#he comes as close to murdering columbo as any of them!

[carcarrot]

some of the best columbo episodes are the ones where the murderer is so annoyed by columbo that you can tell they wish they could also murder him

[foulbearobservation]

alright one last little look at the columbo au. here we have the girlfriends being girlfriends but also ava being a little bit of a genius and a little bit of a menace. she has the range.

Saint Sebastian's Cabaret, 11:47 p.m.

“The victim is Sebastian Vincent, he’s the owner of this cabaret. 56 years of age, 5 foot 8 and 175 pounds.”

“What’d you do, weigh the guy?” Ava asks.

Detective Zheng sighs. “I got that off of his drivers license. He was shot in the heart, close range.”

“Why do ya think his body ended up like this?” Ava asks, gesturing lazily with her unlit cigar.

“What do you mean?” Detective Zheng asks. All told, Ava likes Detective Zheng just fine. She’s professional, prompt, and incredibly anal about her notes, which is helpful because Ava never remembers to take any. The downside is that the woman has about as much creativity as a wet cardboard box.

//

“You said you found it just like this?” Ava asks. She stalks around the body, noting its placement relative to the door. Something about it strikes her as peculiar, but she can’t put her finger on what.

“Yes,” Detective Zheng says, “he’s was laying face up, with the napkin covering his shoulder and face. The lower back of his shirt was damp, but he was laying just like this.” Detective Zheng closes her notepad with a distinctive clap.

“And the cause of death was this gun?” Ava gestures to the gun laid out artfully beside the old man’s head.

Detective Zheng just nods.

“And what time?”

If Detective Zheng is annoyed at having to consult her trusty notepad again she doesn’t show it. “The waiter brought up coffee at 10:56 and found him here. They said the order was called into the kitchen around 10:45, so he was killed within that 10 minute window. I think he knew whoever killed him, invited them into his office.”

Ava squats down, looking from Vincent’s shoes to the door. “And how do ya figure that?”

“The lock on the door, see? It’s specialty made in Germany, Mr. Vincent had it imported and installed last week.” Detective Zheng leans down, gesturing to the various parts of the lock with her pencil.

“There’s no signs of brute force on the door.”

“Take it off and send it to the boys at the lab anyway.”

“Lieutenant Silva?” Detective Zheng asks. “Doesn’t that seem a bit hasty?”

“Hasty? How?”

“Well the way I see it, it could’ve been anybody. They come up the stairs, knock on the door and when Vincent answers it they shoot him and go right back down the stairs.”

“That’s why his feet are really bothering me.” Ava says, standing up and walking towards the door.

“His feet?”

“Say I order coffee while I’m working and then a few minutes later I hear someone knocking at the door, I open it and they shoot me. I’d end up shot in the front and fallen on my back right here, right?”

Detective Zheng nods slowly. “But his body was found back there,” she gestures behind them a good 10 feet to where the body lays, “and there’s no drag marks like the body was repositioned.”

“Exactly. So say I open the door, invite the person into my office,” Ava mimes out the whole thing, “follow them in a few feet, then they shoot me—”

“Your feet would end up facing away from the door.” Detective Zheng finishes.

“Exactly. So how do I end up all the way back here,” Ava stands next to Vincent’s body and mimes being shot, “and shot in the front. Suppose he opens the door, whatever he sees is a threat, he turns, he runs, now he gets shot. The body falls where we found it but now he’s shot in the back.” Ava pushes her hair back. “The murderer opened the door. Vincent is in his office, he hears the door open, he comes out to see who it is, he gets shot in the front and the body lands where we found it.”

“But the lock isn’t busted.” Detective Zheng reminds her, ever the buzz kill.

“But the lock isn’t busted indeed.” Ava mumbles. “What about the money? There’s a lot of money up here, is any of it missing?”

“No, none of it. According to the cashier it’s all there, which rules out robbery as a motive.”

“I’m gonna go take a look around downstairs. You can finish doing,” Ava gestures vaguely, “whatever it is you do at crime scenes.”

“Most of what I do is considered your job too, Lieutenant.” Detective Zheng says slyly.

Ava smiles sweetly at the deadpan annoyance in Zheng’s voice. “I wouldn’t want to fuck up any of your systems, of which I assume there are many.”

Detective Zheng rolls her eyes. “Go on then, Lieutenant.”

[columboscreens]

Hey I love your blog and I’m a huge Columbo fan! Haven’t gotten too much into the series yet I’m only on season 3 and I wanted to know if you have a definitive ranking of the seasons in your opinion?

thank you! my personal ranking of the individual seasons is as follows:

S TIER - APEX LITTLE GUY

season 3 - absolute all-star season. peter falk was in his prime and columbo's personality was fully developed. he's serious but in good humor, highly competent but still human (as opposed to the omniscience he gains in later seasons). the murderers are fantastic, the plots are interesting, the humor hit its stride, the writing and pacing is artful. even the filler is subtly whimiscal and entertaining. peak, peak columbo.

season favorite: any old port in a storm

A TIER - UPPER ECHELON

season 2 - all of the above, just a very close second in my eyes as i find the episodes overall slightly duller and character of columbo in the process of developing, rather than fully solidified.

season favorite: a stitch in crime

season 1 - a close third. the mysteries are tight and fresh from the minds of levinson and link, and it shows. the photography/editing is very experimental, very cutting edge. the only caveat is that early columbo is, in retrospect, just a bit too flat/stodgy. the characterization that can only cultivate with time just wasn't there yet.

season favorite: suitable for framing

season 4 - still superb columbo but trails behind season one just a little bit more. i find it not quite as genius, not as tight. i always firmly suspend my disbelief with columbo, but some of the plots start getting a little wavery. what this season really has going for it is that columbo steps out of his comfort zone more often and hits a pitch perfect balance of whimsical and serious. thus, even when the plot suffers, the character still shines. a delightful season to watch.

season favorite: by dawn's early light

(continued under the cut)

