BoJack Horseman Season Three, Episode Three: "BoJack Kills"

One of the staples of 90's family comedies was the annoying neighbor kid. From Steve Urkel to Kimmy Gibbler, these caricatures were usually good for a throwaway joke about how bothersome they could be.

Horsin' Around's Urkel is a weirdo known only as "Goober" and anyone who saw the BoJack Christmas special is keenly aware of the "Go Home, Goober!" catchphrase. It's called back in the cold open and we're introduced to Goober ("Reggie somethingorother", who cares, the guy's Goober, I don't blame BoJack for not remembering his name) as he exists today. He's the manager of a strip club / amusement park hybrid that's a "sexy time for the whole family" and exploits killer whale-women. Fred Savage takes a lot of shit for the fact that he's a pretty crappy actor, but I loved his voice work as Goober. Somehow, the kid from The Wonder Years was perfect for the voice of perhaps BoJack Horseman's creepiest character yet.  Whodathunkit?

This week's story pairs up BoJack and Diane, who's been avoiding BoJack due to some combination of shame and desire for self-correction, as she associates BoJack with all the time she wasted drinking in his house when she didn't want to deal with the fact that she couldn't cut it in Cordovia. It makes perfect sense and it's nice that their relationship has something of a more evolved plot to it than the love interest angle.

BoJack essentially traps Diane into joining him on his errand to pick up a letter that Jill Pill wanted reclaimed from Cuddlywhiskers' house. The pair find a dead killer whale-woman from Goober's club lying in the pool and the police instantly show up and pin BoJack as a suspect. This sets the pair off on a murder mystery to figure out whodunit before the controversy blows up BoJack's Oscar campaign. The twists get even weirder when the dead woman's phone shows a text saying "BoJack is going to kill me" and an investigation into Goober's club shows "BOJACK KILLS" spray-painted on the wall.

At the end of it, it's revealed that "BoJack" didn't refer to the Horseman but rather a brand of heroin being distributed by Goober, who's arrested by Officer Meowmeow Fuzzyface shortly after that revelation. It's a fun little twist, but this ends up being more of a throwaway plot line in the grand scheme of things. Cuddlywhiskers eventually shows up at the end to talk about his newfound happiness, gained from throwing away his worldly possessions and dedicating his life to helping people. He mentions that his Oscar never made him happy, an ominous statement that pretty much takes the wind out of the motivation that Ana gave BoJack in the first episode of the season. Diane and BoJack are both struggling to find a way to be happy in this world, and the path that Cuddlywhiskers outlined to doing so is unsettling to both. The episode ends with his words sinking in during the car trip home, during which both are visibly very uncomfortable with what they heard.

The "B" story in this episode revolves around Mr. Peanutbutter and Todd getting skunked and Princess Carolyn needing to swoop in to save them from their predicament for some reason. There's some decent jokes in there (I particularly enjoyed Mr. Peanutbutter being unable to shake off his compulsion to shake himself dry after taking his tomato bath) and enjoyable references to the absurd amount of spaghetti strainers that Mr. Peanutbutter purchased from his "business venture" in the first episode of the season, but it's mostly not that compelling. Todd desperately needs something to do. He's a comic relief character that keeps things lighthearted, but he's had plot lines over the show's run, like his rock opera or his brief improv career that have done a better job of fleshing him out beyond "goofy dude who's just kinda there."

I'd say the same for Mr. Peanutbutter except this episode probes deeper into the issues he and Diane are experiencing. It's confirmed that they're seeing a marriage counselor (all but spoken in "Start Spreading the News") and Mr. Peanutbutter's neediness is placing a pretty serious strain on the relationship. His first real conversation with Diane in the flashback episode showed how happy he was when Diane validated something he said and to this day he's still seeking that validation. Diane's clearly in a rough spot, trying to get through a day at time without dwelling on the stress of asking herself whether she's happy. She becomes so consumed with the thrill of the murder mystery and the way it helps her forget herself that Mr. Peanutbutter gets lost in the shuffle. He calls her angrily (pretty rightfully) because she never went home that night and she doesn't have much to say for herself. Mr. Peanutbutter seems pretty damn irrelevant to Diane's quest for self-satisfaction, and combined with how important she is to his, it certainly seems that this won't end well.

