory in it, but there’s not.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Giovanni’s Ring: My Life Inside the Real Sopranos is available now. The Many Saints of Newark premieres in theaters and on HBO Max on Friday, Oct. 1.

The post The Many Saints of Newark: Undercover Cop Talks About Infiltrating The Real Sopranos appeared first on Den of Geek.

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newstfionline · 3 years

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Sunday, September 26, 2021

Huawei executive returning as China releases Canadians (AP) China’s government was eagerly anticipating the return of a top executive from global communications giant Huawei Technologies on Saturday following what amounted to a high-stakes prisoner swap with Canada and the U.S. Meng Wanzhou, 49, Huawei’s chief financial officer and the daughter of the company’s founder, reached an agreement with U.S. federal prosecutors that called for fraud charges against her to be dismissed next year. As part of the deal, known as a deferred prosecution agreement, she accepted responsibility for misrepresenting the company’s business dealings in Iran. The same day, two Canadian citizens held by Beijing were freed and flown back to Canada. Meng was expected to arrive late Saturday in the southern technology hub of Shenzhen, where Huawei is based.

US police departments clamoring for de-escalation training (AP) Angry over being fired, a former employee slashed the tires of his boss’ vehicle and still held the knife when police officers arrived. Three officers positioned themselves at a safe distance as the man yelled and ranted. One officer had a stun gun, another a handgun. The third used the most important tool—a willingness to talk. Here in a school parking lot in Maine, the emergency was fake, but the strategies were very real. The officers were going through a training course offered by the Police Executive Research Forum that thousands of police officers around the country are receiving this year. Officers are taught: keep a safe distance, slow things down. Police officers are asked to do a lot. They’re asked to be roadside psychologists, family counselors, mental health workers—and even soldiers in an active-shooter event, said Saco Police Chief Jack Clements, whose agency hosted the event in New England. That’s why it’s important to rehearse.

Texas migrant camp empty (AP) No migrants are left at a Texas border encampment, about a week after nearly 15,000 people—most of them Haitians—huddled in makeshift shelters hoping for the chance to seek asylum. Some will get that chance, while the others will be expelled to their homeland. The Department of Homeland Security planned to continue flights to Haiti throughout the weekend, ignoring criticism from Democratic lawmakers and human rights groups who say Haitian migrants are being sent back to a troubled country that some left more than a decade ago. Meanwhile, Bruno Lozano, the mayor of Del Rio, Texas, where the camp was located, said officials would search the brush along the Rio Grande to ensure nobody was hiding and finish cleaning the site before reopening the international bridge. Lozano said there were no deaths during the time the camp was occupied and that 10 babies were born to migrant mothers, either at the camp or in Del Rio’s hospital.

In South America, the climate future has arrived (Washington Post) Sergio Koci’s sunflower farm in the lowlands of northern Argentina has survived decades of political upheaval, runaway inflation and the coronavirus outbreak. But as a series of historic droughts deadens vast expanses of South America, he fears a worsening water crisis could do what other calamities couldn’t: Bust his third-generation agribusiness. From the frigid peaks of Patagonia to the tropical wetlands of Brazil, worsening droughts this year are slamming farmers, shutting down ski slopes, upending transit and spiking prices for everything from coffee to electricity. So low are levels of the Paraná running through Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina that some ranchers are herding cattle across dried-up riverbeds typically lined with cargo-toting barges. Raging wildfires in Paraguay have brought acrid smoke to the limits of the capital. Earlier this year, the rushing cascades of Iguazu Falls on the Brazilian-Argentine frontier reduced to a relative drip. The droughts this year are extensions of multiyear water shortages, with causes that vary from country to country. Yet for much of the region, the droughts are moving up the calendar on climate change—offering a taste of the challenges ahead in securing an increasingly precious commodity: water.

UK scrambles for truckers amid supply woe (AP) British energy firms are rationing supplies of gasoline and closing some petrol pumps—the latest in a string of shortages that have seen McDonald’s take milkshakes off the menu, KFC run short of chicken and gaps appear on supermarket shelves. A big factor behind the problems is a lack of truck drivers. The U.K. is short tens of thousands of hauliers, as factors including Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic converge to create a supply-chain crunch. Officials urged motorists not to panic-buy petrol after BP and Esso shut a handful of stations because there were not enough trucks to get gas to the pumps. As concern over the disruption mounts, the haulage industry is pressing the government to loosen immigration rules and recruit more drivers from Europe to avert Christmas shortages. The government is resisting that move, and scrambling to lure more British people into truck driving, long viewed as an underpaid and underappreciated job.

Red hot lava spews from La Palma volcano as eruption intensifies (Reuters) Rivers of lava raced down the volcano and exploded high into the air overnight on the Spanish island of La Palma and the airport was closed as an eruption intensified and entered its most explosive phase so far. Since it began erupting on Sunday on the small island in the Atlantic, the Cumbre Vieja volcano has spewed out thousands of tons of lava, destroyed hundreds of houses and forced the evacuation of nearly 6,000 people. Experts said the volcano had entered a new explosive phase. Videos shared on social media showed a massive shockwave emanating from the eruption site on Friday.

Situation becoming 'dire' at US airbase in Germany housing Afghan refugees (CNN) The task of accommodating 10,000 Afghan refugees, including approximately 2,000 pregnant women, is putting facilities at Ramstein airbase in Germany under tremendous strain as nighttime temperatures drop toward freezing and what was meant to be a 10-day temporary stay is stretching into weeks, with one US source familiar with the situation describing it as becoming "dire." Already 22 babies have been born to Afghan mothers at Ramstein, and that number will rise very soon with roughly two thirds of the 3,000 women being housed there pregnant, requiring the time and effort of medical personnel from Ramstein and other bases, two US sources familiar with the situation at the base told CNN. Even though it's one of the largest US bases in Europe, Ramstein was never designed to handle such a large transient population especially when there are better equipped and larger facilities in the US. One of the sources called the Afghans at Ramstein "the forgotten 10," as the focus has shifted away from the almost 10,000 who remain stuck in limbo in Germany towards some 53,000 Afghan evacuees already housed at eight military bases across the US.

Some in Hungary and Poland talk of EU pullout (AP) When Hungary and Poland joined the European Union in 2004, after decades of Communist domination, their citizens thirsted for Western democratic standards and prosperity. Yet 17 years later, as the EU ramps up efforts to rein in democratic backsliding in both countries, some of the governing right-wing populists in Hungary and Poland are comparing the bloc to their former Soviet oppressors—and flirting with the prospect of exiting the trade bloc. “Brussels sends us overlords who are supposed to bring Poland to order, on our knees,” a leading member of Poland’s governing Law and Justice party, Marek Suski, said this month, adding that Poland “will fight the Brussels occupier” as it fought past Nazi and Soviet occupiers. It’s unclear to what extent this kind of talk represents a real desire to leave the 27-member bloc or a negotiating tactic to counter arm-twisting from Brussels. The two countries are the largest net beneficiaries of EU money, and the vast majority of their citizens want to stay in the bloc.

Refugees in fear as sentiment turns against them in Turkey (AP) Fatima Alzahra Shon thinks neighbors attacked her and her son in their Istanbul apartment building because she is Syrian. The 32-year-old refugee from Aleppo was confronted on Sept. 1 by a Turkish woman who asked her what she was doing in “our” country. Shon replied, “Who are you to say that to me?” The situation quickly escalated. A man came out of the Turkish woman’s apartment half-dressed, threatening to cut Shon and her family “into pieces,” she recalled. Another neighbor, a woman, joined in, shouting and hitting Shon. The group then pushed her down a flight of stairs. Shon said that when her 10-year-old son, Amr, tried to intervene, he was beaten as well. Refugees fleeing the long conflict in Syria once were welcomed in neighboring Turkey with open arms, sympathy and compassion for fellow Muslims. But attitudes gradually hardened as the number of newcomers swelled over the past decade. Anti-immigrant sentiment is now nearing a boiling point, fueled by Turkey’s economic woes. With unemployment high and the prices of food and housing skyrocketing, many Turks have turned their frustration toward the country’s roughly 5 million foreign residents, particularly the 3.7 million who fled the civil war in Syria.

For India’s Military, a Juggling Act on Two Hostile Fronts (NYT) After the deadliest clashes in half a century with China, India’s military has taken emergency measures to reinforce a 500-mile stretch of the border high in the Himalayas. In the past year, it has tripled the number of troops in the contentious eastern Ladakh region to more than 50,000. It has raced to stock up on food and gear for freezing temperatures and 15,000-foot altitudes before the region is largely cut off for much of the winter. It has announced that an entire strike corps, an offensive force of tens of thousands more soldiers, would be reoriented to the increasingly contentious frontier with China from the long, volatile border with Pakistan. India’s military is now grappling with a reality that the country has feared for nearly two decades: It is stuck in a two-front conflict with hostile neighbors—and all three are nuclear armed.