B TIER - QUITE GOOD

season 5 - solid columbo, but the discerning viewer finds the show begins to miss more often and is perhaps past its prime. i respect the risk-taking, but by the very nature of taking risk, things don't always quite pan out. that said, this season had some very important bits that pushed the character and, coupled with patrick mcgoohan's influence, had really some of the most fantastic and unique outings of the series. however, nbc's frustration with falk at this point is palpable--season five is the final full installment of the original series.

season favorite: now you see him

C TIER - MERELY GOOD

season 6 - with only three episodes, not much of a season to begin with. some parts are fantastic, some of the best in the series, and some parts start getting hard to watch. the episodes feel mishandled because they were. between logistical conflicts involving writing, directing, producing, and falk trying new ways of playing columbo, this season is a little bit all over the place. overall merely just good in the grand scheme of things.

season favorite: the iq murder case. no, you are not getting me to say the whole thing.

season 7 - still good, but even more mishandled than season 6 and boy is the flanderization in full swing. columbo starts to feel like a different character, and combined with overhauls in showrunning, it begins to feel at some points like a different show. people responded well to columbo's subtle comedic facets, so instead of simply iterating upon them, they immediately blew them out of proportion. columbo was no longer a mystery show with comedic elements, it was a comedy with mystery elements, which mucks up the whole tone of the show. it's handled with less care and comes off as less organic and more hammy than previous seasons. i kind of want to love most of season 7 more than i actually do.

season favorite: the conspirators

season 9 - believe it or not, a more distant third here lies this stretch of 90s era columbos. aside from the abominations that are murder in malibu and murder: a self portrait, i think they actually sort of hit a stride here. stronger outings like columbo cries wolf, agenda for murder, rip mrs. columbo, and even uneasy lies the crown feature prominently. no glory days by any means but still nearly as watchable as the aforementioned seasons.

season favorite: columbo cries wolf

D TIER - HOLDING MY NOSE

season 8 - i no longer consider these episodes "good" in the way columbo is magically good. any good moments are good in spite of what they are, not because of it.

the first reboot season had no idea what it wanted to be. aside from sex and the married detective and occasionally a scene or two from the other episodes, i almost never revisit these. these episodes commit common but fatal columbo sins: columbo goes to the guillotine is so hackneyed it hurts, murder smoke and shadows goes on for entirely too long AND has a villain who is utterly obnoxious to the viewer, and grand deceptions isn't bad per se but an absolute snoozefest. married detective DOES have the awful tuba scene, but it's something you can fast-forward through, rather than fast-forwarding through the entire episode.

season favorite: sex and the married detective

season 10 - these are on their way to the garbage bag. i lump these in with most of the specials and such. when people talk shit about latter-day columbo, they mean a lot of the stinkers in this pile. aside from columbo goes to college (the best reboot outing) and columbo likes the nightlife (the final columbo outing which happened to be weirdly really good), i very seldom revisit these episodes. again, aside from isolated scenes, performances, or moments, you can safely walk away from these or just watch them in passing. they are watchable tv, but rarely have any of the columbo sparkle.

season favorite: columbo goes to college

F TIER, GARBAGE BAG

murder in malibu can suck an egg

[bracketsoffear]

As someone who has seen a lot of Columbo (and if you havent seen it, I would recommend it! its a pretty fun and neat show), he absolutely would tell you what's in your favorite foods. in his own "helpful" way of course. It's hard to describe how good of an avatar he actually is to anyone who hasn't seen it and I dont think I can do it justice, but ill give it a shot.

The way the show is structured has the first chunk of the show focusing on the murder itself. It's shown in depth, from the murderer, the motive, and all we'll (eventually) need to know as to how the murder is solved. The audience knows from the beginning who the killer(s) are. It's only then is Columbo introduced, and the "murder mystery" aspect of it is not the if the killer will be found out, but the when and the how. Because no matter how well they cover it up or how solid their alibi is, he will catch them. He always does.

Viewing all this as him being an avatar of the Eye makes more than enough sense. Hell, I'd argue it makes more sense than him just being a normal person. He's perspective to an unnatural degree, always seeming to know the particulars of what he'll need to catch them. One example I remember in particular is one where the TV executive kills someone for their job, and during the episode, Columbo learns about cues on film and the manual switches used for them (which is framed as a genuine interest, as he's shown to really like to learn about various occupations and the functionality of things), which is later crucial to destroying her alibi. Columbo always knows a bit too much, and it's hard to tell exactly when

Additionally, he doesn't need to let the killer in on what's going on with the case, he doesn't need to tell them he believes that accident that happened to their boss wasn't an accident or that they found a button on the crime scene that matches the jacket they happened have (which he knows, but he wont make an accusation yet). It's weird that he lets the killer squirm for so long before making the arrest, half the time tricking them into admitting it somehow even if he has the evidence to make an arrest. Another example that I remember is one where the woman had disguised herself and hid it under the facility's bathroom sink. She had come back to retrieve it, putting it her bag, and while talking to her, Columbo takes a weird interest in her bag, asking to hold it and making sure to look closely at. He says he's interested it for his wife, but it's like he knows, and he's just seeing how much he can push before the killer starts to push back. He doesn't know, obviously. There's no way for him to know the outfit is in there. Right?