Episode Grade: B

Bullet Points

• Todd still has the Latin Kings and Skin Heads tatoos. Nice continuity touch.

• Goober is also the #1 customer of Whale World. Not surprised.

• One of my favorite parts of this episode was the first post-theme scene featuring the "Non-Denominational Winter Day Pageant". The PC jokes were fast and furious....
• The song was great: "It is winter yes that's right / A time for family and lights / It doesn't mean God and it doesn't mean pray / Unless that's what you want but who are we to say."
• "Where are you? I hear mirth."
• "Snow goblin is an offensive slur."
• "Jesus Jill, you thought your play sucked."  "I didn't."
• The non-denominational word for schmooze is "hobnob". The more you know.
• "Did you miss the three wise people make their journey to visit the regular baby?"

• "Watch your mouth, lady. There are children here."

BoJack Horseman Season Three, Episode Two: "The BoJack Horseman Show"

It's a BoJack Horseman flashback special! The year (as they make abundantly clear) is 2007 and we're going back to the roots of BoJack and Princess Carolyn's tumultuous on-again off-again relationship. Things were just as weird between them back then and both insist that their hook-ups won't continue, which is funny and sad at the same time.

In 2007, Princess Carolyn's stuck as a secretary to her agent boss, Marv. Marv seems to exist only to speak in a crusty voice, act unhappy, and whip Princess Carolyn's movie scripts into his ceiling fan. When Carolyn tries to convince Marv to put BoJack in a starring role of the only script he was willing to listen to (because it had a two-word title), he snorts derisively stating that not even the best agent in the world could get BoJack off his ass.

Princess Carolyn takes this as a challenge and introduces BoJack to a hamster named Cuddlywhiskers who penned the script. We see that the artist currently known as Jill Pill is his housekeeper and are told very aggressively that Cuddlywhiskers went to Harvard. How on point.

BoJack is excited about working with Cuddlywhiskers but is initially nervous that he won't be any good. After a brief flash-forward, we see that Carolyn was able to eventually convince him to go through with the gig after some tough love. BoJack's grateful enough to give a gift to Princess Carolyn that's simply purrfect ("It's a box! With crinkly tissue paper in it! How did you know?"). With all the shitty things that BoJack has done over the series' run, it's important that the writers give us moments like these to remind us why people even put up with him in the first place.

BoJack and Cuddlywhiskers do a great job with the initial reading of the script, but the potential for success frightens BoJack and he engages in some self-sabotage by convincing Cuddlywhiskers to change everything about the show (seriously offending Princess Carolyn with some mean-spirited put-downs in the process). The pair go on an epic bender and write an absurd pilot in which BoJack's character actually takes a dump on a DVD of Horsin' Around and has a dumb catchphrase, "Wassup bitches?!?!" (with apologies to Mac from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia).

Princess Carolyn takes BoJack's harsh words and does what she usually does when life gives her lemons -- channels her anger and disappointment into her career. She tells Marv she wants to be an agent and in a really weird and odd-fitting plot twist, he just decides to quit and effectively hand her his job. Marv jumps off into a monologue that explains the depression, regret, and missed life opportunities that the job has meant to him and we know all too well that all of Marv's ghosts will one day visit Princess Carolyn. For the time being, though, she's naive and thrilled to have the job she wants, effectively numb to how it tore her predecessor apart.

She then goes to have a frank talk with BoJack that's truly crushing given what we know about the way her life turns out over the next eight years.

"I'm your agent and your friend and I will always support you. But I'm 33 years old and I want to have a family by the time I'm 40.  I don't want to spend the next seven years of my life falling in and out of love with you. I've wasted too much time waiting for things to happen.  And I'm not going to wait anymore."

All I could think about was the end of Season One, Episode Seven, when Princess Carolyn's phone wished her a happy 40th birthday while she was alone at night in her office.

Meanwhile, Mr. Peanutbutter is married to his second wife Jessica Biel, who is the latest in a line of celebrities to lend their own voice to the show and portray a thoroughly awful version of themselves. She's already moving on to Justin Timberlake as she's visibly sick of Mr. Peanutbutter's positive yes-man attitude towards literally everything. Diane winds up being Mr. Peanutbutter's rebound when Jessica verbally divorces him. It's some neat backstory, but for the second straight episode, nowhere near as compelling as what's going on with BoJack.