China says all crypto transactions illegal (AP) China’s central bank on Friday declared all transactions involving Bitcoin and other virtual currencies illegal, stepping up a campaign to block use of unofficial digital money. Friday’s notice complained Bitcoin, Ethereum and other digital currencies disrupt the financial system and are used in money-laundering and other crimes. The price of Bitcoin fell more than 9%, to $41,085, in the hours after the announcement, as did most other crypto tokens. Promoters of cryptocurrencies say they allow anonymity and flexibility, but Chinese regulators worry they might weaken the ruling Communist Party’s control over the financial system and say they might help to conceal criminal activity. The People’s Bank of China is developing an electronic version of the country’s yuan for cashless transactions that can be tracked and controlled by Beijing.

8 dead as al-Shabab claims blast in Somalia’s capital (AP) A vehicle laden with explosives rammed into cars and trucks at a checkpoint leading to the entrance of the Presidential Palace in Somalia, killing at least eight people, police said Saturday. The checkpoint is the one used by Somalia’s president and prime minister on their way to and from the airport in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu. Nine other people were wounded in the bombing, police spokesman Abdifatah Adam Hassan said. The al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab extremist group has claimed responsibility.

#headlines #news

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elizabethrobertajones · 7 years

Text

13x08 watching notes

You guys, I literally can't cope with Sam dressing like this much longer. I am being personally attacked. WHo EVEN SELLS ORANGE PLAID.

expectations: best case scenario, some literally unholy lovechild of 7x20 and 12x12.

Heists mean side characters and good heists mean fun side characters. From the promo stuff it looks like we have a couple of quirky side characters, who aesthetically vaguely reminded me of the Doctor Who bank heist episode from the Clara period of the show, just because quirky side characters to bolster a heist episode. It's probably quite easy to beat the mood and justification of ridiculousness from Doctor Who, especially peak Moffatt era nonsense, out of the water, but this is Glynn so I'm expecting good characters, good characterisation, but pooossibly some random plot hole or some sort of back and forth of characters/scenes that's hard to follow that doesn't necessarily hurt the episode but does make it a headache later :P

[note with hindsight: *just hands Glynn a trophy for it and walks off*]

It's essentially the same thing you forgive under Dabb vs cars (aka not a problem unless you make it one), but it doesn't really lend itself to writing a heist either so this is in no way the same level of "Uhoh" as a Buckleming episode but it is a hmmm I hope people aren't arguing in circles about some way the plot worked and ignoring the good stuff when I get online comment :P

I wasn't sure how this fit into the overall picture of wtf the demons were up to before yesterday, but with the promo scene with Bart, selling him as essentially the new (I mean... potentially since season 6) king of the crossroads but maybe not styling himself that way, we may or may not get another overt canon dive like 12x12 showed us how Crowley got his upgrade, to tell us how long this guy has been around behind the scenes (and SENSIBLY staying off the Winchesters' radar), but this character very literally is Crowley2.0 as people have been calling him in the sense that he is what Crowley was when we met him both with the actual job title AND narratively, and in this case probably very content with his job as it is especially with the danger at the very top, and I hope for his sake he doesn't get ambitious, because it would be great to have a character like this survive just for story stability - yeah even though he's another white dude might as well just lump it unless this episode immediately replaces him with someone better but intent on doing the *exact same* job properly - just to have some stability and a second player in the Hell storyline. Especially if they maintain an uneasy relationship with him that he really is the last resort for help Crowley really wasn't since like season 10.

It establishes another position of power in Hell's hierarchy and it's a fairly safe job where a smart demon can accrue a lot of power - Crowley was shown to have a whole bunch of resources and a lot of it predating becoming King of Hell, specifically because it was stuff gathered as a crossroads demon/through controlling that flow of trade. TBH it's better placed than whoever is trying to lead the demons because they have all the resources. I think in 11x23 Crowley said his minions took everything and ran? This dude would be one of the key placed people to do that because he has all the stuff and connections to all the souls collected in deals. Whether that comes up or not I'm just going to assume he did :P

Anyway in the story it creates another character where we basically already know everything about how they function, because Crowley, both on a random world building and originally how Crowley was in the narrative sort of level. It sucks he's getting replaced on a "I did actually quite like him most days" level, and it's definitely a "get 2 people to do the same job 1 man was doing" thing but then the writing had been so bad to Crowley for a couple of years since they ran out of things for him to do that maybe stripping back to basics to get the narrative role he used to offer without all the baggage is sensible >.> If a character takes on so much of a life of their own they can't do the stuff they used to offer without it being an issue like removing any tension about giving them magic things they couldn't obtain themselves, or offering sincere opposition and attempts to kill them from the throne of Hell, then unfortunately for Crowley, this is a great choice. Asmodeus represents all the shit I didn't like that they kept making Crowley do, Bart represents the side of Crowley introduced by Edlund and maintained at least until Edlund left the show (Crowley was his baby even more than Cas was - he just dipped in to write the best Cas episodes but he introduced and pushed Crowley as a character... funnily enough at the end of season 8 both their natures were changed dramatically and permanently). Based on 1 promo scene, I have to admit, Bart is all the bits of Crowley I liked best, while coming across as a bit of a cheap knock off in the way he tries to butter up to the Winchesters, a bit too knowing, a bit too under-informed, while Crowley ran loops around them just in their opening conversation.

OMG it's sleeting so I am going to roll the dice and get a lift to yoga from the same person who plain forgot to pick my mum up and take her wherever they were going for about 2 hours last week when I wisely decided to get the bus. See now I have extra time, the episode is downloaded, but... I don't have enough time. Nooo way :P

Other generic pre-ep thoughts: this concept is goofy but I seriously don't trust it to stay that way because you never trust this show to stay that way. We haven't seen Asmodeus in a non-BL episode and while he is essentially their pet character he's still plot relevant. I'm not exactly on the side of "we HAVE to get Casmodeus before this is all said and done" as in I'd really love it but it seems so easy to bungle in a BL episode. On the other hand, just because Cas is locked up doesn't mean we can't see Misha in an episode while this state of affairs continues (and just because there's no spoilers doesn't mean it's not happening) and Glynn having a crack at Casmodeus sounds like a perfect set up for the kind of stuff we'd want to see out of it, and be a curveball to throw in here.

I'm just going to assume we're not seeing Mary again for a while and this is all set in the main universe.

I assume Jack isn't in the episode but we may or may not get a lead on him at the end, or else be left on "well we have a lead/half a lead on him" because I sort of feel like if he literally breaks the universe next episode after this he'll be pretty easy to find again :P

This may all be some way to force some conversations about how Dean and Sam feel about Jack on the other side of the turning point, especially if it's our last chance for them to be in the limelight until the other side of Wayward Sisters midseason fun. And if Jack has broken the universe next episode, we need to have their current stances laid out before they go rushing in to deal with that. So this could be a fairly light episode for character discussion.

HI back from yoga

the recap immediately gets into Jack stuff so hey maybe he is in the episode, maybe it's just explaining better why he is not in this episode because the reason why NOT is just as important.

Then just way too much having to recap last episode to get us up to date on what Sam and Dean have been through with all that. I like that they included that Ketch said he was his own twin considering Dean says "twinsies" in the promo scene, as, of course, this may be a really important theme. Twins that aren't actually twins. Cas and the Empty, Ketch and "Alexander", Dean and Crowley2.0, Dean being fed up of things that look like other things and the shapeshifter & ghoul...

Anyway. "NOW" - Cambridge, England. Okay then. Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuure. *rubs a Union Jack on it to make it more British*

This is your weekly reminder to read these notes in a shrill British accent.

Whoever this is outside looks like she's up to something.

This mueseum:

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/130991708770/justanotheridijiton-jerry-wanek-on-supernatural

I'm not gonna read into that immediately because its been completely dressed up for the vampire!Dean episode and it's been polished up for this episode. But we get a long look at the stained glass roof and that was a centrepiece for the vamp episode.

*she continues to be up to something*

Wow, great security. Bust open a door and no alarms go off? It's the 2nd door that doesn't work, after Dean failed to get the automatic door to open for him in 13x05.

Mmmm drawers of old scrolls and spooooky writing.

Just... shove it in your handbag.

Oh yep she's a demon, that's surprising.

This is a great way to do a robbery, tbh. Ethics about possession aside, you can burn a vessel and let them take whatever physical damage or legal ramifications of being found in the room where something was stolen, but if you run into problems, just possess the next person. Especially someone with clearance, if you couldn't find them earlier...

