Fringe!!!

So, as usual, I'd fallen behind in my TV viewing, and last night my husband and I watched the last two episodes of Fringe. And holy hell, I did NOT see this storyline coming. I saw the death of Etta a couple of weeks ago, and was shattered by it. (Narratively, in retrospect, it made perfect sense to have the existence of Etta in the storyline, but return it to the three key characters the series started with.)

But then, in a fit of grief, Peter held an Observer captive, went all medieval on his techie ass, and removed the bit of tech that made him an Observer. Oh, but he didn't remove it to study it. Nope, he popped that little baby right into the back of his noggin, and like the Ceti Eel in Wrath of Khan, that thing just burrowed its way in. Instantly. And zoop, it was gone.

So... could this be Peter's future?:

This photo is not from FOX, by the way. A fan
has Photoshopped it. 

As soon as that little piece of tech zooped into his brain, I said to my husband, "Ooh, will he be shaving his head and eyebrows and picking out jaunty fedoras?" Peter took one last look at the now-dead Observer (amidst me sitting there taunting him, "Grab the fedora! You're gonna need it!") and left. To him, the tech will put him one notch closer to figuring out these monsters.

To us, it could be one step closer to having to change his name to a month on the calendar.

Now we're seeing him looking through the train and seeing it outlined like the Observers do. He can anticipate the movements of another Observer, and does that poof! thing where he disappears and reappears instantly. And we know it's not long before he'll be able to see across time like Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five and will be in danger of being assimilated.

Joshua Jackson is playing him brilliantly. In this week's episode ("Through the Looking-Glass and What Walter Found There"), we step into a world that only Walter could have created, where stairs go in the wrong direction and depth perception is of no use and you walk down the hallway on the ceiling past upside-down doors (which, incidentally, bear the glyphs that take us to commercial breaks). There was a moment where Peter and Olivia join him in that world, and in the hallway, Walter begins to explain himself. I actually backed up the scene after we watched it and said to my husband, "Watch Peter's face and head as he listens." He doesn't blink. He tilts his head subtly to one side and has an almost serenely baffled look on his face, like the Observers do. It was one brief moment, but it was a hint to viewers that Peter is starting to change. Then, in a less subtle moment, he doesn't take Olivia's hand to go back through the vortex, and when she appears on the other side, shooting an Observer, he just looks at her and keeps running, as if she doesn't mean as much to him.

I have faith that he will be saved before he can be completely consumed by the Observer mentality, but until then, the thrill-ride we've been on this season is only getting better and better. I love this show.

The finale, as announced last week, will air on January 18 of next year in a special two-hour event. So come on, prophets of TV! What do you think awaits us in this season? Can you see how it's going to end yet?

Lostaholics Anonymous: WE HAVE TO GO BAAAACK!

So... you might recall about two years ago I started a support group called Lostaholics Anonymous. I ran meetings every week, where we talked about specific characters, happy moments, sad moments, favourite moments in general, the ending, etc. And then... well, I intended to keep it going, but the last meeting was on January 6, 2011, a couple of days after I'd posted the first Buffy Rewatch post. And from that point on, the work I had to do on the Buffy posts each week superseded our favourite island show, and Lost-Anon just disappeared. I think about it every once in a while, and I think I started the posts as much to chat with my old Lostie pals as much as I wanted to talk about the show itself.

A couple of weeks ago I was chatting with someone who said every fall she's hugely disappointed that she can't find a show that's like Lost. I said TV certainly isn't devoid of great shows (see Homeland, Breaking Bad) but I had to agree, there was nothing quite like Lost, which was as much about putting a puzzle together as actually being a television series with a narrative. She's not alone in waiting impatiently for the new season to be announced, waiting for another show like Lost.

There were moments of excitement this fall when Revolution came out: it had JJ Abrams attached, was about a group of survivors, and had the potential to be a show with a rich mythology without being a Lost copycat. And while reviews were mixed in the beginning, it's really starting to grow on me.

When Once Upon a Time started, we giggled with the 8:15 clock and the Astro bars and Regina living at #108... and then after a couple of weeks I thought, "Okay, enough. Let's move away from Lost and make this its own show." And almost on cue, they did just that. Alcatraz had the same sweeping soundtrack, a mystery, and even time travel, and it was hard to escape the Lost undertones. And sadly, the network cancelled it before it truly had a chance to come out from under Lost's shadow.

This season I'm liking several new shows: aside from Revolution, I enjoy Nashville, Elementary, Last Resort, The Mindy Project... there's a lot of good stuff out there. But I discovered that I've stopped looking for the next Lost. Darlton's masterpiece was unique, and anything purporting to be "the next Lost" will simply come under fire by critics and fans (as it should) for trying to copy something, rather than emulate it. Now in movies and several TV shows, there's a movement towards flashbacks and mystery and serialization, and you can see the Lost influence in there, without actually copying the show.

Recently another person told me he used to come to my blog like it was a drug, and he no longer does so because Lost is over (and much like the other person, he added that he's yet to find the next Lost). And finally, a week ago our beloved Marebabe sent me an email and said, "Do you remember Lostaholics Anonymous?"And asked if I would consider starting it up again.

