#the home invaders

[closetofcuriosities]

Thief - Dir. Michael Mann - 1981

[mitochondriaandbunnies]

Miami Vice S1E19: The Home Invaders

Vice helps Sonny's mentor investigate a rash of violent robberies.

A heavy, methodical, paranoid episode* with a surprisingly non-devastating ending and a lot of Castillo doing very serious detective work-- The Home Invaders is another Vice classic, and also a great Crockett & Castillo episode

The Squad is roped into a robbery case in the middle of the night (Gina seems bright-eyed and bushy-tailed-- the rest of them are in various states of decay); a series of homes have been broken into and their residents not only robbed but violently assaulted

There's no Tubbs in this episode, which is explained by an offhand comment from Trudy-- he's in New York "sipping champagne with Valerie," which bothers the hell out of me, because last time we saw her she was going to jail for murder. Next time we see her we learn Sonny pulled some strings to get her exonerated (which... okay. Fine. I don't actually buy it, for a number of reasons, but I do understand why you'd want to get Pam Grier back), but at this point it just seems like a major oversight, like they forgot how the last Val episode ended

When the squad is pulled in to help, we learn that Sonny's old mentor is leading the investigation. Sonny is thrilled to see him and clearly still is harboring a bit of hero worship. Martin is significantly less impressed, looking through the files from the robbery department and asking, essentially: okay, but do you actually have any... clues? This becomes a running theme, and Sonny has to navigate a My Parents Are Divorced situation because of it-- his mentor doesn't actually seem to be doing a very good job with the investigation, but Castillo-- who is incapable of tact on this topic-- is his current boss, and someone he has developed a lot of loyalty to.

Trans Flag Sonny

The episode involves scenes where the robbers are doing the robbery (with faces hidden, violent and unknowable and terrifying), which are really well done and raise the tension and stakes to genuinely uncomfortable levels. However, there are also scenes where they show the robbers plotting, and to be honest I think the episode would've been better without those. This episode is by no means a treatise on the nature of criminality, so by turning them from almost a force of nature into "a couple of chuckling guys talking about money," it just makes them... less scary? (And I think there's a sense early on that Sonny's mentor might be corrupt-- once we meet the titular home invaders, it becomes fairly clear that he's not involved in the crime, he's just phoning it in. I think that extra bit of tension could've been really good!)

This is such a good Castillo episode, partially because it really establishes the dichotomy of how good he is at his job vs. how weird he is and how iffy his social skills are. Castillo will solve the case! But he will absolutely not make eye contact with anyone as he does so. The moment where he and Sonny sit in the car and Castillo just... literally does not move for about a minute is fantastic, and there's another scene that's all cuts between Sonny out pounding the pavement and Castillo... reading. Reading every file ever. Endlessly reading files forever. That is just so emblematic of their two characters. I swear at one point he drinks a random drink he finds on the bar-- he is odd! Insanely competent, but odd.

Sonny realizes Castillo is right, but he does not want to be his babysitter-- he spends a lot of this episode sighing and furrowing his brow and trying to apologize to Malone (his mentor) even though he is actually suspicious of his ability to run this case-- Sonny is very charming, but he actually does not have the emotional wherewithal or bandwidth to play go-between for those two. (There is a scene where Sonny and Marty both ask Malone a bunch of initially gentle and then increasingly dire questions and Malone just..... stops making eye contact, too.)

Gina is sent to the hairdressers to investigate a possible link between victims, and has a really well-done sequence where she is carefully watching everyone in the salon (to the tune of Sheila E.'s The Glamorous Life-- which I always think is a Vanity song, and then I always think about the fact that Prince wanted to name Vanity "Vagina"). It's not only a well-shot and choreographed sequence, but also one where Gina mirrors both Sonny and Castillo-- it's an episode with a lot of watching and looking, and the three of them all get a really lovely opportunity to show off their actual detective skills. Sonny watches the streets and looks for clues there, Castillo watches the actions of the robbery division and looks for clues in files, and Gina watches people, looking for behavioral hints that could help them get to the heart of the case.

Trudy is not given much to do in this one, which is a bummer, because she is also super-extra hot this week. Otherwise it's also a really good "the whole team working together" episode, too.

I do like this episode but there's a bit of mean-spiritedness towards both the sex workers that help them narrow down their suspects and the older woman who is a potential victim-- it's all a little too victim-blamey and ha-ha-women-are-frivolous for my tastes.