I suppose her not being able to open the door earlier was an omen for her not having all the information - not knowing that Bart was going to stab her as soon as he had what he wanted from her, and that she wasn't working for Asmodeus's whim at all, but Bart was going rogue with it. This is another suggestion of the dramatic irony at work - Dean couldn't open the door, he had no faith, and it seemed like to HIM that no one was helping him. But of course Cas had already come back, the automatic door had opened in that sense, but he didn't know so he's encountering this block. This demon powers through it as well without setting off any alarm bells and she should have had some about the whole double cross coming. Likewise, Dean's surprised by Cas's return.

Bart establishes himself as a Crowley-alike instantly, by having a random demon minion to double cross, and to go to the Winchesters. He already has Dean on speed dial which means his number must get circulated among the demons, or Bart has sought it out already from their sources. Whether he's had it a while and just decided to pounce...

I guess it's also like the opposite of Cas phoning him and we don't hear that side of the conversation - I mean we hear Dean on the phone here, but we're staying on Bart's side of the camera, and he's enticing him in with what he needs to find Jack. Again, more dark mirrors of stuff that's already happened... Dean getting a lot of phonecalls he needs to follow his faith on.

Dean immediately on screen in his bi plaid doing that thing with the gun that's... suggestive. Sitting there obessesively cleaning his gun.

Sam emerges, in a shirt that is going to be a Problem.

*mutes Sam*

Sam was the one who talked to Cas. I wonder if Asmodeus phoned Sam up rather than the other way around. Like, don't be suspicious, just check in every day and see how they're doing... Just phone one of the brothers at random.

Anyway we already know, of course, that it's not Cas, and here we are with more dramatic irony, the same problem as Casifer before they knew, and it's underlined by Sam being the one to talk to Casmodeus instead of Dean. Fewer opportunities based on what we see on screen for Dean to work it out.

And now we see the other side of the phonecall, tracking back in time to show us the same thing over again, but now we have Dean's POV on it too and he's not at this disadvantage, at least, with the way it's all been set up. He gets to snark back etc although Bart has the right word to stop Dean hanging up on him.

I do like the snark about Hell street locations :P

Sam's like "a demon!" whispered even though it's obvious and I think Dean clued into it which means once again Sam's being the GA, or a filter for them, and even though he says it silently, he's still spelling out what he thinks it is when it's blatantly obvious to us what it is as we watched the cold open and his side of the start of the phone call already.

"if I had a way to find *your boy*" - that parenting theme again, and he's addressing it to Dean since that's who he thinks he's solely on the phone to.

We get a look at a ton of shop fronts and I suppose they're all made up?

The Smile Diner is already incongruously happy - more irony, just that it's all smiles for what would be an understandably tense meeting.

Anyway: "BANGTOWN beauty & barber" "Fine art bartending LEARN TO BARTEND", a restaurant...

A Chinese-owned phone shop "Ketaiya" which I suppose is selling phones, as it says "iphone8.8" in the window but also would fit an idea of calling home, as shops like this exist for most immigrant populations, as a place where they can make cheap phonecalls home. In this part of the country I'm most used to seeing Arabic, Slavic or Eastern European versions of this but I assume it's the same deal. We get cage imagery over the front of this shop, obviously as protection for it as it has a bunch of iphones in it, but the idea that Cas can't call them because he's in prison is right there, and it makes him the lil green mascot in the window.

And then the smile cafe is the next thing along. :)

"He could work for Asmodeus" smart, but wrong *as far as we know*, and Sam is like "what if he's telling the truth", so this scepticism seems to be flipping their roles from last episode, buuut on the other hand Dean is being defensive and practical and Sam is again entertaining things villains tell them.

"After Crowley I told myself no more demons" it STILL sounds like bitter but civil exes. And you'd bet that "after Crowley" is not "in the last month since he died" but "since that time we had a wild elopement"

but hanging a lampshade on exactly what Bart is doing for them in the narrative, and of course that Dean is going to be predisposed to see him as a Crowley2.0 exactly as we do, so that adds even more depth to the promo scene.

Sam like "you said we need a miracle, maybe this is it" and then Dean calling out that demons don't give miracles - they give deals they can SELL as miracles. Who of the two of you has been jerked around more by demon deals? Oh yeah the one of you who sold your soul because your father's demon deal spiritually broke you already. (I mean yeah Sam has had it PLENTY hard in other ways but Dean and crossroads demons is a very different story to Sam)

"Let's hear the guy out." "And after that we kill him."

I continue to be enraged that Dean is wearing sensible black and at least MUTED purples and Sam's wearing the orange jacket and a plaid with like, hazard day glo orange strips sewn into it.

:) Smile Diner :)

it's horrifying, but it has homemade burgers. I have no clue if this is something they scouted out or repainted but the brickwork having yellow lines is like WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING in film language, like DO NOT ENTER police tape coding. IRL it would be whimsical, especially with all the smilies. On screen, it it horrifying. There's red signage and green neon boxing the window I think they're gonna sit in, and red and green are the poison codependency colours I think? According to Zerbe? I don't know if that's the dynamic here but it's certainly not GOOD, especially boxed in by yellow and black hazard warnings.

There's a pretty bridge and a sunset/rise in the sign. It's incongruous to the smile theme at least because it doesn't directly relate to smiling, and is just a random image. I would assume it's symbolic in some way... Cas is of course the sun, this does mimic the Gas n Sip logo (especially as it has a maroon version), and the road seems to lead away from the sun across the bridge. They're not helping Cas going in here, that's for sure :P

Lots of potted plants in here, and one behind Bart.

"The famous Winchesters!" "Some random demon." Dean is in a power play with him and now they're face to face rather than at a disadvantage over the phone, he's gonna win this one. Watch.

Bart offers a nickname to them, which could be a power play to say hey I'm so powerful we get on nickname terms because I allow you and you should be grateful or whatever, but his name sounds like an old powerful demon name (he and Asmodeus both have old school "us" endings to their names) and so he's actually neutering the part that makes his name sound powerful and impressive. He may be preempting Dean's infamous nicknaming habit, but Dean does it to be dismissive or to humanise. And he's not gonna get the latter treatment :P

Again, offering them to sit and then trying to get Dean on his side with pie - gesture after gesture of power, being the one in control, and knowing them, and the pie is the first sign he's done his Winchester Homework, which bad guys notoriously get wrong or misread. In this case, he's got Dean down as the stupid dumb muscle who can be bribed with pie, and I assume missing aaall the complexity of why demons fear him so much.

He labels Dean a "disrupter" when Dean has been tasked with maintaining the natural order. Dean has only ever tried to STOP bad stuff happening, and though he's ACCIDENTALLY helped unleash a bunch of stuff, it's never been because he WANTS to. He's helped cause a lot of the disruption in Hell with his actions, but that's because Hell is bad and he wants to stop it doing bad things. In general Dean's big victories have been to try and secure the natural order staying as it is, with his two biggest victories being Swan Song and settling things with God and Amara.

I love how the framing here has all that green light behind the Winchesters, but aside from a line of green behind Bart's head, he's got this innocent white flowery wall and some roses behind him.

Again, Sam snatches up the spell, Dean doubts immediately, I guess if not that the spell is real that why a demon would just GIVE it to him without ulterior motives. Just be upfront about the ulterior motives :P

He re-introduces himself as first a cross-roads demon and then THE cross-roads demon, a clarification again. He doesn't say king of the crossroads, but he does smirk at Dean, and says helping people is what he does... Yeah, to a degree. They have to PAY for it. But it's that smarmy salesman charm, this time mixed with someone who looks like a thug boss, the sort who dresses nice but has goons.

I mean we KNOW he does, but his look is very typical of nice suit, close-cropped hair, and just generally heavy set like he's used to being intimidating more than relying on his words, when you go to cast this guy.

Dean says they don't listen to/help demons, just kill them, and for one thing Bart's got to know about Crowley, but he says "How Dean of you" like he knows Dean is the one who just threatens to/will kill demons and not think about it. I mean Dean could be showing he's learned from experience. But of course then, the great meta about him negging Dean, by switching focus to Sam, who's already been established even before they get in the diner that he's going to be more willing to listen, that he's the "smart one" aka the one more likely to make a bad decision by listening to people he shouldn't while trying to help.

And, of course, Dean eats his pie, and we already made the parallels to other scenes like this in diners, but Ishim stands out the most, throwing money at Dean to shut up and buy himself some pie. In this case the pie is already here, and Dean's allowed to be suspicious but also eat the pie because hey, it's here.

Bart treated Dean like he was the stupid pie guy so Dean, who doesn't trust him an inch, acts like the stupid pie guy, while not giving any ground. He is not bribed by the pie, but Sam can't believe Dean's eating it.

