#who give a shit. i know the writers of Big TV Show with Fifteen Seasons and a Netflix Original doesnt.

[addox]

"self insert is cringe and bad because its disrespectful towards the source material" blah blah blah oh yeah well it was disrespectful towards ME when the creators didnt add me and my fo having a whirlwind torrid romance culminating in us kissing sloppy style in front of everyone else, so just jot that down for starters

pr*ship c*mship neutral etc dni

[aoitrinity]

Why Do I Have to Feel Like a Fucking Conspiracy Theorist -- OR -- How I Find a Semblance of Peace on Sunday Night

I’m also going to start this out with a GIANT DISCLAIMER.

I am about to theorize about what may have happened to the SPN finale. I have absolutely no insider knowledge. I am merely speculating here based on the panels and a bunch of Twitter and Tumblr posts that I have been reading over the last few days. If you are not in a good place to read such things, TURN BACK PLEASE. Go take care of yourself and your mental health. You and your feelings are valid and deserve to be handled gently right now.

Additionally, if you are here to give me shit for being unhappy with the ending, please walk away as well. I am here to reach out and share my feelings with people who might be struggling to make sense of something that upset some of us in very deep-seated ways. I am not here to bother you or critique you or tell you that you’re lesser because you liked the ending. If you felt it was good, then go enjoy it.

Long-ass post beneath the cut, everyone.

Alrighty folks...I debated whether or not to do this because I have been spiraling down the hell that is the SPN finale since Thursday. The travesty of what happened to our show--to this beloved show that seemed to have been so perfectly and precisely written for at least four years that it had basically already paved its own tarmac on which to land its plane and we all thought we knew exactly what we were going to get. And then we didn’t. We had a nigh Cas-less and entirely Eileen-less ending. We had no goodbye between Cas and Jack. We had Dean dying young after finally finding his freedom, only to ascend to heaven with no one but Bobby. We had the weird, weird, weird incest-y death scene. We had the bridge crane shot thing because...sure. You do you, Robert Singer.

It was so terrible, so truly awful, and I couldn’t seem to square any of it with anything we had known going in. I tossed and turned and cried and didn’t eat or sleep all weekend. I spent hours just reloading tumblr and twitter, going to the Misha panel, reading and reading and listening and trying to figure out what the fucking hell is going on because I needed to know exactly where to direct my anger. And after a fuckton of talking with @winchester-reload, I think we have at least a very plausible theory about what happened here--I’m laying it out below as much for my own peace of mind as anything else, because otherwise all of these thoughts are going to continue to spin around in my head for weeks and I won’t be able to do jack shit.

Now to start off, unfortunately I do think Dean was slated to die from the beginning of this season. I don’t know WHY they thought that was the best way to go, and I wish they had listened to Jensen on this one. Part of me wonders if it was an order from on high based on the discussion between Becky and Chuck earlier this season--the writers knew it wasn’t a great choice, but they were trying to signal to us that we should feel free to write our own endings to the story because they’d be better (I can wax poetic on the signs of why many of the writers probably wanted Dean to live, but that’s another post). I’m not defending that choice by any means, just laying it out there that I think they didn’t necessarily all want to kill Dean like they did.

However, what I THINK I can explain now is what happened with Misha and why we got so jerked around with Cas’s story. Consider what we know (I can’t immediately source all of it, but I did my best):

At the end of episode 15x19, Lucifer has been returned to the Empty after being killed AGAIN. He talks with Cas. Maybe harasses him a bit about Dean, idk. But then...Jack shows up. New God Jack. And he picks up Cas and pulls him out of the Empty, leaving Lucifer behind, because seriously. Fuck that guy (also leaving behind his abusive father is character growth for Jack, so yay for that).

-Misha was contracted to film 15 episodes this season. He was only in 14.

-Misha told Michael Sheen he had to go back to film 1.5 episodes after the shutdown in March. (Starts at 6:13)

-Misha was in Vancouver during filming of the finale.

-Mark P said at Darklight Con that the last scene he filmed was with Alex and Misha (and Mark P was only in episode 19).

-Misha implied that he was present for various filming moments, including Dean’s death (start at 35:15), and said that it felt like a “mini-reunion.”

-Various sources have mentioned that Jimmy Novak was supposed to be in the finale.

-After episode 18, Stands tweeted a fan who was angered and hurt by Cas's death that they could talk about the “bury the gays” issue after the finale aired.

-In episode 19 we know there were takes of the parking lot scene where the only thing fans observing could hear was Dean yelling “CAS” at Chuck (fuck I can’t find this one right now, but it’s definitely out there)

-Also in episode 19, we had a very strange, awkward montage at the end of the episode.

-In episode 20, we know there were a FUCKTON of missing scenes

-We also had no opening montage, but three other separate montages.

-Carry on My Wayward Son was played TWICE, back-to-back at the end of the episode.

-Episode 20 was shorter than normal and had surprisingly little dialogue. The pacing was VERY strange.

-The cast and crew has been almost completely silent about the finale since it came out. When they have spoken, it has been with an awkward excuse of “Uh...COVID?”

-Samantha Ferris has specifically noted that, despite the Harvelle’s being back in play and a big heaven reunion having been planned pre-COVID, neither she nor Chad Lindberg received any such invitation to return.

-Cas and Dean POP Funko figures were pictured together in a replica of Harvelle’s in 15x04.

NOW with all of this in mind (and I’m probably missing some stuff too because there is so much--feel free to add on to that list), please bear with me because here is what I think we were SUPPOSED to get POST-COVID (after it was determined that the reunion couldn’t happen because of the virus):

In episode 20, we start with our NORMAL OPENING MONTAGE, like always. It traces everything that happened during the season. We are reminded of Cas. The confession. Rowena. Eileen. Jack. Billie, God, the Empty, all of it. 

Things then follow along in the episode where they did up until Dean dies and wakes up in heaven. After his conversation with Bobby, he drives off to find Cas (who, in the script, was listed as “Jimmy Novak” in order to protect against script leaks--who wouldn’t want to do their best to avoid spoilers about the finale with the wrapping of a fifteen-year show?). He does indeed find Cas. We get Dean’s end of the confession. Hell, maybe we even get a kiss. And then Dean sets up his new heaven home in the recreated Harvelle’s. Maybe Cas even fucking moves in. 

Years pass. We get Sam having his life on Earth (still can’t explain why they cut Eileen and couldn’t even have Sam signing vaguely to the blurry brunette in the background; if anyone wants to take that on, go for it). Eventually, Cas tells Dean that it’s almost Sam’s time. Dean takes Baby and goes to meet Sam at the bridge. The cover of Carry on My Wayward Son plays during this much shorter sequence. End of episode.

But that’s not what we got. Instead, much of what I just wrote about was excised from the episode. The remnants were stitched together after shooting had been wrapped. Filler was added in the form of montages and long, unnecessary extra shots to get the episode to something approaching a reasonable length. 

But why? Why would they spend all that time and money and quarantining on Misha, only to almost completely cut him out of the finale? I struggled with why the fuck the CW would want this mammoth show to go down as the greatest queerbait in TV history when they had the chance to do something truly beautiful and monumental with it? It couldn’t just be sheer homophobia, right? Well, I think that factored into it, my friends, but here is where my head is at right now.

It was about cold, hard cash.

Now I could be wrong, but this is what I’m thinking at the moment: Supernatural is going off of the air. Supernatural, the CW’s cash cow for fifteen years. Sure there is still money to be made on blu-rays and merchandise and cons...but they need people watching their shows. They need that sweet advertising revenue. And you know what show they have about to premiere? A show that could, potentially, bring with it a chunk of that SPN revenue?

Walker.

And if any of you know anything about the original Walker Texas Ranger, you know that the show was predominantly a show about a very heterosexual white man being very excessively heterosexual. And for SOME REASON over the years, many of the execs at the CW still seem to think that this show, Supernatural, is really attractive to a lot of middle-American white men...whom they desperately want to watch this new show with this guy from Supernatural that they already know.

Now here’s where COVID fucked us. I think Destiel was greenlit by TPTB, at least in SOME form, before COVID. But then the pandemic happened, and they panicked. They got the cut of the last two episodes and watched them in their original, probably queer form. And then, the execs at CW looked at the economy. They looked at their cash cow, about to make its journey to the great beyond. And they looked at this new little calf Walker that they were so desperately worried about. And they made a choice.

They decided that it would be too risky to take the step with Destiel. They were worried about frightening off their ever-so-valuable hetero male demographic with the possibility that a traditionally masculine man in his 40s could be in love with another man in an overt way. It was homophobia mixed with greed, spun up by fear for their revenues because of COVID.

So they called in Singer, possibly Dabb, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they went straight to Singer. They told them that Destiel had to go: executive orders. And the only way to make it go in a way that removed any trace of what had been there was to rewrite what happened to Cas and cut him out from the last two episodes entirely. It was too late to reshoot anything. They had to just cut and stitch and fill with bullshit montages. 

They removed the scene at the end of 19, probably because Cas and Lucifer discussed Dean. All that was left of Misha there was his voice on that fake phone call. They may have cut other things too, but I would bet my life that they cut a scene from the end of the episode and replaced it with that very strange montage. Then they moved onto 20. They cut out every scene with Cas. And left in only two platonic mentions of him, neither made by Dean. They tried to imply that Cas might show up in Dean’s heaven at some point, but that was as far as the editors could go in the time they had. They filled in with montages, awkwardly long shots, anything they could do to fill all of those missing scenes.

And they even had to take the opening montage, because literally everything in it pointed to Cas being there at the end of it all. They wouldn’t be able to leave out his scenes, they were too critical to the season. They couldn’t cut his confession without raising eyebrows. So they cut the whole thing and moved “Carry On My Wayward Son” to one of the newly-added driving montages at the end. Which is why we awkwardly had both songs play back-to-back--again, such a strange choice unless they were out of options and couldn’t exactly buy rights to a new track or compose anything else.

And so we were left with the shadow of the finale that we deserved, that Cas and Dean deserved. We were left without resolution or happiness or words. Bobo told us the most important thing about happiness is just “saying it” and our characters were silenced without anyone ever knowing the truth.

I think the writers might have known and been given the new party line that “Misha never filmed, he couldn’t, sorry, it was COVID, no one’s fault!” But I don’t think most of the cast even knew it had happened until they watched the finale on Thursday with us (though they might have been confused why the bit from 15x19 was sliced, they could reasonably have assumed it was a time thing and also BL episodes don’t make sense anyway). Why do I say that?

Well, first of all, Misha started sending out a bunch of excited texts to fans with some old BTS pictures about an hour before the show started airing on EST. He also wanted his children to see the episode, his YOUNG children. Why would he show them such a traumatic episode if their Dad wasn’t in it? What if it was because he wanted them to witness what was going to be a monumental moment in queer television history that their DAD got to be a part of? And then that was all dashed.

