Seven Soldiers: Manhattan Guardian #2-3, Zatanna #2, Shining Knight #3, Klarion #2-3

Moving along with Grant Morrison's massive Seven Soldiers project I'm consistently impressed by his construction of both the individual stories and the overarching narrative driving the enterprise forward. He's using similar concepts and story elements in each of the miniseries, but they're filtered through a different generic template, appropriate to each book. So, a mystical, medieval relic in Shining Knight becomes a pirate treasure in Manhattan Guardian. Very cool.

Guardian #2 is a big action issue, covering the confrontation between the pirates AllBeard and NoBeard. This has to be a reference to the Morrison/Alan Moore feud, he poked fun at Moore similarly in the classic 'Beardhunter' issue of Doom Patrol. It's always seemed amazing to me that the two best comic book writers are both interested in these same magical concepts, complimenting each other perfectly, and have the whole opposite hair thing going on. Moore and Morrison are creating the best work of anyone right now, in any medium. No one in film or novels can match them.

Anyway, this was a pretty good issue, I like the throwback to the guilt monster from SK2 on the first page. I like the action, but so far, this has been Morrison's least serious Seven Soldiers book. I really enjoyed the finale where NoBeard and All Beard duel over the six sided god-machine. This is a recurring element throughout the books, and I'm not exactly sure of its significance yet. It could be a reference back to the quote, "God does not play dice with the cosmos" that Morrison used back in Animal Man.

The issue's final moments, as Jake escorts the shellshocked passengers out of the tunnel and attends Carla's father's funeral are the emotional highlights, and nicely undercut the spirit of adventure we saw previously. The sadness of the funeral scene, the reality of "action" contrasted with Ed's enthusiasm is wonderful, a throwback to the juxtaposition of extreme thrills with extreme sadness from Seven Soldiers 0, and it nicely segues into issue 3.

This issue seems to recall the Libertania issues of The Filth, where we saw a contained environment break into anarchy. The idea of a community that represents the entire Earth in a small space is a throwback to the basic concept of The Filth, which was all about the idea of "As above, so below," that all systems have the same properties, it's just that some are larger than others.

The juxtaposition of the emotion and action here is something I've seen done before, but it works, and underscores one of the basic points Morrison is making with both this series and Seven Soldiers #0, the idea that being a superhero is frequently an attempt to cover for personal difficulties. Jake goes out and beats up this community of robots as a way of trying to come to terms with Carla dumping him. This culminates in the fantastic two page spread of Jake in the fire. That page tells you everything you need to know about his personal life.

And even with all this perosnal drama, Morrison and Stewart manage to stock the book with crazyfantastic imagery all throughout. The robots are great, particularly the stereotypical Spanish and French ones. The finale with a giant-head baby talking about the "secret history of the original newsboy army" is just such classic Morrison, over the top weird and intriuging like only he can do.

In the context of the larger Seven Soldiers story, this, like the destruction of Camelot in Shining Knight, is used to tease the potential fate of the Earth should our soldiers fail in their mission. It's another "as above, so below" moment, with the robots standing in for the Sheeda. The Sheeda seem to be the force that pulls humanity down, preventing it from reaching its full potential by destroying civilizations at their peak. Being a Morrison work, another valid interpretation is that they create change, preventing societies from falling into complacency and keeping things moving irrevocably forward.

Zatanna #2 isn't quite the masterpiece that #1 is, but it's still a lot of fun. I love the mentor/protege dynamic between Misty and Zatanna, the pop culture references again ground this series in a very realistic millieu. As I mentioned before, I love the way things are refracted through their specific books, so Manhattan Guardian takes place in a very Batmanish world, while here we've got an even more realistic single girl in the city vibe, with the only weird thing being that she happens to do magic. To that end, we see another appearance of the "six-sided God machine," in the die that Misty used to find Zatanna.

In terms of look and character, Misty and Zatanna remind me a lot of Rory and Lorelai on Gilmore Girls. I would love to see Lauren Graham play Zatanna if they were ever do a film of this series. I love just watching Zatanna at work battling this magical entity, particularly the finale where she shatters the mirror into hundreds of pieces. Seeing this guy spinning out on the panes of glass is another classic Morrison image.

The end of the issue reveals that she's converted her "ideal man" into a miniature bald fellow, who could be either Grant or one of the Seven Unknown Men. I could see some interesting combat happening on the micro level between this guy and the mini Sheeda scouts. And the issue closes with the return of the Phantom Stranger, who looks straight out of a 1930s pulp comic. And he's got the fantastic entrance line "Did someone use a sentence involving the word 'stranger.'" Morrison is able to create lines that just boggle the mind in their ridiculous popness, no one can write stuff that's just so overwhelmingly fun and cool, that entrance just puts a smile on your face.

Even as I'm loving Zatanna, issue 3 of Shining Knight might be my favorite thing from Seven Soldiers yet. Justin's series seems to be carrying most of the "mythology" of the series, he's the only one who's actually encountered the Sheeda, and on the whole, his struggle seems to have the most direct impact on the fate of the Earth.

I was a bit confused by the start of the issue, wondering why so much time was being spent on these two detectives. Helen Helligan was a well sketched character, but we seemed to be getting a lot of exposition. I liked how Helen was a very real character in this crazy world, hoping to cut out of work to go to her sister's wedding. It's these small touches of realism that make the project unique, we're looking at a world of superheroes from the perspective of the ordinary citizen.

But once they meet Justin, things go crazy. I loved the revelation that Gloria was actually the Sheeda queen, and her transformation is really well done. There's a lot of interesting panel layouts here, keeping the heavy dialogue visually interesting. The Queen is really interesting looking, I love the two page spread of her and her crew killing the police. This leads to the incredible page where Justin fights back, grabbing a gun and shouting "Camelot Lives!" in one of the coolest panels in the history of comics. It's such a joycore moment, and confirms Justin's reclamation of the role of hero for this new age. He's not in this issue that much, but it follows up on the development in issue 2, where Justin reclaimed the mantle of protector. He may be stranded in a new world, but he's going to do everything he can to save it.

Then I was shocked to see I, Spyder from Seven Soldiers #0 back, working for the Sheeda Queen. So, apparently she didn't kill them all, she's taken at least one of them into her service, and possibly more. I'd love to see The whip return, we shall see. There seems to be some kind of Sheeda zombification, and Helen seems to be going through that process now.

If we're to take it that the Seven Unknown Men and the Sheeda are locked in some kind of eternal war, it's appropriate that they would both try to remake people to fit their image. So, as the series begins, they remake Spyder, then the Sheeda take him and remake him again. So far, Justin is the only hero who's been explicitly remade, though you could read Ed's transformation of Jake as a similar reinvention.

For the finale of this series, it looks like we're going to see Gallahad and Justin dueling, and running into Don Vincenzo. I'm really psyched for it, this series has come together in a really interesting way towards the end.

Finally, we've got Klarion. I wasn't a big fan of the first issue, but things come together a little bit as the series progresses. Two is cool because we get to see Klarion moving into our world. I loved seeing Klarion moving through the same space that was just featured in The Manhattan Guardian, the Guardian's helmet even makes a cameo. I like the idea that there's a whole secret world underground, and between the two series, we get a pretty vivid picture of it. Plus, his enthusiasm at elements of our world is exciting. The art and dialogue combine to give you the idea that this kid is just thrilled to be moving into this new world.

Issue three shows us more of Klarion's wonder at this new world, as he's manipulated by Mister Melmoth, a guy who's seeking to find the Croatoan society. I'm not sure if he's a Sheeda agent, or just a nasty guy. The issue is all about the loss of adventure and wonder that comes with moving from childhood to adulthood. Klarion is the ultimate child, someone for whom everything that we take for granted is new and exciting. It's a very Peter Pan thing, when Billy reaches sixteen, he's taken away from the gang of kids and turned into a slave for Mister Melmoth, the ultimate representation of restrictive adulthood. Melmoth says he likes the fact that "Everyone's looking very professional," and they're all dressed the same, that's what the adult world is all about, a major contrast to the varied outfits and styles of the kid gang.

Klarion seeks to walk away from his responsibility as a leader of the gang, he will not take over for Billy, only to be forced to move on when he gets older and numb to the wonder of the world. He seeks to be live only for himself, but he is soon drawn back to Croatoa. He may not like that world, but he can't allow it to be destroyed either. So, he sets off to return.

I still think this is the weakest of the four series, but it's got some good stuff, and I'm excited to see the conclusion. On the whole, I'm wondering how most of these series will end, do they all lead into Seven Soldiers #1 with a cliffhanger, or is it more that they close out their stories and then the heroes move on to the final battle in the final issue.

I'm loving this project. It's a totally unique thing in comics, and Morrison is taking advantage of his structure to do all kinds of different things. The need to do so many series is taking him out of his comfort zone and allowing him to explore some new concepts and character types. Right now, I'm wishing that all of these were ongoing series, every character has the potential to sustain a long term narrative, and perhaps Morrison will return to some of them after he finishes this series.

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Seven Soldiers: #0 (5/17/2006)
Seven Soldiers: Part I (5/21/2006)

Upcoming Dates of Note

6/2 - Super Furry Animals at South Street Seaport
6/4 - The Sopranos Season Finale
6/9 - North at Delancey
6/10-6/11 - Promoting Division Shadow at MoCCA
6/17 - Shooting a Music Video for Victoria Rocks
7/4 - Belle and Sebastian at Battery Park
7/7 - A Scanner Darkly released
7/21 - Clerks II released
7/22 - Elysian Fields at Joe's Pub
7/28 - Miami Vice released
8/8 - Manderlay on DVD

And the biggest date of note in the near future is:

10/13 - The Fountain and Marie Antoinette released

This presents a conundrum for me, namely which film do I see first, and how long does it need to sit before I can see the next one. I'll probably do The Fountain on the Friday and Marie Antoinette on the Saturday, that's going to be one ridiculous weekend for cinema.