There's a world of metaphor there about Dean and seduction. Because of course Bart came on strong to Dean, but Dean wasn't buying that either, the coded second layer of the conversation about him being Crowley2.0 and thinking maybe he can find a way to unlock Dean's interest in dudes... by offering pie of course. Doesn't work like that, you have to earn it. And the coming on too strong is the first weakness he has in not measuring up to Crowley, despite how it all seems like he has the ~perfect plan~ in place.

They're STIIIILL in these shirts

Wow, that's some old Biblical stuff. Guess that explains why Dabb tweeted that, pretty quickly. I don't know much about the Queen of Shiba but the idea she's a nephilim is kind of amusing.

I'll have to leave that to the experts but anyway, more douchey guys, although this time King Solomon is keeping tabs on someone like a dick, so um. Welcome to the club of symbolism this part of the season? I assume this is the same guy from the Song of Solomon that we saw Jack glance at in 13x02, and it's more romantic stuff as well.

Sam's like "Jack is out there in the world, and he's alone and he's scared and he's dangerous", which is exactly Dean's stance from 13x01 saying better to keep Jack in the Bunker with them so the only people he'd hurt are them. Yes Sam still seems to care about Jack, but he is also now valuing him practically, and seeing he's dangerous, and it's caused this flip in his attitude to one mirroring Dean's but obviously with much less hate and upset about what happened to Cas etc

Heist HQ!

Quirky random demons! Hat and headphone demons.

Hahahah they're called Smash and Grab. Smash has flowery DMs so I love her. Grab is wearing that hat voluntarily so I am not so sure about him at all.

PS: in America has flipping the bird with 2 fingers become a thing or was that a peace sign? When I was a young'un I was told that you always had to do peace signs palm out because showing the back of your hand with the exact same gesture was as bad/worse than giving someone the finger.

Is Smash human? Since he said Grab is a demon that leaves an empty space over what she is.

Lol, Dean realising it's a heist. "What is this, a heist? Hold on, is this a heist?"

Hahahahahha his favourite My Little Pony... Come on Dean, you kept the little pony you cut off that car in 7x06. You literally can not throw stones in this house.

Luther Shrike looks like if he was on UK TV he'd be played by the guy who played Walder Frey (David Bradley).

There's some stuff on the board that looks like the Sumerian(?) that Kevin translated the angel tablet into. Since we already had Kevin back on screen, it seems superfluous to mention, but it gives me a 4 in a row for mentioning Kevin in an episode this season so BINGO and more dramatic irony that Sam and Dean don't know he's responsible for Lucifer coming back, or, indeed, that Lucifer is back.

(With a bonus grumble from me that it's a reminder, in this season about a nephilim, that we still don't know what the angel fall spell's specific wording was)

Oh boy the "hell and back" thing. Ouch. So we're apparently delving THIS now? Is this penance for 11x10 and Dean not seeming too bothered to go back down there aside from token nervousness about the whole thing in the acting? Anyway getting flashbacks to that out of the blue... Look I am a smol sensitive Dean girl you can't just throw that at me. D:

It's interesting the perhaps king of the crossroads can't swing this with a random soul. I would assume it's specifically blood of someone CONDEMNED to Hell and saved/brought back. And woah I have it paused right after the flashback to collect myself, but either this has to get a Cas mention or it's one heck of an empty space in the story that Cas saved Dean and is the reason he's viable for this.

And lol lol lol lol see above like THREE PARAGRAPHS AGO I am never ever going to be over the angel fall spell and the fact it required grace in such... suspicious... circumstances of nephilim and cupids, and the whole theme of clarification, and how we have these such specific spells - virgin blood in 12x22, archangel grace last episode, and human who has been to hell and back now...

I'm just saying, I'm gonna be on my deathbed when I'm 150 like "the angel fall spell needed the grace of an angel in love with a human, come fight me, Carver" and then I give up the ghost just so I can go beat him up in the afterlife.

Bart beams at Dean, wanting his blood. Dean offers it up just to get this over and done with, but he says, no, straight from the tap and anyway you two are extremely competent in a weird crisis, why the heck would I not exploit that I need your manpower for this?

Shrike is human who has been to hell and back - obviously a dark Dean mirror because apparently he's a sadist and murderer, and Dean's entire thing is whether he's a killer or not for doing this job he does and I have gifsets and meta blahing on and on about that but yeah basically 2x03 set up that for Dean about how you do the job because you like/need killing or you do it to save people, and his torturer arc, and his Mark of Cain/demon descent... Nuff said for now.

UGH so Sam pulls Dean aside and says, "we want that spell - we NEED that spell" which is a huge clarification, and literally the want/need theme you are probably aware I bang on about a weeeeeeeeeeeee little bit. In general it's the "use your words" theme which does not harm Sam for the reminder but also is a huge Destiel theme because the need/want thing is from the crypt scene/10x19 with the call out on the crypt scene from Dean's subconscious and the ongoing issue of whether Cas feels needed or wanted, with the fact he feels "needed" called out in OH WAIT 13x04, aka last time out for Glynn... the fact the clarification is coming now in the other direction is because this is a Sam thing anyways, and - UGH I have it paused with him on screen and he seems to have an even worse shirt on? - it's not about Destiel subtext for him it's just using your words and in general bolstering the presence of the theme. Of course they don't just want the spell for kicks, they have a serious reason for needing it. In fact Sam's concern about Jack going from emotional concern for Jack himself to seeing Jack as a dangerous crisis is encapsulated in turning a desire into an obligation.

"He'll never see us coming"

"they're coming"

More dramatic irony, immediately showing us that on the other side of the story the bad guy has more information than they think he does, and that they aren't going to have it as easy as they think. That Bart has already been made as a traitor and that Asmodeus knows his next move will be exactly this.

Asmodeus may not even be *on screen* in this episode and he's being written as more intelligent than he has been in both Buckleming episodes, which is super unfortunate that he's supposed to be an intelligent character and we have to judge the characterisation of these unfortunates who are main BL property off their depiction in OTHER episodes...

And yeah Shrike may chat with demons but he has demon traps, exorcisms memorised and he toes the line of a horrible human being but not demonic himself, but such a hair's breadth away that demons and demon interactions and generally knowing wtf is going on with demons is just his life.

He has a really pretty grate which I think is specifically in the hall so that he can exorcise demons out through it. It probably goes straight to Hell

His windows also have bars on them which look like random jumble to an unfamiliar eye but are of course iron warding

I think he also has grapevines. He lives on a vineyard with barbed wire and demon traps on the gates.

The metalwork is the coolest thing in this episode and this episode is not half bad so far

Oh my god Dean called out poor Smash for her amazing boots and called her "Winona" - she DOES bear a passing resemblance, but hey leave the boots alone.

Anyway that moment just to show they're top and tail under a blanket in the back of the Impala which is pretty funny to me - I'm never sure you can actually fit anyone in there like that but they want to prove me wrong.

I'm like 1000% sure Sam's ruse doesn't work, because Shrike knows they're coming but he's let in anyway because why not. Let's have some fun. Interesting that Sam's the one made to do this. Having to lie and we already KNOW he's been caught out.

Anyway more focus on the boots... 3 times and I'm super worried we're gonna have to identify some remains by the flowery boots >.>

Or more positively it could be used to fuck with us in some way

"Dean? Don't get dead." "you too." Aw.

Is Grab in the trunk of the car?

Iron warded door. Yeah, that's normal.

For these guests, the rug is pulled back, the demon trap is plain to see on the floor. We see Sam from above, like he's being watched.

Shrike's front room/office is like Metatron's desk? I swear he had that lamp. Cuthbert's house... I swear that's Bobby's wallpaper or one in a similar hue with appropriately similar patterns to at least make a sort of sense of familiarity.

Awww Dean and Smash. He calls her weird but then spots she's drinking the delightful sounding does what it says on the tin NERVE DAMAGE, and then he says he used to live on it as a kid, despite its illegal amounts of caffeine.

Ew and she's getting it expired on ebay.

Dean, she may be bonding with you, but don't drink it. It's literally called Nerve Damage.

Welp

he's gonna be bouncing off the walls after 1 sip

OH they have to summon Grab I guess?

"Cool."

Hahahaha

Dean's babysitting the weirdoes.

Heh, calls Dean "chief"

HAHAHAHA Smash told Grab off screen that Dean was just a pretty face :P

WHOOPS looks like Dean just got puppeted by his own blood. Like a couple of weeks ago or something I was writing about a worst case scenario for Jack's powers being that they completely overwhelm him and he's like, inside waiting to be busted out, perhaps as a conclusion of the crypt scene/swan song repetitions from an external evil possessing and controlling to an internal force making it happen - a slow process but it really has switched, and it has been a fairly smooth slope down :D

Also that was hilarious. Poor Dean.