Which is why I think the cast and crew went almost completely radio silent the next day. I don’t think they knew. And based on how they have been acting on social media since then, I think many of them are absolutely furious, but they have been silenced because of NDAs, because they want to find work again in a cutthroat industry, because they don’t want to bring down the hellfire of Warner Brothers Entertainment upon themselves. So the most we have gotten is a little acknowledgement from the MERCHANDISING COMPANY trying to validate our pain (god bless Shirts, she is a LIFESAVER) and a response to my salty tweet about keeping good stuff in the closet from Adam Williams (the VFX coordinator) that seemed to acknowledge the validity of my complaint.

Then there was a scramble behind the scenes, I would bet my life. Talking points were fed to the boys who had panels today, to CE, to all the cast and crew:

Toe the party line. Misha never filmed. This was always about COVID. Do not mention Destiel. Do not mention Dean’s feelings for Cas. Do not promote the Castiel Project or anything that validates the idea that this was anything less than a superb ending.

And that is why we have heard so little from the cast on this front, and what we have heard has been muddled and contradictory. That is why the writers are saying nothing. That is why we have been left adrift.

Now before I close this out, I do want to say that I really, genuinely do not think this was on the writers at all. I feel like they tried to give us the best ending that they could, in a writers room that we know is notorious for splitting along party lines about the overall story (BL and Singer, who have always been about the brothers and their man-pain vs. Dabb and the rest who always seemed to want more for them and for Cas). I think they did everything in their power to at least end with Dean and Cas happy together. If they could give us nothing else, they wanted to give us that. And then the network took it from them. From us. From everyone.

For the sake of fucking money. 

And the WORST PART OF IT ALL, for me, is that in the wake of this disaster, the fans have been left to try and figure out what happened. We have had to wade through a mire of conflicting information in the midst of all of our collective anger and grief over this garbage ending of a show many of us have loved and even relied on for YEARS, all the while wondering if we’re just fucking crazy, if we have all fallen collectively into the hole of conspiracy theories. That hurts ESPECIALLY badly because we have taken so many hits over the years from other groups on social media saying we were crazy for seeing things that weren’t there (especially Destiel), for writing meta and analyzing tropes and believing the evidence of our eyes and ears. The network has made us relive that entire nightmare WHILE processing our grief for a show we wanted so badly to celebrate and which instead we now have to mourn.

So again guys, I cannot prove that this is exactly what happened at all; this is simply my idea of what may have happened. But right now, it’s the most sense I can make from this mess, and to be honest, the act of typing it out has helped me enormously in my processing of it all. I feel like I can see more clearly, like I know where to target my outrage and where to direct empathy. I feel like just fucking maybe, I might be able to do my job tomorrow without bursting into tears at random moments. 

I really hope that this post has helped some of you to, in some small way, process this too. We get through this the way that Misha told us at his panel this morning, the way the writers have told us to do all season long...we throw out the story God gave us and we make it better. We write our characters the happy endings they deserve. 

We save them.

One last thing--if you have not already, please consider channeling your rage into a donation to one of the five causes our fandom has put together to pay tribute to our beloved show and to mourn the ending it should have had:

-The Castiel Project

-Dean Winchester is Love

-Sam Winchester Project

-The National Association of the Deaf

-The Jack Kline Project

[chasingthepoguelife]

Lonely Boys Do Stupid Things Part 1

Lonely boys do stupid things Part 1

 (gif credits to @rafecameron​)

Summary: Rafe is tired of an already boring summer, constantly being judged by everyone on the island, and is looking for a challenge. When the group is introduced to the new girl hanging out with Kiara, Topper suggests a challenge and Rafe accepts only to be conflicted along the way.

 Author’s: So in this world Rafe is still a bad guy, just not a “I killed a cop and have all these daddy issues” bad, Topper hasn’t developed yet, and also John B hasn’t dragged anyone into his stupid shit and there is a civil ground between kooks and pogues and Ward isn’t a “I love two out my three children and murdered my friend” dad. For reference, I do not support Rafe’s canon character. I’m just blinded by the attraction I feel for him and I love Drew, but will never condone or excuse Rafe’s actions. Also, I’m not writing y/n with many descriptions. I know all types of people might read this and I want to make everyone feel included but I also don’t want to do it the wrong way so I’m leaving a lot of physical features up to the reader’s imagination. I would also accept tips and constructive criticism to be more of an inclusive writer.

 Warning: For part 1 I don’t think there is anything.

 Another summer week has come and passed for the kooks of Figure Eight. The Cameron kids made quite the headlines last year, Sarah dating a boy from the Cut, and the eldest Rafe Cameron, having to save one of his father’s many businesses after almost running it to the ground. The chatter and nosiness of other Figure Eight residents died down in the winter, but they always stick their noses in the Cameron’s business around summer time. Rafe awaited the month of September where he could escape to the mainland again, but after only two weeks down, and what felt like two years, he had no idea how he would survive the next six weeks.

 “Come on get up!” Rafe heard with a pillow meeting his face. He looked over at his clock, 1:30pm, and was greeted with Sarah hovering over his night stand.

 “Sarah, I have no desire to go anywhere except for the kitchen, “Rafe groaned.

 “I’m not going to let you wither away like a pathetic sap. Get your bathing suit on and head outside. We’re meeting John B and Kiara, even your friends bothered to tag along.”

 “Why do you have to make things even more fucked than they already are?” Rafe questioned.

 “If John B and I can move around the island and shut down the lonely gossiping housewives, then you can get on a boat!”

 After Rafe groaned and didn’t move for ten minutes, Sarah had to come back in to make sure he was alive and moving.

 “Five minutes Rafe!” Sarah yelled, pulling off his comforter.

 After fifteen minutes, Rafe managed to get himself dressed and meet his sister and John B on their father’s boat. Ward had suggested they take the boat for a joy ride, all day, wherever they wanted. A year ago, Rafe’s blood would’ve boiled at the thought of a pogue being so close, but things have changed. He actually admires how John B lives his life, not caring what other people think, although he’d rather choke before admitting he looks up to a younger pogue.

 “Ok so Rafe’s a sad sack that barley moves and John B as your girlfriend I automatically make the rules so we’re heading south to meet Kie for the day. I’m going to sail so you two make nice and enjoy the ride,” Sarah demanded.

 As Sarah started the boat’s engine, the group heard screaming, looking up towards the Cameron house, seeing a tall blonde boy in a pink polo, running like his life depended on it.

“You- said- 215pm- Sarah!” the boy gasped out of breath.

 “No Topper, I’m pretty sure I said 2,” Sarah said sarcastically.

 After almost a year, Sarah is still playing jokes on her ex- boyfriend and brother for the way they treated John B and his friends.

 “Rafe boy, you tired of me already?” Topper laughed.

 “Obviously, look at my new best friend here,” Rafe pointed to John B.

 “I’m going to get us beers if this is how the whole ride is going to be,” John B said.

 “You tired of us already Rafey?” Topper joked.

 “I’m always tired of you and Kelce,” Rafe laughed.

 “You know he’s on some better path spiritual shit this summer, giving up booze?” Topper said in disbelief (A/N: in season 2 I want better for Kelce as in he deserves better friends)

 “It has to be better than this. I don’t want to deal with everyone’s judgmental shit so I keep a low profile, and all that’s got me is a boat ride with my sister and John B, and to see more pogues!”

 Rafe and Topper have become more tolerant of the residents of the Cut, but no doubt they wake up every morning still thinking they’re a gift to this planet.

 “I don’t know if I can handle another 6 weeks of this shit, I’m going insane!” Rafe yelled.

 “I’m sure we will find something to fill those weeks. If we go looking long enough, something fun will fall in our lap,” Topper smirked.

 John B had come back with drinks for the group, actually engaging in civil conversation with his girlfriend’s ex and her loopy brother. The boys have adjusted to this civil relationship, something Figure Eight residents loved to gossip about. Not too long after, the kook boys started to see that they would be arriving shortly after passing Heywards, marking their entrance into pogue world. Rafe will never admit it, but the pogue he hates the most is Pope Heyward. He hates how hardworking and smart he is, how his father would do anything for him, but more so how he has an entire group of friends ready to drop everything to help him. Topper is his good friend, but there’s no way he’d do half the things John B and JJ do for Pope.

 “There’s Kie on her dad’s boat,” Sarah pointed out. “I’m going to anchor down close to hers and we can figure it out from there.”

 As Sarah found a good place to drop the anchor, everyone on the boat could here Kie and another voice mixing of loud laughter. Kie was running around on the boat deck as another girl the group had never seen before followed behind her. Surprised by the presence of unknown person, the group couldn’t help but stare.

 “Kie!” Sarah waved enthusiastically. The one good thing out of last year’s madness was that Sarah got her childhood best friend back. Kie and the unknown girl started making their way onto the Druthers as it is bigger than Kie’s boat. Everyone watched the girls make their way on, especially Rafe. He wasn’t sure what to make of this girl, but he definitely noticed her long legs climbing onto the boat and that’s when he thought, what else she was capable of doing with legs that long. His thoughts were interrupted as he heard a new voice.

 “I’m y/n”, she said as everyone stared.

 “Nice to meet you, y/n, I’m John B, this is Sarah, that’s Topper, and that last one is Rafe.”

 As y/n took in the new people in front of her, Topper noticed how her eyes kept lingering on Rafe.

 “Kie, are you going to tell us about your new gorgeous friend?” Topper smirked.

 “No, she won’t, but I will!” y/n chimed in.

 “Well obviously I’m y/n. I’m 18 years old. I’m new to the Outer Banks. My dad had to move us out here for a business deal that he’s got going with Kiara’s dad, I have a 14-year-old brother, and at any time you can either find me in the water or looking for snacks.”

 “Where do you live y/n”? John B asked.

 “Not too far. My parents managed to find a cute little house in the Marigold neighborhood. (A/N: I made this location up) Everyone except Kie stopped in their tracks. The group although already divided, had nothing to do with the residents of Marigold. Anyone in that area of the island was neither a pogue nor a kook. They really had no identity as they were not rich enough to be kooks but not poor enough to be a pogue from the Cut. Most people living there are Marigold born and raised, considered to be more of an outcast than pogues. The rest of the island didn’t know how to label Marigolds. There wasn’t enough money to buy a yacht, but you could still eat enough everyday and rest your head on a comfortable big bed every night.

 An awkward silence lingered in the group that no one knew how to break. Kie pulled y/n by the arm and explained.

 “Y/n I told you, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with where you live, but on this island, everyone is classist and territorial. You’re better off saying you’re from my neighborhood to make it easier for you.”

 “This group is already messed up, what’s one more thing to stir the pot? Welcome to the group y/n!” John B cheered.

 As the tension cleared in the group, the sun came out in full force. Sarah steered the Druthers further out into the ocean for a nice swim. The music began bumping, drinks were passed around, and y/n felt like she knew the group for years. After a few hours, the only ones who needed a break were Topper and Rafe. The two climbed back onto the boat to rest.

 “So, for a Marigold this new girl seems decent?” Topper questioned.