Humor me for a minute here:

From the beginning, Columbo knows who the killer is. Out of all the suspects, he picks them out almost immediately and will latch on. Because they're already scared and paranoid about being found out. Even if they're 100% confidant in themselves, even if they believe they've gotten away with it and have a foolproof plan to succeed, there's always the what if in the back of their minds. And if it's not there yet? He'll put it there. He'll start off playing the role of the bumbling detective, be this harmless fool that they could easily outwit any day, have them get their confidence up and/or let their guard down, and then drop a strange little thing he's found at the crime scene, which is probably nothing and they don't need to worry about it, but it's a bit odd to find, isn't it? And then he'll do it again, under the guise of "catching them up on the case" (even if telling the suspect of a murder or even a loved one about the details of a murder is pretty counterproductive), and that seed of doubt gets worse. Then he might remind them of something they forgot; the gun hidden in the elevator hatch, the marks on the movie film, the broken watch's chimes, the book with their name on it. Things aren't adding up and he makes sure they know. He's subtle about it, never directly saying he knows what they've done, but an offhand comment or two makes all the difference (one time, he had laid in the same way the victim had commonly done, right down to the way he held the book). He takes that fear and paranoia naturally built and gradually, bit by bit, makes it worse until they've consumed by it. They start to frantic, sloppy, trying to cover up their mistakes and then he'll confront them. Not straight up arrest them, but bring up every piece of evidence that'll destroy their stories and ruin their alibis. More often than not, he'll trick them to saying something that will, inevitably, be an admission of guilt. And then, reeling with the devastation of being caught and having their entire lives fall apart, he'll arrest them.

The show isn't about finding out who the killer is, but rather it's about the killer's secret being revealed. It's about watching their deepest darkest secret, watching them trying to do whatever it takes to hide it, and then watching it constantly fail. Because Columbo will always be the one to bring it to light.

.

[galaxyedging]

You Say Hate But I Think You Mean The Other Thing

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Dave York x f!reader

Warnings: Smut. P iv V sex. Dirty talk. Talk of Somnophilia. Creampie. Swearing. Angst. Sickness. Character death.

Dave was suspiciously quiet for the next few weeks. You didn't really know where to go from your last encounter. You ate out his ex-wife, pissed him off, he completely destroyed your pussy, tucked you into bed with a loving kiss then went full Ghost Protocol.

It had been a busy few weeks so you hadn't really noticed his absence. Exhaustion set into your bones as you arrived home and finally allowed yourself to relax. From tomorrow, through next week, you were due to attend a series of meetings on the intel you had gathered. The front door buzzing signalling the arrival of your takeout. Bringing it in, you flopped onto the sofa, settling on watching an episode of Columbo. It only took a few mouthfuls of food for you to feel full and only half an episode of Columbo harassing a murderer, alone with them in the middle of nowhere, (How that man survived all those years, you'll never know.) for you to feel tired. Throwing the takeout into the fridge, you headed up to bed. The heating was on full as you climbed the stairs, not that you were feeling the affect of it. Deciding to take a shower you stood under the hot water. Even at a scorching temperature, it made no difference to the chill in your bones. By the time you made it to bed, the chills had fully set in. Your body shook, the aches gripped you tight. Knowing people would be waiting on you for the 8am briefing you fired off a quick email. Email sent, you covered your head and hoped to sleep through the worst of the illness. It took a good hour for you to fall asleep, even though you were exhausted.

When you woke up the shaking had stopped, your clothes and sheets were soaked with cold sweat. Between that and the the feeling in your throat you felt disgusting. As heavy as your body felt you were desperate to pull yourself up to get a shower. A groan that wouldn't be out of place in a zombie movie left you sat up. Even in your weakened state, your hand reached for your gun before you realised who was sleeping in the chair in the corner.

"Dave." His name barely croaked out but it was enough to wake him. "Wha..." Your voice gave out.

Dave came over, handing you a bottle of water from your nightstand that wasn't there the night before. "Drink."

Gulping down half the bottle you tried again. "What are you doing here?"

"I heard you were sick." He pulled the covers back, tapping your legs to get you to drop your feet to the floor.

"So you came to nurse me back to health?" You tried to sound dismissive even though the thought of it was appealing.

"I came for your input on the case. Move." He pulled the sheets off the bed.

Bundling them up he headed to the laundry basket.

"What are you...?"

"Go get a shower."

You could barely stand, it was an effort to straighten up.

"Come on." Dave attempted to steer you to the bathroom, with his hands under your arms.

"Stop." You pulled away, stumbling as you did. "I can look after myself."

Dave caught you before you fell. Holding you to his side. "I didn't say you couldn't. Now come on."

You let him lead you this time, leading on him heavily. Grabbing you a towel on the way he turned on the shower. When stepping into the claw foot tub proved difficult, Dave simply picked you up and climbed in with you. Any protest to his actions died on your tongue as the warm water hit your back. The comfort of it soothing your annoyance as well as your muscles. With his dark gray Henley soaked through and clinging to him you could feel Dave's firm chest under your palm as he held you close. Eventually he dropped you feet down but kept hold of you. The spray of the shower energised you enough that you could stand without too much help. While keeping one hand on you, he pulled his t-shirt over his head and pushed down his sweatpants, dropping both in the tub behind with a wet thwack. He said nothing as he took your mandarin body wash and washed your back for you before handing it over to you when he was happy that you could stand well enough without him.

The heat and fresh fragrance broke through the heaviness of your head long enough for you to enjoy the view of Dave's ass as her stepped out to dry himself.

"You good?" He stood with the towel low on his hips. When you nodded he left the bathroom. You had no idea how long it had been when he returned, dressed, a towel for you in his hand, to help you out of the tub. A fresh pair of pyjamas waited on the heated towel rack for you to put on. Dressing you headed into bedroom to be greeted by a freshly made bed. The scent of you favorite tea managed to work it's way through your stuffy nose. A cup sat on the nightstand. Dave returned with a box of donuts and his own mug of coffee. The strong scent of it covering the gentle scent of your tea.

"Here." He placed the donuts on the bed and retrieved his laptop.

From then on he was all business. He bombarded you with questions about the case. He took notes, crossed checked everything. Your tea long drank and a cruller picked at, your eyes began to drift close as Dave typed up his report.

The next time you opened your eyes the sun was low in the sky. With no sign of him, you though for sure that Dave had left until the sound of footsteps on the stairs accompanied by the smell of something lightly spiced and fruity gave you reason to rethink. Dave entered with a tray balancing a bowl, a glass and a pill bottle.