So, Sonny has a number of "person I have hero worship feelings about" episodes, and every other one ends with that person being swallowed up by the job and either dying or letting the system turn them bad. Malone, on the other hand, makes amends with Castillo, realizes and admits he's been phoning it in, decides to retire because of that, tells Sonny what he's doing and why, and then goes and eats lunch with Vice Squad. He's the only person in the whole series who shows Sonny that sometimes you need to say goodbye, and gives him an example of what it looks like when you do it on your own terms. Given the ending of the series, Malone may in fact be the true hero of Miami Vice-- he literally says to Sonny "let me show you when it's time for you to put your gun on the shelf," and when the time comes, Sonny also manages to walk away.

Also Castillo/Malone remarriage for the sake of their son arc?

*Re: the home invasion plot and sense of paranoia-- there's a bunch of S3 episodes that basically are just Dick Wolf saying "hey, what if we redo the plot of a S1 episode but worse and with more police brutality," but there's another paranoid home invasion episode in S3 (Shadow in the Dark) that is so good it almost makes The Home Invaders seem a little tame by comparison. It's probably the only "plot retread" episode I actually like just a smidge better than the "original." Nonetheless, this is still a great episode.

[spookybokchoy]

“Hey, wanna go to the mall today?”

a personal challenge to see how many characters/references I could fit into one picture, could definitely still do more!

Edit-For everyone asking how long it took, 2 weeks of planning and a little less than month to draw/edit (I work fast)

[nando161mando]

[ashleyisodd]

You know, I just had a really interesting dream. And I’ve decided I’m gonna share with the class.

I didn’t realize I even fell asleep at first, since I’ve been struggling to fall asleep for a while, and even though I was at a previous house of mine. Everything was the same, though; I was laying in bed, trying to fall asleep. Except one thing.

I kept staring at the window and playing an oddly specific sound on my phone, because in the dream were some kind of analogue-horror-like creatures called the home invaders.

It was said if you didn’t have very specific sounds or music playing, they would break into your house, directly through your bedroom window. And even if you kept them out… I had a strong feeling I could still see their eyes staring at me through the window.

What they did then was unknown, but I didn’t want to find out. I have a strong feeling they just killed you and you specifically and left your family alone.

I didn’t end up falling asleep, but the night eventually ended, and in the morning, my mom came to my room and told me someone wanted to see me; some kind of professor who specialized in studying and dealing with the home invaders, and wanted to home-invader-proof our house for us.

She was a pretty nice lady, and came into my room to plug something that looked like a nightlight into my wall, but played creepy-ish music that would keep the home invaders out.

And I was, of course, curious, so I asked her how she knew so much about the home invaders. She didn’t answer my question right away, but before she did she get pizza for me, (dominos pizza to be specific?? I recall actually eating the pizza in my dream, and also the crust looked really yummy c:)

Once we were sitting at my dining table together, I was able to ask her some questions (this is an approximation of the questions and answers, orange text is a direct quote);

“How did you first discover the home invaders?”

“We originally found out about them, because they forced us to take accountability for our actions after the government was trying to prevent protests. They started going after government officials, starting with the most important to the least important.”

“How did you learn so much about them? Did you manage to catch one of them or something?”

“We did. We caught one and have been observing it for a while now.”

And then I woke up and was incredibly surprised that I both managed to fall asleep, but also had a pretty interesting dream.

[adaki]

Yk I think Toby is by far the least freaky crp in design but the thought of an encounter with him is terrifying.

[stephreynaart]

ZIMiversary 24

Happy birthday angry bug baby man

[illusioncanthurtme--art]

[bookstofilms]

THIEF (1981) dir. Michael Mann

—Adapted from the book The Home Invaders: Confessions of a Cat Burglar, by Frank Hohimer.

[cartoonbudartz]

May your holiday be an animated one!

[hey-haven]

Been working on this one for nearly a week, but I did it!

[flamestar126]

NO GOOD ALIENS HERE

[neo-exploded]

random fandoms as templates i found on pinterest

[swallowpeoplewhole]

working on something

[foldingfittedsheets]

Last night I got woken up by some mysterious erratic thumping outside on the building. It instantly shot me into the nighttime Fear. I tried to calm myself down but couldn’t sleep. I kept imagining I was about to hear the sliding glass door shatter or hear a malevolent creak on the stairs.

I eventually slunk my way into my wife’s room to whimper about it. They grabbed a wooden sword and patrolled the perimeter, returning to report all was okay.

Today we’re both super tired but I’m grateful I have a partner who doesn’t get grumpy about my irrational stuff.