Dean's being poisoned with NERVE DAMAGE and Sam's being poisoned with homemade gin. If that's what it really is.

Hahahahahah Sam picking up a basilisk fang. We've all seen Harry Potter

LOL Sam knows random knowledge about basilisks and gorgons. Of course it's a test, and Shrike would know what it was, but good on Sam for recognising it. I watched Tall Tales so recently I'm still giggling about him recognising a crocodile belly scale, but now I just think Sam has an affinity for identifying the weirder monsters. He must have read a load of junk about them in the MoL bunker.

His persona as the collector guy wanting to sell to Shrike is basically Sam but with a bit more nervous bluster, which might be explained by knowing how dangerous this guy is and that Sam is having to pretend. He's not even wearing clothes as a get up here.

OH BOY Sam's big gambit is Ruby's knife... I remember in my 8x02 watching notes (hi Dabb) I was amused that they kind of forget that that knife is one of the most valuable things they own and they just dropped it in the weapon bin with a warning, rather than considering even trading it for the tablet or whatever even as a ruse... Just the idea they go around laden with magical artefacts that help them all the time like this which would actually be priceless to collectors - like in 12x06 Asa having an angel blade on blue felt in a glass case.

I don't think there's been a strong bias about which one of them has an angel blade and which one still uses this knife in fights since Carver era, but Dean took it to Purgatory, while Sam seemed to have more consistent possession of it for a while, Dean was the one who wrangled it from Ruby in 3x16 and sort of formally took ownership of it on behalf of the Winchesters.

Given the emotional background to this season of Sam's powers being explored through Jack, though, it is interesting (since they have enough angel blades they could just swap to using them all the time instead of this knife, which is a relic of Sam's darkest times) to just give it up, but quite aside from its worth to the right market, it has an enormous emotional weight of the season 3-4-5 drama for the Winchesters, and remembering it as Ruby's knife ties it to Sam. He still uses her knife and keeps her memory close, perhaps just as a reminder. But that weight is there and bringing it up is a reminder of all that, because so often we just see it as a tool, but this is asking us to stop and CONSIDER what that knife actually means, how much it's worth, and how even though they could stop using it these days, they don't, but what it would mean to Sam to give it up.

Dean reeeally not getting along with Grab. Who, of course, is the demon in this mix. The fact Smash is not a demon is only brought up in that scene where Dean is talking about her working with demons - it's taken for granted that she's human and perhaps that is the default, but not when you're expecting a room full of demons as we might be when meeting them. So. More empty space fill in the blanks, use context and people using or not using definitions to not be surprised that she's human.

Anyway Grab calls Sam stupid and Dean gets so angry he stops and turns around even though the spell's been dragging him along so there's a ridic Swan Song mirror for the collection - while "puppeted" by the spell, "defensiveness" of his brother halts Dean's progress...

Aaaand he's off again. Not enough? :P

Hey creepy underground cellars. That's never bad.

LOL Dean gets called HANDPUPPET

Mr Fizzles can tell when you're being a liaaaaaaaaaaaaaar

"I will kill you." "I bet you say that to all the girls." Awww and here was I thinking Dean wouldn't get flirted with any more this episode.

That was literally from the Crowley handbook - 9x10/9x11 made a huge point out of it.

This murder cellar connects to 12x01, 12x12, and 12x20, with the cellars being where Sam was kept and the twig people were made, and 12x12 for the basement Ramiel kept his shit in. Crossing them all over into this is super fun.

I guess this is where Smash does her thing?

GREAT door.

I hope that thing doesn't bite

It almost certainly bites

Oooh Shrike thinks Sam is a demon.

He didn't see him not get stuck in the demon trap out in the hall.

He has some of the info but not ALL of the info - in this way, while Bart sent them to deal with curveballs, Sam has turned out to be the curveball instead.

Ow that's a big hole to blow in the books, that were nearly Sam.

He conveniently slides back to his knife.

On the other hand re: curveballs, if Shrike thinks he's a demon, that shotgun blast wouldn't have killed a demon but it will kill a Sam.

Sam just goes and stabs the dude.

"As long as I'm on my property I can't die."

Well that's annoyingly cheaty

I wonder if it's symbolic of something but I can't instantly link it to anything so I have to move on.

There's something very like the Cain stuff with Dean in 9x11 between Sam and this guy, especially as they matched up as equals in knowledge about gorgons or whatever earlier.

MAW

DEAN LOOKS INTO THE MAW

Dean does not like spiders.

Hard same.

Why is he always so relatable

I'm cackling so much at his reluctance to put his hand in there. It's like the not wanting to go in the hole in 13x06 but so much funnier because... spiders.

There was an eel tank at the local aquarium when I was a kid which had a game EMBEDDED in the side of the eel tank to put your hand in and feel what an eel feels like.

I'm having, like. PTSD flashbacks to this and the Tiger Head in the museum which terrified the living daylights out of us as children and we wouldn't even go past it because it looked so fierce with its big open mouth

this is literally combining two of The Most Horrifying Things about my childhood into one

Plus biting for blood = needles to draw blood which is a rather more recent thing what with recently coming down with a mystery chronic illness and spending 2 years fishing around for a diagnosis via endless blood drawing, so put that one on the list

I believe in you, Dean. You're stronger than me.

He's stronger than me

I love him more than I have ever loved him in this exact moment

He had to account for the fact that Shrike might regularly go in here so of course it won't take YOUR HAND or something.

Of course it's a massive suspense thing for a teeny weeny pinprick. Of course.

This is like the dead opposite of the Werther Box - it's just a key for the lock, not like... the entire murderous thing Cuthbert designed

NINJA reflexes to save Smash there

Bye Grab. You were a dick.

OH NOES Shrike is here, with the demon knife, covered in blood. That's not worrying for Dean to see AT ALL.

Smash just legs it.

Awww she seemed to care about Grab at least a little... They had matchy matchy names.

Dean wants to go watch Game of Thrones.

Walder Frey knock off prefers to read the books

how did Sam get here.

I'm gonna assume like... not!Sam for now, since he saved the day so fortuitously.

Bart lurkin' outside.

Not surprising at all that Smash has a deal with him. I doubt he's letting her off easy, either, she's going to be sent right back.

Does Shrike just walk through this thing and ignore all the darts because they can't kill him?

"Shrek"

Sam sure has some quick and easy insights into the keypad.

"Like in Entrapment"

"Did you just say Entrapment?"

... Did Sam just get busted over his pop culture knowledge, by Dean, slower on the uptake than what I thought was weird for Sam?

Omg they're sending Shrike through because the darts can't kill him. This is ridiculous

That *was* ridiculous, but funny

Winchester problem solving.

Awwwww Smash is back, if it's really her.

Sam figures out she has a deal.

He also has a real side-eye of Dean. If he's actually Sam I got to re-evaluate him through this section :P

If not, I have another case of something impersonating Sam while doing The Eyebrows

More horrifying: this is Sam actually doing The Eyebrows

Oh god it's full daylight all of a sudden and Sam's plaid

is orange

under the orange jacket

I hate Sam Winchester

undying feud levels

Guess this is the edge of the property where he can't be killed? Be hilarious if they get him over the line somehow to kill him

STUNT DRIVING

Suddenly backstory and emotional music plays.

Starting to think nothing’s up with Sam though, like, if he actually was replaced or not, because it was really funny imagining it and not letting them get the drop on me if it happened, and Sam being called out on his references etc, but we're getting pretty far into it all like leaving the property, having this moment, etc, so maybe it was just a fake out and Sam BAMF'd himself free off-screen or was never even tied up

Seems to just be a story of life, though that Shrike's kid died so soon after he was saved, and it was a "waste" of a demon deal. He seems like he must have already been a certain sort of person to know how to MAKE the deal...

What's in the trunk...

Ooh I wondered if it would be as soon as Bart wasn’t forthcoming. So a 6x04 parallel as well (or 6x10, which dealt a lot more with them having to work for Crowley).

Oooh they were off the property. WHOOPS. It *was* the gates. I thought so but I didn't figure he'd be so stupid to face them head on.

Although it was over Bart's bones so it was a risk he had to take to leave?

And now we have a new problem :P

Awww poor Smash

And there's the rest of the spell. Do they take it?

Oookay I was thinking Sam would have to be Sam for this part and he and Dean are making emotional decisions together and Sam's picking the correct path so... I guess I have to assume 100% this is Sam again? Mittens isn't talking to me about stuff from this episode like there's too many spoilers for her to humour me about stuff. Even what I thought were silly things.

And now Smash/Alice is in peril after they made the decision that they do not want to get involved in Bart's shit because he's a shitty person.

Bye bye Bart :3 Nice move, Dean.