"Tomato soup. Orange juice. Antibiotics." He listed them as he set the tray on your lap.

"Where is the tomato soup from?" Not that you weren't grateful but the restaurant on the corner gave you food poisoning last time.

"I made it." He busied himself with opening your pills, handing you one and putting the rest on the side. You were glad he wasn't watching the smile spread across your face or the surprise that followed as you tasted it.

"You?"

"Yeah, your fridge isn't exactly well stocked so I had to go to the store. I had time to kill while you napped half the day so I cooked. What you didn't think I could?"

"No, I'm just surprised. The only think you usually feed me is your cock."

"The night is still young."

That comment brought a smile to your face. This was nice, the banter between you being good natured and not boardline abusive.

He'd cleaned, cooked and cared for you. Usually you didn't even get any aftercare. The last time being an exception. This was territory that you had steered clear of for a long while. Theses water were murky. It was easy to get pulled under. A touch that lingers a little longer, a kiss that's a little more tender, a gently flowing current to carry you away until you lost yourself. It was time you tethered yourself.

"So do you have everything you need for your report? Do you need to go back to headquarters?" You kept your tone entirely neutral. Eating more of the perfectly seasoned soup, while he answered.

"Are you trying to get rid of me?" Despite his words, his tone gave nothing away either.

"You said you came for the details. I gave them. I thought you'd be going." Not accusatory, just facts.

"My flight's not for another couple of hours. I figured I was more use here than in a hotel, you weren't exactly firing on all cylinders this morning." That one had an underlying dig. You needed me.

"No, I wasn't. I'm much better now though. Thank you." The 'thank you' was short and clipped, meant to draw a line under the topic rather than show gratitude.

"Yeah. I can see that. Well, the rest of the soup is in the fridge already, I made it hours ago. I got some other groceries too. The dose is written on the antibiotics." He leaned down by your bed to pick up his laptop. Maybe it was the sickness or the best homemade soup you'd ever had or, goddammit, maybe it wouldn't be so bad to have feelings for once. Whatever the reason you relented, just a touch. Letting the current sweep you up for a moment, your hand caught Dave's shoulder, he stopped, his head level with yours.

"Thank you, Dave." You pressed a kiss to his cheek.

"You're welcome." He raised his shoulder, pressing a kiss to you hand when it was in reach.

After that he left you to recover, from your illness and your moment of weakness.

It was a month before you heard from Dave again. A good amount of time to bury that moment. Another layer of dirt was added by him accusing you of ruining his op.

It should have been a milk run, just some loose ends from the bigger bust last month, yet it went sideways. Ultimately, there was no way to tell what went wrong. Your intel, his planning, Mercury in retrograde, someone didn't wear their lucky socks. Dave had decided it was you, a point he'd be driving home for ten minutes, while he stood in your hotel room. It wasn't wise to argue with him while he was like this so you kept quite for the most part.

Then he had to push it. "Maybe you're off your game? You were all weak and needy when you helped with the details."

That was it for you. "Fuck off, Dave. This was your op. Even if my intel was bad, you should have accounted for that."

"So what? I shouldn't expect my colleagues to do their damn job? Maybe we should get you a little desk job where I can supervisor you better. You like being taken care of."

Fuck. Him. "You know what I think? This isn't about the op. We both know that was just a bad break. This is about you arguing with me because it's what gets you hard. You couldn't get it up with Carol, I was naked in my shower, it didn't even stir. I think you're a psycho that can only get hard when he's angry." The way his nostrils flared as he scoffed, you knew you got him good. It was either enough for him to end this and leave or fuck you stupid.

The way he crowded you, it was going to be the second one. There was a tingle of anticipation between your legs as hand came up towards your head. You clenched at the thought of him pulling your hair to throw you on the bed before fucking you roughly.

His hand came up and landed on your cheek, it was the barest of touches as he tilted your lips to his. With your mouth open in surprise, his tongue licked softly at yours as his lips moulded to yours. His kisses weren't urgent or angry. They were soft, delicate even. He wasn't demanding his pleasure, he was offering you it, bit by bit, enticing you to seek more. His lips trialed down your neck as he undid your blouse. Kisses marked his journey to undress you. His hot lips pressed to each new area exposed to him. His hands smoothed the skin on show pushing off garments until you were naked before him. The affect of his attention glistened on the curls between your thighs. Thighs he parted around his waist to lift you onto the bed. He lay you down with such care before discarding his own clothes. When he returned to you, so did his lips. He'd never kiss you for his long. His lips were still on yours as he slide inside you with one long push of his hips. You gasped into the kiss as he slowly thrust a few times.

"See? I don't have to hate fuck you to get it up." He carried on his slow drawn out thrusts. You took advantage of the position to lay your hands on his ass. Squeezing the meat of it just a little and pulling him deeper.

"Maybe we should look at you. I could take you like this. I could make you feel good. I know you'd still orgasm eventually." The slow rolls of his hips continued. "Or I could fuck this tight little cunt, while telling you all sorts of dirty things and get you off hard and fast." The way you instantly flooded around him was embarrassing. You could both feel how slick you were for him. His hips picked up for a few thrust and you could hear his cock working in and out. "See. You are just as twisted as me. You need that little extra to really get you going."

In an impressive move he rolled you on top of him. "You were wrong about me not getting hard at your place. After you showered, I watched you sleep. You looked so beautiful, peaceful. " He gripped your hips, encouraging you to ride him. "All I could think about was using you while you slept. I imagine you waking up, shaking, cumming on my dick. Or shoving my cock between those pretty lips and choking you awake."