We're two years removed from the end of the series, and now, I think, our emotions are no longer raw, we can look back on what we love, and choose to forget what we don't. While the show was on, we talked about it to death. When it was over, we wanted to talk about it to get our mixed emotions out. And now, new fans are picking up the DVDs and discovering it for the first time, and looking for a place to discuss the show with others.

So I'd love to come back here and start talking about the show again. Once a week or once every two weeks, whatever works best for everyone. Maybe we could combine a weekly post with a Twitter live chat? (Follow me here and we could arrange that.)

So... who wants to talk?

The Walking Dead S3: "Killer Within"

Whenever I ask myself, “Can this show possibly get any more intense,” the answer is always, always, “Yes.”

Watching ‘Killer Within,’ this week’s new episode of The Walking Dead, was one of the most harrowing television viewing experiences of my life. This production team is peerless when it comes to escalating tension, but the cumulative potency of what went down in the prison this week left me not just shaken but physically shaking, as if from a chill in the air but in a perfectly temperate room. While wearing a sweater. Obviously there will be spoilers aplenty here, but folks, if you happen to read these recaps before seeing the episodes, I implore you not to do so this time. You owe it to yourself to witness these events unspoiled. Because yet again, nothing will ever be the same.

From the first moments, we know that something is wrong. Juxtaposed with beautiful misty shots of the prison at dawn, we see a hidden figure drag the body of a dead deer back toward the compound. This is not conventional hunting, however, as the carcass is torn open at its middle, and the figure is also carrying a gas can. Quickly it is revealed that the unknown figure appears to be using the smell of the blood and meat as a means of herding the walkers in the area, like leading rats through a maze with cheese. But to where are they being led? Who is doing this, and why? We see the figure open the prison yard’s outer gate, and as the theme music begins its slow fade in, their hand places an unmistakable shape into this open space – a small, blood-wet heart.

In retrospect, the image of a heart on the ground was excellent foreshadowing for what was about to happen to me.

Nikki: No. Effing. Kidding. I did NOT see any of this coming. It was as if they’d killed Kate off Lost. Or Xander off Buffy. Or Ned Stark off Game of Thrones. (Oh… wait…) I thought Sarah Wayne Callies was in this show for the long haul. I just assumed Lori was in for the long haul. Here we’ve been waiting for Carl to bite it, and while I was looking the wrong way… wow.

Let’s get this part out of the way, because you have it SO RIGHT when you say you were physically shaking, Josh. I was sitting on a couch with a throw over me, and I was shivering like I was sitting in a blizzard when this scene started, because a part of me knew it was coming. Hell, just beginning to type this paragraph my hands are going cold and I’m getting the shivers all over again. I just… can’t believe… that happened. When she said “Ooh, the baby’s comin’!” and then darted into the boiler room and began lying down on the floor my husband and I were actually chuckling. I wrote down in my notes, “Typical TV birth: First labour pain: 3:48 p.m. Baby arrival: 3:51 p.m.” And then Maggie told her that if she cut her, it would kill her. I kept thinking nah, someone will come to their rescue, don’t you worry about that. And then Lori gave the big goodbye speech to Carl. And I felt my blood run cold. Holy SHIT they were actually going to do this. No… no no no…

Because, here’s the thing. Anyone following these recaps will know there’s no love lost between me and Lori. But this week when she glanced over at Rick and smiled coyly, and tucked her hair behind her ear and he sort of half-smiled back, I felt a thrill run through me. I actually WANTED these two to make it. I wanted them back together. Dammit the writers knew exactly what they were doing. It’s like when they finally got Tara and Willow back together in “Seeing Red.”

Seriously, why do I keep watching TV when TV writers love stomping all over my emotions like this?!

When Maggie cut into her, I thought she’d passed out from shock — there are lots of stories of women giving birth under the Taliban, for example, with no anaesthetic, but they survive. Barely, but they survive. Then the baby came out… and then Carl did… that.

I’m getting emotional again, so it’s time for you to pick this one up and tell me your thoughts as the scene was happening, Josh. I kept seeing Carl as one of my kids, and my chest hurt thinking of a child going through that kind of pain. But then again, Carl’s no longer a child after going through what he just did.

Josh: No, he isn’t, and that is just one of the many ways that these events change everything from this point forward. But I’ll come back to that in a minute. You mentioned the lovely moment when Rick and Lori exchange that look across the yard, which was sort of the final grace note in that brief sequence wherein the group – separated into small clutches by fencing but still in relatively close proximity (and together, as it turns out, for the last time) – was watching Hershel up on his crutches and making his first courageous attempt at being mobile since the amputation. Everyone seemed to be taking a breath, not necessarily reveling but at least enjoying the moment, perhaps even entertaining the possibility that things could be different here, that things could be ok somehow. If only this was some other tv show.

From my notes: “Hey! Folks are smiling. Something terrible must be about to happen.”

Cue the shambling background. And the alarms. And the screaming. Cue the consequences.