 “She’s alright, just not for me. The last thing I need on top of all this other shit is for me to be seen around the island with a girl like that. The Figure Eight would have a field day.”

 “Maybe that’s it,” Topper smirked. “This is something you’ve never experienced before. It would be a challenge. She’s not the worst thing to look at, you could have some fun with her.”

 “Top if I really wanted to, I could have my pick of any pogue or kook chick in my bed like yesterday,” Rafe boasted.

 “No man, hear me out. You have 6 weeks left. I challenge you to make her head over heels for you in that time. It will give you something to do, you’ll get some and then poof you leave for the mainland. By the time you see her again she’ll be over it. Plus, she seemed to focus on you a bit longer back at the docks so she probably already has a thing for youI get why we had to change with the pogues but at least they know where they stand. This girl thought she’d move here and live like she’s the main character of a tv show but it’s only going to cause more problems, “Topper shared his concerns.

 Rafe had to pause for a moment. Last year he would’ve said yes right away, but lately he’s been finding himself questioning his morals and values, thinking if he behaved more the gossip would stop. It would be wrong to mess with someone like this, but he is bored after all, and he doesn’t want to look like a pussy in front of Topper. He looked out into the ocean watching her swim so happily amongst the waves.

 “This is going to be the easiest thing I’ve ever done,” Rafe declared.

[tolcnsky]

SO

Re-watching X Men: Evolution as an adult who is pushing 30 was pretty eye-opening for me, and not just because I now know that high school is not nearly that exciting and that basically everyone in that show was out of dress code all the time. The two big things that I noticed this time around both have to do with Professor X and his Institute.

Let’s just say the man has a very “hands-off” method of dealing with children, which leads to problems, but also (and I’m just speculating here): I think Professor X doesn’t take on poor kids? Like, does the Institute have a tuition fee? Because I couldn’t help but notice that all of the kids in the Brotherhood, with the possible exception of Pietro and Wanda (does Magneto Money convert to American dollars?), are not well off.

And I’m not trying to find fault with our favorite Bald-Ass MotherFucker (the BAMF, as I have suddenly decided to call him), but I call it like I see it and unfortunately what I see of his attitude toward The Brotherhood is…let’s say it’s not what you would want in someone whose life’s pursuit is to help and educate children.  And in this show, The Brotherhood are, you know, children. I know any teenage readers may disagree with me on this point, but it’s true. The oldest among them is maybe eighteen, and the youngest is fourteen or fifteen, so they are no more mature or capable of making decisions than any of the show’s protagonists.

As an example, let’s look at Todd, whom Professor X tests in the very first episode in…honestly a really weird and deceptive way, by having him fight his other new student, Kurt, and giving neither of them a heads up about what the hell is going on. Then, when this (again) young kid flees in terror after being accidentally teleported into the room full of lasers and saws, aptly called the “Danger Room”, BAMF’s just like: ah well, he wasn’t ready.

WHO could have been ready for THAT? Also, is not being good at fighting really a good reason to not accept someone to your school where you’re going to teach them to fight anyway? You couldn’t take him aside like a normal person and go: hey, here’s what we’re about at the Institute... Nope, just send Storm at him with no context, that works. Oh, well, at least it was nice of the Professor to stop Wolverine from mercilessly shredding a fleeing teenager with his knife hands, right?

And then, just to pour salt in the wound, in the final episode of the first season, when Todd actually does prove his skills in combat by doing more than about half the core group of X Men did in the same episode, Professor X is like: Alex (who almost got us all killed just now) is always welcome at the Institute 😊 Oh, hey, The Brotherhood, do you kids need a ride back to your dilapidated house, where you live with no adult supervision*, or do you think you can walk home from here?

Now, I’m not saying that our dear BAMF doesn’t care about The Brotherhood, but I am saying that his hands-off approach to teaching valuable life lessons is, uh….well it just sucks.

His problem with these kids seems to be that they lack discipline, have attitude problems**, are just annoying etc. but, my man, is that not why you keep Wolverine around? To be an authority figure? I know you want to value these teens’ autonomy but I think their well-being should outweigh that. At a certain point you should really insist that they have somewhere safe to live that has things like *checks notes* uh, food and running water. Good thing you let them make their own decisions, Professor!

For real, can you imagine being any of Tabitha’s family who aren’t her jailbird dad and calling to check in and finding out that she got upset and ran away to live unsupervised with four teenage boys and this BAMF just let her do it?? I would lose my shit and no amount of calm assurances that it was her decision would make me not lose my shit. The point here being that there is a vast difference between encouraging kids to make informed decisions/allowing them to have agency, and allowing them to make decisions that have potential to ruin their life or, at the very least, make their life much more difficult than it would be if you were to say: “we can talk about your problems and work them out, you don’t have to live in a house where the water gets shut off.”

  Yeah, did I mention that the water at the boarding house gets shut off at one point? It happens one time but I think it’s worth mentioning because it joins my two points. The first point being what I just said about Professor X being lackadaisical when it comes to the well-being of minors (who he deems too irresponsible to join the X Men, but apparently not too irresponsible to look after themselves), and the second point being: hey, Professor. Do you accept poor kids?

You thought I wasn’t going to come back to this point, well you were wrong, here it is!

In the show, it’s kind of a running joke that Todd has bad personal hygiene (especially in the first episode) and from a storytelling perspective this is to establish that he’s a sleazy type of character. However, there’s never really an in-universe explanation given and, as an adult pushing 30, I am left to assume that he’s been living below the poverty line, as I feel most of the Brotherhood have been. As a kid watching the show, I was just like: lol smelly, but as an adult who spent a lot of time growing up hanging out with kids like Todd who would wear the same clothes every day and rarely bathed because they came from less than ideal living situations, I have a perspective that the show’s target audience doesn’t have. Which makes Professor X’s apparent disregard for the Brotherhood troubling to me.

Now, you might be thinking: it’s not that deep. The Brotherhood is dirty and their house is a wreck and they don’t pay the bills because they’re just bad people,right? To which I say: that’s actually a worse interpretation, but it’s also what we’ve been trained to believe by the media we consume.

And I want to make it known that I’m not blaming the writers of the show or saying they’re bad or the show is bad, I obviously don’t believe that. I think it’s complacency rather than spite that has allowed this trope to endure so long. Poverty is uncomfortable to talk about, especially in a reasonably light Saturday morning show, so tv and movies have a habit of framing poverty as a personal failure of the people it affects. It’s not that these kids live incredibly difficult lives because of any tragedy of failure of the system, it’s just that they make bad choices and it’s their fault.

And if that’s how you engage with this show and interpret its characters, that’s fine, they’re not real people. However, I would like to caution everyone reading this to be critical of this trope when it shows up and not to let it affect your perception of real life and real people who actually are suffering, not through any moral failure on their part, not because they’re the “bad guys”, but because they’ve been abandoned by an unfair system, or they’ve fallen on hard times and been unable to find support.

And I guess that’s really what kind of bothered me in my recent re-watch of the show: that Professor X is someone who is fully capable of giving much needed support to kids with hard lives, but doesn’t do it because he hopes that leaving them to make uninformed decisions before their brains are even finished developing will somehow build their character.

* Even when she’s around, Mystique does not count as “adult supervision”; if anything she’s the reason these kids need therapy

**And by the way, I question the decision to look at Lance, an aggressive teen with dangerous earthquake powers and be like: that problem will solve itself if we ignore it.

[scifinal]

DW s12e10: It's Quite Unfortunate That This Child Keeps On Regenerating

It's only fitting that the first post on a blog called "SciFinal" should be about a season finale.

Not that fitting is the fact that in said post I'm going to begin where it all started for me.

Part One: How I Even Got into This Mess of a Show in the First Place

While I call myself a huge Doctor Who fan, even a – *gasp* – Whovian, I must admit I am not as familiar with the franchise as I would like to be; I've seen the new show, I've seen Torchwood (though, admittedly, I had to force myself to finish the fourth season – but that's a story for another day), I've listened to a handful of audio dramas (including Kaldor City, which I consider to be canon for both DW and Blake's 7) – mostly Torchwood audio dramas, but who cares, – I've read a couple of comics, I've got a novel or two somewhere on my bookshelf, I've seen the first couple of seasons of the classic show, but that's about it. I can't say I grew up with it – it wasn't on TV when I was a kid, there isn't an official Ukrainian dub, et cetera, et cetera. I first heard about it when I was about thirteen, when my classmate did a project about something they liked – and was pretty dismissive of my peers' hobbies at the time, believing myself to be somewhat above them, so I didn't pay much attention.

Then somebody finally pressured me into watching it (I believe I was fifteen or something back then) and I loved it. The first two episodes of the first season, I mean. I watched those, texted my friend something like "consider me a Whovian now!" and abandoned the show completely only to return to it maybe several years later.

I loved it. This time, for real.

Doctor Who has been with me ever since that time, it has a big soft spot reserved for each and every Doctor ever in my heart, and for each and every companion. I know full well it's cheesy, and it's stupid, and it's technobabble-y, and it's glorious in all of its cheesy technobabble-y stupidity.

And I hate this finale.

Part Two: Doctor, Why

I hate this finale – because I hate Chris Chibnall. Mind you, not the gentleman himself (I don't even know what he looks like, and I can't be bothered to Google), I hate what he did to Doctor Who.

Now, when it was revealed that the would replace Steven Moffat I felt... nothing. What did you expect? I had no idea who the man was. I know now he's made Broadchurch, and I know he wrote a bunch of stuff for Torchwood back in the day, including Cyberwoman. I had to drop Broadchurch because of how well-handled the depressing atmosphere was, and I love the flawed, dumb, sexy-cyber-bikinied, almost-fifteen-minutes-of-Ianto's-whining-including (I know because some time ago I literally cut almost every single moment of Gareth David-Lloyd whimpering, moaning, groaning, screaming, and mugging at the camera out of the episode and made those bits and pieces into a beautiful clip show called "I HATE THIS" to explain exactly why his face was and still is so punchable) mindless fun that is Cyberwoman (this is also one of the two episodes in which they actually do something fun with the pterodactyl living inside Torchwood's underground base). The latter also led to the creation of one amazing in how it develops Ianto's character audio drama entitled "Broken". I love Broken. I am now forcing you to look at its cover because of how much I love it.

Here we go. Now, back to the point of me rambling pointlessly

In his video "Sherlock Is Garbage, and Here's Why", a well-known YouTuber hbomberguy pointed out how Steven Moffat's problem is that he is more than capable of writing a good one-off episodes, but ultimately fails at managing multiple complex, overarching stories, as visible when you look at the difference between Moffat's individual episodes and his run on the show.

Now, I believe that Chris Chibnall suffers from the same affliction: he's a good screenwriter but a terrible, terrible showrunner. Sure, he's made Broadchurch, but Broadchurch, in its essence, was a complete singular story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. There were no bigger, incomplete arcs expanding at the expense of other episodes, and the show did exactly what it was originally designed to do: it told an uninterrupted story.

Here comes Chris Chibnall's run on Doctor Who.