The thought of being used by him had you riding him in earnest. "I had to get back in the shower to jerk off. Maybe I should have brought back the cute cashier that flirted with me and fucked her in your kitchen while I cooked. She could have sucked my cock while I stirred your soup." The clench of you around him gave him what he wanted. "Such a fucking dirty girl." Pulling you flush to him he started pounded up into you. The quivering of your walls around him was all the vindication he needed. "So close to cumming already. Don't worry I'll let you cum. Then I'll used your flutter hole to get off. I've been waiting for a month to paint this pussy with my cum. Or I might cum inside, I know how much you love being full of it and there isn't a part of your body I haven't splashed it on." His thrusts were powerful now. Strong legs lifted his ass off the bed drilling into you with incredible speed. Pinned to his chest, all you could do was take him. "I've dripped down your chin. Your thighs. Your ass. Your tits. Still you like it best inside, don't you? Come on, Princess, milk my cock, I'll give you every drop." With that you came. A simple offer tore you apart.

Dave rolled you back over. Grabbing your jaw in one hand he made you look at where you were joined. He pulled almost all the way out, the tip still inside before jerking himself off. "I love to fuck this dirty pussy. My pussy. Been too long since I filled it. Never going this long again. Gonna keep it filled. Gonna...ah." The rush of cum dribbled out either side of his fat head as it throbbed. The sight of it made you ache for him to fuck you all over again.

Dave dropped down on the bed beside you. His bare chest heaving in the low light, tempted you to nestle against it

His heart thrummed under your cheek, his arms wrapped around you. There was more peace in that moment than your heart had even know. Tangled in the sheets with a man who saw who you were. The minutes ticked by, it was at least an hour before either of you moved. Even then it was because your bladder won out. When you came back, as you feared, Dave was half dressed.

"I have to go finish up this case."

"Of course." You suddenly felt smaller than you ever had in your life. Even after all the years working in a world dominated by old, white men.

Dave stepped close. "I meant what I said, about not going too long without filling up that pussy. How about I come over to your place on Friday night?"

"I could get some groceries in. Maybe the ingredients for tomato soup. I could suck your dick while you stir."

"Who could say no to that." He laughed. It was light and free.

This time before he leave he gave you a kiss and actually said goodbye before heading out. Climbing into bed you willed your heart to stop dancing in your chest.

Friday night came and Friday night when. They groceries in your fridge went as untouched as you did. Dave didn't call or text. Your phone was quiet until halfway through Saturday morning. The words that you heard span in your head, your vision blurred as nausea hit you.

Taking a breath you managed to push out "Sorry, could you repeat that?"

There was words of apology and concern they all faded away until you heard it again".....Dave died yesterday."

[whatyourusherthinks]

Columbo Season 4 Review

... If you don't know what we're doing here, I dunno what to tell you.

What? Oh yeah, Season 4's pretty good. I guess. I feel like the writers of the show are starting to run out of clever ideas for Columbo's solutions. Let's get into the episodes and you'll se what I mean.

Episode 1 'Exercise in Fatality'

This episode is perfectly fine. The bad guy is a exercise fanatic and scam artists, death was pretty brutal, and the character trait of Columbo losing his temper with the killer when they pretend to care about the victim's loved ones is great. But honestly the best thing about this episode is Columbo admitting he likes thicc women.

Episode 2 'Negative Reaction'

I like the set up for this episode, it was cool and also quite somber. And this is definitely the funniest episode so far. Unfortunately, not only do those two strengths clash, but this is the first episode that showcases my issue with the writing drop-off. See, at the end of the episode, Columbo lies about evidence he has to trick the killer into revealing information that he shouldn't have. I don't like that. I mean it isn't god awful, but it is entrapment, right? I mean it's not so bad here and Columbo has tricked the killer in previous episodes to say something incriminating. But it feel especially malicious in this, and another episode later on.

Episode 3 'By Dawn's Early Light'

This episode is another perfectly fine episode. The killer in this episode is a dean of a military academy who's a paranoid "enemies of America are everywhere and we must stop them first" type. I am annoyed that the only person who comes close to calling him is the victim and he seems to be portrayed some what sympathetically at the end, but there is a b-plot that actually weaves into the solution of the episode quite nicely and I liked the kid characters.

Episode 4 'Troubled Waters'

I like this episode. I like that the killer makes new evidence that gets him caught, I like that Columbo is on a cruise and therefor doesn't have any authority he would normally have in LA. Plus the crew were fun characters. Columbo does a cool trick with a pencil because he doesn't have the tools he would normally have. There's also a scene of Columbo climbing stairs and it's shot like a meme you'd see on this website. It made me laugh. My last note about this episode is something we'll have to talk about later...

Episode 5 'Playback'

Hey I was talking about CCTVs two seasons ago! The place of the murder is this a high-tech home with clap-to-open doors and security cameras, which is a lot of fun and leads to a great reveal. I like the killer's wife, and they have a really interesting dynamic that made me really want Columbo to take him down. Thinking back, this is probably the best episode of the season, even if the German killer is slightly cartoonish with his accent.

Episode 6 'Deadly State of Mind'

The episode got on my nerves. This is the other episode where Columbo tricks the killer into revealing information they wouldn't have otherwise, but the reveal is also a piece of information the audience didn't know until the reveal happens. This episode's sound is shit. There is a scene with a loud shoe squeak every two seconds, I swear to god. And they didn't (or maybe couldn't, I don't know) turn down the rustling of coats and and the wind for every outdoor scene, of which that is half the episode. My biggest problem with the episode is that it seems to set up some interesting ideas, then snatches them away from you. I thought the killer was in love with the victim's wife and there was going to be an interesting dynamic there, but no, he hypnotizes her to kill herself later on. Columbo spends the episode learning about behavioral therapy and hypnotism, is he gonna use that in the denouement? No. It's a surprise witness reveal.

This might be the first actually bad episode of the show. 'Requiem for a Falling Star' was boring but at least the ending reveal was kind of shocking instead of dumb. 'Swan Song' backs away from its villains set-up at the last second, but it never ignores interesting ideas out right for a more boring motive. 'Lady in Waiting' was a weird script but it was at least well made. 'Deadly State of Mind' feels like it was just trying to annoy me.

And another thing that annoys me...