Nelly Furtado's 'Maneater'

It's the new Toxic! I heard this song yesterday and I've been completely loving it since. I always love synth pop, but what this does is blend a strong synth line with a more hip-pop chorus making for a really cool song. The song starts with that nasty driving synth part, and I love the way her vocals match exactly with the feel of the synth. I always like songs where the vocal is pushed down in the mix and made to feel more like an instrument. Her singing's great, but what makes it work so well is the fact that the vocal and the synth are perfectly matched.

From there, the song goes into the chorus. The chorus goes for a higher, almost cascading feel, taking you briefly out of the din of the synth driven verse. I really like the way that she stretches out the first syllable of man in maneater then speeds through the rest of the words in the chorus to catch up. And the transition between the chorus and the verse is fantastic, as that synth line rears up and is soon matched by her vocal.

I've listened to a lot of European pop stuff recently, like Goldfrapp and Rachel Stevens, and I love the smooth synth-ness of their songs. This song takes some of that feel, but makes the synth darker, a bit more hip hop, creating a whole different experience. It's a bit like the stuff off Gwen Stefani's album, but without the 80s pastiche. But just listening to this thing, it's clearly a fantastic piece of work, a perfect pop song.

Promiscuous Girl is a great song as well, so I'm really psyched to hear her whole album.



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Head On

Head On is a German-Turkish film that exemplifies the way that foreign and independent films deal with emotional issues in a totally different way from typical Hollywood studio product. The film's premise is a fairly conventional setup, a young woman sets up a fake marriage with an older man as a way of getting out of her parents' oppressive home, but soon they begin to develop real feelings for each other.

Stylistically, the film is incredibly pop. The events are frequently emotionally devestating, but thanks to the soundtrack and shooting style, it's always an exciting film to watch. In that respect, the film reminds me of Liilja 4Ever, though this film is a bit more upbeat than that one. My favorite moments of the film weren't particularly tied to the narrative, they were more just perfect combinations of image and music. After Sibel meets Marin, she gets a makeover and is dancing around their apartment, Cahit joins her and they both shout "Punk is not dead." It's such a fun moment and you share in the ecstascy of these characters.

From there, we proceed to a fantastic club scene, with the camera swirling around, we watch Sibel through Cahit's eyes, and as she dances, he falls in love with her and we do too. Obviously, the actress is beautiful, but a lot of the reason that she seems so attractive there is in the way she's filmed. The film is subtle enough that when Cahit runs over to have sex with a guy, we only need to see Cahit's face to know that he now has feelings for her.

The narrative of the film is rather rambling, there's a lot of territory covered and it would be easy to get lost along the way. The emotional anchors are the two lead actors. As Cahit, Birol Unel shows us an utterly broken man who gradually climbs back to life. He goes from this utterly slovenly guy to a clean cut, suave guy by the end of the film. I love the moment where he gets out of prison, wearing 70s police style glasses, and the light shines through the glasses letting us see his eyes. In that moment, we can sense his determination and see that his love for Sibel kept him from giving up. He's come out of prison in a better state than he was when he went in.

Watching the film, it's clear that Sibel goes through a lot, but it was only when I went back and looked at the trailer that it became apparent just how stunning her performance was. She goes through an incredible transformation, from timid suicidal girl to excessive clubber and ultimately she winds up as a domesticated married woman.

Her physical appearance is critical to expressing the characters' inner self. When we see her putting on black eyeshadow, it's clear that she's emulating Marin, she's completely abandoned her traditional Turkish background and is embracing the German club life. What she wants is total independence, and her emotional connection to Cahit deprives her of that. When they're about to have sex, she notes that this will make them really man and wife. From that point on, she can't indulge in the lifestyle she had, she has to drink and do drugs to excess to try to numb the pain of her loss, and ultimately she sees physical pain as a way of dulling the emotions stemming from the loss of Cahit.

I'm curious about what exactly happens between that night when she's beat up and her move to a homelife. I'm guessing that the guy took care of her and offered her shelter and she took it because she was exhausted. So, once again, she takes up with a guy she might not really love after attempting suicide. I feel like her choice to not follow Cahit is her shaking off her old life, she knows that to follow him would mean losing stability and after coming so close to death, she can't risk that again. So, she chooses stability over love. Of course, it's possible that she does love this guy, and having sex with Cahit one last time is an exorcism, ridding herself of those old feelings.

One of the things that makes the film so effective is its grittiness. Because the world feels real, the fact that Cahit falls in love with Sibel doesn't feel contrived. We've seen just how bad off this guy is, and Sibel represents an opportunity to grow up and seek out real emotion rather than wallowing in grief about the loss of his wife. Sibel saying that having sex means they're really man and wife forces him to recognize the fact that this won't just be a fuck-buddy relationship like he has with Marin, it will be a real emotional commitment. Some people could say that the sex scenes are gratuitous, but the fact that they don't have the ubiquitous Hollywood sheet covering them makes you feel like this is real, not something that's staged to avoid showing anyone's nipple.

The emotional arc of the film reminds me of Leon: The Professional, with a younger girl moving in with an older man and opening him up emotionally. Both Cahit and Leon find that the difficulty of moving beyond their loner lifestyles is justified by the emotional bond they form. And in the end, each has to sacrifice themselves so that their young charge can live a normal life.

It's not easy to watch Cahit and Sibel torn apart, or Sibel's meltdown. Part of me was wishing the film could just continue following their happy times, going to clubs and dancing. I love the swirling camera moves when they dance together for the first time, colored lights flashing around them. However, Cahit's temper spoils things there, and ultimately ruins things permanently when he attacks Niko. I think the characters are so flawed that an easy resolution would feel false, so even though we may want them to stay together, it's just not possible. There's no other way things could end than with Cahit leaving and Sibel staying behind in her new life. To leave it all for Cahit would be reckless, she left that kind of reasoning behind when she was beaten on the street.

So, I thought this was a fantastic film. The handheld camera work, fantastic soundtrack and utterly convincing, transformative acting made it a really enveloping experience. People talk about something like Capote or Ray as an example of an actor transforming into a character, but I feel like the work here is a better example. Rather than perfecting an impersonation and sticking with it, both Sibel and Birol go through many stages of the characters' life, taking them each to completely different places than they were when the film started, but staying emotionally true to the characters' core. That's great acting. And moments like the club scene, where the music, lighting, camerawork and performance come together to illuminate the characters' emotions are great filmmaking.

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The Sopranos: 'Cold Stones' (6x11)

I loved the beginning of this season, everything through the first six episodes had a really clear direction and pushed things in unexpected ways. However, in these past few episodes, everything seems to be moving back toward the traditional status quo for the series. I couldn't help but feel that this episode was a bit of a let down, sticking with subdued gloom of the past couple of episodes when the narrative seems to be demanding some kind of major event, or at least a deeper exploration of what's happening to the characters.

One of my favorite arcs of this season was Vito's journey. In Live Free or Die and Johnny Cakes, we saw a guy breaking away from the world he came from, overcoming restrictive traditional values to embrace a new kind of life. It was unlike anything we'd seen on the show before and watching this guy struggle with his new world was riveting. Last week, it was tough to watch Vito fail at his newly chosen life, but thematically, the idea that no one can escape from the Jersey mob world makes a lot of sense.

So, the major issue I have here is the rather perfunctory nature of Vito's demise. After sketching out this wonderfully nuanced guy, we don't get any glimpse into his emotions upon his return. His attempts to reassimilate are there, but other than the phone call to Jim, there's no sense that he's emotionally conflicted. The way I interpreted it, he basically knew someone was going to kill him when he returned, so the journey home was essentially a suicide. But, is that how he felt, or did he legimitately think that he could get back in with Tony? I think we needed to know more about how he felt.

Chase always subverts audience expectations, and it frequently pays off wonderfully, witness Janice killing Richie in season two. The whole season was building to a moment when Tony's new outlook is put to a test when he has to choose whether to authorize a hit on Vito. There's a lot of drama there, and it seemed to be a major sticking point for Tony. However, this episode completely undermines that by having him decide to just go ahead with the hit, and then absolving him of his guilt by having Phil kill Vito for him.

That move doesn't make much plot sense to me. I feel like Tony needed to make the conscious decision to take out Vito, if the point of Phil killing Vito was to instigate conflict between Jersey and New York, it would have been more narratively beneficial to have Tony not authorize a hit on Vito, delay that call, then have Phil act. At this point, Jersey/New York conflicts have been teased for so long, Chase either has to decide to go ahead with some kind of all out war or back down from things. You can only raise the stakes so many times before these events become meaningless.

That said, I did love the ritualistic nature of the Vito murder. Phil's emergence from the closet, like a judging spirit, was fantastic. Phil seems to have been goaded into the murder by his wife, who's going on about how Vito's gay lifestyle is a sin, disregarding the fact that everything she has comes from illegal and morally wrong activity. The idea that these people can judge Vito for what he does, in light of their own transgressions, is absurd. The scene with Vito's wife, and the subsequent one with his kids, makes it clear that Phil was acting out of his own self interest, his attempt to get rid of this "shame" ends up hurting the very people he was supposedly helping.

As the "Back in Black" scene makes clear, Tony seems to have fully returned to his old self. The most interesting element of this season for me was seeing Tony's changed persona, but that seems to have been fully whittled down by living his daily life. He's given up on attempting to be morally right, once again he's only thinking of himself. The problem I have is that the show doesn't seem to address his reversion. It's present in his action, but considering the major emphasis placed on Tony not wanting Vito killed, it's odd that his decision here would be so nonchalant. The one scene where he really got called on his behavior was when he was with Melfi, but he basically ignored what she said.

What's interesting about how the Vito arc played out is the way that the events of the story basically exonerate Tony from the responsibility of standing up for Vito. When Vito returns to Jersey, he makes himself an open target, so Tony really has no reason not to kill him, and we as viewers recognize this. I think it would have been much more interesting to confront Vito in New Hampshire, in this other world where the killing of Vito would have been an aggressive act, rather than a reactive one. That would keep the theme that you can't get out, but play it out in a different way than we'd seen before. The way Vito dies now is too similar to Ralphie or Tony Blundetto, where a guy gets out of control and is put down.

