Author: TJ Provost

Episode  12, Clear

Summary:

The episode starts with Rick, Michonne, and Carl flying down the road in a car. They zip by a camper stranded on the side of the road only to get temporarily stuck on the side of the road for just long enough for the poor fellow to see them again. Rick doesn’t blink an eye, but drives away, leaving the poor sod behind – again. (These are the moments when I wonder if karma will come back to bite Rick on the ass. Will that fellow be a critical character in the near future?)

The road trip ends up at the armory for the police station Rick used to work at, but all the guns and ammo are gone. And it looks like someone cleaned up the rest of the town, killing and burning walkers.

An old friend from Season 1 makes a re-appearance, but he’s a little nuts. The story of how he lost his son is a kick in the nuts. He was never able to kill his wife who turned, and she ended up getting his boy Duane, which put him over the edge. By the time Morgan is done talking I was actually hoping that Rick would put a bullet in the dude just to end his pain. But I think that Rick has to save Morgan because he’s not really talking about Morgan, he’s talking about himself.

As Rick, Michonne, and Carl are driving out of town the body of the hiker they drove by in the beginning is spread out over the road. I wasn’t sure what was supposed to have killed him? It almost looks like he was hit by a car, he’s spread out over the road. But maybe he was just ripped to pieces?

Things I loved about this episode…

• The punji stick fortifications in Rick’s old town. And then Carl blowing away the dude with the assault rifle. Then it turns out to be the black dude who rescued Rick in Season 1 when he first got out of the hospital. Now where is the guys son? Doh, when we found out it was not good.
• Great atmosphere – if you see this, be worried.
• Rick – “We’re eatin his food now?”   Michonne – “Mat said welcome.”
• Morgan’s traps with the animals to lure walkers in. Awesome idea.
• Michonne using the skateboards and the caged animals to draw the walkers away from the door.

Things that I didn’t like about this episode…

• If the black dude has all those weapons, why did he bother to try and jack Rick and team of their meager guns? It seems like he would have been better off just letting them go. People aren’t going to start shooting if you don’t jack them.  Then again, maybe he doesn’t want anyone to know he is there. So he kills everyone so they don’t try and hijack anything?
• OMG – how do you keep letting Carl go out? If he was my kid I’d make sure he was by my side. Thirty six inch rule mother f*ckers. My kid is not getting more than thirty six inches away from me.
• Rick getting a knife hilt deep into his shoulder. I think he’d be bleeding and in a lot more pain.
• Carl is pale and way too clean.  The kid should be dirtier.
• OMG – Carl, you little shit. How many times are you almost going to get people killed for no good reason. For god’s sake kid, is a picture of your family worth getting eaten over? He deserves to get bit. And then he is standing in front of the door as if the walkers couldn’t break through the door.

If Senators had to wear the logos of their top 10 sponsors at all times, I wonder if that would change how people perceive them?

Rick through the seasons:

Daryl and his powerful poncho of +60 to Critical Strike:

The right hand man:

Holy smokes this girl can shoot.  You can only hope she lives next door when the zombies start shambling down the street.

(And I know I’ve been watching too much “The Walking Dead” because the first thing I thought when I saw this 13 year old girl shooting was – Daryl’s got a kid?)

I thought the same damn thing.

Then – BOOOM!

First she sleeps with Shane.

Then the Governor.

Now she’s kissing walkers.

It sounds like they are having fun onset.

Daryl is the best. Loved this scene.

Silver Linings Playbook (5 Out of 5 Graves)

So much hype! And I guess I fell for it, as I gave this movie a 5.  So why do I feel a little off about that? We’ll get to that a little later.

The story starts with Pat (Bradley Cooper) being discharged from the mental hospital a hair too early into the care of his mother. We rapidly find out that Pat isn’t the only one in his family with behavior problem. He’s got a father (Robert De Niro) who is a rabid Philadelphia Eagles fan and a mother who appears to be classically co-dependent, but still quite sweet as she tries to hold the family together and help Pat recover.

I think the reason the movie does so well is that at the same time it is brutal and unforgiving with Pat’s and Tiffany’s mental disease, it is balanced by the quirky, odd love story, and by design or luck, it all works out – for the most part.

Things I loved…

• Robert De Niro as the crazy out of work bookmaker. De Niro can easily overpower other actors, but he lets Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence shine, never pulling the spotlight off them.
• Chris Tucker as Danny adds just the right amount of comic relief where it is needed. He plays a critical role in keeping the movie from getting too heavy at times.
• Bradley Cooper plays crazy so well.  As horrible and cringe worthy as the cheating bathroom scene was, it was brutally honest. He plays the pathology of the spurned husband trying desperately to redeem himself when he really shouldn’t be so well it is scary.
•  What man wouldn’t want to beat someone to death if he found them in the shower with their wife? Get a divorce and f*ck whoever you want for god’s sake.
• Jennifer Lawrence. For me she made this movie. She is can play it serious, funny, sweet, and it is all believable, which I think speaks both to her acting ability, and who she is as a real person.

Things I didn’t like…

• The one thing I didn’t like about the movie was the way it portrayed mental health issues. I know it was a love story first, then a comedy, so I shouldn’t be worried about the way the mental disease was portrayed, but it did bother me. People don’t go from the level of behavioral problems that Pat had (or Tiffany) to something inside the boundaries of normal overnight. It sets an unrealistic expectation. People with real disease struggle to control it and live with it every day. There is no overnight fix.