Now, while Steven Moffat was ultimately not very good at managing overarching stories, he tried to do so nonetheless, and the fans seemed to like his attempts. And while I can't be sure as to whether it was Chris' original vision for the show or he and his co-writers were merely trying to emulate Moffat, he attempted the same. A friend of mine has even pointed out how, to her, it was painfully obvious how the writers of the finale were desperately trying to copy Moffat's style (to give you some context, she grasped it from a 30-second clip of the CyberMasters' reveal, and that clip basically consisted of me filming my laptop's screen and laughing at their design, making the video wobbly and the audio distorted). At the time of writing this post this friend hasn't seen a single episode of Chibnall's era and, as far as I know, has no wish to do so – mainly because of two reasons that both have something to do with the finale:

Somebody's already spoiled it for her, so who cares;

I ranted to her about how shit this finale is and now she hates everything about Chibnall era.

I am very sorry for the latter, since I genuinely believe there are some nice episodes in these seasons, and I especially like the "historical" ones, they really are quite a lot of fun, I like Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison fighting badly CG-ed alien scorpions, I love Lord Byron and Mary Shelley running around a haunted house trying to escape from a Cyberman (even though it's all too similar to the Agatha Christie episode from Russel T Davies' run), I adore that episode about Rosa P–– oh, wait, no, that one was crap and ripped off Blake's 7... Anyway, I love Jodie Whittaker's Doctor, I am a big fan of Graham, I like Ryan just fine, and I can put up with Yaz, even though it's been two seasons and I've still got no idea what's her personality supposed to be, and I absolutely love the new Master (he reminds me of a cute little pug with a big Tommy gun). There is plenty of good stuff in these two seasons, they are lots of fun to watch, but this finale... Oh god, this finale.

Part Three: We Had All of Time and Space at Our Fingertips and We Ended Up with This

We are getting to the point of this whole thing. I would love to begin with the obvious, the twist, but there's so much wrong with this who-cares-how-many-parter than this one big thing.

It is inept. It is impotent. It is incompetent. It is bad at almost everything except its okay camera work, somewhat good (for a British TV show, I mean) effects, and its really solid performances.

Its editing is tone-deaf to the extreme. There is a moment in the final episode where Ko Sharmas asks who will be the first to cross the Boundary and step into the unknown, and immediately it cuts to Yaz walking towards it, all fast and silent. I would love to show you a clip of it, but I don't have one and I can't force myself to download the episode and sit through this shitshow again just to present you with a ten-second clip. Nonetheless, that part is not edited like a dramatic moment. You edit comedies this way. Bad comedies. Bad editors edit bad comedies this way.

Its plot is incoherent. There are several plot threads in this finale, and they're managed in a way that doesn't make the viewer care about all of them at the same time, rather the viewer goes "oh, I've completely forgotten this was happening" and then, before they can even begin to care, the show cuts to something else. It's all over the place and oh so annoying.

The plot armour is painfully obvious despite every attempt to disguise it. There wasn't a single, solitary second when I believed the Doctor was really going to sacrifice herself and, lo and behold, here comes the old guy ex machina to do it for her. The only questions I was asking at that moment were "How are the writers going to prevent the Doctor's death now that they've seemingly created themselves a way to go on forever?" and "How can Whittaker care so much about her performance in this scene she's literally almost crying?". I wholeheartedly related to the Master asking "So why are we still here?" and shout–– hiss–– mumbl–– whatever-ing "Come on, come on, come on!" – at that point I've suffered through at least forty-five minutes of utter nonsense, people going preachy, religious Cybermen with Dalek motivations, that absolutely ludicrous scene in the previous episode when the show was trying its worst to make me perceive autonomous flying Cyber-heads with laser eyes as a serious threat, a shit twist and... Oh.

I've got to finally touch on the shit twist, haven't I?

It doesn't make sense. No, I mean it. I guess it makes sense from the show's writers' standpoint to retcon everything in a way that would allow them to go on forever without having to come up with a way to circumvent limited regenerations, yes. And I won't be touching upon all the lore people say this twist has ruined. No. It doesn't make sense as it is.

The twist is revealed to us by a madman that claims to have hacked into a database, claims to possess control over the Doctor's mind, and gives the Doctor and the audience no actual solid proof that the Timeless Child is, indeed, the Doctor. We have Ruth, sure, and she's nice enough (damn, I want that vest), and she's a Timelord that happens to own a TARDIS that looks like a blue police telephone box, and she calls herself the Doctor. Here's Ruth:

I really like Ruth. She also makes no sense from the show's timeline standpoint, since the Doctor's Type 40 TARDIS only got stuck looking like a police box in 1963, so there's no reason for the Doctor to not remember being her.

We also know that the Judoon have identified Ruth as "the Fugitive"... except in one of their previous appearances in the show they weren't able to identify their targets exactly and thus were seeking out non-humans. There is a possibility that they were only looking for a Time Lord on Earth.

You know what? It's possible that Ruth is actually the Master messing with the Doctor. I have just as much proof of this as I have of the fact that the Doctor is some kind of an endlessly regenerating superbeing.

But this is not the most maddening thing here. I loathe it, but I don't loathe the twist itself: I loathe its lifelessness, I loathe how empty, how unemotional, almost robotic it feels. When somebody'd spoiled the finale for me, I got angry, and I started asking questions, and when later I saw the actual thing...

This gif. I can't even explain how accurate it is. I stood there, in the middle of my kitchen, episode paused, holding a cup of cold tea and desperately looking around as if in my surroundings I could somehow find that emotional reaction that this show failed to evoke. I was ready to burst into tears of how empty it felt, and how empty I felt, and how the same show that has Christopher Eccleston go from literally foaming at the mouth with pure hatred to shocked silence in a matter of second because of one sentence that you, a viewer, can't help but be astonished by failed to make me feel the tiniest speck of literally any emotion. And slowly, I felt that vast void in my chest fill with sheer, pure, flaming hatred for the person who made me feel nothing, for the story that left me not bored – but empty.

And the next moment, in its own unique way of being absolutely tone-deaf, the show introduces the CyberMasters, looking ridiculous, being asinine in concept, making me burst into laughter with their dumb design. Wow.

So.

Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who is no longer a show. Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who isn't even, as somebody on Stardust said, a fan fiction. It's a rollercoaster. A lackluster rollercoaster that lifts you from the vast caverns of frozen hell, devoid of any life whatsoever, soulless and abandoned, to the heavenly torture of being so bad, so utterly awful and ridiculous, that you can't help but laugh as you watch something you used to love be distorted and deformed to the point where you can't recognise it anymore nor really care. This is what Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who has become. And I'm going to continue my ride on that grotesque rollercoaster. I'm going to pirate that ride and get on it again. Because I'm a masochist. Because I want to feel something, even if it's hatred towards those that make me feel nothing.

Because some time ago my fifteen-year-old self watched the first season and learned a lesson that I hold dear after all these years – that I can't abandon hope, and that someday, somehow, things are going to get better. That the future is being written right now. That the future can change.

[bigskydreaming]

You will never catch me saying a single positive thing about some ‘progressive move’ Marvel editorial makes in an X-Men comic until every single decision maker of the past ten years is out of those offices.

Individual writers, yes. Editorial, the ones handing down the creative mandates? Hell no.

This means Northstar and Kyle’s wedding, Bobby, Rictor and Shatterstar’s outings, Storm’s solo series, etc, etc.

Because Marvel editorial does not actually give a single fuck about any of the messages embodied by the X-Franchise, and spent the last ten years proving it.

Marvel as a company was happy to profit off the X-Men movies after they sold the rights to save themselves from bankruptcy. But from the second Iron Man became a success and the movies they churned out featuring characters they still had all the rights to started making profits they got to keep fully, they actively torpedoed the X-Men franchise both in the comics and outside of them. Because now the X-Men were technically competition, at least in the arena of movies, which is where the real money was being made.

Like, it seriously pains me to remember how HUGE X-Men fandom was in the eighties, nineties and early 2000s. Across the comics, various cartoons and the movies, X-Men was one of THE biggest fandoms, back when the fandom juggernauts of today like SPN, HP and the like were still wee baby fandoms. 

And Marvel actively, deliberately killed it. Because they didn’t want people focusing on X-Men characters and reading X-Men stories and buying X-Men action figures instead of Avengers ones. It’s why they made no effort to resolve the issues blocking Wolverine & the X-Men from getting a second season. Even though the first season got ratings that more than justified a followup that would be guaranteed to be profitable for them. And why there hasn’t been another X-Men cartoon since. Even though Marvel always held the rights to make more cartoons while Fox held the movie rights.

It’s why Marvel editorial set out to do House of M and Decimation...those storylines aimed at essentially ending the possibility of new mutant characters were created specifically to do that. They literally did not want new mutant characters that might end up being breakout hits that fans wanted more of in place of more Iron Man, Captain America or Avengers-related properties like Young Avengers. Quesada, the EIC at the time, said it was because writers were getting too lazy with their origin stories as long as they had the concept of mutants to fall back on. All they had to do with a new character was say ‘oh they’re a mutant’ instead of coming up with a unique angle for where they got their powers.

Except then Marvel turned around and reconfigured Inhumans into the new mutants, tweaking their decades old concept to make it so suddenly there was no limit to how many new Inhumans could be created, unlike the limit they’d imposed on new mutant characters. And suddenly you had dozens of new characters with electricity powers and flight and super strength and shapeshifting and who looked no different in any meaningful way from any new mutant character introduced ten, fifteen years prior...except now, all of those dozens of new characters ‘unique angle for where they got their powers’ was oh, they’re Inhumans instead of oh they’re mutants. 

And it wasn’t even like Marvel made Inhumans the new mutants because they had active, important plans to incorporate their concept into their live action universe....again, it LITERALLY was done simply to make the X-Men franchise less necessary. They pushed the Inhumans movie back year by year by year until finally scrapping it altogether, and put barely any effort into the TV show they made of it instead. The only evidence of Inhumans in the MCU is still just in Agents of SHIELD, the show they barely do any promo for and honestly don’t care all that much about. The Inhumans’ sole purpose over the past ten years has basically just been to be an alternative to mutants, should anyone want one....not even BECAUSE the MCU actually wanted one.

And then you had shitty events like Avengers vs X-Men where it was never in question that it was going to be at the X-Franchise’s expense. And in the aftermath of that, they claimed to be making a big push to incorporate the X-Men more into the Marvel universe, do stories showing that the other heroes cared about mutant issues.....all by folding the X-Men into Avengers titles. Books like Uncanny Avengers were launched, with X-Men on lineups with Avengers and calling themselves Avengers....but no new X-books were launched with Avengers in their stories. Because that was never the point. The point was that it basically got X-readers who didn’t give a shit about Avengers comics to pick up Avenger titles in order to read about Storm and Rogue and other favorites....without marketing having to acknowledge the X-brand label in any actual way. Literally just to use X-characters to sell Avengers books, without actually doing anything for the X-franchise.