As we learn soon thereafter, it was Andrew – the convict Rick had locked outside with a group of walkers just after dispatching ponytailed creep Tomas, the same convict that he (and I) naturally assumed was dead – that we saw with the deer in the opening segment, setting exactly this trap in revenge, intending to kill them all. And this, boys and girls, is what happens when you assume. The group scatters, with Glenn and Beth hustling Hershel to safety, Maggie and Carl rushing another way with Lori, and T-Dog and Carol going yet another. Oscar (the big guy) leads Rick and Daryl toward the generator to shut down the alarms, where they find Andrew lying in wait with an axe. As Daryl fights with the walkers at the door, unable to answer Rick’s cries for help, Oscar comes to the rescue, shooting Andrew in the head and then ceremoniously passing the gun back to Rick. For whatever it’s worth.

Because the damage is done. On the upside, we confirmed new loyalties and gained both Oscar and Axel (he didn’t die, right?), the other two convicts, as seemingly trustworthy allies. On the downside… well, there’s quite a lot of downside.

In their flight back toward the cell block, T-Dog is bitten, shortly after which he nobly sacrifices himself so that Carol can escape the group of walkers they encounter. We’ve discussed on many occasions how T-Dog seemed to be marked for death for ages now, as evidenced by the relative triviality of his characterization, but at least he got a heroic sendoff. Carol’s fate, however, is notably left uncertain at episode’s end, establishing just the kind of ambiguous dangling plot thread that I love the most. I can’t imagine she won’t return in some respect – she’s been too central a character for too long to think otherwise – but the diverse possibilities for that outcome are compelling, to say the least.

Lori’s fate, on the other hand, could not have been more explicit. Like you, I thought for sure her contractions would turn out to be a stress-induced false alarm or that someone would swoop in at the last minute to rescue them. And then things went the other way. At a sprint.

I’ve talked a lot this season about how effectively the writers re-shaped my feelings about Lori, and all of that fresh sympathy (along with a consistently excellent performance by Sarah Wayne Callies, which reached its definitive peak here) turned her death into the most poignant moment the show has ever given us. Everything about the way that scene played out seemed designed specifically to reduce me to a quivering wreck. Carl’s disbelief, then acceptance; Maggie’s panic; they way Lori guided her, reassured her. The speech… God, that speech. The shot of her slack face after the screaming stopped, and the limpness in her body as Maggie worked to pull the baby free from below the edge of the frame. And then, as if that all weren’t enough: “She’s my mom.” Good grief, man.

What an awful, phenomenal, emotionally draining composition. What a dreadful, powerful experience. Having been in the operating room during my wife’s second Caesarean didn’t help matters. Still, through it all, I somehow managed not to cry. Until the baby did. And that sound, that declaration, the definitive assurance that her sacrifice had not been in vain, undid me.

As you said, for anyone with children, it was likely impossible not to insert yourself into the situation. It’s hard to imagine the fallout of this tragedy – for Rick, for Carl, or for the group at large, which now has a motherless infant to keep alive. But perhaps the most troubling thought is the way this will impact Carl. During her farewell, Lori said, “Don’t let the world spoil you,” but it’s difficult to conceive how a 13-year-old boy can put a bullet in his mother’s head and remain unspoiled, a concern made all the more troubling by the fact that his father’s state of mind will doubtless be compromised as well. Watching Rick react to the news of Lori’s death in the episode’s final scene, I found myself mumbling, “Hug your son. Hug your son,” under my breath, but to no avail. How can this broken family possibly survive?

Nikki: Carl says goodbye to his mother, wipes away his tears, and helps deliver his sibling into this world before standing up, remembering his father handing him a gun and telling him it was time to be a man — and then he does the only thing he can. He makes sure his mother isn’t coming back as a monster. He enters that room a panicked boy, and emerges a broken man.

Rick, on the other hand, turned off his emotions several months ago when he told everyone that they were infected, and that he was the new leader. He has led them with a sharp eye and brain, and pretended not to notice the wife and son tagging along. But in this moment, he’s thrown right back into his former life, remembers he’s not just a leader but a husband, and absolutely falls apart. He sobs uncontrollably, loses control of his body completely, and crumples to the ground and curls up in a fetal position. Where Carl grew up, Rick devolves from a man into a baby, with so many warring emotions he doesn’t know what to do with them. I was doing the same as you were, begging him in my mind to HUG THAT BOY, but I knew he couldn’t. He didn’t even know Carl was there. He didn’t know anyone was there. All he knew was that Lori wasn’t there, and that he never had the chance to tell her she was forgiven. The only performance that came close to Sarah Wayne Callies’ this week was Andrew Lincoln’s as Rick.

I can’t even imagine what happens next week.

A quick aside here: Entertainment Weekly had an observational (but ultimately inconclusive) article about how we tend to hate the wives of shows, regardless of how bad the husbands are. That we love to hate Lori and forgive Rick; that fans heap vitriol on Skyler while standing behind Walter; that we couldn’t believe Carmela would accept jewels over fidelity despite the fact her husband was a mob boss… that we always go after the wives as if they’re somehow holding their evil husbands back from their evil. It was an interesting observation (too bad the article didn’t look at reasons why, THAT would have been even more interesting). But I think a lot of it is perspective: we are put into the mindset of the men early on, and when they’re frustrated by their wives, so are we. (That said, I’m a fan who loved Skyler this past season on Breaking Bad. But back over to Walking Dead, where the “troublesome wife” is now the dearly departed.)