I have to stop my fun theory about Columbo's wife segments. Yeah yeah usually these bits are last but 'Troubled Waters' goes out of its way to do everything but show Mrs. Columbo in person. She's described by Columbo, seen by various other characters (off screen of course), and all of them collaborate that she is indeed real and a woman. Why doesn't Columbo wear a wedding ring? No fucking idea. Not even the internet knows. Peter Falk was married when the show aired, but he got divorced and remarried between seasons 5 and 6, so maybe that has something to do with it. I thought about trying to make up some bullshit about why all the characters are lying to the audience and then twist this segment into a lesson about conspiracy theories and belief changing personal reality, but not only am I not smart enough to pull that idea off nor are you here to learn anything, but it would turn me into one of the performance outrage grifter people except even more pathetic because the stuff I'd get mad about wouldn't even be that culturally relevant.

Ranking

Suitable for Framing

Any Old Port in a Storm

Murder By the Book

Publish or Perish

Double Shock

Playback

A Stitch in Crime

Troubled Waters

Double Exposure

Mind over Mayhem

A Friend in Deed

Candidate for Crime

Dagger of the Mind

The Most Crucial Game

Short Fuse

By Dawn's Early Light

Exercise in Fatality

Blueprint for Murder

Prescription: Murder

Most Dangerous Match

The Green House Jungle

Negative Reaction

Ransom for a Dead Man

Lovely But Lethal

Dead Weight

Etude in Black

Death Lends a Hand

Lady in Waiting

Swan Song

Requiem for a Falling Star

Deadly State of Mind

I think I may need to take a break from the show. Just for a little bit.

[autisticsupervillain]

I think I found a Complete Monster candidate in Columbo.

Dale Kingston is a smarmy, caustic art critic with an eye for valuable paintings. Upon finding out that his uncle is passing him up for inheritance in favor of giving all his famous paintings to Dale's aunt, he manipulates his girlfriend into helping him kill his uncle. Kingston then runs his girlfriend over to cover his tracks, before attempting to frame his aunt for the cruel deed, insuring he'll inherit all the paintings for his collection while his aunt gets put to death.

Dale Kingston has absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Whereas most other Columbo villains up to this point have a few sympathetic qualities, Dale has nothing but pride. Any empathy he shows for his family members and girlfriend vanish as soon as the time comes to kill them, after which he never thinks of them again. What's more, he deliberately plotted the deaths of three people very close to him without a moment's remorse or hesitation, lovingly comforting his aunt one moment and framing her for murder the next. He is entirely aware that getting his aunt arrested for murder would get her killed and yet shows no hesitation in doing so.

Whatsmore, he isn't even financially motivated. He kills the scant few people he's ever shown to be close to for little reason other than pride, simply wanting to horde such valuable portraits for his collection. Whereas most other Colombo villains show at least a hint of remorse upon being caught, Dale shamelessly accuses Colombo of planting evidence against him to save his own neck. That, combined with his unusually high attempted body count (he fails in framing his aunt) and the complete apathy he shows for his supposed loved ones, nets him a place on the list for me.

[unashamedly-enthusiastic]

Hello! This is random but what are your Top ten favourite books of all time? Also do you have any book recommendations?

Ohmygod this is such a difficult question, because my answer is almost always 'whatever book I have just finished" but! I have pulled from my bookshelf the top 10 that have had the biggest impact on my life, behold!

The Classics™

1. Pride and Prejudice: Jane Austen

When I was 18 and fresh out of school I set myself the arduous challenge of reading 3 'classical' books before I died. I struggled halfway through P&P thinking what an arsehole this Darcy boy was, until I got to "lydia will have to come upon the town". And I sat on the bus going 'Does... does Austen mean, lydia will become a hooker? Surely she can't mean that, it's a ye olde book!'

And I checked the notes and she DID. I was shook, I restarted the book and as I'd gotten used to the language I realised there were jokes!? And snarky comments!? And ridiculous people! And I LOVED IT

I realised that the classics were The Classics™ because they are good, and it opened a world of reading to me that I will never be able to repay it

I've read all her completed works, except Emma, and i love them all so much. (I'm saving Emma for the day I know I'll want a new Jane Austen book, cos one day I will and she ain't exactly writing any more)

2. Jane Eyre: Charlotte Bronte

Your self worth, your integrity, your ability to be a good person are attached to neither your station in life nor your beauty?

This message was completely foreign to me, I'd never seen it before and it latched on to my soul and stayed there

"Reader, I married him" is a single line that made me close the book and hold it to my heart while I recovered

3. Poor Miss Finch: Wilkie Collins

False accusations of murder, saved from the gallows by a mantelpiece clock, keeping secrets from your truest love, your identical twin living a life that is rightfully yours, the worlds more biased narrator, the most celebrated and wondrous Doctor Pratolungo, weird 18th century descriptions of medical conditions, poisons, cures, and their costs, a suspicious trip to the seaside? This has it ALL

It is a CRIME this book doesn't have its own film

Scottish Books

4. Quite ugly one morning: Christopher Brookmyre

This murder mystery is set in my home city of Glasgow and opens with the line "jesus fuck" as police officers try to long jump their colleagues and witnesses vomit to get a view of the crime scene and try not to add to the pile

It is fantastic and hilarious and is only surpassed by the later in the series "A big boy did it and ran away" which I no longer have as I grievously damaged it when I threw it across the room at the best/most gut wrenching plot twist I have ever experienced

5. Harry Potter and the philosophers stane: J. K. Rowling, translatit intae Scots by Mathew Fitt

Harry Potter was released while I was in high school and I loved it, lived for each release. But this version is in Scots, not gealic, proper Scots, which I have always been surrounded with but my parents forbade me to learn or speak because 'that's slang, if you speak slang you'll never get a job, speak properly'

And reading it was an indescribable feeling of understanding and coming home, like everything I'd ever read previously had been translated in my head into my own internal Scottish language. It was transformative and shaped my understanding of my own culture, language and upbringing

Also, every single insult is 100x funnier and I love it

Books I have never met another reader of

6. All my friends are superheros: Andrew Kaufman

I picked this book up in a shop while waiting for a train and stood transfixed until I absolutely had to leave. In a world where mildly extra ordinary superpowers are common, a man's marriage is ruined by his wife's ex's superpower of suggestion.