Not to mention the way the X-franchise’s direction has dramatically shifted every one, two years over the past decade, with no clear oversight or shepherding of it....because it basically became the place for writers to do whatever the hell they wanted, because Marvel as a company DID NOT CARE what happened with the X-books. All the terribly thought out storylines to appear in X-titles of the last decade happened because pretty much any pet project a writer Marvel valued wanted to try out got the green light for them to do in the X-books, because they didn’t have anything they wanted out of the X-brand, other than for it to not siphon fans away from their preferred properties. So you had things going one way one year and then pull a complete 180 the next year when a hot new writer at Marvel wanted to do something completely different. 

Not to mention the way Marvel’s consistently funneled their low-selling writers into writing X-books, except for when high profile writers wanted on an X-title. The X-books became a testing ground for new and unproven writers, which occasionally did result in some good stories, yes, but I don’t really think Marvel deserves props for the efforts of those writers when they only got to do those stories because Marvel didn’t actually care. 

And the most obnoxious thing about all of this is....they were still making money off the X-Men the whole time. From their comics, from repeated viewings of their older cartoons, from toy sales, etc. The X-Men have continued to turn a profit for Marvel even as Marvel actively drove them into the ground....because as long as it wasn’t ever going to be AS MUCH profit as Marvel could make off the movies of characters they had all the rights to....they didn’t want the X-Men ever even potentially overshadowing the Avengers in current readers’ eyes.

So it honestly pains me to see Marvel given any credit whatsoever for various progressive moves they’ve made with X-characters over the past decade. Because while all companies are in it to make money and I don’t expect otherwise, I can’t think of any other occasion where I’ve so clearly watched a company spit on one of its most profitable and iconic properties and all its fans, for the crime of....making money. They literally crashed and burned the franchise with full knowledge of what they were doing, and actively drove away one of the biggest fandoms out there, turning it into a wasteland compared to what it was, because the well established success and visibility of the X-franchise and fandom was in their eyes a threat to the MCU franchise and fandom they were trying to cultivate instead.

And given that on a meta level, the X-Franchise has always appealed more than most to readers from marginalized communities because of the allegories inherent in its core concept....its honestly kinda insulting whenever I’d see mainstream headlines and news stories giving Marvel editorial kudos for a high-profile gay wedding or making a founding X-Man gay or other well-received moves over the last decade....knowing full well how little regard they actually have for the readers those moves mean so much to, given that pretty much every other decision they make around it is meant to keep the X-Franchise from overtaking the Avengers in popularity again.

Like, don’t get me wrong because Bobby Drake has been one of my three favorite superheroes of all time for most of my life, in part BECAUSE I always read him as gay or bi.....so I love love LOVE that he’s officially a mlm in canon and has gotten his own solo series. But at the same time, its obnoxious as hell to be aware that people have been speculating about his sexuality for decades and making references in canon even, and outing him only actually happened BECAUSE he’s an X-character. You notice that for all the positive praise Northstar’s wedding and Bobby’s coming out garnered Marvel, they haven’t been in any rush to make a high profile Avenger gay, have they? Like....yes, the X-franchise has always been the franchise to make social commentary in, but that doesn’t mean that’s the only reason big creative alterations like making one of the oldest Marvel characters gay was only happening in the franchise Marvel didn’t give a fuck about.

So it’ll be interesting to see what happens in the comics now that the X-Men movie rights are back with Marvel and under the Disney umbrella. And I do hope and think that means the comic books will start to get a more cohesive direction again with the X-Men taking more pivotal roles in the comics and getting higher profile treatment again.

But fuck ever giving any of the current Marvel editorial staff credit or recognition for any progressive stories in the X-books. Because they very much do not care about the concept of the X-Men or the messages the X-Franchise is capable of sending with its stories. You can’t dedicate ten years to actively minimizing the franchise that means so much to marginalized readers and still claim to actually give a crap about any of the representation that franchise provides for those readers. Like, lol, you just can’t. 

[thedeaditeslayer]

Bruce Campbell interview: Hail To The Chin, Evil Dead, Spider-Man, Burn Notice, Jar Jar Binks.

Here’s a rather long interview that is worth the read including some brand new info on Bruce’s career and the past.

Serendipity is a beautiful thing. At the beginning of 2009, when Den of Geek was still relatively fresh faced, Mr. Bruce Campbell was over in the UK to promote My Name Is Bruce, a film he directed and starred in that playfully skewed his own persona and we were fortunate enough to get some face to face with the man himself, having trekked through an eerily abandoned London in the midst of a freak snow storm, which you can read here.

For this particular writer though, it marked my first ever interview – a high point in itself, but with the added pressure of speaking to one of my all-time heroes. Consequently, due to Sir Campbell's generosity and good nature during the process, it gave me the confidence to continue down that path and I've been forever grateful. In the years since, partly due to not wanting to tarnish the memory by risking a second encounter, we hadn't crossed paths again, but since he was heading back to the UK to promote his latest book Hail To The Chin: Further Confessions Of A B Movie Actor, and I was fortunate enough to be offered the chance, how could I say no?

The interview ended up taking place just before he was about to head to Forbidden Planet for a book signing and as a result of a busy schedule, the location had been moved last minute from Titan Books publishing office, to his hotel. On arrival I was told to head up to the restaurant area, where I spotted Bruce with his assistant (as well as actor and stuntman) Mike Estes sat up to the bar. Having arrived early I apologized and introduced myself, offering to take myself elsewhere until the allocated time, but Bruce proffered a bar stool and as I sat, got me a beer and things flowed from there.

As a result, instead of the usual formalities, we ended up chatting for nearly an hour, so below is the core of the conversation – especially as there was often digression into talk of alcohol. Tequila is his "poison of choice", though his description of Laphroaig whisky had me in hysterics during a mid-interview pause when referring to Mike as "Sucking on saddle fumes, he's smelling the balls of the earth right there! It's Sasquatch's ball sack drippings. It's a saddle that's been rode hard and put away wet. There's scotch and then there's crack of the ass of the earth – you can quote me on that!"

Hail To The Chin: Further Confessions Of A B Movie Actor is every bit the honest, insightful and compelling read that the first Chins book was, with Campbell's unique voice making even home improvement entertaining, as it follows the next fifteen years of his career from Jack Of All Trades to Ash Vs Evil Dead. Though I thought I'd start our conversation by asking about the person who's endured the most throughout his career, which he answered with his usual dry humour…

There were two things that really struck me about the book, in terms of recurring themes, and the first one was Ida your wife, and the amount of suffering by proxy she's had to endure.

Yeah, I put her in the hospital. I almost got her arrested by Bulgarian police! She puts up with a lot of shit. It's just because I'm so dynamic and amazing, it's really what it is, that's what keeps her coming back for more, otherwise she'd be married to some drip, rich attorney, some guy who couldn't get it up, I mean you know…

An easy life!

She knows what she could be stuck with, so - I have a friend Danny Hicks, Danny's like 'You know what, my wife is never going to find anyone better than me', he was convinced of that, he's just a random friend of mine, actor friend of mine. He was utterly convinced of that. So, that's my approach, she can't possibly do any better… although she could, but it's fine!

So, you're relying on complacency?

Smoke and mirrors. No, not complacency, with my wife what works is keeping her off balance. Like, she doesn't like the same thing over and over again, so this provides that, but then she complains that about not having any kind of stability, I'm like 'Well, careful. Careful for what you wish for!' I'm a Cancer, I'm supposed to hunker down and never leave, but I'm never home, so that's a great irony of my life.

Did you get to bring her to London for this tour?

Well, when you say 'get to', I mean, she picks her cities. She'll go 'You can have Gary, Indiana, I'm coming to London.'

That's fair enough though!

Oh my god, what a great life she has!

It's sort of weird having an informal setting to do an interview, I'm so used to the hotels and…

Yeah, those are a bore.

Press rooms and things but...

Press rooms are a bore!

It's funny because I've only ever spoken to you once before, nine years ago when you were over in London for…

My Name Is Bruce! With the snow storm.

It was the freak snow storm.

It was! How many inches did we get? It was either, we either got eleven inches and it was the most in seventeen years, or it was seventeen inches the most in eleven years - it was a long time. They were afraid the beer was going to run out throughout the city.

Oh really?

There were a couple of articles that were like 'What would happen?' because train operators couldn't get to their stations to operate the trains. I mean, it wasn't even like the trains couldn't run, operators couldn't get to the trains. It was amazing. That was my last time here.

Was it really?

Yeah, it was the last time I was here!

I should say, I owe you a debt of thanks because that was actually the first interview I'd ever done.

Oh, that's hilarious.

And I had to go in and think 'Ok, let's see if I can do this', but because that went so well, you actually gave me the confidence to go and do more.

Good! Good and I will be responsible for you getting out of the business… eventually. I know people who are very powerful in media.

Oh I see, so you can get me fired?

Well, you said it not me.

[Laughing] So when did you decide that the time was right for Hail To The Chin, because technically it's a second part to the first Chins book?

To the trilogy.

There's going to be a trilogy?

Oh yeah! Fifteen years, Final Confessions. George Lucas, eat your heart out man, I've got the original trilogy. No, it just evolved into that and it seemed like it was time. A lot of weird crap had happened. Business changed, I changed, move on in my life, it wasn't the same old same old anymore, there was a different criteria for working, so by the end of act two, I'm ready for part three.

We're also going to know really soon if they're up for season four of Ash Vs Evil Dead, or not, on Starz.

Oh, is it that time?

Oh yeah, we're within days now.

Because last time you were here, you just found out that Burn Notice had gone straight to the top of the ratings.

Burn Notice was doing well, yeah, that was a good run - that was a good seven year run. We tied Miami Vice. Miami Vice did hundred and eleven episodes and so did we. They ran fewer seasons, but they did more episodes per seasons. Those days they did twenty two.

So was it just fortunate timing then that, by the time you knew that the second book was done, you could stick the Ash Vs Evil Dead chapter on the end?

Yeah, because I was going to end with Burn Notice - you always want to end on a big note (adopts nerdy voice) "Oh yeah we're the number one show on cable!" and "Oh yeah everything's great" - you always end it with that, always, why would you not? You don't want to say (in a low register) "And then we got cancelled." But this way I could tell the whole Burn Notice story, but the most important aspect was being able to literally crawl back into the womb. That was why ending on that note, to me, was way more important. I got to go back to the very beginning again. I started with Evil Dead, I may very well end with Evil Dead. That may very well be one of the last professional gigs I do and it was one of the first.

With The Evil Dead, as you say in the book, you owe it gratitude but it almost seems to be a love/hate relationship – and those are my words obviously.

It's more love than hate. It's only hate because I'm actually more type cast by fans, than by my own industry. Within my own industry I've worked for Disney, multiple times, I did Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, I did Love Bug. I did a French film, La Patinoire, Gold Rush I did for Disney also. So I've done unrated, I've done Disney, lots of TV, but if that's all you watch, that's all you watch. If you're a horror person, then you'll only know me for that.