Elsewhere, we've got Carmela's trip to France. I get the sense that the producers wanted to go to France, and the episode was based around this. There's not that much that specifically relies on the Paris setting here, it was certainly pretty, but I don't know if it was the best use of screentime. That said I love Carmela's dream, there's a lot of potential in having Carmela finally have to face the reality of what Tony's business is. Earlier this season, Carmela seemed to have come to terms with Tony did for a living, but her continued investigation into the Adrianna matter, as well as asking about Jackie Jr. would indicate that there's more doubts than she's voiced. The strongest scene in the Paris section is when she asks Rosalie about Jackie's disappearance, and Rosalie just won't discuss it.

I'm not sure about Meadow going to California. That seems to conflict with the way her arc was going this season, though I do love how she claims there's no problems with Finn, even though just last episode we saw her breaking into tears.

And AJ continues to be a problem. This was the strongest part of the episode for me. The way Tony sees it, AJ's failure is a direct reflection of his own inadequecies. He is now feeling guilty for not being tougher on him, it's like Tony's failure to discipline AJ has created the situation they're in now. There was a great line a few episodes ago where Tony says "Carmela's a good mother. She did her best," and I think that sums things up, he feels like listening to Carmela's judgment and not exercising his own has caused the problems that AJ is now experiencing.

The Melfi scene was one of the best in a long time, and got to the core of a lot of Tony's issues, particularly the closing stuff about Carmela being the mother that Tony wishes he had. The scene in the garage was wonderfully tense and for a bit there, I was really thinking that Tony was going to hit AJ. Instead he takes out his rage on AJ's material possession, the car. Sending AJ into construction has the potential to put him on the path towards mob life, and without a doubt, it'll toughen AJ, which is probably Tony's motivation in getting him the job. If AJ fails at this job, we could end things with Tony physically attacking AJ.

I'm really curious to see what happens in the season finale. Things have been stuck in this oppressive rut for a while. I think it's given us some great stories, but I need just a little bit more before the break, something that causes a major emotional impact on these characters.

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Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight #1-2, Zatanna #1, Manhattan Guardian #1, Klarion #1

After the stunning Zero issue, it's time to head into the first four Seven Soldiers miniseries. Each of these series represents the invention of a new superhero mythos, each drawing on previous archetypes while updating them in a way that makes them feel fresh and new.

I'm not too up on DCU history, I know these were all pre-existing characters, but I'm not sure how the worlds they inhabit fit into the DCU that alreayd exists. For example, Shining Knight starts out in some version of Camelot, where he's one of a bunch of knights battling the Sheeda. I'm not sure exactly what the Sheeda are yet, but Shining Knight 2 leads us to believe that they turn up a certain point in a civilization's development, to destroy it. In the first issue, they destroy the Camelot that Justin comes from, and he winds up falling through a time warp to the present.

The issue is fall of crazy Morrison ideas, filtered through a Lord of the Rings vibe. I like the font and style of the narration, which gives the the story the feel of an ancient epic. With everything in chaos, Justin falls into the present. The first issue felt a bit elusive, it was tough to get used to the Camelot world, though I thought the Castle Revolving stuff was fantastic, particularly the mutation of Justin's girlfriend.

The final pages set up the basic premise of the series, a classical knight stranded in modern Los Angeles. The second issue clarifies things, and gets us deeper into Justin's head. I love the idea that he's tormented by this physical representation of his guilt, and literally just walks around with this guy. He's clinging to the old ways, and feels without purpose in this new world.

Justin encounters one of the bald men from Seven Soldiers 0. These guys seem to be some kind of extradimensional agents, who are able to reinvent heroes, update them for a new task. In this case, Justin reclaims his role as a knight, defeating these criminals on the street and finds himself updated with modern clothes and a new sense of purpose. I love the idea that this guy appears at just the right time to set Justin on his path, and I'm guessing that a bald man will appear to each of the soldiers at one point in their series.

Concurrently with this, we've got the mob boss who bought Vanguard. He encounters a sheeda riding some kind of spider. It seems like these spiders are pets for the Sheeda, they control them, and were able to use one as bait in seven soldiers 0. There's a lot of references to eight legged entitiess throughout the series.

The art on Shining Knight is incredible. Justin on the last page of issue 2 is incredible looking and throughout the oil paint look lends incredible atmosphere to the book. Grant did a great job of selecting each artist, and tailoring the story to his/her sensibility. This book looks like a lost volume from the Renaissance, and that style allows us to see our world from the perspective of an outsider like Justin.

Manhattan Guardian is the second series. This is a much more traditional superhero series, drawing on the Batman archetype of the ordinary guy with the skills to fight for good. The thing that makes Manhattan Guardian work is that the superhero story flows organically out of this guy's regular life. Traditionally, the origin story exists solely to motivate the hero to get into action, and even a book like Ultimate Spider-Man that spends a lot of time before the guy becomes a hero still feels like the plot exists solely to bring him to the point of putting on a costume. Here, it feels more like Jake is a regular guy who just happens to be a hero.

I suppose it goes back to the speech from Kill Bill about how Clark Kent is the disguise, Superman is the real guy. That's true of most heroes, but not this one. Jake is using his role as the Manhattan Guardian as a way to patch up the problems in his life.

There's a lot of great things in the issue. I love the kid from the Newsboy Army showing up and giving Jake a bike. Throughout, I feel like Morrison captures a unique voice in Jake. He's always been good at creating very unique characters in small space, and by the end of this issue, I already feel like we completely know Jake. That's the sign of a good storyteller, and makes it a lot easier to emotionally relate to him as the story proceeds.

I'm not so sure about the pirates, the basic idea is good, but I feel like pirates are a bit played out, and usually GM is on the forefront of cultural trends. I'll forgive it because it feels like a throwback to his work with Cameron Stewart on Seaguy. Stewart's art is fantastic here, he always makes fun, dynamic images that can accomodate realism and bizarre stuff.

Following this was Zatanna #1. Zatanna's the only character of the bunch that I was familiar with going in, I'd just caught her appearances in Identity Crisis. So far, hers is by far my favorite mini. The book is like a cross between Buffy and Promethea, and touches on the most classic Morrison ideas.

I think this issue does the best job of simultaneously introducing the character and telling an interesting story in its own right, which was Morrison's goal with the series. That's really helped by the framing device. Much like the Melfi scenes in the first episode of The Sopranos, Zatanna's running narrative about her past introduces us to both the facts of what happened to her in the past, and her feelings on those events. The basic events of the issue come out of stuff that happened in Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run, where Zatanna, her father and John Constantine teamed up to repel some ultimate evil force.

While I usually prefer writers to tackle original material, this mini is a great example of the benefits of a shared universe. It's crazy that this character from an Alan Moore story written twenty years ago can now pick up and grow. Morrison has talked about the fact that Superman is more real now than his creators, and I think a large part of the impetus for the project was the idea that he could create new characters and concepts that would impact the DCU for many years after he's gone. It's the same thing he tried to do with his run on X-Men, but Marvel has effectively gone through and erased most of his innovations.

Anyway, Zatanna's journey through the magic world is incredible. I love the bottom left panel on the first page of this journey, where she's wide eyed, just in total awe of this world. Her interactions with Terry the skeptic are a lot of fun as well. The double paged spreads where they bounce around recall Promethea, though the idea that "space has an edge," as represented by a panel border is classic Morrison. The red God they encounter on the next page seems to be a throwback to the beings who attacked the team in SS0.

This leads them to a place that recalls the library of unwritten books in Sandman. I love the final image of the face on the tree, really creepy. The emotional core of the issue is Zatanna's guilt about bringing back the "man of her dreams." This is exactly the kind of mistake that someone with these powers would make, even if she was responsible most of the time, she's going to slip when it gets tough, and that's going to put the whole world in danger. The emotion on her face is perfectly conveyed on the bottom of that page, the text could be played light, even a bit funny, but with the facial expressions we can tell that she's actually consumed by guilt about what's happened.

The most interesting thing about her therapy group is the presence of Gimmix from SS0. It's tough watching her here in light of what happens to her down the line. Grant's mission with this book was really ambitious, but these little touches of connection make it feel more like one large story. And the whole therapy group thing is another great peek into what the life of ordinary superheroes would be like, they see Zatanna as a poor little rich girl, because she's got to experience life with the JLA and they haven't.

The art on this book is fantastic. I love the redesign of Zatanna's costume, her classic look was good, but this makes it a bit more fresh, and a bit less just kinky magician. Misty also has very cool clothes, and her appearance tells us everything we need to know about the character. But, the thing I love most about Sook's art is the emotion the characters are feeling, I got really wrapped up in this issue and a lot of that is the way he drew things. I think this was a fantastic piece of work, different from what Morrison's done in the past, just really exciting to read. I'm looking forward to issue 2.

The other mini is the only one I'm not so sure about. I probably need to give it a reread, but Klarion was a bit underwhelming. The basic idea is cool, this kid who comes from a Puritan society longs to escape and rebel. That's classic Morrison territory, following up on Kill Your Boyfriend. The whole thing has a very Tim Burton feel, and I do think the art is fantastic. I guess the problem with the issue is that it sets up his rebellion, but ends right as things are about to get interesting. So, I'm excited to see where it goes in the next issue.

The thing I did like was the individuality vs. conformism theme. Like Shining Knight, this seems to be a dying civilization, they're waiting for the Sheeda to come and destroy their civilization, lift them of their burden. They summon the Sheeda and then one shows up at the end of the issue.

This Sheeda seems to be the same create as we saw in Shining Knight, but refracted through a different cultural lens. So, here it's a demonic, blue object, while it looked like a more traditional spider out in the Wild West. There's a lot of style in the world of Klarion, and I'm hopeful that Morrison can pick things up a bit with the next issue.

On the whole, I'm loving the project. Zatanna in particular, but the whole thing is great, and looking for the overall connections is a lot of fun. It's a work that demands much from the reader, but I'm up for the challenge. It's almost mindblowing having this much new Morrison content available at one time.

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Battlestar Galactica: 2x08-2x10

After a bit of a hiatus, I'm back moving forward with Battlestar Galactica. I just finished the first chunk of the second season and, while it took a little bit, I'm right back on board with the show, and excited to see where they go from here.