I don’t believe Carol is dead; as you say, we’ve marked him in every episode, and the one time my guard was down, THAT was when the guy finally goes. (You know, when he actually has an opinion earlier in the episode and for a brief moment you think they’ll assign this character a personality, FINALLY.) But he dies a hero, as you say. Carol was wearing a scarf for the first time ever in this series. It seemed a little strange at first, like she was a cancer patient hiding the fact she’d lost all her hair, and I remember thinking, “What’s with the uncharacteristic headgear?” but it was a purposeful prop: she was wearing it simply so she could leave something behind. She’s alive. I have no doubt. But where is the question.  She could probably get over to the woods using her savvy (Andrew got over there and he wasn’t nearly as experienced as she was; we can assume he was the guy peering through the trees at the prison two episodes ago). Or maybe she’s just somewhere else in the prison.

And now over to Pleasantville. (OK, I looked it up, it’s called Woodbury. I prefer Pleasantville.) This week the Governor hands Andrea some scotch instead of tea, and I STILL thought it was poisoned. And then he tells her his name — Phillip — attempting to instill some trust in her. And it works. (Though we don’t trust him for a second!) What’s his motive? Why does he want Andrea in particular to stay?

Josh: The Governor is a megalomaniac in the truest sense of the word. And with special emphasis on the ‘maniac.’ Even if the reasoning were as simple as the guy just wants to control everything that’s left of the world, then that would be enough to adequately explain to me his focus on Andrea and winning her over to his cause. But I think, in this case, his interest is more multifold.

First, there’s Merle, who appears to serve a relatively significant role in the Governor’s militia. It’s obvious that Daryl is still forefront in his mind (well, right after wanton lechery, anyway), and that’s a potential problem. The obligation Merle feels toward the Governor for saving his life is strong enough to keep his worst tendencies in check but could certainly be supplanted by the desire to reunite with his brother, and the Governor knows it. Add the wrinkle that this long-lost sibling may well still be running with the very faction that left him for dead, against whom he yearns for vengeance, and a simple dispute quickly becomes a complete division, costing the Governor not only his general but whomever else Merle convinces to go along. He can’t afford for the situation to spin out of his control, and Andrea is yet another means of insurance, in terms of both knowledge and familiarity.

Second, there’s Michonne, who continues to be woefully transparent in her distrust of this new foe. Doesn’t she know this guy’s frickin’ crazy? He may be nuts, but the Governor is also wicked smart and certainly not to be underestimated. After just a day or two in her company, he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that the sword-wielding stranger will never be swayed to his cause; moreover, she is on to his duplicitousness like flies on a cow’s butt, and dissent is not his favorite sound. In fact, I think it’s a good way to wind up with your dreadlocked noggin in his freaky scarequarium. He views keeping Andrea close as another way of keeping Michonne close. And he wants to keep a very close eye on her indeed. Right up until he makes her disappear.

Before I pass it back to you for the wrap, Nik, I’d be remiss if I didn’t call special attention to the series’ first appearance of the ancient art of golf. Two questions: Can Rob hit a moving zombie in the head at 150 yards? And secondarily, what do you think would be the viability of a driving range devoted to training just such a skill? I know a guy with a big backyard.

Nikki: First of all, scarequarium!! HAHA! I will totally be using that word from now on.

And secondly, you have definitely guessed how excited my husband and I were to see the golf scene. (As some of you might know, my husband is a golf writer with pretty much no handicap, and is obsessed about golf architecture the same way I am about the minutiae on Lost.) We see the Governor hit the ball of the top (and bean the zombie, HA! I laughed out loud on that one) and my husband’s comment was, “Nice swing!” The Governor says at one point, “You should see Augusta.” And I looked at Rob and grabbed his arm and gasped, saying, “Oh my god, in a zombie apocalypse you could TOTALLY PLAY AUGUSTA.” He suddenly had a look on his face like he was desperately trying to figure out how to bring on a zombie apocalypse.

Here’s what I loved about Morrissey’s portrayal of the Governor this week: that facial twitch. Did you notice every time something happened that wasn’t going his way, there was a very, very slight facial twitch just under one eye? It was brilliant. He wouldn’t make a very good poker player.

I, too, am really looking forward to the eventual reunion between Merle and Daryl. Daryl has changed (or maybe he was always this kind of guy, and was just acting the part of the hick-boy redneck to appease his older brother) and I don’t think Merle will take too kindly to this brother, who probably now aligns himself with Merle’s traitors more than he does his own brother. But there’s a possibility we’ll see Daryl switch, too. As we saw in the hallucination sequence last season, Merle still has quite a hold over his brother’s conscience. I wonder if the two extra inmates (who are quickly growing on me, by the way) would align themselves with Merle over Rick’s people, who keep leaving them behind?

Next week: The characters deal with two — possibly three — deaths in their small unit. 

Walking Dead S3: "Walk With Me"

Nikki: Welcome back to our rundown of The Walking Dead. As we enter the third week, the action slows down a little bit so we can catch up on the one that got away: Andrea. We’ve been waiting to see some serious Michonne story ever since she showed up with her two jawless, armless zombie pack mules at the end of season 2, and we caught a brief glimpse of her and Andrea in the season premiere (seven months in, they appear to be very close friends) but nothing substantial. This week the entire episode is devoted to them.