I've done a western, I've played the King of Thieves, Hercules, Xena - I could go on.  So, I only get pissed off when people say "Hey how does it feel to be best known as…' I'm like 'Best known to you.' I've got people who watch Burn Notice who didn't watch Evil Dead. They wouldn't watch that shit, they like spy shows. They don't like gore. Not a lot of people did find out that the old guy on Burn Notice made weird movies when he was younger. That's what cracks me up! [laughs and adopts nerdy voice again] "Oh I didn't realise you made these weird movies when you were a young guy", I'm like 'Yeah well, there you go.'

Absolutely and I love that a point of reference will and should change depending on who you are. When I left this morning, to my three year old I was going to speak to Coach Boomer, because I like to give him a frame of reference for what I'll be doing if I'm late back…

Absolutely, Sky High.

And so for him, Disney will be his first introduction.

Ours too.

Yeah, because as you say in the book - that's why it was good to get a call from Disney because you, like everyone, grew up loving Disney - I don't know anyone who doesn't. The other recurring theme I meant to mention from Hail To The Chin was, I couldn't believe how many times you've almost died!

Oh yeah, the infections...

The arm infection and car accidents…

Yeah well, that's life, isn't it? Here I am. I'm still standing. My time's not up yet!

Was it strange when you were writing the book and you put everything in succession, were there any themes that stood out?

Yeah, drive carefully. Always wear your seatbelt!

I think it's quite telling that the older I've become, the more interesting it is to read about your home renovations, as it is about anything else.

Well the guy who I was writing this with, Craig Sanborn, the guy who wrote the book with me, was like 'Do you really want to put that in about the bureau of land management? You think they're going to go "Whoopee!" and now we get to talk about the bureau of land management. So I'm like 'I don't know, it's interesting to me.'

I do think it's one of those weird things with age - when you're younger you think you're never going to take an interest in things like DIY, or gardening and then suddenly you hit a point where that changes.

Well it's called perspective and maturation and you realise that what you do isn't really the 'be all and end all', there's other stuff that keeps you busy. I love getting involved in land use issues, it’s important, water shares matter [I think he says], it doesn't matter who you are.

You also make a point as well that, as an actor, you get used to having people do things for you [he laughs] and so when you moved out of LA and into Oregon, you were on your own, because I always felt like my dad in particular could do anything, you know? Take a car apart…

My older brother could do that!

He could do plumbing and electrics and I feel useless by comparison!

Yep, my older brother can do any of that. Well, here's what I say – do Army Of Darkness. That's what I say to anyone who thinks that we either don't have skills, or what we do is sort of superficial.

And by that do you mean read and research?

Well, actually it's been kind of fun honestly to go back and to move out there and to re-establish skills too. So yeah, I do know how to blade my drive way now, so, I can do that but slowly. Yeah actors they do have a lot of stuff done for them, for sure. I'm not George Bush - George senior, George Bush didn't know what a scanner was at a supermarket.

Of course yeah, because he hadn't been able to just go to the shops.

He hadn't been expected to shop for so long and he didn't know what it was, he goes 'Wow look at this!' and I'm like 'Yeah, you scan it.' He was like 'Wow that's great!' It was like sending the Royal family in there - same thing [puts on appropriate accent] "Hmm what's this? Look at that! Wonderful!"

When you write about Sam Raimi, as he obviously comes up across various projects you've done, was it really a case of you ringing him and hassling him about being in every Spider-Man film?

Only randomly - only for the first one, I was like 'Sam, you're making Spider-Man, there's no way I'm not in that.' I'm like 'There's got to be something, you have forty eight cast members in that!' So yeah, occasionally I will, I'll just go 'Whaddya got?'

And Tobey Maguire was blissfully unaware of your working relationship!

After the second or third one he was sort of aware - I came back for the second movie and he was like 'What you doing back?' I'm like 'Hey man, you'll be gone one day, I'll always be here!'

I guess depending on your own knowledge of the two of you and your working relationship, you almost take it for granted that everyone is aware of your history.

Yes and no - it's really fun though working on say Oz The Great And Powerful, as Sam's fun and starts trash talking me in front of everyone and I start trash talking him back and the crew gasped, because they don't know who their day player is – a guy comes in to play a Winkie and starts talking back to this famous director – I laughed my ass off, it's hilarious. They're kissing his arse up one side and down the other, I thought it was hilarious.

But I find that whole thing surreal anyway, even from my perspective as someone that gets to do interviews, because a friend of mine who's a horror director has finally had his career take off, but it's taken twenty years of pushing and everything else that goes with it.

Very often it does.

And I interviewed him when he had a horror film out for Fox two years ago, so when I turn up and say I know the director and I'm going in to surprise him, they think it's an assumed familiarity, not that you're actually mates.

And you do know them.

But they can't get their heads round it, they look at it and think but he's made a film and you're writing about it - there can't be a link.

It's hilarious, I think. Well your friends are your friends, when they know this is all kind of funny. Your friends start taking us too seriously, that's when you go... fortunately I haven't had too many friends go crazy on me, some have though.

There's a lot of recurring friendships that pop up across your career, even in Ash Vs Evil Dead... there's suddenly…

Oh yeah, Ted's (Raimi) back, everybody!

How did Walker Stalker go for you this weekend?

Good, busy. I thought it was good idea not to come to the same place all the time.

Of course, you were saying it has been nine years since you've been over here.

It's good to create a bit of a vacuum. It can get a little too much of like 'Hey Joe, how you doing? if you come every year to Cherry Hill, New Jersey, at the same con, so I try to pace it out. If I've been to a city, I don't really want to go back for three or four years. So, we're going to do a tour for the trade paperback for this book in twenty nineteen in ten cities I've never been to before - or ten of my favourite cities.

That's good, because going back to If Chins Could Kill - the map in the back of that, I remember was insane when we spoke about it before.

Fifty five cities. I'll never do that again. Thirty five last summer, I'll never do that again. I'll probably never do more than twenty.  Twenty cities, three months, two, to three events a week and then after three weeks, you've taken ten days off, before you start again. So you learn many lessons on the last tour… we re-learned many lessons on the last tour!

So, this one is going to be slightly less, is this for just the UK?

Everything will be less from now on. Well this one is for four cities, four events, this is easy money. This is nothing. Mike and I we laugh at this tour! [chuckles] I mean we toured from mid-August to the first week in November, so this is nothing. But it's great because I have not toured for a book in the UK period. I've released a book here through Titan, but I haven't toured and done that whole business. Because I want to get into that, I want to establish that relationship with markets outside the United States.

And its handy timing that it coincided with coming over for Walker Stalker…

[He makes a 'hole in one' potting noise and winks!]

[Laughing] Was it coincidence or a well-planned move?

It was not coincidence, because the Walker Stalker came up and then Dortmund, Germany came up and it actually started with Dortmund I think, so everything was wound up backing into Dortmund, then Walker Stalker came up and Mike reps me for doing appearances and we had done several Walker Stalkers in the States - they're a great new company, relatively new, run a good ship, get a great turn out - so we thought Walker Stalker in London, shit yeah, let's go do that.

Because you know this is the birthplace of Evil Dead, this is the cradle of Evil Dead - Palace Pictures, Steve Woolley, guys like that. They made it happen here, they premiered it at the Prince Charles Theatre, made it look like it was the fucking Poseidon Adventure. They went big, they didn't make it seem like it was something they were embarrassed about, they were like [mock shouts] Evil Dead!

Yeah, because it was the attention here that got it launched in the States.

Yeah, then it got banned here, then there was the lawsuit and we came back and then in '83 we were the number one video in the UK - The Shining was number eight.  [laughing]

I'll underline that bit!

That was a beautiful moment.

Yeah, I bet.

I can't… I'm not even going to lie to you. Suck it Stan! If you can compete with the big boys, that's really all that really matters, you can compete - the little guy can compete with the big guy, that's what that represented. There was no 'fuck you' aspect to it, even though you go 'It's fucking Stanley Kubrick!' horror to horror, we went toe to toe. We didn't even go apples and oranges with Stan, we went horror to horror with Stan.

So, that was fun to do, so England - Sam Raimi's insists that we always refer to it as Mother England, because it is the birth of Evil Dead. We could not get arrested for it, we got no distribution deals before we got the deal here. And that's when New Line Cinema, which I called New Lies Cinema, that's when they went 'Oh you know we always liked that movie.' And so we then got a distribution deal because of here. And we thought that could be the opposite, we thought  they'd rip you off overseas, you make your money domestically. This was just the opposite, we did a deal with Thorn EMI, right when video was going crazy, they kept sending us cheques, we were like there must be some mistake,

Aren't you're supposed to rip us off and we're supposed to sue you? Whereas New Line Cinema they advanced us some money and we never saw another penny. So, we took the video money they were supposed to get part of and just didn't share it and they never protested it. We were like okay, well that's your admission of guilt, right there. 'So how about this pal, you keep your money and we keep ours from video' and I guarantee it was actually more than they made. '83 was it, '83 was the explosion of VHS, right around there, police were in our world.

Of course, you were right of the middle of the video nasties ban with Mary Whitehouse and everything that came with it in this country.

Yeah it was amazing.

It created almost like an exponential want to see it - I remember being a kid at school trying to hunt it down.

Best PR ever. Ever. Don't watch this movie - you can't watch this movie. We're keeping it from you. It's not even that it's a higher rating, you know? The UK is like 'No, we're banning it, you don't get it, you don't get to see it at all, not even in a truncated version', so Sam came over, he was all prepared to testify in the court case.

Oh really?

Oh he had a whole Frank Capra, you know "Your honour, here we are as filmmakers…!" He was ready to give a William Shatner speech, but they never needed him and then they won. So it got released and then everyone was like wow, I've got to see this. It made it worse than it was! And now, look at Evil Dead compared to some stuff, compared to Hostel.

I was just going to say Hostel, it's funny that it took that long before there was a landmark like that, where suddenly everyone was like 'that's now the benchmark for splatter and nastiness.'

Yeah watching a guy's dick in a vice for an hour!

[At this point we've been talking for half an hour on record, so I ask if he'd like me to end the interview as I've already had over my allocation of time and he tells me I can finish when I feel I'm done, which I'm always grateful for and was a nice throwback to our first conversation when he gave me extra time. "We're fine, we're fine, my Laphroaig friend doesn't care!" he says gesturing to Mike, leading to the quote in the intro and then goes into an awesome breakdown of the history and geography of all kinds of booze from whisky, to gin, to rum and the measurements you get around the world when ordering – "Whenever the Queen is the money they get very funny about their alcohol!"]

So, we're going to know soon about the show (Ash Vs Evil Dead), this will conclude my touring for this particular book in this form – after this it will be the trade paperback in 2019, so a tour for that and if the show gets cancelled, for the first time in probably twenty five years, I have a blank calendar coming up.

And how does that feel?