The "C" story shows Todd's first kiss with a girl named Emily. It wasn't overly interesting aside from Todd stumbling onto the ending of The Sopranos, which I probably would have appreciated more had I seen that show.

Episode Grade: B-

Bullet Points

• Old Running Guy has a female companion in the opening scene of the episode. My first thought was, "Hey, great, he found someone" but then when it was revealed shortly after that this was a flashback episode, this became sad.

• Got a kick out of the guy handing out flyers for home loans -- "No Job, No Credit, No Problem!"

• Another running joke that I like are the stereotyped radio songs with lyrics explaining what decade it is.

• The mouse-chick from J.D. Salinger's production room from Hollywoo Stars and Celebrities: What do They Know? Do They Know Things? Let's Find Out! makes a brief cameo in a Stanford sweater as an annoyed bystander when Todd and Emily skateboard by.

• "Blarn"

• We finally have the answer to how many Lokos are an adequate amount of Lokos for BoJack. Sixteen!

• "I now pronounce THIS marriage over. Biel with it!"

• "Hey there Delilah"

BoJack Horseman Season Three, Episode One: "Start Spreading the News"

Welcome to my (hopefully) semi-regular coverage the new season of one of my favorite television shows I watched last year, BoJack Horseman.

Since this is a Netflix binge show, this coverage will be slow compared to how quickly people likely watch it. Not too many people comment here, but I'll ask that people don't post spoilers for future episodes, because I actually am watching them at the pace that I write.

We rejoin BoJack's adventures on his Secretariat interview tour where he's required to answer the same boilerplate questions over and over again ad nauseam. For me, it conjured up memories of the "I'm tired of running in circles" scene from last season (and upon re-watch, I may have just been reading the poster in the background!). There's pretty little that BoJack hates more than being forced to bullshit with people and sure enough, the sarcasm starts to come out pretty quickly. Things get worse when the interviewers start to hone in on the fact that Horsin' Around is considered to be a crappy show and BoJack simply will not stand for that. Ana Spanakopita, BoJack's advisor for the tour has to give him a reality check between takes by skewering him with a biting and well-delivered line: "Horsin' Around...was a piece of shit."

In-between the rigorous interview schedule, we're introduced to the enigmatic Jill Pill, whom was discussed last season when Princess Carolyn tried to convince BoJack to talk to her about becoming a Broadway actor. She's voiced by Mara Wilson! Remember her?  She really hasn't been up to much in the acting realm, so it's neat to see her back out there. BoJack sees her weird marionette play "Greg Kinglear" and then meets her at a diner. In BoJack's discussions with Jill, he seems to think that he'll be remembered if he wins an Oscar for Secretariat, but she troubles him with a metaphor:

"You know what the real tragedy of Greg Kinglear is? He's a marionette who doesn't realize that someone else is pulling the strings."

Ouch.

We see a callback to that when BoJack tells Ana that he's not her "puppet" when he gets frustrated with her micromanagement. When Ana leaves BoJack alone, he gets drunk and tries to sleep with a journalist, but things go south during the encounter when she mentions a boat. That brings back BoJack's memories of Charlotte's daughter, Penny, from the most crushing episode of last season. It sends BoJack into a bout of depression and eventually he's recorded saying that he's not actually even in Secretariat and that the producers were able to digitally replace him. That seems like a major catastrophe, but Ana later mysteriously notifies him that everything has been taken care of.

Ana finally gives him a heart-to-heart to address the troubling seed Jill planted within BoJack -- the uncertainty over whether he actually wants to win an Oscar. She's as realistic as possible with him; the Oscar isn't going to cure his depression or make him whole.

Meanwhile, Princess Carolyn's pretty overwhelmed with her new agency and she loses J.D. Salinger as a client. She tries to get Mr. Peanutbutter to get some work, but that only inspires him to cook up more crazy schemes, much to the chagrin of his poor accountant. Todd has a goofy adventure getting lost in the hotel room and Diane's not really involved all that much with the story. BoJack Horseman generally does a great job of working with its secondary characters, so hopefully they start to branch out soon despite the heavy BoJack-focus of the first episode.

Episode Grade: B

Bullet Points

• It's revealed that Vanessa Gekko and Rutabaga Rabitowitz have teamed up to form a competing firm. While it's not explored in the first episode, teaming up Princess Carolyn's archrival with the sketchy guy she shunned at the end of the last season is a pretty interesting setup. 