First of all, every time I see those two walkers of hers I shudder, but they are absolutely BRILLIANT. As the Governor says when he sees them, she’s taken away their ability to bite and eat, and they’ve therefore lost the desire to.  But they make an interesting observation in this week’s episode: they appear to be people Michonne has a connection to (and she becomes very quiet when they make that suggestion). I’m going to suggest brothers, but I guess we’ll see. I hope.

Michonne is very quiet, distrustful, quick with a sword, brooding, and smart. She takes a while to suss out a situation before acting, and when she does act — like when she decapitates her walkers — she does so swiftly and assuredly, like she is doing the only thing possible in that situation. When everyone else around her is trying to find happiness, she views everything that seems too good to be true with absolute suspicion. And rightfully so.

When she and Andrea enter Pleasantville, I have to admit it looked like a paradise to me. People sitting on park benches not worried to just be living their lives; armed guards keeping the baddies out; a pillow, a warm bed, electricity for god’s sakes; fresh food that doesn’t look like a squirrel cooked over a small fire, which is probably what they’ve been living on for months. But Michonne is not happy. She knows something is terribly wrong with that place.

And the thing that is terribly wrong appears to be the Governor.

What was your overall take on this week’s episode, Joshua? And does Michonne remind you at all of Agent 355 in Y: The Last Man? Because I can’t stop comparing the two in my head…

Josh: Good call on Agent 355! (Boy, I wish they'd make THAT show already.) I came late to the Brian K. Vaughan Appreciation Society, so I was already well into 'The Walking Dead' comics when I read the adventures of Yorick and his baton-wielding bodyguard badass for the first time. Her appearance certainly predates Michonne's introduction, though, and you're right that it's difficult not to see a similarity.

Of course, the resemblance is merely cosmetic. I wouldn't exactly call 355 jovial or anything, but she does possess a certain glib levity. Michonne, not so much. Didn't I tell you the snarl never leaves her face? That austere inscrutability is all very true to the character in the comic; Kirkman is past 100 issues now, and we still have no real idea of Michonne's backstory. And with all the ways that the show's writers play fast and loose with the original mythology, I'm glad they have decided to keep that element as-is. I enjoy imagining for myself what kind of person she was before the sky fell and the many ways those details might play into her skepticism and disdain. And, you know, her fondness for ancient bladed weaponry.

It would seem fairly obvious that there are lots of reasons to be suspicious, too. Unless your name is Andrea, queen of suckers. I guess we could blame it on her fever or something, but I'm kind of disappointed by how easily the Governor managed to sway her. Perhaps, after so much time on the run, she just needs the rest. I can easily see how someone in this kind of relentless nightmarish situation could be overcome with eagerness to simplify their existence, to let someone else worry about the details and just relax and do some gardening for a change. But relinquishing control requires trust, and trust has to be earned, no matter how seductive is the siren song of a hot shower post-apocalypse.

He's baa-aaaaack...

 If nothing else, I would have thought the placement of Merle in a prominent leadership position within his militia would have been all the damning evidence against the Governor that Andrea would need. Surely she hasn't forgotten how he was in the days before this group brought him in and the Governor began to temper his less acceptable impulses. I really enjoyed Michael Rooker's performance this week and the polish Merle's temperament has received, which seemed to me a necessary element of the character's reintroduction in terms of narrative sustainability. Merle was so unpalatable as originally represented – such a blatantly despicable, weakly sketched stereotype – that, for me, it ruined all the malice and dread that was possible, killed the tension with its simplicity. But this time is a different story.  Those old urges of his may be restrained, but it seemed clear that they're still simmering under the surface. It's only a matter of time before the soup bubbles up through that skin.

What did you think of Merle's return to the story?

Nikki: I agree. Merle did feel very different this week than when we last saw him, and his character, as you say, was very black and white when we last saw him handcuffed to that rooftop. Daryl was originally painted the same way, but we’ve seen a different side to him and he’s become a fan favourite. In doing so, the writers have made it plausible that perhaps there’s a deeper layer to Merle as well, and just as Daryl came off like a yahoo racist but deepened into someone richer and more complex, so too could Merle have just been showing one side of himself to everyone just to make them think that was who he was so they’d stay away from him. Now it’s less obvious what his motivation is, which, as you say, makes him far more frightening.

Did it surprise you at all that Andrea immediately began telling him EVERYTHING as if they were old survivor buddies rather than enemies? The look on Michonne’s face, staring at Andrea as if willing her to SHUT THE HELL UP while still trying to size up the situation and her exact relationship with him, pretty much mirrored my own face in that moment. But perhaps Andrea was being a little wilier than it appeared in that scene. Maybe she saw the crack in his exterior, and knowing that they learned how to appeal to Daryl, maybe she thought she could gain his sympathy by simply telling him the truth.