It's 108 pages of a man desperately trying to show his wife he's Right There, and it is gut wrenching and glorious and so very very clever

I cried on the train home

7. Kane: Stephen A Jennings

I met a guy at work who just casually mentions in conversation he's a published author, he lent me a copy of his book about a small town American family

The sacrifices needed to keep your head just above the poverty line, the way your roots often suck you back in, the sometime too high a price needed to pursue your dreams all hit a little too close to home

I loved it and have been completely in awe of Stephen ever since

Cult books

8. The Princess Bride: William Goldman

I'd seen the film 50 times before I ever knew the book existed, it is everything the film portrays and more. The purchase was worth it for Inigo Montoyas backstory alone.

The shrieking eels bit genuinely pulled me back into the room with columbo grandpa in a way I have never experienced with any other book

9. Guards! Guards!: Terry Pratchett

I only picked this up because of all the fuss on tumblr about the new adaptation and I am SO GLAD, I laughed all the way through and fell hopelessly in love with Carrot Ironfounderson (as everyone does)

I've recently finished the whole watch series and am on to new discworld books, but I'll always thank this book and the righteous anger over that bbc adaptation for bringing these books into my life

Books that made me goddamn angry

10. Invisible Women, exposing data bias in a world built for men: Caroline Criado Perez

Fuck me, honestly I haven't even finished this because every chapter fills me with an all consuming rage the likes of which I have never experienced before.

Criado Perez just calmly lists data, statistics, and processes, each one showing how 51% of the population is underrepresented or completely ignored in anything from kids cartoons to medical studies for the pill. And ohmyfuckinggawd I knew it was bad for us before, but i didn't know how bad.

Now I have numbers and I am filled with rage.

I'm only stopping now because of the picture per post limit, I love stories and will recommend almost any book I've ever read either because I loved it or hated it

[liunaticfringe]

(via Lucy Liu's Independent Woman - Interview Magazine)

There have been many great sidekick pairings in the history of modern literature. Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, Phileas Fogg and Jean Passepartout, Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet…the list goes on. Yet, it seems there has never been a delightfully tumultuous relationship that comes close to echoing the one embodied by rogue detective Sherlock Holmes and his faithful friend and assistant Dr. John Watson. Written in the form of short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the opium-den loving Holmes would terrorize London with his intellectual, astute, and stubborn prowess, with Dr. Watson providing medical expertise and chronicling their entertaining exploits along the way.

Doyle’s works have now long been entered into the public domain, with many film and television adaptions cropping up every few years. Still, when CBS announced in 2012 that it would be turning Doyle’s works into an hour-long crime-drama series titled Elementary, it elicited an unusually high response—this was mostly due to the news that a woman would, in fact, be portraying Watson. Her name would be Joan, not John. And she’s now a fallen from grace surgeon-turned-sober companion and private detective, forfeiting her “Dr.” title in the process. The woman chosen to take on this exciting, contemporary role of Joan Watson was none other than seasoned actress Lucy Liu.

Liu, who’s best known for her roles as a fierce and ill-mannered lawyer in Ally McBeal, an ass-kicking “angel” in the rebooted Charlie’s Angels, and an equally ass-kicking bad girl in the Kill Bill series, certainly provides the yin to the yang of Jonny Lee Miller’s gritty portrayal of Holmes. Elementary chronicles the duo’s relationship as they consult for the NYPD on various criminal cases while living in a shared brownstone in Brooklyn Heights. Initially starting off in Season One as a substance-free friend to the fresh-out-of-rehab Holmes with a keen interest in solving crimes, Watson quickly transformed into a sharp and observant right-hand woman who now clearly has the aptitude to work on her own. And it appears she’ll be doing just that—the end of Season Two left viewers witnessing Watson’s decision to move out of the brownstone and start a new career as a solo private detective, seemingly fed-up with Holmes’ erratic behavior.

The warm and delightful Liu recently called up Interview from her home in New York City to discuss Elementary’s upcoming third season.

DEVON IVIE: Were you on set today?

LUCY LIU: I was running around like a maniac, yeah. It’s beautiful today, it started getting a little bit cooler again. But of course I’ve been bitten by the two mosquitos that are still alive in New York City.

IVIE: I know you were recently at New York Comic Con. How was it?

LIU: It was amazing. It’s such a spectator place. Not only do you get super fans, but you also get people who are curious and inventive and imaginative. It’s fun.

IVIE: Did you run into any cosplayers dressed as Joan Watson?

LIU: Oh, no, I don’t know about that. That’s funny! We did a panel with a huge audience so I couldn’t really see if anyone was wearing anything specific, but it’s an excuse for kids and adults to get dressed up and just be crazy. You know you’ve made it when you have super-fans out there.

IVIE: When you first read the scripts for Elementary, what was it that attracted you to the role of Joan?

LIU: I liked the fact that it was going to be about [Joan and Sherlock’s] relationship and their friendship, and bringing that into modern times. And I thought it was wonderful to change up the gender.

IVIE: Did you immerse yourself in Arthur Conan Doyle’s work as preparation at all?

LIU: I did, I did! I started reading the short stories. I never read them before so it was a really great excuse to read them. I can’t believe it was written so long ago, because it’s so current. The characters are so colorful, which is why I think there are so many incarnations of Watson and Holmes.

IVIE: Do you have a favorite story? I love “A Scandal in Bohemia.”

LIU: There were some pretty amazing stories. The one that stood out to me, which was a Watson story that I got to know him a little more through, was “The Hound of the Baskervilles.” He really is on his own in that. Of course it turns out that Holmes has been there all along, but it’s interesting looking into his interior.