So basically, yep, Bart tried so hard to be what Crowley was to Dean in their opening interaction and all his set up to come across as like... something Dean had been missing? That Dean might WANT a demon ally to be on the hook with/have on his hook, even just have on his SPEED DIAL, because to him that probably meant being able to manipulate the Winchesters and so on...

But as I figured from the opening, he just completely underestimates them, including that Dean is way way way waaaay smarter than he gives him credit for, so OF COURSE Dean wins by outsmarting him, by doing what soulless!Sam STOPPED Dean from doing in 6x04 and just torching Crowley on the spot because what did they REALLY owe him and how much loyalty could you really have from a demon as uneasy business partners... So Dean outwits him, and in a move almost exactly like 13x06 he sets up the tools and someone else gets the kill but it's Dean who outsmarted the monster.

And whooops half of half a spell? Not even half... it's all gone.

Whoooops. Well at least they saved Alice. And they're putting her on a bus, as they usually do with characters they won't see again.

There's like 2 minutes left, which is always an ominous sign.

Anyway *waves goodbye to Alice*

*Dean pats Sam on the shoulder and we get the last look at Sam smiling*

Aaand to the Bunker, where Dean is getting them some beers while wearing his black Henley.

Like the whole thing resolved with that dude and Bart is dead and all (... they better find someone to replace him although constantly subbing in random "I'm the new king of the crossroads" characters might get a bit ridiculous, we know there's going to be an opening someone will take... I really hope that was a cue to get us to whoever takes over... If not they just make it even more frustrating that I’ve been waiting 7 years to know if someone replaced Crowley or he was doing both jobs, and now it’s made even more clear there’s a job for a secondary powerful demon in hell to show up in this role and the head crossroads demon is a serious position with power and such... It’s such a frustrating hole in the world building to overlook and I've been over-thinking it for longer than I’ve been on tumblr by a good few years.)

anyway Sam n Dean are talking

Is Sam going to explain how he escaped from being knocked out and showed up with perfect timing, or was that the plot hole?

Nah, they just have a nice talk about the job and how saving people is fun, and all. And Dean being optimistic. Yay! It's a similar call out to 13x06 and why Dean was so obscenely happy in the cowboy room, but Sam is now seeing that Dean is permanently feeling better even in ridiculous situations, and his mood really has permanently resettled to optimism and cheerfulness again and it is NOT just the cowboys.

Okay so I probably need to watch the last part of the episode again but I am now weirdly curious about what happened to Sam - though we know he's great at escaping things, but Shrike put his life into doubt to Dean, and we had no reason to assume he'd leave Sam in a place where he could easily get out, I'm guessing now that the way he showed up looking like he COULD have just killed and/or maimed Sam with that bloody knife, and I even pointed out that to DEAN'S eyes it would look sooo much worse than if it was as simple as Shrike knocked Sam out, and immediately legged it to the safe to check on it while just hoping unconsciousness would be enough to keep Sam down. (He has an iron skull after being knocked out so many times - like that thing where you kung fu your hands to have tons of micro fractures in order for the bones to heal stronger? That's Sam's head.)

He seemed to be put into question after he showed up again and I began to doubt it again as soon as they left the property because it would make no sense to leave Sam behind and just take a fake with them for the emotional resolution of the episode. Especially once they got into it and it was blatantly a straightforward emotional resolution to the episode that Sam had too much of a stake in for it NOT to be him at that point.

BUT Dean questioned Sam's reference to a thing right after he showed back up, while Sam was coming up with some hilarious ideas for solving things in a way written which you COULD think he was not!Sam and someone with more info/their own stake in this (e.g. the worry Asmodeus was coming) just because it was Sam at his most mercenary to come up with the "just send the guy who can't die over the traps to spring them all" plan... We KNOW Sam can be like that but at the same time... Sam being like that can also be some other person who would think like that as the LEAST WORST thing they thought that day instead of the actual worst.

Anyway it was all set up in such a way that Dean calling out something he didn't expect about Sam means he's questioning the people around him when they behave uncharacteristically - because he KNOWS his loved ones. He understands when they aren't behaving like themselves. He gets a secret out of Sam that he watched something he'd never normally watch just for Catherine Zeta-Jones, which Dean has to concede, while struggling with how much to mock Sam. It's interesting they use the empty space of Sam arriving without explanation to cast him into doubt, then have him doubted, verbally putting something out there that Dean stopped to question what Sam was saying. They brush it off, and it ends up being nothing, but considering the looming possibility of Casmodeus - and the fact that Sam started the episode saying he'd talked to Cas so they have literally been decieved THIS episode without knowing it (and Dean didn't get to verify if it was Cas or not - another reason to phone Sam instead of Dean)...

I wonder if it is leading up to Dean calling out Casmodeus about not being Cas? That this fake out might have been a time it really was Sam, but we and Dean were given a set up to doubt Sam was there in one piece, us with dramatic irony and Dean with just plain not knowing, and so they could play with this concept and it just tapers off - maybe we take the reaction about C Z-J as proof, maybe we eventually decide Sam has to be Sam after all and there's nothing going on here because he's involved earnestly in the emotional decisions at the end of the episode.

But it was interesting. Unlike with Ketch and his twin, it was the sort of set up where I wasn't certain we wouldn't finish the scene and then cut to Sam tied to a chair and bouncing it over to a nearby sharp object to saw himself free and run and stop the drama, at least until the end of that part of the episode. Once we were back out in the clear light of day it was like Sam's disgusting plaid was all the proof we needed it was really him :P

#13x08 #season 13 spoilers #*quietly sets Sam's wardrobe on fire*#my stuff

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ebaeschnbliah · 7 years

Text

EVERY QUIVER OF HIS BEATING HEART .....

__________________________________________________

Am I the current king of England ... or are we here to see the queen?

Just like Mycroft is strongly connected with the term 'QUEEN', Sherlock is more than once connected to the 'KING'. In a way, both ot them represent 'ENGLAND/LONDON' with Mycroft as the Government, Sherlock as the countly, the city, the body ... and Baker Street 221b as the metaphorical heart of it. The voice given to that heart seems to be Mrs. Hudson but also John.

Mrs Hudson leave Baker Street? England would fall.

Once in a while Mycroft, in his function as government (brain), turns up - spying, controlling, offering dubious cases. Then John Watson moves in and 'takes the room upstairs'. John just came back from the East - from the battlefields of Afghanistan - scarred and badly wounded. Walking at the side of Sherlock Holmes, he sets his feet now onto a different kind of 'battlefield' ... as the brain tells him.

Most people blunder round this city, and all they see are streets and shops and cars. When you walk with Sherlock Holmes, you see the battlefield. You’ve seen it already, haven’t you?

On another day in the story Sherlock comes back from the East as well - from imprisonment and torture in Serbia - scarred and wounded himself. Most urgently summoned by his brain (Mycroft) because 'there's going to be a terror strike on London - a big one'. (terrorists=emotions)

Just put me back in London. I need to get to know the place again, breathe it in – feel every quiver of its beating heart.

Sherlock clearly enjoys HIS big city ... London. Seems he is indeed a 'city boy' just like his mirror Edward Van Coon in TBB. It doesn't seem likely that Sherlock could bear to live somewhere else for a longer period of time.

London. It’s like a great cesspool into which all kinds of criminals, agents and drifters are irresistibly drained.

And it looks like John Watson has very similar feelings where London is concerned ...

I returned to England with my health irretrievably ruined and my future bleak. Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are drained.

But of course, this is from TAB and therefore in Sherlock's own head. What goes on in his head though? Is he considering how John might have felt upon returning from the war in Afghanistan .... or is he reliving his own return from his own 'war' back in TEH?

And then - when Sherlock, John and Mycroft encounter the 'final problem' - all three of them decide to be soldiers that day. Even Mycroft .....

JOHN: Today we have to be soldiers, Mycroft, soldiers ...

SHERLOCK: Soldiers today.

SHERLOCK: Soldiers? JOHN: Soldiers.

MYCROFT: Today, we are soldiers.

Playing once more with a methaphorical reading of Sherlock BBC where England/London represents Sherlock's body. It's part of a thread I decided to call 'Sherlock deducing Sherlock'. And of course, this is just one of several threads running through this story ... side by side .... every single one telling a different story.

More under the cut ... mostly vexillology and history but also lions and dragons .... beware ..... :))))

England/London ... the body ... Sherlock

The government ... the brain ... Mycroft

221b Baker Street ... the heart ... John

How the flag of England came into being ... the Union Jack

The flag combines aspects of three older national flags. The first version dates back to 1606 when James VI of Scotland united the crowns of Engalnd, Scotland and Ireland in a personal union, although the three kingdoms remained separate states. (X)

the white saltire on blue background of St Andrew to represent Scotland

the red saltire on white background of St Patrick to represent Ireland

the red cross on white background of St George for the Kingdom of England,

Saint George's cross

Its first documented use was as the ensign of the Republic of Genoa. Later it was used by cursaders. The cross ceased to be a symbol directly associated with the "taking of the cross", the resolve to fight in a crusade, after the failure of the crusades in the 14th century.