Intentionally blank and it's the most fantastic thing I've ever seen in my life. There's a lot of stuff I want to do, but I'm going to shift over now. I'm going to get off the hamster wheel a little bit. Everyone has to make a living and make money, but now it's time to redefine how to do that, because you learn what you learn over the first various decades and then you apply what you've learnt to what you want to do. And there's stuff that I've just checked boxes: I don't want to do this anymore, I don't want to do that anymore.

So you're just going to have some down time?

And also when you're actually working, it's like 'I'm not looking at tennis balls on sticks anymore.' That's what this is, you're not acting scene by scene - Mike and I saw a play two nights ago, you know here we are, actor and Mike does a lot of stunt work and TV himself - and so you're used to doing lots of little tasty bits, a shot here, a shot there and you turn around, whip, boom, you got it – so you go to see a play in London, as we're in the fucking theatre district and it was just such a joy to watch actors act.

One guy acts and the other guy acts and they get the react of each other and you get to watch the scene build, or not, whatever it is, you've got time to do that and those fuckers have got six weeks to figure that out, minimum – big shows, six, eight , ten weeks of rehearsal? Boy I wish I had that! TV shows they go "Hey, you're Ken, you're the bad guy? [shakes my hand to demo an quick intro] Let's block out the final confrontation *dying sound effects* and then you die over here". You've got about ten minutes of peace, you can chase the crew out of there and we would block the scene of the three of us talking and block it all out, but you've gotta do it quick and then you're shooting.

So it's always just nice to look at continuity when you see an actor just acting, and you watch them get out of breath, they sweat, they can't stop - it's awesome! And it's important to see that, because we start to forget. The film business is a form of acting, it's not the purest form, and if you get into special effects, sci-fi, horror – careful Robert Downey Jr. you're looking at a green screen, you're looking at a guy with a stick for the rest of your life. "No, it's over here. No, the world exploding is over here. Oh, no sorry, it's over here now".

If I never hear on a film set [nerd voice] "Three, two, one, GO!" because they're setting up and attack and everything's got to be timed because you're up on a rig, or you're up on a harness and everything has to happen at the same time. You know, how about "Action!" ready and action, no, it's like "Three, two..." and everyone in each department cues up a different number. I'm done with that. It's a very specific type of acting, it's like techno acting. It's like I should've gone into engineering school to do that kind of acting. 'Hit this mark, turn here, look up'. Army Of Darkness was front screen projection, so they were calling numbers "34, 35, 36, 37..." for certain numbers you had to be in certain positions to match what was happening behind you on the front screen. Stupid.

Liam Neeson almost quit! He did one of the Star Wars movies with Jar Jar Binks and then he did The Haunting, back to back. And he was like 'You know what? I think I'm done'. He was so disillusioned by that form of acting, he was like 'This is horse shit, man'. 'Jar Jar Binks, his tongue where? Oh, it's not here? Oh, it's here? Ok, so we have to go again 'cause the tongue is here? Got it. Ok, here we go.' [does a little Neeson impression] Cut. 'Did I get it?' 'No, you have to get a little higher.' 'How am I supposed to see it? Ok put a piece of tape on the wall, over there, so I can look up and know where I have to grab the tongue.' I mean, fuck off. Fuck off - why don't you grab the tongue? You grab the tongue!

At least he managed to carry that kind of thing off…

Some actors can and some can't!

But it didn't translate across the board in that film and you could tell people were struggling, it was just too much.

If your directions from a director are always 'faster and more intense'? I'm sorry man, that don't cut it. Some directors have no idea what to say to an actor, not a clue.

No and I think that George Lucas was sort of infamous for that, he got so preoccupied with the special effects and everything else, that the actors were almost secondary.

Funny thing about that was he was sort of bailed out by the story - crappy dialogue, not great finesse with actors, great story. So in the midst of it, clunky this, clunky that, it didn't really matter, because you've Jedi swinging through the air, blowing chunks out of concrete with their lasers [laughs], it doesn't matter, cool stuff, classic story telling, classic. Classic hero, so that's what saved that.

Yeah and it's interesting how you say in your book how Spider-Man set in motion B list concepts becoming A list properties, especially in terms of how Hollywood looked to then make money from its success.

Sam was a good choice to direct, because he really did read that - I didn't. Sam was the right choice because he was used to tons of special effects, so you have to be able to kind of manage that too, you've got this huge canvas all of the sudden and that's the thing about Sam, he was always too expensive for us, his ideas were always too expensive, Rob and I felt bad as producers, we're always trying to play catch up, trying to help him. Finally he got to these A levels, where he can do the most ridiculous stuff ever.

That's where he's always meant for, Sam wasn't actually meant for doing low budget movies, he did it because he had to, but he didn't actually stay in that game that very long. Darkman - that's a studio movie, 1989, that's not that long after Evil Dead II. Warren Beatty looked at Evil Dead II to see whether Sam should direct Dick Tracy.

Oh, did he really?

Yeah. So I know that Warren Beatty at his house had to watch Evil Dead II, with Molly Ringwald!

And on that note, we finally concluded the interview! Mr. Bruce Campbell, thank you very much.

Hail To The Chin is available now – come get some.

Oh and Luke, if you read this years from now, I want you to know what a dedicated father I am, as I left the chance to finish my beer alone with Bruce Campbell to race back to be with you when you were three, so count on me using this as leverage throughout your teenage years.

[buffylikescoke]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer 11#7

"I'll be in my bunk" ~ Willow Rosenberg

At first I found this issue quite decent, though maybe a bit boring but after giving it some more thought I can say with full conviction that "Disempowered" is this season's weakest moment.

The issue opens with secretary Reyes announcing a permanent solution to the supernatural problem. The government gives the zone denizens an option of being drained of magic or, as the fascist pig puts it, of what makes them a threat. Those that agree to go through the process are free to leave the ghetto. Their legal status is to be normalized and records expunged - expunged of what, exactly? The crime of existing? Fascists. Later on Lake, Willow's devoid of personality ex-girlfriend, even calls it an amnesty. Fucking fascists. Oh, and they might get some reintegration assistance - a carrot before the stick as Willow and Spike point out and hey, Willow and Spike can talk to each other, without Buffy in the panel, how cool is that? So how does the zone's population react? Some are delighted actually, but those that cannot survive without magic obviously are not and soon fights start breaking out between the two groups. During one of such fights stopped by Buffy, a nu-pire accuses a werewolf, very happy to get rid of his wolfhood, of abandoning his own kind. The vampire is afraid that when the majority leaves the zone, those that can't or won't take the government's deal will face ethnic cleansing. About that werewolf. He looks like garbage. If I didn't learn that this is supposed to be a werewolf from the dialogue I'd assume that it's just a dude in a fursuit or a were-rabbit (were-bunny?) or something! Not happy with werewolves holding conversations in their wolfed-out state either but since that already happened in season eight, I can't complain, I suppose.

But what about Scoobies? Their main worry is that the newly announced magic draining process is a smaller scale version of the machine the government is secretly building and that the endgame might be to zap the entire country with de-magicking ray. Spike suggests that Buffy and Willow accept the government’s offer, lose their powers and try to stop whatever is happening from the outside since apparently it's impossible to escape. Excuse me, what the fuck did Willow do in the previous issue? She walked out of the camp, with Buffy. So what keeps her from, again, walking the fuck out, grabbing Buffy and teleporting the fuck away? Not enough power? Isn't Willow, like, overflowing with power from all the wiccans she drained? Is it the wiccans that keep her inside? Later Willow talks to her coven and suggests that the witches still in the zone should take the deal and reveals that she might as well. OK, but what exactly makes them unsafe inside of the zone? I get that it's full of vampires and demons but we haven't seen any actual violence directed at the wiccans, not a single one of them was even attacked! If they're in such danger, then why not show that hypothetical danger instead of just constantly talking about it? The witches repeat the arguments we've heard in the previous issue, when Willow was doing the draining ( spiritual mutilation, violation and so on ) After the coven's meeting is done Calliope comes to talk to Willow about her decision and Willow reveals that she has a plan. Kind of. We don't learn what this plan entails in this issue but I'm hopeful. Willow asks Calliope to trust her, Calli ( can be Calli? Callio? 'Liope? ) kisses her but Willow stops her yet again because it's not right. Calli promises to break up with her girlfriend but Willow tells her not to. Basically, Willow's worried that Calliope is attracted to her because of the situation they're in and that Calli might feel differently when they're out of the zone. Willow's attitude here kinda reminds me of Oz a little bit in season two which is interesting. Anyway, is Calliope really the best the writers can do in Willow's love interest department? The bar was set impossibly low with Lake and so far, Calliope just doesn’t look like an improvement. In the end Calliope takes the deal and leaves the zone.

Buffy has more doubts about giving up her power and guess who shows up to help her make up her mind? Yes, it's captain cardboard and his wife. Buffy points out that without her power she'll be defenseless against everything ever that wants to kill her. Sam is quick to say that Buffy can take self-defense classes and grab a gun ( We had a scene like this in retreat by the way, with Buffy and Giles - derivative much? ) It's stupid. No amount of guns and Krav Maga can protect Buffy from the likes of, say, Drusilla? And yeah, sure, normal humans aren't exactly defenseless but normal humans haven't been pissing off the forces of darkness since they were fifteen! Of course, Riley says that Buffy's really worried about Spike, and I mean, sure, Buffy is worried about leaving Spike in the zone but reducing an issue this complex to just Buffy's love interest the way Riley does is ignorant, even for Riley. Buffy expresses more of her concerns in a conversation with Willow and Spike later at night. Visually, this scene is breathtaking, it’s wallpaper material, the writing, however, is just atrocious. The more you read into it, the worse it gets. It's like an onion made of shit, a shit onion if you will, the more layers you peel off...well, you get the point. What we have here is Willow spewing a nonsensical, pop-psychology polluted speech. For goodness' sake, Willow doesn't even talk like that, she doesn't make speeches at people, this reads like Buffy at her most pretentious pretending to be Willow. Anyway, according to our witch magic is what makes Buffy and Willow special. This is why they're afraid of taking the deal. They don't want to become normal, like Xander and Dawn. So we just have to believe in ourselves, says Willow, who we are without all the bells and whistles. Which I fully admit is scary as hell. Willow, seriously, you managed to restore magic without those bells and whistles, you lose those bells and whistles practically every season - so what could you possibly be afraid off at this point? Willow also equates Buffy's fighty with her witchy. Problem is, those two things are nothing alike, one is a birthright, the other is a skill. Everybody can do magic in Buffyverse, even the normal guy Xander. Willow's a turbo-witch because she put in the effort. Acquiring of power is basically 90% of her story and she's very much proud of having earned that power. Xander spent years figuring out how to kick ass, says then Buffy. As opposed to Willow? Shaking my head. Even if Willow says all this only to convince Buffy to take the deal, even if the intention here is to parallel the closing scene of "Wrecked" it’s still just monumentally stupid. Oh, and that cheerleader obsessed with clothes and shoes line is kinda ironic seeing how Willow's much more of a fashionista than Buffy these days.