• Princess Carolyn's conference call with BoJack and Mr. Peanutbutter gives us some hints that things aren't going great between Mr. Peanutbutter and Diane as they begin to dominate part of the call with unmistakable marriage-counseling-speak.

• The guy who asked BoJack "What's it like to play Sea Biscuit" sounded a LOT like Vincent Adultman, so I guess Alison Brie's working overtime.

• "I told you to wear lipstick...and underpants, Teresa."

• I was a bit disappointed by the "small bottle of shampoo at airport security" joke, even as a throwaway. That's been done a billion times.

• "She had to move to Detroit." "Oh GOD!"

• "The lyrics are too relevant! Don't do it! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

Independence Day: Resurgence

First, some clarification for my extended absence.  When I started writing here, I failed to remember just how much time baseball season consumes. It got really tough to keep up TV recaps and the like when baseball viewing and writing was at its heaviest.  I feel like this place will get more updates in the fall.

***

There's at least one movie you watch in your youth that takes on a special significance to you that few others will ever quite understand. The 1996 blockbuster Independence Day was that movie for me.

I was nine years old in the summer of 1996 when I went to the theater with my friend Mike, his family, and friends of his siblings. There wasn't a set movie in mind upon arrival, but once the few adults in the group had conferred, the choices us kids had were The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Independence Day. I was still pretty all about Disney at the time; the previous summer I'd laughed my ass off when A Goofy Movie came out and the year prior to that was the thorough amazingness that was The Lion King.  Though I had no particular desire to see Hunchback, it seemed right in my comfort zone and I probably would have selected it in a vacuum.

However, Mike brought another one of his friends from our school with whom I was not as comfortable around nor necessarily on friendly terms with. As a rising fifth-grader, I had no desire to look like a dweeb by picking the kiddie movie. I knew nothing about Independence Day other than that it was rated PG-13 (and would become the first PG-13 movie I'd see in theaters), but social pressures being what they were, when given the choice, I selected it without hesitation. Can't show 'em weakness.

When waiting for the movie to start, I asked Mike if he knew what it was about and he told me "aliens".  Wait. Aliens?  Really?  The film was called "Independence Day".  Surely this was some sort of mistake. Nothing in the title remotely implied that this would be some sort of extraterrestrial thriller. Having been scarred by the Alien component of The Great Movie Ride at Disney World a couple years before, I became nervous and asked the incredibly silly and unmistakably dweebish question, "Um, you mean like scary aliens?"

I hoped his other friend didn't hear me.

In any case, I pretty much held it together during the movie and really became enchanted by it towards the end. President Whitmore's speech really fired me up and I cracked up hysterically when Jeff Goldblum delivered his perfect, "Forget the fat lady, you're obsessed with the fat lady. Drive us out of here!" It was an epic film unlike any my nine-year-old self had ever seen before.

Of course, several times over the next few months I went to sleep worried about an alien invasion of Earth. 

When the movie came out on video. I told my dad that I'd seen it in theaters and since I knew he had some interest in Star Trek and the like, one night I encouraged him to watch it with me when we were trying to figure out something to do. My dad became a pretty big fan of it as well, and other than Christmas movies, it's probably the film we've watched together the most. Since I knew what to expect the second time around, I was much better able to appreciate the little one-liners, character ticks, and understand how the various plot pieces fit together. From that point forward, at least until I became old enough to appreciate movies with more depth to them, Independence Day was my favorite movie.

A few years (and quite a few views of Independence Day) later, I'd become very good friends with a guy named Gino who could quote Independence Day for hours on end just like I could. Independence Day was therefore more to me than a sci-fi adventure film, it was a bonding experience between me and my dad as well as me and Gino.

I recently Googled what reviews of Independence Day were like and most of them contained a heavy dosage of the word "cheesy". When you're 1996 Roger Ebert and are accustomed to reviewing films like Braveheart, Forrest Gump, and The Shawshank Redemption, I could see how Independence Day might fit under the "cheesy" label. But when you're nine-year-old The Pat Hatter, you have little-to-no concept of "cheesy". The film had already taken up a special place in my heart before I'd become mature enough to pick up that perspective. I think it's fair to say that I look at Independence Day through a much different lens than most.