I’m also not sure Andrea’s completely drunk the Kool-Aid on Pleasantville yet, either. (Although she did drink the tea, which I was convinced was poisoned at first since no one else was drinking it.) When she was flirting with the Governor, I felt like she had an ulterior motive, more of a “keep your enemies close” kind of mentality. I’m not sure she’s ready to kick up her feet and start joining the Pleasantville 4-H Club just yet (even though it’s clear there’s a part of her that wishes she could); I think her time with Michonne has taught her to ask questions. Of course, there’s that scene where she and Michonne are talking and Michonne is immediately suspicious of this town and Andrea’s all, “Why, what’s so bad about it??” But I feel like they had to insert something like that in there just to voice what some of the fans might be thinking. My husband, for one, said, “They have ELECTRICITY. Stop asking questions and blend in. Enjoy your pillow.” So they had to have some sort of conversation about it or it would have been left unsaid.

Now as for that Governor… what the hell is up with that guy? He has zombie heads in a room and watches them in lieu of television (but looks like he has to force himself to watch); he pretends to be all nice but HE’S NOT ALL NICE; he blows away an entire army rather than showing them the small paradise he’s created and asking for their help… why? My thinking is he’s playing god with the new town, and any army guys would immediately try to take control of his little town. HE is the one in control, and he’s the Governor in spirit as well as in name. I’m thrilled they’ve cast David Morrissey in the role. He’s that guy you’ve seen in every great British miniseries — State of Play, Sense and Sensibility, Five Days — and he was also the “Next Doctor” in one of the Tennant Doctor Who Christmas specials. He’s a fantastic actor, and brings the right amount of density and vagueness to the role that you can’t quite put your finger on what he’s all about, but he scares the bejesus out of you anyway.

What were your thoughts on the Governor?

Josh: The fact that I've read the source material made it impossible for me to enter into this season without any preconceived notions. As I've said before, the storyline encompassing Woodbury and the prison is a very significant one in the comics. The show is a separate entity, at least to a point, and its writers have certainly diverged from that antecedent chronology in many ways while at the same time honoring, and staying largely congruent to, the broad strokes of its overarching mythology. That being the case, the introduction of the Governor inspired lofty expectations from anyone familiar with the character. And certainly for my part, those expectations were met and exceeded.

In much the same way as he has guided the reform of Merle's disposition, the Governor projects one person outwardly but is someone else on the inside. He  exudes an air of calm and reason, is a picture of moderation and stability amongst the greater part of his populace. But from the later scenes of his unbalanced behavior and propensity for calculated slaughter, we know that there is something much more sinister that has brought him the kind of unqualified deference he receives. His authority is no accident. It wasn't thrust upon him like Rick. He saw an opportunity, and he seized it. With gusto. And will do anything to preserve it.

I can't say enough good things about David Morrissey in the role. He does such a tremendous job of portraying the charisma and veiled menace of the Governor, and I am thrilled about where we go from here. Thrilled, and also terribly concerned for our somewhat-heroes. Because, in your words, HE'S NOT ALL NICE. Maybe not even a little. Their world just got quite a lot bigger, and I don't think they'll be happy about the new borders.

Which brings me to my favorite part of this season thus far, and that has been how much these events are serving to broaden the canvas of this story. It's one of the things that drew me to the comics in the first place, this notion that a vast majority of zombie tales take place soon after their respective cataclysms and detail a very limited subsequent scope. Kirkman's interest was in what happened much farther down the road – not just the idea of survival but the concept of endurance, and all that it entails.

Last week we discussed how surprising we both found it that the convicts had no idea of what had happened in the outside world. This week we find nothing less than the rebirth of civilization, including jobs, laws, medical care, even a dedicated (albeit secret supercreepy) science lab investigating the plague (and taking special care, I noticed, to mention families having babies). The larger that these concepts are writ, the greater are the possibilities, and this opens up the potential of the show in an incredibly exciting way.

Nikki: Absolutely. We always assume the rebirth of a new civilization will be like a glorious utopian phoenix rising from the ashes of our historical mistakes, determined not to repeat any of them. And that just doesn’t happen, because it’s those filled with power-hungry greed who will try to snatch the reins the moment they can, and the Governor is the one with the backbone and the nerve to do just that. Something terrible has happened to him. Perhaps like Holtz in season 3 of Angel, he saw his entire family destroyed by undead creatures and it turned his heart to stone, vowing to avenge their deaths. Notice how quick he is to find out if Michonne had a connection to her pet zombies, as if that connection is something he could use to bring her over to his side.

At the end of the episode, when he sat down in the chair and didn’t immediately look up — and when he did it was while wincing, and looking like his heart was being ripped in two — I was convinced he would be staring into a white room with a glass wall at his zombie family. I thought perhaps he would be keeping them alive, and that’s why he has a scientist on staff to dissect other walkers: he’s trying to find a cure for them. But then again, that would be a bit of a retread of Hershel’s m.o. last season, and the writers would probably want to avoid that. So what was it? What made him like this? Is it just a natural thing for the Type A personality to rise up and assume leadership of a people who can’t find the stamina to do it themselves?

He’s starting a Fearful New World (they don’t yet have the distance to be Brave) and as with everyone, he has to show one side to the public, as you say, and only we get to see the other side. Even the most evil person probably had moments of self-doubt. When Andrea asks him his real name, he says he never tells anyone what it is. She tilts her head to one side and says flirtatiously, “Never say never.” He smiles back, moves in, and with a smile says, “NEVER.” Don’t dare this man, because he will meet that dare and one-up you every single time. But he’s vulnerable, just like everyone else. At what point will that vulnerability be his undoing?