Next day Buffy and Willow go through the procedure. They put their hands on a panel of an occult machine and with the mundanity akin to an X-ray test, it's done, they're magic free. Yes, again. OK, how many times were Buffy's powers taken away from her in the TV series? Once, in "Helpless", it’s ~30 minutes out of seven seasons. You know why it was done only once? Because it's not an action series when the protagonist can't do action. This is the third time this is happening in the comics - Tibet, Robot Buffy - fuck you, it counts! And Willow! With the exception of season 10, the Willow can't do magic storyline has been done in every season since season six, every fucking season they do this shit. Six - Willow's addicted, seven - a Wicca who won't-a, eight - twilight and goddesses and whatever, nine - no seed. And now, after a season where a common complain about Willow was that she's just constantly getting her ass kicked, they do it again. When you do it every season it's not exciting, it's not interesting, it's just obnoxious. And what else is there left to explore here anyway?! In a twelve issue season?! There's five issues left and now we have an action series with two leads that can't do any action, that's like making a musical with actors that can't sing oh wait.... But don’t worry, they'll just bring Faith over to handle the ass-kicking and possibly rename the series to Faith and her bitches. Jesus. But that's nothing, really. If that's the story the artists choose to tell then whatever, I’ll deal. You know what's the real problem with this issue and the rest of this season? The characterization. Buffy and Willow show no initiative! And they weren't like this in the TV series, quite the opposite actually, so what changed? And if you're gonna tell me that they grew up I'm gonna super-literally bitch slap you through the internet! They don't act, they're acted upon, submit, completely passive. So far it's been an entire season of we can't do this, it's impossible, it'd be a suicide. Give me back my action-fucking-heroines! Now! I demand!

On her way out of the camp Buffy is given the scythe back because why would a magic hungry government even want to keep one of the most powerful magical artifacts in existence? Jordan throws the weapon at Buffy, which topples her over because the scythe is apparently heavy. What? I know that Willow probably picks up heavy things and puts them down occasionally because I've seen her ass but come on, she's been running around with the scythe for months just fine. Heavy? This is nonsense! So...what did I like? I liked Buffy and Spike! They're funny, they're sexy, they're entertaining! I have to give credit where credit is due, all the coupley stuff is actually pretty top notch in this issue! Yeah, the missing I love you felt forced and unnatural and why is it even such a big deal but other than that, it's all good! The art, aside from that werewolf, looks incredible - the inking is super-sharp, the colors beautiful and vibrant. Art team, one, writing team, zero!

Wow, seven fucks! Yeah, "Disempowered" is trash. It's a derivative, boring, nonsensical mess. But hey, at least we're finally out of the safe zone. I hope to be proven wrong but with five issues to go, I'm afraid that pacing will turn out to be an issue this season.

[thegloober]

Frozen in Time: Tyne Daly on A Bread Factory

by Matt Zoller Seitz

October 26, 2018   |  

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Tony- and Emmy-winning actress Tyne Daly has one of her great roles in Patrick Wang’s epic two-part drama “A Bread Factory,” playing one half of a lesbian couple (opposite Elisabeth Henry) that runs an arts center in a small upstate New York town. 

The role gives Daly a chance to play a tough, eloquent, inspiring character who goes the extra mile to keep the arts alive both as a physical fact and a political force. The character isn’t too terribly different from the person Daly is in life. She’s constantly toggling between small local and regional theater and movie productions and big film and TV projects (she was recently in the $175 million production “Spider-Man Homecoming” right before doing “A Bread Factory,” the total budget of which wouldn’t cover catering on a Marvel film).  Even in casual conversation, she never misses the opportunity to recommend reading, viewing or listening material, and exhorts others to go forth and love education and the arts the way most people say, “Have a nice day.”

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I was fortunate to visit the set of “A Bread Factory” last year in Hudson, New York. This interview was conducted while Daly was on lunch break, surrounded by friends whose ranks included the late Brian Murray, one of her costars in the film. On the table in front of her was a hardbound copy of the text of the Equal Rights Amendment, which she discussed with me, along with the differences between big- and small-budget filmmaking, the advantage of acting for theater, and the difficulty of maintaining health insurance when you’re an actor of a certain age. 

To read my review of “A Bread Factory,” click here.— MZS

Why this movie? 

“A Bread Factory” is a love letter to the theater in the form of a movie, which I think is wonderful. It’s about true believers in the theater who are being usurped by untrue believers. The untrue believers have invaded. Also, it contains great big hunks of the Greeks, in particular Euripides’ Hecuba. And to commit to that, I think that’s wonderful. 

Have you done Ancient Greek theater in the past?

I had a chance to dabble a bit. We did Agamemnon out in LA at the Getty Villa. It was just a wonderful, wonderful experience, and I don’t get to do that part. In “A Bread Factory,” I’m the director of Hecuba, not an actor, so I don’t get to speak the Greek stuff. But the experience of playing outside, under the stars, in front of the Getty Villa with all those treasures in it, was unforgettable. You know, they built an amphitheater to the exact specifications of…I always forget the name, what’s the city where they were all frozen in ash?

Pompeii.

Yeah! Whether that was a smart idea or not, I don’t know. We had the ocean on one side of us and Topanga Canyon on the other, listening to the people come in and playing under the stars. I would watch the stars come out and think, People have been telling each other this story for 2500 years, and the stars have been watching us and saying so little. Humans – you still don’t get it, do you? We keep telling you this story! 

So the fact that the women in this movie run a cultural center similar to that, out of a converted bread factory, and introduce children to all sorts of art forms, and show movies and stuff, and the fact that they’re doing Hecuba—all of that just pleased me. 

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What was this shoot like as an actor? I ask that because a lot of big movies shoot a lot of coverage, and make the actors do every line from a lot of different angles. This director doesn’t work that way. Sometimes a shot will go on for two, three, five minutes without a cut, and that’s the only angle on a scene.

I think Patrick has a very specific idea about what he wants, and he’s very gentle about insisting. He’s a gentle insister! Part of what I really admired about “In the Family” was the time he took and the way he studied human beings at a little bit of a remove. He’s very, very stingy with his close-ups, but I completely trust that he’s making his choices for a reason, even though I don’t always understand them.

How does it feel when you’re acting uninterrupted for a long time during a long take?

Challenging, because my memory’s not as good as it was 10 minutes ago. Certainly it’s a lot harder to con. 

Con? How so?

When you’re working very very fast in TV, you have the opportunity to con, if they start out with the master shot.

For readers unfamiliar with film grammar, that’s the wide shot that shows all the pertinent characters together in their environment, so you know where they are in relation to each other.

That’s correct. You have the master, the two-shot, and the close-ups, usually in that order, and if you want to con a little, sometimes you can get your performance into shape as they’re working their way through all the shots, so that by that time they get to your closeup, you know your words. 

But the way Patrick works is something different, because he doesn’t cut, so it gets a little scarier. You have to do big hunks of the scene. He has 15 ten-page scenes. Usually you’re shooting in much smaller increments. 

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Is that how it usually works in movies that you’ve done?

Yes. The last film I did was “Spider-Man Homecoming,” and I was sworn to secrecy because it’s a [air quotes] “big deal.” We went on these enormous sets with nothing on them, maybe a little element over here or there, but the rest was going to be drawn in later. It was the kind of work where I felt very much like a piece of machinery, you know? It was not very satisfying in terms of what I know about acting, what acting’s supposed to be. 

And there’s this lovely kid, Tom Holland, in his full-body condom that he couldn’t pee in all day, terrified! He’s there with some fans – that poor kid! God, I was terrified for him! I didn’t actually see what he looked like until the wrap party because it always took him hours to get into the suit, hours to get out, and he didn’t even have a catheter! I thought it was child abuse! [Laughs] 

But that’s the state of the art in terms of great big cartoon movies. It’s less about us. 

So a film like this is my antidote. They pay you no money at all. They pay you lovely money to do Spider-Man. But this is about characters and situations that are deeply human and not at all cartoon-y.

Have you given up on movies as an art form?

No! I’m here, ain’t I? [Laughs] But I will say that a lot of American films being made today are not made for actors. 

And beyond that, being in a film, any film, is like being frozen in time. I like being on the stage better. I worked with David Lindsay-Abbaire on Rabbit Hole, I did a brand new musical two seasons ago, It Shoulda Been You. It wasn’t all new plays, unfortunately, because Broadway is afraid of new plays. It’s what the traffic will allow, always, but I managed to play a season. I did Mothers and Sons, by Terrence McNally. It’s been rich for me in New York without television, except…well…I shouldn’t tell you this… 

Don’t make me stop you!

My insurance was cancelled from [Screen Actors Guild] because I hadn’t earned enough dough, and so I had to call up Sharon [Gless] and say, “Sharon, put me on your show!” She was doing whatever that thing was on USA, “Burn Notice”. She got me on it so I could make my medical.

How has TV changed since you were doing “Cagney and Lacey”?

TV has changed a great deal since then. It’s changed a great deal just in the last decade. We worried fifteen or twenty years ago that scripted TV was over because of reality shows, which have gone on far too long. But now they’re declaring a new golden age in scripted stuff. My kid brother – my kid brother? [Laughs] He’s 61! – he’s over on CBS doing “Madame Secretary”. The speed at which they do stuff now, the having 11 or 12 people who are all part of a repertory group, it’s not like what we were doing between ’82 and ’89. It’s just a different rhythm. 

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Do you watch much TV these days?

Do I watch much TV? I didn’t own a TV set for a decade, until this year, and I bought it this year to watch the ever-evolving American experiment. And now I’m sorry I did. [Laughter] You may quote me. It’s this big, my TV [makes shape with hands roughly the size of a toaster oven]. It stands on a little thing in my apartment in New York, and I have one over at the house I’m staying in here, but I haven’t put it on yet. 

Why not? 

I don’t believe in having large bowls of shit in the morning, afternoon, or evening as a source of nourishment. [Laughter] Thank you for laughing at that, Matt.

That’s great!

Never mess with an old woman who’s got nothing left to lose! 

Where in New York do you live?

I moved to East 54th Street. There’s a river over there. I used to have a place on West End Avenue, but that went the way of all flesh in the divorce [from director Georg Stanford Brown], and so when I came back to New York, which will have been 11 or 12 years now come October, I thought if I ever went back to the old neighborhood, it would not be starting again, so I picked a place where I hadn’t lived before. I like it a lot over there.

Why do you have a copy of the Equal Rights Amendment with you?

I believe it’s time to have language about our daughters and ourselves in the Constitution of the United States. The ERA is possibly going to be reintroduced by the smart women that I know. Having been slapped once again in the face by our nation and dismissed as second-class citizens, I think we have to get active again and get it into the Constitution. 

How do you like your chances?

Do you read poetry?

Sometimes, yeah.

There’s a line I really like by Hafiz, a 14th century poet and mystic writer: “Love kicks the ass of time and space.”

That’s nice.

If I could make a living reading poetry, it’d be a happy living, but that’s a tough dollar. I just gave Patrick a poem called “Cutting Up an Ox,” which is a Chinese poem written 300 years before Christ. We have a lot of fun around here.

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