'Final Cut' and 'Flight of the Phoenix' both fall prey to a bit of excess sap. They're not bad episodes, and the twist at the end of 'Final Cut' makes things more interesting, but ultimately they're a bit too much in the celebrate our characters mode. The most interesting stuff is Helo's struggle to reintegrate himself into the flight team, his fight with the chief is a great scene, but on the whole, each episode smooths over the tensions for a happy ending.

At the time I watched these two episodes, I was feeling a bit down on the show, like most of the tension had been defused and there was a bit of a loss of direction. However, in light of 'Pegasus,' it's pretty clear that those episodes were explicitly designed to focus on the ways that the crew has formed themselves into a fully functioning unit. They've solved most of their issues, and despite some lingering unease, they're generally moving forward.

So, 'Pegasus' engages with this, and brings in an outside force to challenge the status quo that our heroes have set up. It comes at just the right time, almost all the original characters have been made likable, so we need some sort of outside force to challenge them. Kane is a lot like Adama was back in the early days, before he got softened and found a way to compromise with the president. The basic problem of every TV show is that your characters inevitably become more likable as time goes on, and their more extreme traits get smoothed down. Witness the path of Bobby Briggs on Twin Peaks for an example of how this can go bad, or Spike on Buffy to see how it can work to the show's advantage.

Kane's presence makes the military stuff more interesting than it's been for a long time, the final moments when Adama sends his fleet out to attack her are fantastic. This also leaves us with a lot of potential drama in the second chunk of the season.

However, what made this episode great was the stuff involving the cylons. The scene where Sharon is nearly raped was really visceral and made you hate the guy 'interrogating' her. When Tyrol rams his head into that nail, it's very satisfying. Sharon's one of my favorite characters on the show, and it's tough to watch her go through such an awful experience. The way the scene was staged also makes us totally sympathetic for Helo and the Chief, justifying Adama's decision to attack the Pegasus at the end of the episode.

In the story with Baltar and the prisoner Six we see what could happen to Sharon if she's left at the mercies of the Pegasus crew. They seem to have repeatedly raped her, and the locker room talk indicates that they find it totally acceptable to treat her in that way, ignoring the fact that she's a conscious, emotional person. It definitely calls back racial abuse through history, particularly plantation life, where masters felt it was perfectly alright to rape black slaves.

The episode exposes the way that the Galactica crew's idea of the cylons has evolved. After the business in 'Flight of the Phoenix,' they see Sharon as a real asset, and they know that even though they may be enemies, the Cylons are still sentient beings. The way the Pegasus crew treats their prisoner is abhorrent, and I'm guessing this will become a big issue in the second chunk of the season.

There's a lot of potential in having Baltar rehibilitate Six. I think they recognized the limitations of having him constantly interacting with her hallucination, and this will give them the potential to rekindle the relationship they had on Caprica. His soliloquiy about their relationship was beautiful. I think Batlar and Six have fantastic chemistry, but he hasn't had much to do this season, and getting him a prominent plot next time is a good idea.

So, I'm really psyched to see where things go from here. I hope they keep the focus on cylons, rather than on random problems on the bridge. The real philosophical meat of the series is with the cylons, so I hope to see more of Sharon on the Galactica, and more of the cylons in their own world.

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Seven Soldiers: #0

With the final trade getting released in July, I decided it was time to begin reading Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers series. Morrison's probably the best creator working now in any medium. The Invisibles changed my life, and every book he's done is completely pop, full of crazy new ideas and concepts.

With one issue, Grant creates a fully realized superhero team, and then tears them down, setting the stage for the events of the maxi-series. This issue is one of the most convincing takes I've seen on the reality-based superhero. However, rather than being set in our reality, this story examines what it would be like for an ordinary superhero in the DC Universe. This is a world where the JLA are like gods, Superman isn't your average hero, he's someone who's really special, like the best baseball player in the majors, while these guys are people who've been kicking around single A level minors. They have the fundamentals, but are all aware that they're never going to be getting the headlines.

The first couple of pages are a throwback to Swamp Thing, Alan Moore's legendary series, one of the first really notable revamps of a character to change him from a children's book hero to a more adult character. Tommy goes through a similar revamp, controlled by these mysterious bald guys, who seem to be some kind of cosmic agents, controlling reality from behind the scenes. So, they're like John a Dreams in The Invisibles, manipulating reality from behind the scenes to bring about a specific end. Here, they're locked in some kind of eternal battle with the forces of darkness who turn up later in the book.

The two page sequence with Tommy's transformation is classic Morrison. The colored liquid is a lot like the stuff that turned up in The Filth, which woke Greg up from his cover identity and turned him into Ned Slade. On a narrative level, the bald guys are rebuilding Tommy to serve in this superhero team, on a meta level, Tommy is going through the process of reinvention that countless superheroes have gone through, getting updated to be cooler, with more attitude. So, his old personality is washed down the drain and he's got a different temprament when we see him later in the book.

Next, we meet up with the main character, The Whip. She went into heroing as a gimmick to get a book written. I love the title: "Body Thunder: How I Turned My Body Into a Weapon to Beat the Twenty-First Century Blues." If you're living in a world where someone like Batman exists, clearly there's going to be imitators, and every person bored with their mundane life is going to long for his exciting existence.

There's a lot of references to previous superhero comics in the issue. The Whip herself is clearly a Frank Miller heroine, "the girl with no fear" being a direct reference to his Daredevil. She's a masochist, dressed up in a full on fetish outfit, but the pain just isn't enough for her, she needs something beyond just day to day crime fighting. Grant frequently talks about wanting to restore the cosmic grandeur of the Silver Age to contemporary superhero titles, and her line about exhausting the possibilities of the "morally ambiguous urban vigilante" is a clear reference to this.

She goes on to talk about how she needs more, she wants a memorial to her carved into the side of the moon. This seems to be a throwback to the Phoenix saga, she wants a grand sacrifice that will make the world remember her forever. This is tragically ironic in light of what happens later on, when she dies out of the spotlight, likely forgotten soon after.

The whole theme of the issue is contained in the line "How do you know when you've become a superhero and not just a crazy fetish person with a death wish?" In their world, you can dress up in a costume and fight crime, but there's always the spectre of people like Superman, you'd just come off as a pathetic echo. That's why she wants to save the world, doing so would prove her legitimacy.

This theme also ties into the very reason why we read superhero fiction. Reading these power fantasies is a way of transcending the "twenty-first century blues." Rather than the conformist, structured world we live in, superhero fiction is a place where people can dress up in crazy outfits and battle all manner of cosmic foes. It's that search for meaning, if your day's work is saving the world, you can go home happy, if it's just working in an office, or busting a couple of petty crooks, it's tough to consider yourself fulfilled.

Thematically, this ties back to Watchmen, particularly the stuff from Hollis' book. He talks about how it was only when the criminals started to dress up that they felt comfortable, if you're the only one in costume it seems ridiculous. There's an inherent self consciousness for these people, and for Shelly, that insecurity leads her to try to find a team of people, a place where she can feel comfortable.

If The Whip is the archetypal 80s heroine, Greg is a throwback to the Golden AGe. He's inherently outdated, a cowboy hero in today's world does not fit. He's a guy who felt more comfortable in 1875 than in the present. I love the idea that the JLA would go track this guy down from the past and bring him back, a mere chore for them, but a huge event for this guy. That's the essence of the miniseries, on the cosmic scale, these characters are unimportant, but because we get into their lives, their triumphs seem massively important, and their demise is disturbing.

This goes back a fiction theory that I've talked about before, the "Personal Apocalypse" concept, which was basically that a work needn't exist on a cosmic scale to feel important, what it needs to do is focus on the most important moment in the characters' life, the moment where the world as they knew it ends and they come out reborn. Magnolia is a great example of this, are nine random people in the Valley important on the grand scale of things? No, but because we care about them, it feels more important than an asteroid hurtling to destroy the whole world in Armageddon.

The heroes on Greg's team all draw on archetypes from superhero comics past. This is reminiscent of Warren Ellis' Planetary series, which functions simultaneously as a great adventure series in its own right, and as a history of genre fiction in the twentieth century. Gimmix is a throwback to 50s female heroines, most notably with her "Everything a Girl Needs" spray, Boy Blue is the post comics reader, who experiences superheroes via video games and movies, and Dan is a prototypical fanboy. His character design is basically the stereotypical "fatbeard." Most interesting is Tommy, who's come back in the style of late 90s Authority superheroes, a guy who's so cool he doesn't even know what he's doing with this bunch of losers. The transformation process with Tommy earlier in the book is designed to resemble the way that writers can remake characters to suit their own ends, modernized to suit the new times.

To some extent, they're all hero-vestites, except for Greg, but he's clearly too old to fight at the level he used to. In the page where they're asleep, both Gimmix and Dan look utterly mundane stripped of their hero gear. They're dressing up as heroes, it's not something inherent to themselves. Shelly's got some masochistic tendencies, and sleeping with Tommy, a guy she hates, is part of that. She likes to put herself in danger to feel alive.

Because they're only "playing" superheroes, there's always a self consciousness to their behavior. However, when they take on the spider, there's a collective transcending of this mental state, and for a moment they become real superheroes. Fighting as a team, they defeat the spider, and in those moments of fighting, they lose touch with all their earthly worries and become something greater. They are no longer self conscious about it, they have become real heroes.

After that, it's quickly down to Earth, realizing how close they came to dying, and the scars left by the battle. And after this momentary peak, they are quickly reminded of their utter insignificance. Some kind of superior force breaks through reality, and in a harrowing double page spread, everyone's killed. I love The Whip, screaming as she looks straight out at the reader. I'm not really sure what's going on here, but it's definitely disturbing. From there, the mysterious bald men pack things up and prepare to assemble another seven to fight this threat, which presumably leads in to the seven individual mini-series.

