So, yeah… Kenny Powers is back for what looks like one final go-round on life’s rollercoaster and he’s still a total mess. HBO has gone and posted the first of the final shows online already (thanks, folks!) so if you don’t have HBO or HBO on Demand or don’t want to get it you can at least check it out and see if it’s up your alley. Of course, Kenny doesn’t give a crap if you like his show as long as you watch it. And even if he did, he sure doesn’t care now that he’s fallen off the wagon in such a big way. Yeesh. WHO keeps a tackle box full of drugs in their garage and how old is that stash, anyway? Er, not that I take a lot of drugs mind you (one or two aspirin a day for me is all!). Anyway, is KP is going to flame out on his road back to some small success or will he be redeemed at the last minute? Hell, the answer to that isn’t even the important part – it’s the road to that answer that’s going to lure in fans for this last ride…
Dark Horse Comics has been compiling every issue of Warren Publishing’s excellent horror anthology magazines CREEPY and EERIE for some time now and I’ve finally had the chance to sit down with a few volumes. I had most of these mads back in the late 70’s and early 80’s when my comic collecting was getting seriously out of hand, so these reprints have been kicking me right in the nostalgic bits and it hurts so good.
Creepy Archives #17 is available as a pre-order from Things From Another World (buy it!) and among the other fine and frightening tales in this tome drawn by some great illustrators, by the way) are a few I recall quite fondly for different reasons Creepy #83 (October 1976) featured “Country Pie”, an interesting tale from workhorse writer Bruce Jones about a small town’s police trying to track a serial killer using a psychic’s clues as the killer meets up with his latest victim. While far Jones’ best script (it gives up its secret too soon and some will guess the twist right away), the story is remembered for its art from the unusual pairing of Carmine Infantino and Berni Wrightson (yes, it’s as weird as it sounds, but it works wonderfully). Infantino gets to ink his own work later in Bill DuBay’s somewhat average “The Last Super Hero”, but you’ll need to be a huge fan of his quirky artwork to truly appreciate it…
ONE: Jesse Pinkman speeding away in that El Camino. Like many viewers, I figured he was going to find his son, Brock and spend some quality time with the kid now that he’s been orphaned since that penultimate episode’s shocking scene. But, noooo... it looks as if he’s speeding off to Hollywood for an ill-advised detour (which might not be the best idea if you know how crappy video game movies usually turn out).
TWO: Walt had to die at the end (of course), but if you read between the lines, it’s a great possibility he also got some minor redemption in the eyes of his son, Flynn. I thought of a sort of coda scene with Junior at home with Skyler in front of the TV watching the news and seeing that Walt had been killed in a shootout with those drug dealers and as soon as the car Walt rigged up with that M60 appeared on screen, Flynn knowing what went down. The news would also mention that Hank’s body was found thanks to a mysterious phone tip and here, I could see Skyler and Flynn hugging it out with a few hankies. Of the more amusing bits through the last few episodes, his revenge on Lydia was probably the ultimate against someone who was even more evil than he was. She tried to have his family killed by Todd and the gang, but Todd respected Walt for teaching him to cook, thus that scene in the previous episode where only a warning was delivered…
If you’ve seen every episode, you know that some of Walt’s plans that went wrong really saved his bacon because they failed and didn’t get him into even more danger with assorted people who’d have killed him without half a word. This was a MUCH longer post, but I lost a chunk through a tappy accident before I could save. yeah, I fat-fingered a delete, folks. That’s actually a good thing, as anyone who hasn’t seen Breaking Bad yet needs to do so from the beginning just to watch all the pieces fall into place during the five seasons the show aired. Vince Gilligan and his writers COULD have ended the show after the fourth season and it would have been just “good”, but VERY unsatisfying. Thankfully, Gilligan and his corner-painters extraordinaire were able to blow fans away with a perfectly powerful final season that’s going to resonate for years to come. TV writers, you’re ALL on notice, no matter what you’re working on, is all I’ll say…
I actually had a crazy dream the other night that the end credits to Gravity were going to be Devo’s 1978 tune “Space Junk”, but we know that’s not going to happen (although it would be a pretty darn amusing joke… well, to me at least. Can you believe DEVO has been around for 40 years? Well, their first LP was release in 1978, but the group first got together in 1972/73! Of course, if you have to ask “Who’s DEVO?”, you need a proper conversion. No need to do anything, dears… it’s all been arranged. Just step outside during the next full moon and look up to the northwest. Things will happen and you’ll be converted. Um, take a good umbrella or even better, a hardhat and remember to not forget to close those peepers. It may sting a little…
"DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!" 