I remember years ago when I watched The Wire for the first time, when it was first airing. In season 3 I said of Stringer Bell that on this show, the only thing more dangerous than a crime lord is a really intelligent and educated crime lord. What’s interesting about the threat on this show is that the walkers aren’t intelligent at all. They’ve lost the ability to think, and act on instinct alone. And that’s proving to be just as scary as an intelligent monster. But the Governor has shown that with time, effort, and resources, you can build an infrastructure to keep the stupid monsters out and stay on top of it. The problem is, they appear to have locked the intelligent monsters inside with them. They just don’t know it yet.

Any final thoughts until next week?

Josh: I know I'm beginning to sound like a skipping record, but I can't overstate how pleased I am with the direction this season has taken. The writing and direction, the cast's performances, the visual characterization of the new locations, every element seems to have been reevaluated and improved to strike an equilibrium I've always craved from this show. 'The Walking Dead' has always been great at generating tension and serving up the gore, but I've never been so satisfied with everything else. The team has pulled together and maintained a level of quality through these episodes that not only feels for the first time like it adequately justifies the unprecedented popularity of the series but also begins to truly fulfill its potential as a new genre champion.

That auspicious new countenance could always falter, of course, but with prospects so strong, it would take a succession of serious missteps to throw things off course now. Their nature has kept the two halves of this season's story estranged so far, but we all know the time is coming when they overlap and collide. And oh, it promises to be Shakespearean, Lady Stafford. When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Husk: The Great Canadian Zombie Novel

I have been privileged to work at ECW Press for the last 15 years. Not just because it's the leading publisher of books on television, music, and wrestling, but because have published not one, but TWO of the great Canadian zombie novels. The first was in 1998, Tony Burgess's Pontypool Changes Everything. In 2009, that novel became a zombie film by Bruce McDonald simply titled Pontypool. (And if you haven't yet seen it, DO SO.) In an age of this movie, along with The Walking Dead, the zombie genre has moved up from being silly horror slapstick to a serious, thinking fan's genre.

Last year I acquired our second zombie book, and the second time I'd worked with its author, Corey Redekop (the first was for his brilliant debut novel, Shelf Monkey). The book is called Husk, and if you buy only one zombie novel this year, make it this one. It is horrifying, laugh-out-loud hilarious, and heartbreaking.

It is the story of Sheldon Funk — Shelley to his friends — a guy who dies on a bus and who wakes up on an autopsy table, just as his organs are being removed. We have the usual animation scene — the walker sits up, moans, grabs closest attendant, breaks his arm, shambles out — but this time it's told entirely from Sheldon's point of view. He's shocked that he's lying on the table. He doesn't understand why it's so cold, why his brain just feels like it's waking up, why this man is holding a bone saw and standing a little too close to him. He's terrified and confused, and grabs the man's arm intending just to get him to back off, and doesn't realize his own strength. The sound of his new, horrifying voice rising from the depths of what's left of his stomach scares even him, and he doesn't know what to do.

Of course, the scene is also played for laughs, and there are many reaction moments in this book that will have you in stitches (no pun intended).

Sheldon is an actor, and at first he wants to cover up his new undeadness, and decides to play it cool and try to pass as human and alive at his auditions. That doesn't go well. There's this whole... hunger thing. And goddammit if his voice isn't the worst thing anyone's ever heard. In one scene he tries to control it in the most mind-over-matter way possible:

I tried again, smiling around the word this time, picturing kittens frolicking in a meadow with baby goats, dolphins performing back flips in a tranquil bay.

Sssssshhhhh-eeeeelllll-eeeeeee...

The sound of orphans being strangled in their cribs soaked into the walls. The goats head-butted the kittens into red mush, and the dolphins lined up to be mercury-laden breakfast treats for Chinese children.

What follows is one man's quest to find out what this new life — if that's what you can call it — is really all about. If he can just stop the smell from emanating from every inch of his body, or his voice from making people want to throw up, and if he can convince people he's really human. And that's just the first third of the book. Let's just say when they find out who he really is, the world goes apeshit, and Redekop paints a fairly plausible picture of what would happen if a member of the undead ever "came out."

The book is hilarious and Redekop never spares the gore (he seems to revel in pushing us to our limits of what we can stomach), and, as mentioned, is very poignant. For, as Sheldon lumbers out of the autopsy room at the very beginning, he can't leave his heart behind, and eventually begins stapling it to his spine to try to keep it inside of him. The rest of him is just organic, but this heart means something to him, and he doesn't want to lose it.

And if that doesn't make him human, I don't know what does.

Husk by Corey Redekop, ECW Press, ISBN 978-1-77041-032-9, $18.95 CDN/U.S.

Once Upon a Time: "The Doctor"

We’ve run through many of our favourite fairy tales on Once Upon a Time now — many of them Disney, many of them Grimm. We’ve seen Jiminy Cricket and Pinocchio, Aurora, Snow White and Prince Charming and the Seven Dwarfs, Little Red Riding Hood, Rumpelstiltskin, Belle, Cinderella, Hansel & Gretel… and we’ve even moved to JM Barrie with Captain Hook, and Lewis Carroll with the Mad Hatter (though technically, both those properties were handled by Disney at some point as well).