I think this issue is a masterpiece. Basically everything Grant writes is great, but this is his most insightful exploration of superhero archetypes since Flex Mentallo. That book dealt more with our perception of superheroes in the real world, this is all about how the average superhero lives in the DCU, toiling in the shadow of the big guns like Superman. I love the ways that the superheroes themselves are equated with superhero fans, Dan is like the fanboy who got a chance to write the titles, and Gimmix is the writer who wrote a couple of issues back in the 70s and is trying to live on that fame for the rest of her life. The whole book has that sort of run down, sleazy vibe that's present at a lot of cons.

Morrison writes superhero fiction better than anyone else, even Moore. Moore can do great work, but recently is often too eager to go towards pastiche over real emotional involvement. I've said it before, but with stuff like Tom Strong, Moore writes Silver Age comics as they actually were, while Grant's Flex Mentallo is like your nostalgia altered memory of a Silver age comic. This doesn't reach the manic pop heights of Flex, but it's a fantastic, more subdued exploration of similar themes.

Aiding Grant in this is the brilliant J.H. Williams. His work on Promethea is arguably the greatest comics art of all time. Here, his work is essential in establishing all these characters in such a short period. He's able to handle the Morrison craziness of the opening, as well as the kinetic action with The Whip. I've heard that Grant and J.H. are working on a creator owned series soon, and I'm eagerly looking forward to it. J.H. is one of those artists like Frank Quitely who's so good, I feel like he's wasting his time if he's not working with someone as good Alan Moore or Grant Morrison.

So, this was a great opening to the series, and I'm looking forward to the rest. I'll be doing in depth reviews as I go through, perhaps not this in depth, but if you've read the series, you'll have plenty to ponder.

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Vital

Vital is a film by Shinya Tsukamoto, the man behind two of the craziest films I've seen, Tetsuo: The Iron Man and A Snake of June. Those films all took place in surreal worlds, heavily color tinted and based around symbols in a dreamlike haze. It's difficult to find any sort of character or narrative reality in either of them. The really heavy tinting makes them totally unique films, I've never seen another feature like them.

Vital's still an odd film, but it's much more mainstream than Tsukamoto's other stuff. The film is about Hiroshi's struggle to come to terms with his girlfriend's death. The narrative structure's odd because the entire film is about him letting go, but we start by having him lose all his memories. What this does is align the viewer with Hiroshi, dropped in to this world, unclear about what's going on, and gradually realizing what happened.

The film has a number of incredible editing bits. The opening with the smokestacks is frenetic, and the music used builds up anticipation despite the fact that we're not sure what's going on. The other really cool sequence is when Hiroshi remembers the car crash and his memories flood back in negative.

The film has a few layers of metaphor working. In the real world, Hiroshi is dissecting Ryoko's body and through the process is rediscovering his relationship with her. At the same time, he's living in a dream reality, where he can spend time with Ryoko, but always has to leave at some point, return to the real world.

The film has a heavy layer of sadomasochism, with the choking. When Hiroshi sees Ikumi choking herself, he finds an echo of his relationship with Ryoko. Ryoko clearly shares this self destructive streak, so by forging a relationship with Ikumi, Hiroshi has a chance to atone for Ryoko's death. I like how Hiroshi forgres a relationship with Ryoko's parents, his rediscovery of his memories allows them to rediscover her as well. This relationship was the most emotionally real in all of Tsukamoto's work.

As things end, we realize that Ryoko was aware that she was going to die, but she didn't mind because she had experienced a moment of perfect happiness with Hiroshi. She'd be content to relive their time together all her life, even as she's aware that Hiroshi has to move on to other things.

The film's much more straightforward, less experimental than Tsukamoto's work. It was a lot easier to follow, and was also more emotionally engaging, however it's also less unique. I'm not saying that Tsukamoto should only do really out there stuff, but this is the equivalent of something like Wild at Heart for David Lynch, a film that's about half totally unique and half fairly standard. It's a lot easier to watch this than Snake of June, but it's ultimately less invigorating.

Tsukamoto's work reminds me a lot of Miike's, in the way that more than any American directors he emphasizes image and dream logic over coherent narrative progression. Even though I'm talking about this film like it's a standard film, it's still very ethereal and drifting. I feel like both of these directors are students of psychology, Freud in particular, because they draw on a lot of knowing sexual symbolism. In some respects, the lack of narrative cohesion can be frustrating. Lynch does some crazy stuff, but most of his films can be straightened out into a fairly linear narrative if you work hard enough. However, I would hesitate to come up with a definitive explanation for Gozu or Tetsuo, they're films that don't take place in our world, films that are more about the journey, the image at the moment, than any particular destination.

This film is successful in that it does have a strong emotional closure, and a sense of character and narrative. However, the images and construction just aren't as overwhelming as in Tetsuo or Snake of June. But, I imagine the vast majority of viewers would enjoy this a lot more than either of those two films.

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Goldfrapp @ Irving Plaza

Setlist:
Utopia//Lovely Head//Tip Toe//Train//Koko//Slide//Never Know//Deer Stop//Fly Me//Satin Chic//Beautiful//White Horse//OOh La La
Encore:
Black Cherry//Number One
Strict Machine

I've been to a lot of rock shows, but I've never seen any electronic pop groups perform live. It's tougher to do a show where much of your sound comes from electronic elements, it can be tougher to reproduce the elements that make the record great. Goldfrapp proved that it is possible to make do electronic keyboard based music live and make it great. This was a really cool show, one I'm really glad I got to see.

First off, the crowd here was really into it. When she first came out on stage, there were huge applause and after every showy moment there was a major crowd reaction. This reaction was one of the most enthusiastic I've ever seen, and Alison seemed to really be enjoying it. During the breaks between encores, the crowd was really emphatic in demanding a bit more show.

The show started off with two songs off of Felt Mountain. I figured that the dance/glam stuff off of the later albums would play better live, but those first two songs were the highlight of the show for me. Alison's vocal range was ridiculous, going off into this siren-like high pitched wail on 'Lovely Head,' augmented by the theremin and vocal distortion. I think they placed these two songs first because they were so vocally demanding, it would be difficult to hit those notes at the end of the show. The band backing her was a mix of keyboard, violin and guitar, and they turned the ethereal whispher of Utopia into a heavy stomp, completely remaking the song into something that worked as a rocking live number. If you hear the songs on record, they don't sound like they'd translate well live, but she totally disproved that here.

I think some of my enjoyment of the show was hindered by the fact that I didn't get a good spot until near the end. I got there ten minutes before the show started, and was really happy not to have to wait. But, the problem is I wasn't up in the front, where the really intense fans are. It's a hassle to have to wait, but the shows where I'm in the front, like at Phoenix last week are much more enjoyable. There, you get immersed in the performance, rather than struggling to see over the crowd. So, in the future I'm going to try to get there a bit earlier and get a good spot before the show starts.

Anyway, my issues aside, she kept up a really high energy level throughout the show. Train was an early highlight, the first of her dance songs to get played, and also notable for her theremin solo, a theremin that she got very comfortable with. Train also saw the first appearance of her masked dancers. They were quite odd looking, and worked well to augment the songs. Visually, the show was fantastic. The lights helped build the song's mood and the band's glam rock attire helped build the mood. I believe it was Will Gregory playing keyboards on the left in a full on Velvet Goldmine outfit and makeup.

The closing run of songs was all fantastic. After the heights of 'Utopia' and 'Lonely Head,' there was a bit of a break, but things came back at the end with the fantastic, driving 'Satin Chic,' and then her two big disco songs off of Supernature, 'Ooh La La' and 'Ride a White Horse.' I was surprised to see those two back to back since they're similar songs, and one of them could have probably gone over better during the middle of the show. But, it did have the effect of building great momentum for the finale, and into the encores.

'Number One' is my favorite song of theirs, and it worked really well live. 'Black Cherry' was a return to the feel of 'Utopia,' and was quite good. 'Strict Machine' was a fantastic finale, with Alison marching and saluting.

So, a really good show. I wasn't sure how they'd convert their stuff to live performance, but it went over seamlessly, and quite a few of the songs were even better live than on the record. I would love to see them again, this was a "Special" show, so hopefully they'll do another round through New York promoting this album. And next time play 'Lovely 2 C U,' that's the only song I was missing.

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The Sopranos: 'Moe and Joe' (6x10)

This episode felt like a throwback to the early season episodes that dealt explicitly with Tony's youth, I was almost expecting a flashback with young Tony and Janice. Thankfully we didn't get that, but in some respects, the episode felt a bit constrained by having to look backwards. Still, there was a lot of progress in the overall storylines, as everything continues to fall apart.

The development of Vito's storyline in the past few episodes has given us our first glimpse of someone who might find a way out of the mob world. Vito seemed to have wound up in the perfect town and met the perfect guy. However, he's still drawn irrevocably back to Jersey and the world of the mob. At first this is played with a blend of nostalgia and humor, Vito annoyed that the firefighters are going to sleep at midnight, and the dinner as an attempt to recapture the cooking he misses.

For the past few episodes, the threat seemed to come from outside, the issue was who would find Vito, and whether or not Tony would let them kill him. The twist is that it turns out even the perfect life isn't enough for Vito, he'd rather take his chances at home than live out an ordinary life, doing ordinary work. Coming from a culture where going to work means playing poker in the back of a pork store or sitting in folding chairs on a construction site, it's difficult for Vito to get used to the idea of actually doing work. The scene with the voiceover was a stylistic departure for the series, but I think it worked to show just how alien the concept of an actual day's labor is for these guys.

I didn't love the episode, and I think that's partially because it's so unrelentingly pessimistic. It's tough to watch these characters continually fail, and certainly Vito's arc is an example of that. This is a guy who had everything set up for him, he just needed to work, and he couldn't do that. It's similar to Long Term Parking, where Christopher sees a white trash 'ordinary' family, and chooses to kill Adrianna rather than go down that path. Vito chooses the same, he can be happy for a time in New Hampshire, but he's got to return to Jersey eventually, even if it means death.

I enjoyed the momentum of the "My Way'" car ride, and the starkly shot murder announced that Vito is definitely back. He must be aware that he can't just walk back in to their world, and I'm not too sure what he plans to do. I suppose he could claim that the rumors were all lies, and go back to living with his wife, swearing off the gay clubs, but I still think it would be hard for them to accept him. In the previous episodes, I would have been really angry if Vito ended up getting killed, but with this episode, he basically gives himself over to die. He passed on his chance for an escape, so there's really nothing else to do but end him.