There was little question that on opening weekend, Gino and I would see Independence Day: Resurgence together. Saturday was the much-anticipated night. Prior to seeing this film, I naturally checked out what the reviews were like and most of them were not positive. I therefore went in fully expecting a film full of strange plot devices, corny dialogue, and weak characters. I got all three.

So, with that out of the way, Gino and I agreed that the film was thoroughly entertaining. The two of us have a heavy dose of bias and it's a clear step down from its 1996 predecessor, but for us, it was plenty of fun.

Jeff Goldblum reprises his role of David Levinson and in the absence of Will Smith (conveniently written out as deceased from a training exercise, because apparently Steven Hiller is talented enough to deftly fly an alien craft in the first movie on the first try but can't survive a training exercise) he's very much the star of the show. Jurassic Park and Independence Day both allowed Goldblum to showcase his excellent delivery in the 90s and that ability of his hasn't declined whatsoever with age.

Other favorites from the first movie return, including (now former) President Tom Whitmore (Bill Pullman), stripper-turned-doctor (???) Jasmine Hiller (Vivica A. Fox), the ever-quotable Julian Levinson (Judd Hirsch), and Dr. Brakish Okun (Brent Spiner).  Okun's reappearance was actually pretty surprising, as he was presumed dead after a confrontation with an alien in the lab during the first movie. The writers apparently fell in love with the quirky scientist because he received an unexpectedly large amount of screen time for a guy who was just a bit player in the first movie. His "death" was written off as a 20-year-long coma. That didn't make any sense to me because they appeared to check his pulse in the first movie and conclude he was dead, and he'd have a pulse if he were in a coma. But whatever! I'm not here to judge! (Okay, maybe I actually am, but I'd rather have a film with Okun than a film without Okun.)

The new cast includes Liam Hemsworth, who portrays a fighter pilot whose parents were killed in the first invasion. He's romantically involved with Whitmore's daughter Patricia, who's unfortunately played by the completely milquetoast Maika Monroe. If I had to pick one (of several) complaints about this movie, it's that the very talented Mae Whitman was not asked to reprise her role as Patricia Whitmore, ostensibly because of height and not fitting the "Liam Hemsworth Love Interest Archetype". He teams up with Dylan Hiller (Jessie T. Usher), Steven's son, during many of the movie's visually impressive action scenes. 

One of the reasons this film falls short of Independence Day is that the 1996 film did an excellent job of conveying a sense of desperation and hopelessness among the survivors before the winning idea was eventually conjured. In this film, we have several utterances in the vein of "shit, we're not going to win this time", an idea that packs much more of a punch when the audience feels it without it having to be said. The sense of urgency picks up late in the film, but before then, we're not given many reasons to worry or even care if the humans are able to fight off their alien rivals. I guess part of that's to be expected when we take it as a given that the film will retread some old ground, but that aspect of it was disappointing.

Nonetheless, there's plenty of enjoyment to be had and while popular perception seems to be that the film is a money grab (strongly reinforced by the suggestion at the end of the movie that there will be another sequel), that doesn't mean that it can't be fun along the way. Goldblum, Hemsworth, Hirsch, and Spiner in particular are very fun to watch on screen and the film's action scenes and special effects are top-notch. Independence Day: Resurgence will likely continue to get panned by reviewers, and understandably so. But for true fans of the first movie, there's enough here to appreciate in callbacks and familiarity alone that the flaws can be accepted and two hours' worth of enjoyment can be had.

Rating: 5 / 10

A Review of Nationals Park in Washington

When I graduated college, I had no aspirations of seeing Europe, the Seven Wonders (pick any of them, I'm sure there's like eight sets of Seven Wonders), mountains, or jungles. No, all I wanted to do was just wanted to see the 30 Major League Baseball stadiums. That might seem pretty bland (or "fitting", depending on your impression of me), but that's just who I am.

Yet, despite having a then-girlfriend-now-wife who has always been fond of traveling and enjoys going to baseball games, eight years passed without me seeing a new baseball stadium. In addition to U.S. Cellular, I've been to Wrigley, Progressive, Kauffman, Miller, and the Rogers Centre (the Skydome when I visited).