What brings these worlds together is simple: they’re fairy tales, if we take “fairy tale” to mean a story in a world that’s not our own, where magic rules (and there are often queens and kings and flying dragons and castles).

So when Dr. Whale was introduced in Season 1, we all went to our collective knowledge and began working through any fish stories we could think of. Was he… the whale who swallowed Pinocchio? Was he… okay, I was fresh out of ideas with that one, frankly.

And then this week we finally discovered who he was: Victor Frankenstein, the scientist bent on discovering a way to bring the dead back to life. Why Whale? The director of the 1931 film Frankenstein, starring Boris Karloff as the monster, was directed by James Whale. And the only reason I know this is because of the elegant portrayal of the man in the film Gods and Monsters by Ian McKellen. Nice trick, Kitsis and Horowitz, nice trick indeed.

But the question becomes: can you really include Mary Shelley’s masterpiece in the genre of fairy tales? Clearly not: there’s no magic at work in this book; it’s all about science. The writers get around that by suggesting Frankenstein went to such lengths to procure a heart to bring his creature to life that he somehow came across the Mad Hatter (huh?) who proffered him a way over into a magical world (but… wait…) and he came over and met with Rumpelstiltskin (er…) and then tricked Regina into becoming evil, and got the magical heart (but… I thought…) and then headed back home to insert the heart into the corpse of his brother (brother? What did his brother have to do with this? The creature killed his brother… not…) and because of MAGIC, science prevailed.

Uh…

I LOVE when the writers on OUAT take the fairy tales and turn them in on themselves, making us think one thing and then switching them. That Red Riding Hood was actually the wolf suddenly turns this innocent little tale into something quite sinister and Freudian, and we begin to think that maybe that’s what the story was telling us all along. Red Riding Hood just wanted to kill Granny, yo. Or that Belle was taken by Rumpelstiltskin — who was the “beast” in her story — and the tale is played out by crossing two of the fairy tales.

But there was something about incorporating Frankenstein into this that not only completely changes the original story by Shelley (a book that had absolutely nothing to do with magic) but brings someone from our world into that one, and just makes it rub together like sandpaper. It didn’t work.

I found the Mad Hatter jarring at first, as well. Last season we saw him trapped in Wonderland, where he stayed until he was zapped to Storybrooke where he was stuck in a little house by Regina, making hats all day long. He was a man torn apart by the loss of his daughter, something that happened in the fairy tale world of Wonderland (when Regina left him there) and carried over into Storybrooke. But in this episode he’s out and gallivanting around, acting like a bit of a jackass (but still very hot doing it… my daughter still disagrees with me on that assessment, “Mommy, STOP saying he’s handsome!!”) 

Of course, you don’t have to think about this long to realize if Regina is still young here, then this part of the Mad Hatter’s story actually preceded him becoming a father, and him being part of the plan to trick Regina into becoming evil actually turns his later incarceration into a form of karma: he created the monster, so to speak, and now he pays the price for it.

I do like the tie-in with Victor Frankenstein and who he was last season. He had a patient who was in a deathlike coma all season, and forgetting who he was, he didn’t realize he had the power to “raise the dead.” And ultimately, he WAS the doctor on watch when the dead arose and left the hospital.

Then again, that begs the question: if Victor is not ruled by magic, and is not part of the fairy tale world, then why is he in Storybrooke, and why were his memories taken from him, too? The writers would suggest that if you even pass through the storybook world, even briefly, then you’ll be stuck in Maine. But he was in that world and left.

Like Rumpelstiltskin’s son. 

Like Emma. 

Both had passed through the fairy tale world but weren’t actually physically there when the curse took effect. So… was Whale? Was he there? Or is this an inconsistency on the part of the writers?

I did love the little nod to Oz in this episode, though. Rumpelstiltskin has charged the Hatter with finding “the slippers” because he needs something that can travel from a magical world to a non-magical one. Clearly he’s referring to Dorothy’s ruby slippers, which took her from Oz to Kansas. I can’t wait until we actually do see Oz!

I’ve been enjoying this season of Once Upon a Time, by the way, even if I haven’t been very good about posting on it. My daughter and I watch it every Sunday night, and I think Lana Parilla is putting in a hell of a performance this year as Regina. (Her reaction to Daniel this week was incredible and almost had me in tears.) Though I will admit, two weeks ago when we followed Emma and Snow through the fairy tale world I wanted to throttle Emma for being SO STUPID at every turn. This week, thankfully, she redeemed herself.

I thought last week’s episode involving Captain Hook and Rumpelstiltskin’s wife was amazing. His story is becoming more and more fascinating, and is clearly the central story of the show. Robert Carlyle is putting in an equally stunning performance.

Next week: we go back to Emma’s pregnancy with Henry. We briefly saw a man at the beginning of this season who lived in an apartment building (remember he dropped his iPod off the balcony by accident?) who received a postcard saying “Broken.” I’ve suspected that man might be Rumpelstiltskin’s son, and in the preview for next week we see him with Emma. Could fans have been correct in thinking he’s the father of Henry? Hm…