This episode doesn't really evolve Janice, but the whole point of her character is that there's no evolution. Be she new age or mob wife, she's still the same self centered person. So, this is more about touching base with her, and reaffirming what we've already seen. Janice has basically become her mother, and that's what makes Tony scared of her. What this episode adds is the notion that even when he was a kid, she was treating him like Livia did. So, Tony's always been scared of her on some level.

The scene with Bobby Jr. is great because it lets Tony observe someone who's essentially a younger version of himself, it's even stronger than a flashback. Tony chooses not to talk to Janice about it, likely because she'd just ignore him and complain about it. Bobby is trying to advance to impress her, but ends up only getting himself hurt worse.

One thing I've been wondering is whether Bobby has gone to see Junior in prison. I'd imagine Tony wouldn't sanction it, but they were together for a long time, and I don't think he would be happy that Junior's been essentially abandoned. One of the toughest moments of this season is Junior's extreme happiness when he sees AJ, only to be quickly deflated when he finds out that his only visitor has come to kill him.

This episode effectively marks the end of Johnny Sack. By pleading guilty, he alienates himself from everyone else in the mob, it will likely be a chilly reception when he gets out of prison. But, he really had no choice, he made the deal that worked best for his family.

This plotline fits in wonderfully with the theme of erosion that the whole season has been about. All the characters are increasingly aware of their own constriction, and both Christopher and Vito's attempts to find a way out have failed miserably. The characters are going down the ship, they're not willing to work to find a new life, and that means just trying to grab the biggest piece possible as everything falls apart.

Carmela this season is becoming more and more aggressive in trying to claim a space for herself. She's desperately jealous of Angie, who's the woman she wants to be. She leans on Tony to try and get her work started, and blames him when her building fails. She's so stuck in their mindset that she never thinks to actually make a building that could pass inspection, rather she looks for the easy way around the rules. No one's willing to do actual work, and that's the big problem. The mob prays on actual businesspeople, best dramatized in the David Scatino arc back in season two, they siphon from the labor of others, and contribute nothing themselves.

With two episodes left in the season, I'm assuing we'll see some resolution of the Vito issue. I hesitate to predict anything plotwise since Chase always comes up with something unexpected. But, tonally it's pretty clear that we're looking at the continued gradual breakdown of the mob system. Paulie's got cancer, Christoper's losing his car, no one is doing well, and I'm guessing that the end of the series will be a fade out not a bang.

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McCabe and Mrs. Miller

I've enjoyed a lot of the Robert Altman stuff I've seen, but I've always felt like he keeps a bit too much emotional distance between his characters, and sometimes his relaxed, rambling pacing can make a film feel a bit too long. However McCabe and Mrs. Miller doesn't fall into any of these traps, and it's easily my favorite film of his.

McCabe is in some respects a Western, but it doesn't focus on the violent aspects of the genre, rather it covers the life of a town, as it is built and ultimately torn from the people who built it. One of the most remarkable things about the film is the way that it depicts the building of McCabe's town. When he first gets there, it's a few tents, and as the film progresses, we watch the skeletons of buildings rise up, and get fleshed out until this is a fully functioning town, and that makes the events at the end, when McCabe has not only his town, but his life taken from him, tragic.

If McCabe is the town's father, Mrs. Miller is its mother, only through the union of their sensibilities can they find success. Despite his money, McCabe doesn't have much ambition. He sees no reason to build beyond the tents for the girls, to build a bathhouse or to decorate the prostitute's house. He thinks in terms of short term gains, rather than possibilities of future investment. Mrs. Miller seeks to recreate the luxury of an urban area, and seems to be using the town as a way to get money to open her own place in San Francisco. So, her ambition brings them success beyond what they could have possibly expected.

The film has a pessimistic view of American business. McCabe is an entrepreneur who seems to have acheived the American dream, but there's always someone bigger out there who will not allow him to continue his business. McCabe thinks that big business will play fair, and that he can get more money out of them. However, when they don't get what they want, they don't mess around, they just kill him.

Mrs. Miller is aware of McCabe's naivete, and that's why she leaves. He just can't figure it out, $6250 really is their final offer, if he doesn't pay that, they'll just take the town. That's where the Western attitude really comes out, because this is an essentially lawless territory, the big corporations rule, and McCabe's lawyer can't stop them when McCabe happens to end up dead. It's a situation similar to Lando in Empire Strikes Back, an independent businessman wants to stay under the radar, once he gets too big, he becomes a target.

So, it's appropriate that the killers announce their presence by killing the cowboy. This was a guy who came to the house because he heard it was the biggest around. Once word like that starts spreading, it attracts attention to McCabe and ultimately causes his death.

The end of the film is stunning, McCabe's pursuit is played out with virtually no dialogue. I love the moment where McCabe guns down the huge guy, but it doesn't make what ultimately happens to him any better. Then, there's the haunting final image of Mrs. Miller lying in the opium den. McCabe's decision not to sell means that she is left with nothing, and if she stayed behind, she would probably be treated as nothing more than a common whore. So, she flees, and, distraught, drifts off into an opium haze. Even though she's still alive, her prospects aren't much better than McCabe's.

The film is different from most Altman movies in that there's a stronger character center. There's some of the overlapping dialogue ensemble stuff, but we really get to know the two title characters, and that makes the end of the film quite emotional. Another thing that contributes to this is the score of songs by Leonard Cohen. Having a singer/songwriter score your movie seems to have been quite the trend in the 1970s, and it works really well here. Also, I loved the use of zooms here. That's something you don't see much today, but here it did a great job of emphasizing certain things within the frame.

So, this is a really great film, easily the best Altman I've seen, and one of the best films of the 70s. It's a film that's innovative and really exciting to watch. I'm hoping Altman recaptures some of this quality with the upcoming A Prarie Home Companion.

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Phoenix @ Bowery Ballroom (5/10/2006)

Phoenix's second album, Alphabetical, is one of my all time favorite albums, ridiculously smooth, warm keyboard based dance rock. Every song on there is great, so I was rather annoyed when I missed the shows they did for the album because I was up at school. So, I was really happy that I was able to get to yesterday's show, and it did not disappoint. About half of the show was really good, and the other half was one of the best performances I've ever seen.

What was responsible for this divide? It's the fact that about half the songs they played were off their new album. I don't want to be that guy, but in this case, the new album is significantly weaker than their previous stuff. It's still good, but much less unique. United or Alphabetical are albums no one else could make, the keyboard textures and warmth of the music were something I'd never heard before. It's Never Been Like That is more standard rock. It's still good, but compared to the greatness of their previous stuff, it was a bit of a letdown. I think the primary reason for that is that I was attracted to the band because they were like a more rock version of Air, but with this album, they drop most of the electro, and become more like countless other indie bands out there.

If I'd heard the third album first, I'd probably like it, but wouldn't have the extreme love that I did for Alphabetical. A lot of bands seem to stumble with the third album. On the second, you can usually get away with just developing ideas from the first, but with your third album you've got to do something different, and that can either cause a good band to leap to greatness or a great band to stumble a bit. I'm hoping they bring back the keyboard for their fourth album.

But, enough on that. The songs from the third album sounded pretty good live, particularly 'Long Distance Call,' 'Lost and Found,' and the closer, 'Second to None,' which was extended into a lengthy jam session. All the third album stuff was solid, but nearly every song they played from the first two was a mezmerizing experience.

On the album, most of the songs are pretty lowkey, smooth, controlled and short. Playing them live, they turned to extended jams, moving effortlessly between heavy and softer sections. The second song they played was 'Run Run Run,' which was probably the highlight of the night for me. It's one of their best songs and it was pushed in a really different direction from the album. Other highlights were 'If I Ever Feel Better' and 'Funky Squaredance.'

I like the concert experience to be different than the album, and I don't think there's much virtue in just playing a tight version that replicates the record. I prefer the messy, sprawling approach they took, drawing different nuances out of the song. Because the audience already knows the song, it's smart to play with expectations of how things will go, and the longer versions of the songs allowed them to do that. Most of the songs they treated this way were the older ones, and I'm hoping that at future shows, they'll do more improv and variation with the new stuff. I'd be curious to find out if at the first Alphabetical shows, they played things pretty much straight ahead, or if they did the long improv versions then as well. The fantastic 'Second to None' showed that the new songs could be as good as the old stuff if they were transformed in the same way.

The crowd at this show was one of the most invovled at any show I've been to. There was a lot of dancing in the crowd, and a lot more women than at most shows. They all seemed to be gazing up adoringly at Thomas Mars. I was hoping that Sofia Coppola would be at the show, since she's dating Mars, but there was no sign of her. Rumor has it that she's pregnant, and their kid may have the ultimate indie genes. If their kid was to direct Maggie Gylenhal/Peter Sarsgaard's kid in a film, the indie universe would probably implode, it would just be too much.

While Mars was certainly the center of the show, I was a huge fan of their drummer. He was doing some really heavy drumming, but it always remained melodic and danceable. He also seemed to be having a lot of fun back there, tearing things up.

While I would have liked a bit more from the first two albums, the show was still fantastic, and Phoenix definitely lived up to their live reputation. They took their songs in a different direction live, and that was rivetiing to watch. At a lot of shows, by the end, I'm pretty much ready to go. Here I was wishing that they'd drop one more song, and I didn't want the epic finale, 'Second to None,' to end. That's the sign of a great show.

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Gilmore Girls: 'Partings' (6x22)

This episode was an interesting watch for a number of reasons, but before going into the actual stuff that happened I've got to comment on the ridiculousness of the episode promo. I can understand wanting people to watch the episode, and I will admit that I'd vaguely heard about the big plot twist online, but it's one thing to skim over some spoilers on a message board post, it's another to see the whole episode condensed into thirty seconds in the episode trailer. Some of the previous trailers had done an interesting job of misleading the audience, notably "I'm pregnant" from last week, but here there's no twist, we get everything except the last thirty seconds of the episode, and that kills a lot of the dramatic tension. It's the show's season finale, people are probably going to watch, there's no need to give away the entire episode, quite literally in this case.