I had a work conference in Washington and the Nationals were playing the Braves, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to finally cross a new one off the list. Here's notes on my experience at Nationals Park:

• The park has a very clean, new, yet unremarkable look to it. It was a pleasant place to be but it was certainly lacking in a "wow" factor. The outfield deck had plenty of bar/seating areas as well as ledges overlooking the park for you to eat and drink.
• The center field entrance gate:

• Views from my seat:

• The pitching matchup was Max Scherzer vs. Bud Norris, which seemed pretty one sided, but neither guy was on his game. Crooked numbers were posted in each of the first three half-innings.
• A.J. Pierzynski came to the plate in the top of the first and delivered a 2-run double off Scherzer. The dude can still hack it at the plate and this warms my heart.
• The hometown crowd LOVES Dusty Baker. This might be a "Not Matt Williams" effect, but he was cheered whenever he showed his face over the dugout. He also replied to the fans with a kind smile and wave. If he wasn't such a fucknuts with baseball decisions, I could see really loving rooting for Dusty Baker.
• The P.A. announcer was very unremarkable. On a scale of one to Gene Honda, I give him one-and-a-half stars.
• The Nats show the artist and title of each player's walk-up music. I think this is a great feature.
• On the subject of walk-up music, possibly my favorite choice was that of Wilson Ramos. He walks up to "Wilson" by Phish. The crowd chants "WIIILLLL-SSSOONNN" along with the music. An extra bonus: Ramos went 4-4 with 2 RBI, so the Wilson Ramos experience was thoroughly enjoyable.
• Bryce Harper walks up to "The Best Is Yet to Come" by Frank Sinatra. If the best is yet to come for Bryce Harper, we're talking about an inner-circle Hall of Famer.
• The Nationals' ushers don't let you walk down the aisles to your seats during an at-bat. I like this rule.
• Food! The Cell certainly beats the hell out of most ballparks when it comes to food. I asked for some advice in the RRRR regarding what to eat. At the suggestion of a South Side Sox commenter, I found the Island BBQ stand in centerfield that served jerk pork ribs and plantains.

• I could have done with more sauce and seasoning, but these were worth it, especially because I usually don't branch out at ballparks for food that much.  I enjoyed these from a neat outlook point in center field.

• The beer selection was just "eh". I drank mostly Goose Island IPA. It's a bit disappointing that I went with a Chicago beer in Washington, but the only interesting-looking thing they had that I never tried before was a stout, and I wasn't in the mood for a stout.
• I then got a burger from Steak Shack. This is the Smoke Stack burger with bacon, cherry peppers, and Shack Sauce. No cheese. Sorry I'm not sorry. The lighting's not great. Sorry I am sorry.

• "Root, root root for the NATIONALS" had a really bad ring to it during the 7th inning stretch. There really was never meant to be a third syllable there.
• Jonathan Papelbon was actually booed by a decent portion of the hometown crowd when he came on to pitch. He got the save, but all three outs were hard lineouts, one to each outfielder.
• The last out of the game? None other than Gordon Beckham, who pinch-hit in the pitcher's slot. I was quiet for most of the game being alone in an unfamiliar city, but I felt just fine giving him an earful. It was the only time I can remember cheering for Jonathan Papelbon. The Nats won 6-4.
• This was the first time I've ever been to a baseball game alone. It was an interesting experience being able to wander around as I pleased without regard to whether I was spending enough time with others. I'd much rather go to games with other people but there was a certain liberating aspect to it.

More pictures that I took:

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 (Spoilers)

Film adaptation (and Jennifer Lawrence) give The Hunger Games trilogy the fitting conclusion that the novels never had.

I read Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games trilogy quite some time ago and greatly enjoyed the first installment as well as the second, Catching Fire.  Unfortunately, the third novel in the series, Mockingjay was an absolute disaster. It was a brutal slog of a read that intermixed uninteresting slow stretches with action that took place too quickly for it to truly resonate. The story that Collins chose to tell was admittedly a tough one to convey via text, and the extreme action of a war zone found in many chapters of the story was always better suited for the big screen than paper. Still, one can't help but feel that a superior author (e.g. Martin, Tolkien, Rowling) would have done a better job with the difficult wrap-up of such an enthralling series.  Collins fell short, but thankfully, Jennifer Lawrence and a good cast of actors did not.