The St. George's flag, was adopted by England and the City of London in 1190 for their ships entering the Mediterranean to benefit from the protection of the Genoese fleet.

From 1348 and throughout the 15th century, the Saint George's Cross was shown in the hoist of the Royal Standards of the Plantagenet kings of England. The combined flag form 1606 was initially for maritime display, later restricted to the King's ships.

The symbol has since been adopted as the emblem of several countries and cities which have or had Saint George as a patron saint, notably the Republic of Genoa, the Duchy of Milan, England, Wales and Georgia in the Caucasus Mountains of Eastern Europe. (X)

Georgia and Tiblisi

Regarding Sherlock BBC several important things happen in this country. In fact, Georgia is (though just for some short scenes) more heavily featured than any other country in this story appart from Great Britain itself.

That's Tiblisi. Isn't it beautiful?

The legendary Black Pearl of the Borgias is stolen from a secret vault

The ambassador and her husband are taken hostage and killed

AGRA - the group of 'super-agents' - sent in to free the hostages - are deceived and get destroyed

One ot the important memory sticks is hidden in a Thatcher plaster bust manufactured in a workshop inside (?) or at least very close to the ambassy

A batch of those busts - including exactly the one with the hidden memory stick - is supplied to London.

The creators of Sherlock BBC could have chosen any country in the world for any of the events mentioned above. Why did they go for Georgia? Well, maybe .....

... the name, the flag, the coat of arms?

The flag of Georgia is also known as the Five Cross Flag. Originally a banner of the medieval Kingdom of Georgia, it was brought back during periods of Georgias national revival and served as one of the most recognizable symbols of the bloodless Rose Revolution. Since 2004 it is the official flag of Georgia.

This Five Cross Flag of Georgia is a red-on-white version of the Jerusalem Cross. The four small crosses are officially described as 'Bolnisi Crosses', even though they are only slightly 'pattée' .... meaning that the arms are narrow at the center, often flared in a curve or straight line shape, to be broader at the perimeter ... like the Maltese cross.

The coat of arms of the Kingdom of Jerusalem were originally displayed in gold on silver. But the colors could be changed. Usually metal on metal, brakes the heraldic Rule of Tincture. It was justified in this case by the fact that Jerusalem was so holy, it was above ordinary rules.

The five-fold cross symbolizes either the Five Wounds of Christ, Christ and the four evangelists or Christ and the four quarters of the world.

If England represents Sherlock's body, the red cross of Saint George and the name of the saint himself connect Sherlock very closely to Georgia. And the Five Cross Flag of Georgia constitutes a connection to Jerusalem and Christ. Another Christ reference in this story it seems ....

Georgia's coat of arms features an image of Saint George, riding a horse trampling upon a dragon, whose head is pierced by the saint's spear. Two lions are supporting the shield, which is surmounted with the royal crown of Georgia. The motto below the shield reads "Strength is in Unity"

Saint George's monument in front of the City Council in Tiblisi, Georgia

The Tiblisi incident

When AGRA are storming the embassy in Tiblisi the 'Five Cross Flag' can be seen very prominently in the background .... it looks like it has been blown into the open window by a draft of air .... but the weather must have changed ... because despite the still open window and all the action in the room, neither flag nor curtains are moving one bit throughout the whole scene.

Two life-size statues of lions are dramatically flanking the centre of the room ......

Saint George and the dragon

According to legend, Saint George was a roman soldier of greek origin and officer in the guard of Roman empereor Diocletian. He is one of the most prominent military saints and immortalised in the myth of Saint George and the Dragon. While the veneration of Saint George as a soldier saint goes back to the 7th century at least, the earliest known surviving narrative of the dragon episode is an 11th-century Georgian text.

The town had a small lake with a plague-bearing dragon living in it and poisoning the countryside. To appease the dragon, the people fed it two sheep every day. When they ran out of sheep they started feeding it their children, chosen by lottery. One time the lot fell on the king's daughter. The king, in his grief, told the people they could have all his gold and silver and half of his kingdom if his daughter were spared; the people refused. The daughter was sent out to the lake, dressed as a bride, to be fed to the dragon.

Saint George by chance rode past the lake. The princess tried to send him away, but he vowed to remain. The dragon emerged from the lake while they were conversing. Saint George charged it on horseback, seriously wounding it with his lance. He then called to the princess to throw him her girdle, and he put it around the dragon's neck. When she did so, the dragon followed the girl like a meek beast on a leash.

Of course, the story ends like almost any dragon story does .... despite 'meek and on a leash' the dragon has to die.

A dragon living in water, a game of chance, a damsel in dirstress dressed as bride, a knight making a vow, a dragon on a leash .... well, well .... if this doesn't sound familiar .....

The work of an unknown artist: Saint George and the dragon from De Grey Hours (a medieval Book of Hours probably written for the De Grey family of Ruthin c.1390) National Library of Wales

Once more unto the breach, dear friends ....

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends ... once more! Or close the wall up ... with our English dead! ... set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide. Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit ... to his full height! On, on, you noblest English ... whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof! And you, good yeoman, whose limbs were made in England, show us here the mettle of your pasture! ... which I doubt not, for there is none of you so mean and base ... that hath not noble lustre in your eyes! I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, straining upon the start! The game’s afoot.”

In The Lying Detective Sherlock quotes William Shakespeare's HENRY V, Act 3, Scene1. Among other parts, the last two lines of the monologue are missing:

Follow your spirit: and upon this charge, cry ....

God for Harry! England and Saint George!

Saint George is the patron saint of England and the protector of the royal family. His cross forms the national flag, and features within the Union Flag of the United Kingdom.

Again - if England indeed represents Sherlock's body, the red cross of Saint George and the saint himself connect Sherlock very closely to Georgia, Tiblisi ... AND the hostage incident in the embassy as well.

Is this maybe a supressed and coded memory? Georgia representing England at some time in the past .... in Sherlock's past? Is 'Georgia' not a different country but a different time? Dead people in Sherlock's past? Did he triy/wish to save them, but failed? Because he was just a child at that time? And was there really some foul play involved? Has Sherlock told himself another different/better story, to 'get rid' of the painful memory of the actual event?

But this isn't the end of this post yet .... there are still more connections ....

The Royal Arms of England

It was first adopted in a fixed form round 1200 by the Plantagenet kings and depicts three identical gold lions with blue tongues and claws, walking past but facing the observer, arranged in a column on a red background.

This design has not been altered since then. Over the centuries it has been variously combined with the signs and symbols of other kings and royal houses, according to dynastic and political changes occuring in England.

The present coat of arms of the United Kingdom used by Queen Elizabeth II includes a harp for Ireland and for Scotland a rampant lion surrounded by a flowered border. The dexter supporter is a crowned English lion; the sinister supporter, a Scottish unicorn. The Motto 'Dieu et mon droit' translates to 'God and my right' (X X)

(dexter & sinister = right or left from the POV of the bearer of the shield)

During the promotion for S4 the Union Jack and the crowned English lion made their appearance together with a mysterious question mark .... and the term 'sinister' showed up two times as well in tweets.

Related posts: The mirrored question mark Question mark and eyes Lions Sinister & orphans Mark's 'sinister' tweets The sinister hand

The flag of the City of London

It is based on the flag of England but represets only the historical City of London .... not Greater London. The sword symbolises the sword that beheaded Saint Paul who is the patron saint of the city. (X)

(A sword is definitely no blunt instrument but a sharp weapon which can also be 'wielded with precision and without remorse' .... like a scalpel ... :))))

Coat of arms of the City of London

It consists of a silver shield bearing a red cross with a red upright sword in the first quarter, combining the emblems of the patron saints of England and London: the Cross of St George with the symbol of the martyrdom of Saint Paul.

Sherlock looking out over London ... Saint Paul's Cathedral to his right.

The crest depicts a dragon's left (sinister) wing bearing also the cross of St George, borne upon a peer's helmet. (X)

(A helmet is part of a knights armour, worn to shield the head. Broadly speaking, a helmet is rather similar to a mask ... hiding/covering head and face of a person. No one is able to recognize who's relly behind such an armour. Could be anyone. It's rather similar to ... 'putting on a facade'. Just saying .... :))))

Two silver dragons bearing red crosses upon their wings are supporting the arms. The latin motto of the City is Domine dirige nos, which translates to "Lord, direct (guide) us".

DIMMOCK: I go where you point me. SHERLOCK (walking away): Exactly.