So, that colored my viewing. Most of the stuff from the trailer was in the last fifteen minutes of the episode, so I was pretty much waiting for those. It's tough to watch this stuff, if you watch on DVD, a lot of the spoilers are out there, so it's tough to avoid them, but if you watch on actual TV, you get them in the promos. Even if I hadn't watched last week's promo, they replayed it right before the episode. Ridiculous stuff, WB, hopefully your spawn the CW will do a better job of keeping secrets with its promos.

Anyway, on to the episode itself. I think it's tough to objectively evaluate season finales, particulary when I knew this was the last Palladino episode. So, there's this impending sense of doom, I was checking the clock a lot, watching it tick down and wishing that this would end up being a two hour episode. I remember watching the final episode of Twin Peaks and just sitting there stunned at the end, wihsing that I could get just a little bit more, and I had a similar feeling here. The troubador stuff would have been a fun bit in any other episode, but here I desperately want to see more with Lorelai, and they're taking screentime that could be spent on that. So, the episode has the obligation of being not only good, it's got to the absouletly best hour of story that could be told. In that respect, it doesn't quite measure up, but those final fifteen minutes were brilliant.

The opening scene was striking, and I love the way it came back at the end. Lorelai is in such a funk by this point that she's barely even to wake up. The scene with Patti at her house was probably the best demonstration of this, she knows Luke is looking for her, but she's still avoiding him. This was also a nice example of melding the usual town comedy bits with the heavy drama. So, we get the typical Patti innuendos, but are more focused on the fact that she's covering for Lorelai, who is right there, but won't go to Luke.

From there, we head off to the lengthy Emily and Richard scene. The fact that Emily is trying to set Christopher up with someone implies that she does legitimately believe in Luke and Lorelai as a couple, and her talking last week wasn't implying that Lorelai should actually get together with Christopher. She's now trying to set Christopher up with Lorelai present. This scene had an odd dynamic, I feel like we'd seen the dinner table bit in a bunch of previous episodes, and doing this extended comedy riff felt a bit out of place in the context of the whole episode. Obviously, it was designed to set up what happens with Christopher and Lorelai later, but I think the seeds of that had been set up sufficiently in previous episodes, and we didn't need such an extended scene to do that.

So, before I head into the rest of the stuff with Lorelai, let me take a quick detour to go over the rest of the stuff. I really liked seeing Mary Lynn Raskjub guest on the show, and on the whole, I really did like the troubador bit. I don't think any of those scenes should be cut, it's just that I feel like we could have used a bit more with our core characters. This was an episode that demanded an extra ten or fifteen minutes.

At this point, Lorelai is a totally dominant character, and Rory is almost like Lane, existing off in her own little subplotverse. Side note, I would have liked to have seen Lane's take on the troubadors, though this certainly wasn't an episode that needed any additional material. Back in the show's early days, it was a pretty much even split between Lorelai and Rory, and it was their connection that was the show's main focus. After they had to split up in season four, Lorelai has gradually become the dominant character on the show. I don't think Rory has ever developed the complexity of Lorelai, I really enjoyed her 'Dark Rory' arc earlier this year but since then, she hasn't had much of anything to do.

So, her stuff here is pretty solid, but nothing that unexpected. The Mitchum scene was the high point, as he makes her aware of something she probably already knew, that Logan does need to grow up, and going to London coul be good for him. So, she agrees to make the personal sacrifice and spend some time without him. The scene where Rory breaks down crying as he's about to go was arguably her best acting in the show's whole run, her break into tears felt totally real and gave the scene a poignance that the events themselves did not automatically justify.

So, back to Lorelai. I think something like the psychiatrist scene was a long time coming. I've mentioned this before in relation to this show, but when a show runs for a long time, you're inevitably going to repeat plot lines, you can either choose to ignore that, or use it as the basis for the characters' flaws. Once they have these flaws, it's logical to make them self examine. So, here we find out exactly how Lorelai feels about Luke, she thought he was the one, and this may have created a distance in all her other relationships. If he's the one, the ultimate destination, it's logical that she would fall into depression when things aren't working out. If things don't work out with Luke, is she destined to live the rest of her life alone?

The scene with Luke was great, the culmination of everything this season has been leading to. Lorelai finally lets him know how she was feeling and he remains unable to see how much she's hurting. Lorelai's desperation reaches its culmination here, everything she's been wanting to say spills out, but it's too much for Luke to take all at once and he freezes up. One could certainly say that Lorelai may have been too aggressive in springing all her problems on Luke at once, particularly after avoiding him for so long. But, at the same time, Luke is pretty stupid here, particularly in letting her go when she's so clearly angry. During that long lingering shot on the band, I was hoping to see Luke at least attempting to pursue her. However, there was nothing.

And that leads us to the final moments. The previews pretty much spoiled this, but it's still an interesting development. The final scene shows Lorelai still looking dazed and out of it. So, it's not like she's recognized that Christopher is the one and decided to be with him, her justification is just what she says, that shecan't be alone tonight. This season has spent a lot of time flirting with the idea of Christopher and Lorelai has a couple, be it through Lorelai taking care of Gigi, or attending the wedding together. So, I feel like Lorelai and Christopher could easily work as a couple, something that's been aided by the fact that we've barely seen her with Luke in the second half of the season. So, we've lost track of the basis of their relationship.

It wouldn't be that tough to reverse things. Certainly, last year's business with Christopher and Richard and Emily made him into quite the villain, but the agenda last year was different. That was when the goal was to make Luke and Lorelai into a working couple. Even as things were going bad with Rory, Luke was the rock for Lorelai, and she likely would have suffered much more during that time if Luke wasn't there for her. Lorelai's biggest problem now is that she has no one to turn to, and that's plunged her into this extreme depression.

While I've generally loved the way things went this season, I do find the way Luke has been portrayed to be inconsistent with what he'd done in previous years and even earlier this year. The Luke of season five would have done anything to help Lorelai, and the guy who said "Yes" to her marriage proposal a few seconds after she asked him would not have been so wishy washy here. The obvious explanation for the change is the demands of being a father. But the business with Lorelai and the party seemed to resolve that issue, and he saw a way that the two of them could work as a couple.

The way I read his response here is that he doesn't want to do something rash that could lead Anna to believe that he'd be an inappropriate influence on April. Running off and getting married on a whim coul be read like that, and I think that's what he's trying to articulate when he's talking to Lorelai. However, he ends up sounding like he's just trying to come up with an excuse. Thinking of April's feelings isn't really a valid excuse, considering the fact that she really likes Lorelai. Luke has been manuvered into a difficult place, and the fact that we've barely seen his point of view has made it difficult to sympathize with him. However, he has been the one reaching out to Lorelai, while she ran away from him. It's a bit inconsistent to not be there at all for many days, then all of a sudden ask to get married.

But, Luke is pretty stupid not to see how much Lorelai is hurting, all season this is true, but now she comes right out and says it, and he still can't get it. He has to get over the idea that April and Lorelai are seperate parts of his life, that will doom any potential relationship. His bristling at the fact that Lorelai went to see Anna is ridiculous because she did it to help him.

I guess my biggest gripe with the arc is that I wish we could have seen more of what Luke was going through. That would make it easier to understand the character's changes. Lorelai's arc this year was wonderful, really well executed and culminates in a logical low point for her.

This season, like Buffy's sixth, was by far the show's darkest, and also its most criticized. In light of this, Buffy and The Sopranos, the sixth season seems to be all about malaise and depression, exhaustion with life. I guess by this point, the characters have been through so much bad stuff, they're bound to get worn down by it. For Lorelai, this entire season has seen her at odds with the two people she cares most about, and that's exhausted her. Lauren Graham has owned this year, doing by far her best work in the show's whole run.

This episode has the odd feeling of being simultaneously a cliffhanger finale leaving you wondering what's going to happen next, and a series finale, because we'll never know what the characters' creators intended to have happen next. The Palladinos leave the show with everything in meltdown and a completely open slate for next season. There's definitely enough drama here to start a season off with, and that'll probably be helpful to David Rosenthal. Of course, any resolution is going to bother a lot of people, so it's not going to be easy.

Everything really depends on whether they choose to bring David Sutcliffe on as a regular. He's certainly more important to the show than a lot of people in the opening credits, so I would say give him the bump up. Regardless of whether he and Lorelai end up together, having him around would be a good idea. If Michel has to go to do this, we'll go on somehow. Considering Luke's reaction to the fact that Christopher left Lorelai a phone message was pretty intense, he's probably not going to be happy to find out that they slept together, and considering the state of their relationship, that might be the final break for the two of them. If Luke does find out, Lorelai will either have to reach out to him, or they'll be done.

They could easily do a sort of mutual assured destruction arc where Lorelai embarks on a relationship with Christopher, while Luke begins one with Anna, all the while still in love with each other, a messed up quadrangle of affection. I'd love to see Sherilynn Fenn come on as a regular as well. There's a lot of potential, but I can't shake the feeling that Gilmore Girls without the Palladinos is going to feel like fanfic.

It's basically wide open now. If Rosenthal wants to return the show to its roots, he could have Lorelai regret what she did, get back with Luke and then focus on the joyous adventures of Stars Hollow. Or, he could throw everyone into even more messed up situations than they were in before. If he follows the path of Buffy, season seven will lighten things up, but if the show's meant to run indefinitely, things could fall further into chaos. I think his greatest challenge will be reconciling the darkness of the stuff with Luke and Lorelai with the goofy stuff with the town. Even the Palladinos have been having some trouble with it lately, and considering what happened here, it's not going to get any easier.

There's talk of having the Palladinos come back to write the finale, but once Rosenthal takes over and commences his own plots, that will mark the end of the show as we know it. So, it's not like the Palladinos could just step back in and try to resolve everything that's been done. Unless there was some kind of jump into the future episode that's a more general show wrapup than a tieup for specific plot threads, it's pretty much over for the Palladinos. I think they created a fantastic show, one that has only gotten better as it's gone on. I may be in the minority, but I would consider seasons five and six easily the high point of the series.