I can't say I'm particularly surprised by that result because I enjoyed the first three films in the series probably equally as much as the accompanying novels.  It's a story that lends itself well to film, for sure, but I think that a common reaction to movies based off of literary works is, "Well, the book was better."  I never once got that sense in The Hunger Games trilogy. The movies managed to do the books justice, and in the case of Mockingjay (particularly Part 2), the film version exceeded expectations.

Of course, one thing that Mockingjay the movie had going for it that Mockingjay the novel did not is Jennifer Lawrence. She did such a great job of conveying the horrors and emotional trauma of war through her face and I can't say enough about her performance. From an entertainment perspective, Lawrence was able to keep me sucked in despite a plot built with obviously problematic elements. "Oh, hey Prim, guess you're randomly here in this war zone with us and.......now you're dead. Good seeing you for three seconds, I guess. That death was totally fitting for four installments' worth of character building."

Unlike Prim's death, the movie handled Finnick Odair's demise far, far better than the novel. The book versions of Catching Fire and Mockingjay did a great job of establishing Finnick as an unexpectedly sympathetic character, and he quickly became a favorite of mine while reading. Unfortunately, the novel Mockingjay wrote him off quickly as a death at the hands of the mutts, much the same as it did a few other nondescript characters in effectively the same scene. I always thought he deserved better. By contrast, the movie was able to paint Finnick as a hero, bravely fighting off monstrosities and even saving Katniss' life before he's dragged to his death. Rather similar to Cato's death in the first movie, Katniss kills Finnick (and the mutts) with an explosive, though this time it's out of love rather than mercy.

Admittedly, a lot of the details of the book escaped me over the course of these past five years (it was bad, remember!), but one scene that I was anxiously awaiting was Katniss' decision to kill Coin instead of President Snow at Snow's execution. The movie set this up very well, and you could even see a knowing grin on Snow's face (Donald Sutherland was consistently awesome throughout the four movies) before Katniss physically changed targets.

The conclusion of the story, involving Katniss' choice to remain with Peeta over Gale, made much more sense in the movie. The audience could see Peeta's slow return to normalcy over the course of the film and Katniss' growing distrust of Gale's methods and attitudes towards war and its victims. The ending of the Mockingjay novel was pretty confusing (to be fair, it's possible and even likely Collins intended to get the same effect as the film did, but she didn't, because the book was bad!) and felt pretty rushed after the action-packed scenes that preceded it. The ending of the movie felt far, far more natural and satisfying.

In the epilogue, we see Katniss and Peeta relaxing in a peaceful meadow with their two children.  In the first installment, Katniss insisted that she was never having kids, and it's implicit that the reason why is that she would never want to bring new life into the horrors of the world in which she lives. That she ultimately chose to have children is indicative that she approves of the new order established in Panem and that the world has become a better place as a result of her choice to assassinate a potential tyrant in Coin. It's as happy an ending as the trilogy could've had, I guess.

Mockingjay Part 2 suffers a bit from alternating dullness and rushes of action, but it was just going off of the source material, so it's hard to fault it all that much. It has plenty of excitement, feeling, and some nice character work (though I would've liked more Haymitch, because Haymitch is great).  It feels like a genuine horror movie when the squad is trekking through the sewer-like tunnels and has no shortage of touching moments between a cast of characters that are developed well for their limited screen time. It's far from a perfect movie, or even a great one, but it's a good, entertaining conclusion to a series that really deserves one.

Better Call Saul, Season Two, Episode Seven: "Inflatable"

In which we meet the biggest sucker of them all, Jimmy's own father.

A couple episodes back, Chuck mentioned in a conversation with Kim that Jimmy had stolen about $14,000 from his father's store.  In tonight's cold open, we get a lot of extra context around that.

In a flashback scene, we see Jimmy "working" in his dad's store (reading a Playboy when he should be sweeping). Jimmy overhears a conversation between his dad at the cash register and some guy spinning a sob story to try to con Jimmy's father out of five dollars. While Jimmy's dad is all too eager to help the man in whatever way he can, Jimmy sees the situation for what it is and pleads with his dad to not give the guy a handout, as he's seen this happen plenty already. Of course, Jimmy's dad doesn't listen and winds up giving the guy ten dollars.

Jimmy's dad runs to find spark plugs to help with the con artist's car, leaving Jimmy alone with him. It's clear to the con artist that Jimmy doesn't trust him, so before departing he says, "There are wolves and sheep in this world, kid.  Wolves and sheep.  Figure out which one you're gonna be."