(Sorry, couldn't resist this bit of dialoge from The Blind Banker. It's just too good! And John's words from HLV 'Your way. Always your way' run exactly in the same vein as well. :))))

There be dragons .....

In the episode The Blind Banker (S1) the Yellow Dragon Circus comes to London to retrieve something that was stolen. Not the Black Pearl of the Borgias, no .... but something almost equally small and probably equally valuable ... a jade hairpin in the shape of a snake. Or is it a tiny Chinese baby dragon? Anyway, snake or dragon, both are reptiles. And the showdown of that episode takes place at a place called ... 'Dragon Den, Black Tramway'

And the dragon references continue .....

JIM: Sir Boast-a-lot was the bravest and cleverest knight at the Round Table, but soon the other knights began to grow tired of his stories about how brave he was and how many dragons he’d slain ...

MYCROFT: He (Magnusson) is a necessary evil – not a dragon for you to slay. SHERLOCK: A dragon slayer. Is that what you think of me? MYCROFT: No. It’s what you think of yourself.

MYCROFT: ... but on balance you have more utility closer to home. SHERLOCK: Utility? How do I have utility? MYCROFT: “Here be dragons.”

MARY: Sherlock the dragon slayer.

Dragon or dragon slayer ... that's the question

Or could it be both? Is Sherlock not only the dragon slayer but also the dragon?

"... in your case, solitary confinement is locking you up with your worst enemy"

Sherlock at war with himself? Sherlock fighting parts of himself? The dragon fighting his inner dragon? And even his brain tells him 'this is a war we MUST lose'. Could Sherlock really be that dragon himself?

Well, it is said that dragons are breathing fire .... wherever there is fire there is smoke as well ...... :))))))

All pics not Sherlock BBC are from Wikipedia and related to the sites I used for gathering information. Thanks @callie-ariane for the scripts.

I leave you to your own deductions.

November, 2017

@gosherlocked @loveismyrevolution @sagestreet @sherlockshadow @raggedyblue @monikakrasnorada @possiblyimbiassed @sarahthecoat @darlingtonsubstitution @devoursjohnlock @tjlcisthenewsexy @kateis-cakeis @tendergingergirl

#every quiver of his beating heart #sherlock deducing sherlock #London=sherlock

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afunnybeauty · 7 years

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❆ for a “but they’re in the next room!” kiss

Send one for a Drabble - Kiss Edition | Accepting!

“Hey–hey!” Belle giggled, her voice dropping to just above a whisper. “Watch those hands, mister. We already got busted a million times this week. I can only come up with so many excuses.”

Belle was scolding him, but she wasn’t upset. In fact, she was smiling playfully and doing all in her power not to lean in closer to his touch. Jack drove her crazy in all the right ways, and he was well aware of this. He was always testing her limits and her patience, and now was no different. In any normal case, she would gladly relent and they would give into their passions for one another. But their daughter, as they knew she would, had begun to feed her curiosities. When she wanted to know something, she had started to investigate on her own. If she had a question, she asked, and then she asked why. Sometimes the questions were related, sometimes they weren’t. But her little mind was developing at a breakneck pace, and her parents were happy to encourage this.

Except when she tried to wander into their room long after bedtime, in the middle of a situation they weren’t quite ready to explain.

Belle had quickly jumped into action, grabbing a robe and throwing it on before the child’s young mind could fully process anything she didn’t understand. She’d led the girl back to bed and read her another story, and this time Belle lingered to make sure her daughter had stayed asleep. It was no big deal, from what she heard from her friends at lunch a few days later, it had all happened with their own children at some point. Belle felt better then, and each night, just made sure to linger and ensure the girl was asleep before leaving the room.

After a few nights passed, Belle felt comfortable enough to engage with Jack again. This time, they barely had enough time to begin before a tiny voice had come through a crack in the door saying, “Mommy, we’re hungry.” Without a thought, Belle immediately initiated damage control once more. She tied the sash of her robe and opened the door to find, of course, that this time her little adventurer had strung along her baby sister for the ride.

Belle separated the chubby little hands and took them each in her own. “Come on, we’ll go find a quick snack and then back to bed.”

The next night, the couple had actually managed to complete their union before the same tiny voice opened the door to announce “Daddy, I miss you,” joined by the sleepy cries of a toddler who was just learning to walk and didn’t appreciate being dragged out of bed to come along for this journey.

It was like she knew, somehow, Belle thought. Every night for the next week, without fail, they were joined by curious little girl who spouted a different excuse, whether they were attempting intimacy or not.

“Mommy, I’m scared,” was the reason one night.“Daddy, the baby keeps looking at me and she won’t stop.”“When is Santa coming?”“Can I sleep in my flower dress?”“Mama, I’m thirsty.”“Mommy, the baby was gonna cry but I made her stop. She’s okay now.”“Daddy, can you show me how to write my name?”

Finally, after a long day of family fun at the park, both of the girls were dead exhausted when they got home. They could barely get them out of their dirty play clothes into their pajamas, they were so sleepy. To Belle’s surprise, there was no questions, no need for a story book. They were fast asleep within minutes of tucking them in, and she and Jack had the entire evening for themselves.

She couldn’t blame him for thinking they had the perfect opportunity. She almost agreed it was too perfect to pass up. But another part of her just knew that as soon as they got carried away, there’d come a voice at the door.

“Are you sure you want more of them?” she asked jokingly. She already knew the answer, but it was fun to tease him. Taking his face in her hands, she pressed her lips lovingly against his. She hoped he could feel her love for him, and know how badly she wanted to give in. She was just so afraid that eventually, she would be asked the dreaded “what are you doing?” Belle was nowhere near ready for that. But until she could devise a way to keep the interruptions out and keep the spark alive with Jack, she knew they’d have to be overly careful. For now, she would just kiss him and love him through her kiss. It was all she knew to do.

#murdermayhemandjack #ask #reply #answered #soooo I realized the spawn has no name #lol oops #v;; modern #sub v;; sparrows nest #possible nsfw?#cw mentions of sex

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flauntpage · 6 years

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The Ultimate Ranking of the Best Hockey Films Ever

Great hockey movies are hard to come by.

There's what first comes to mind: Slap Shot and Goon and Miracle. Though there's more bad than good: The Love Guru, MVP, or the boring-as-sin Sudden Death.

One thing that's fairly certain is that hockey movies tend to represent the experience of the wealthy white and male demographic, the one that also populates the sport itself.

Should Slap Shot and Goon stand as the best of the best if they reinforce hockey's monoculture? Are Miracle and Youngblood and Mystery, Alaska just reselling the myths we've been buying?

Great hockey movies are out there. It's just time to reconsider the rankings.

1. RED ARMY (2014)

2. CANADA-RUSSIA '72 (2006)

3. NET WORTH (1995)

Once you've seen Net Worth, you won't forget it.

4. INDIAN HORSE (2017)

"The rink became my escape," says Saul in narration. "The ice my obsession. The game my survival."

5. SLAP SHOT (1977)

But it's the fact that you can't watch Slap Shot without wincing or even turning off the film part way that pushes it down this list. Time is no friend of this film.

6. THE MIGHTY DUCKS (1992)

It's a Disney-fied, contradictory mess but I'm still crying at that "I believe in you, Charlie" line.

7. THE ROCKET

8. THE GAME OF HER LIFE (1998)

9. GOON (2011)

Another movie that may appear to rank too low on this list. But Goon, like Slap Shot, isn't standing the test of time well.

10. MIRACLE

Canada-Russia '72 does everything well that this movie does but does it while questioning how history was recorded and how Canadians remember the events. Still, Miracle is among the best there is.

Honourable Mentions

The Sweater: This National Film Board short is a time capsule of 1950s French Canada, and in that context it's a staple in the hockey canon.

Blades and Brass: This 1967 NFB short combines NHL highlights with Tijuana Brass-style music. Why haven't you clicked through yet?

Goofy–Hockey Homicide: Almost 100 years ago, Disney thought hockey was a foaming-at-the-mouth celebration of violence, and the psychedelic approach of Hockey Homicide is truly a sight to see.

Dishonourable Mentions

Mystery, Alaska: A fun concept sullied by misogyny and an absolutely wretched Mike Myers Cameo.

Sudden Death: Some of you don't remember how boring this movie is and it shows. If you loved Die Hard, you're going to hate this.

Youngblood: A b-movie with a confused message about violence in hockey. Still, look for Keanu Reeves playing a French-Canadian goaltender.

The Love Guru: (I will not be sharing any thoughts about this alleged film, thank you for your understanding.)

Goon 2: The Last of the Enforcers: No thanks to the faux-Sportscenter panel of James Duthie and T.J. Miller. I've never fast-forwarded through a movie faster.

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports CA.

The Ultimate Ranking of the Best Hockey Films Ever published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

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