I suppose that's my personal taste, I do enjoy the dramatic breakdowns rather than generally humorous stuff. It's the same with Buffy, the darker the show got, the better it got. With such strong, developed characters, it's a lot easier to relate to their emotional traumas. I think everyone did great work this season, and Lorelai's meltdown arc leant things a poignancy and power that the show never had before. It's been a fantastic journey, and I only wish the Palladinos could stay on to see it through. I'll still be watching next season, but it won't be the same.

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The Sopranos: 'The Ride' (6x09)

This week's episode focuses on the boredom and ennui that our characters are feeling. Life just isn't that exciting and they're taking whatever they can as a way to change things.

The most notable example of this is the opening scene, where Christopher decides to get married. This is treated as something that's less about love than it is about a desire to change his life, and maybe find some purpose. It was jarring to see Christopher decide to marry someone we hadn't even seen on the show before, and that was clearly the intention. If this episode, and Christopher's behavior earlier in the season prove anything, it's that he's never gotten over Adrianna's death, and he's using this marriage as an attempt to fill the emptiness in his life. The scene isn't about Kelli, it's about Chris dealing the memory of Ade, he basically tells her that he's marrying her because she's pregnant and Adrianna couldn't have kids.

As the episode progresses, Christopher is positive about his domestic life, but we never really get a sense of who this woman he's marrying is. The whole point is that she's not someone with a strong personality, she's just there. So, presumably there was a scene where Christopher introduced her to his crew and to Carmela, but we never see it. Coming so soon after the Sacrimoni wedding, we're not going to do another episode focusing on a wedding. So, this episode becomes more about Christopher being torn between his old life and this potential new life.

That tension is never more apparent than in the brilliantly executed scene where Christopher is in the car with Corky, talking about his house and how he's going to raise his son, while in the background of the shot, we see Corky preparing to shoot up. Christopher tells him that he should get rehab, but we can tell that Christopher doesn't really believe what he's saying, or at least he doesn't have the conviction to follow it through. He may say that he wants to put his effort into raising his son, but as the scene progresses, he gives into the temptation to fix, and goes through heroin fueled hazy journey through the carnival. I really liked that sequence, it had such a melancholy about it, you really got the sense of where Christopher was, choosing to inject because it allowed him to detach from the world for a while.

Christopher's gradual path towards relapse was accelerated by Tony. The scene in the restaurant reminded me a lot of the episode in season five where Tony and Tony B. rag on Christopher for not drinking. Clearly, Christopher values his relationship with Tony and the fact that Tony is constantly pressuring him to drink is going to make it difficult to maintain sobriety. The scene outside was sweet, but the real notable thing there was the flashback.

I don't think the show had ever done a flashback like this, and it was a bit jarring. However, seeing that moment filled in something that had been blank since the end of season five. Seeing Christopher break down made it clear just how emotionally attached he was to Adrianna, and also how shrewd Tony is in running the business. He had strong feelings for Ade, but when it came down to it, he was more concerned with his own safety than protecting her. As he proved with Pussy back in season two, if someone betrays the family, they have to go.

In the present, Christopher is clearly on a path towards disaster. He gets married on an impulse, and doesn't love this girl. His initial attachment to "stately Wayne manor" will likely fade, and then he'll be left with someone who's a mere shadow of what he loved in Adrianna. I think he'll always be haunted by guilt over what he did, and considering he's using again, I seriously doubt that things will go well when his son is born.

The final scene between Christopher and Tony was brilliant in showing how hollow both their lives are. They're retelling the same story, but it's just going through the motions. I'm not sure why Christopher actually went over there, the initial awkwardness felt a lot like the pregnant silence in the Adrianna scene, so I'm guessing he was planning to tell Tony that he had started to use again, but ultimately decided not to.

The episode returns us to Bobby and Janice for the first time in a while, and Bobby is still being pushed around by her. At first, he recognizes that the problem with the ride was something out of their control, but Janice is not willing to let that stand. She intimidates him into action, and instigates the conflict with Paulie. Janice is a virtual replica of her mother, only her husband has very little actual power. So, she winds up frustrated by his lack of action. At this point, she's compeletely abandoned any aspirations to artsiness or spirituality, she's totally entrenched in the Jersey mob world.

This week, Tony finds himself drifting into malaise. He got some cheap thrills from the wine heist, but he's ultimately finding it difficult to keep his enthusiasm about life. The routine of day to day life wears him down, and he's still clearly attracted to the excitement that Julianna offers, regret lingering about his choice to not sleep with her last episode.

While he insensitively sends Christopher on the road to relapse, he does offer Paulie some good advice. I'm a little uncertain about why he would be such a negative influence on Christopher when he, more than anyone, is aware of the potential dangers that would arise if Christopher went into a full on relapse. So, it's almost a self destructive streak that drives him to treat Christopher that way, like he's asking for his business to be disrupted.

One of the strongest scenes in the episode was Carmela's meeting with Adrianna's mother. There's so much tension there. For the viewer, the primary issue is how much Carmela knows. We know that Adrianna was killed, and even though Carmela fiercely defends Christopher, she is clearly feeling uneasy about that. When she asks Tony later in the episode, he doesn't come up with an entirely convincing denial. I'm glad that they haven't just let Ade's death go, because it was one of the most emotionally wrenching moments in the series' run, and it demands exploration.

The other big thread here was Paulie's issues. He's one of the most selfish characters in the show, but I always end up feeling sorry for the guy after his spotlight episodes. Unlike most of the other characters, Paulie doesn't have much of a personal life. He's not married, and doesn't seem to have any long lasting relationships. His only personal connection is with his mother, and that fact is what made his treatment of her back in The Fleshy Part of the Thigh so tough to take.

The major theme of the season is the idea that the mob is becoming obsolete, that traditional practices just aren't acceptable anymore, and the first scene at the church makes that clear. It's a nice followup to the stuff with Starbucks last week. Nobody's really responsible for what happened with the tea cups, but Tony's speech to Paulie in the bathroom makes things clear. At this point, they can't afford to take risks, they are on the verge of extinction and one major error could bring about the end of their whole organization.

The ending deliberately leaves the question of Paulie's biopsy ambiguous, but what is clear is that Paulie recognizes how alone he is. His friends are turning on him, and business is going poorly so he retreats to the one woman who has always been there for him. I loved the fact that she was watching the Lawrence Welk show, and that closing move out onto the autumn leaves perfectly captures the feeling of death that hung over the episode.

This episode couldn't match last week's masterpiece, but it gave us a lot of insight into where Christopher is right now. However, with only minimal Tony and Meadow and no Vito, we didn't get much from the most interesting plot lines. It's tough to think that there's only three episodes left this season and eleven total.

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Gilmore Girls: 'Driving Miss Gilmore' (6x21)

After the building emotional intensity of the past few episodes, most of this episode was a bit of a letdown. It was entertaining, but there wasn't much of note going on. It was like they had a few plot ideas that they wanted to get out of the way before the season finale.

The subplot I did enjoy was Sookie and Jackson's struggle to get rid of the 68 pounds of marijuana. It was such an out of nowhere happening, and watching them deal with it produced some funny moments. The scene with Doyle and the penguins was pretty funny as well.

I feel like Rory's grievance with Mitchum was a bit odd. I could see why she'd be annoyed, but I don't think it's the sort of comment that would have her newspaper sidekick bracing for an emotional breakdown. If anything, he should have been expecting her to be really excited that Rory's name was in the Wall Street Journal, and then be surprised when she was annoyed. I guess it's possible that she discussed the whole Mitchum issue with him, but it seems odd that he would be so aware of her negative feelings towards Mitchum. Plus, it's odd that they kept Logan and Rory apart for the whole episode. That seemed designed solely to save them discussing their issues for the season finale.

As per usual, Lorelai's stuff was the most interesting. The bits with her mother were funny, but what was paramount was her unease at the way things were going. It's unclear why Anna's comments last week have driven her away from Luke. If anything, they should have made her reinforce her bond with him. I think what she's feeling is that it would be impossible for Luke to maintain his relationship with his daughter and his relationship with her, and that, combined with her general paranoia about being unable to commit to a relationship, has pushed her away from Luke.

The great irony for Luke is that he's now lecturing TJ on how to deal with women, when he's so clearly failing on his own. If he took his own advice, he would realize that he needs to talk to Lorelai about what's going on between them, but he is apparently oblivious about her internal conflict. Of course, he is the one reaching out here, and Lorelai still hasn't been able to talk to him about what's going on.

There were two really interesting scenes between Lorelai and her mother. One was in the car, when they're talking about Christopher. In light of the fact that she has decided to buy a house for Luke and Lorelai, it's odd that she would be talking up Christopher. It may actually be that Emily is legitimately trying to help Christopher, and isn't just hinting that he and Lorelai should get together. However it's clear here that Lorelai still has feelings for Christopher, and even though she may not openly want him, she clearly doesn't want anyone else to have him either.

The other critical scene was the breakdown at the real estate office. This scene made the episode. Again, Lorelai has been keeping her emotions under wraps and finally breaks down here. The fact that her mother seems to really believe in the engagement, while she herself can't see it happening is what does it. That Emily would pick out a house that Lorelai likes is touching, but it only underscores Lorelai's sadness that the wedding is in jeopardy. It's odd that she so quickly said that it's not happening at all, which would imply she's breaking up with Luke. Emily going over to comfort Lorelai was a really good moment, showing how they've both let down their usual antagonistic personas at this moment.

The final scene and line were a great capper to the episode, keeping up the melancholy feeling that broke in with the real estate scene. Going into the Palladinos' final episode, things are not looking good for Luke and Lorelai. As this season has progressed, Lorelai has become more interesting than ever, and Lauren Graham is doing her best work in the show's entire run. However, the quality there only makes the other plots seem more out of place. Even Rory's stuff seems like filler, only Lane is really able to support interesting stuff on her own. It's not that those plots are any worse than they were in the past, it's just that the Luke/Lorelai stuff has gotten so good, it makes the other stuff look a bit weak. But, I would argue the show's as good as it's ever been right now.

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