When Jimmy's dad comes back and realizes the con artist left, Jimmy gives his father a look of utter disdain. Left alone with the cash register, Jimmy steals the eight dollars the con artist used to purchase cigarettes, and we're to believe that this is Jimmy's first of many thefts from the store. At that moment, Jimmy's figured out which one he's gonna be.

The thing is, while Jimmy may have despised his father for being such an easy mark, it's easy to respect a man who would rather risk getting conned than refusing to help someone in need. And while we may admire Jimmy's street smarts, an honest person can't believe that him stealing money from his father is in any way justifiable. The scene makes it more understandable, but it's still just plain wrong. We know from Chuck's story that it's Jimmy who causes the real harm to the store, not random con men pilfering Lincolns and Hamiltons.

The post-credits portion of the episode opens with a truly tough scene to watch. Jimmy represents Mike in his meeting with the prosecutors to explain that Mike will no longer claim that the gun in his confrontation with Tuco Salamanca actually belonged to Tuco. Jimmy tries to make Mike feel better about the incident and even offers to not collect for his services. Mike isn't having any of it -- he doesn't want to feel tied to anyone. Honestly, other than his family, it really doesn't seem like Mike has it in him to give a damn about anyone.

From there, Jimmy sets out to quit his job at Davis & Main, though when Omar points out that his signing bonus would need to be paid back, his mission changes to "get fired without cause". Putting the "colorful" in "colorful lawyer", he dresses up in his outlandish suits and we get a montage of all the things he does to try to get canned:

1. Wearing aforementioned suits
2. Running a loud juicer in the office and exploding said juicer all over a couple associates
3. Screaming Spanglish at a guy who's vacuuming at night, when the guy is from Michigan and speaks English just fine, thank you very much
4. Repeatedly taking shits in the bathroom and not flushing, under the excuse of water preservation
5. Playing the bagpipes in his office

The bagpipes turn out to be the final straw and Cliff cans Jimmy.  Jimmy can't come up with a reason for his actions besides explaining that he's a square peg.  On his way out, Jimmy rips a soda can out of Erin's hand and throws it in the garbage. Awesome.

After quitting, Jimmy goes to meet with Kim and tries to get her to not only quit HHM, but drop her pursuit of the Schweikart job and become partners with Jimmy as a new practice. Jimmy tells Kim that she's too good for a lateral move and goes so far as to call Rich Schweikart "Howard Hamlin by a different name". Before Kim can get on board, she wants to know whether Jimmy is going to "play it straight" or in their new endeavor, or, in a very apt choice of words given the previous montage, whether Jimmy is going to "be colorful".  Jimmy can't lie to her for more than a few seconds, and Kim ultimately rejects the offer in what's a pretty strong scene for her character.

Meanwhile, Stacey shows Mike an expensive house that's well beyond her means. Mike knows that Stacey faked the bullet hole that led her to trying to convince Mike that her neighborhood was unsafe, but just how much is he willing to let Stacey take advantage of him? We know he loves Kaylee more than anything, but even he needs to be aware that continuing to deal with drug gangs for money won't be any good for her, right?

Finally, Kim nails her interview with Schweikart. We discover she's from a small town on the Kansas/Nebraska border. That explains the Kansas City Royals shirt, at least. On her way out, she accidentally calls Rich "Howard". It's a moment that's more than a mere verbal slip-up. When Kim lets the wrong name slip, we come to understand that she knows Jimmy was right; Schweikart and Hamlin are really no different to her at all, and she's looking for a way to get out completely.

Kim smokes a cigarette on the roof of the building and rips her Wexler McGill business card in half. She has her idea -- go out on her own with Jimmy, but operate separately.  That way, both lawyers can practice the way they want to. It seems like a pretty reasonable proposal, but something about the ripped business card gives Jimmy pause, and the show cuts to the end credits before he gives his answer.

Bullet Points

• "Omar, that whole, uh, letter of resignation thing....I didn't mean that. Not a word. I..I'm so incredibly stressed out...I'm stressed out the wazoo."

• "Hey Cliff, for what it's worth, I think you're a good guy." Cliff: "For what it's worth, I think you're an asshole."

• Apparently Omar has kids. His last scene with Jimmy really shows how little we knew him

• Two straight episodes with no Chuck!?!?!? He better be back next week.