IVIE: Yeah, the entirety of “The Hound of the Baskervilles” is narrated just by Watson. And his diary and letters, too.

LIU: Yeah, I think it’s really cool. We started incorporating that into the show, too, the letters and journals.

IVIE: Has this detective genre always appealed to you? Did you grow up watching or reading detective whodunits?

LIU: I remember more of the old school Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys sort of thing. I also grew up with the Scooby-Doo mysteries. Remember when the villain would go, “I would’ve gotten away with it if it weren’t for you rascal-y kids!” Those were the kind of the things I immersed myself in. I have to say that my mother has always been a huge fan of Columbo and Murder, She Wrote, so this show was her dream come true. I don’t think she totally understood what was going on with Ally McBeal. [laughs]

IVIE: I’ve enjoyed witnessing Joan’s evolution throughout the course of the show, starting off as a sober companion and eventually ending up as a trusty sidekick and confidant to Sherlock. What can we expect from Joan in Season Three?

LIU: When you see them in the third season, you see some friction between the two characters. Joan is now on her own, she has her own detective agency, has a boyfriend, and has been without Sherlock for eight months. She’s got her own apartment, she’s settled, and he shows back up. I think she’s a little bit hurt by what happened and how their relationship and partnership ended, which was basically his decision and his choice, and he left it all in one little note for her. I think she felt that their relationship was much deeper than that, and that he was dismissive in the way that he handled that.

IVIE: How would you define the relationship between Joan and Sherlock?

LIU: I think that it’s a really positive and good relationship, overall. They really have a good chemistry together, work really hard together, and understand each other. They acknowledge each other and respect each other, which is a really important way to have a friendship. And they can learn from each other, you know? She’s very curious about him and I think he sees that she’s a very smart person—that’s vital for him in having respect for someone, having them be intelligent and thinking for themselves.

IVIE: Do you see any of Joan in yourself?

LIU: I do to a certain degree. She’s a lot more measured and patient, for sure. She’s a very curious person, which I think I am, and I think she isn’t afraid of change. She was a doctor, and then became a sober companion, and then jumped off and became a detective. I think sometimes it’s good to make big leaps.

IVIE: You’ve probably been asked this question many times, but do you think a romance between Joan and Sherlock could ever fittingly happen?

LIU: It’s a question that’s often asked and I think it’s really up to the executives. Rob Doherty, the creator [of Elementary] really feels incredibly strongly about keeping their relationship platonic. He has already taken great strides to keep the relationship as clean as possible according to the literature, but he has also changed so much of it by changing the gender of Watson. To have them have a romantic involvement would turn the whole thing upside-down in a way that might really jump the line. [Doherty] felt really strongly about it and I think that’s the one thing he really wants to stay true to.

IVIE: I totally agree. Even on the BBC’s Sherlock, there are campaigns to get Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock and Martin Freeman’s Watson to become romantically involved. It’s like, enough already, no!

LIU: No way, that’s so weird! People do have that level of friendship oftentimes, but it doesn’t mean it’s physical. I think that everyone just assumes because there’s chemistry the next thing should be happening. I would vote “no” for a romance. I think for sure the creator would vote no on that, too.

IVIE: I’ve talked to both women and men who watch Elementary, and they all consistently mention how well dressed and fashionable Joan is. Do you collaborate with the wardrobe department on styling decisions at all?

LIU: That’s awesome. Yes, I collaborate with Rebecca [Hofherr], who’s the costume designer, who’s wonderful. She’s very easy to work with. One thing we try to maintain about Joan and her style is that she’s a bit wrinkled, you know what I mean? Sometimes it looks like things are really put together, but we always want to make sure things aren’t too tight and are comfortable, kind of like she throws things together. We don’t want it to seem so business-y, so we go away from suits. Chic, but not corporate. Also just to make her seem like her outfits aren’t so put-together all the time. But I’m glad that people really seem to like it, it’s a relief! We don’t splurge a lot on the show, we try to do cheaper things, like things Joan would wear a lot. She wears the same white jacket and shoes frequently.

IVIE: Will we be seeing more of the infamous Clyde the Turtle in the upcoming season?

LIU: Clyde will indeed be in it again. We have to share custody of Clyde.

IVIE: Is it true that Clyde is actually two tortoises? Pulling a Mary Kate and Ashley in Full House on us?

LIU: Yes. It’s just like having twins on a show. Just in case one is crying and screaming and passed out or something.

IVIE: You made your directorial debut for an episode of Elementary last season [“Paint It Black”]. Do you have plans to direct an episode again soon?

LIU: That was so exciting. I’ll be directing another episode again very shortly in December, so you’ll be seeing it in a month and a half.

IVIE: Where did your interest in directing come from?

LIU: I guess I was curious about it. Having been in this business for a while, you kind of see and get a glimpse of everything doing film and television. I think it seemed like a natural progression to go into directing, and I hope to explore more of it, because it’s very exciting and a really good way to collide all the things that you’ve known and experienced in the business and put them all into one.

IVIE: Is there an ideal guest star that you’d like to see on the show in the upcoming season?

LIU: I would love to see Mycroft come back. I really think there was a wonderful tension for Mycroft and Sherlock as well as the triangle that occurred when Joan became involved with him. There’s something very deep about that relationship, and I also think that Rhys Ifans is a fantastic actor. He commands the screen, but off-screen he’s incredibly lovely. A real treat to have on the show.

IVIE: I remember the first few episodes that I saw Rhys in, I was like, where have I seen this guy before? So I looked at his Wikipedia page and it became obvious: he was the crazy guy from Notting Hill!

LIU: Yes, the roommate! So good! Everything he does, he just kills it, no matter the role.

IVIE: And it’s always good to have some MI6 action on the show, which Mycroft provided. Some international flair.

LIU: [laughs] International flair, exactly, some added spice. Just throw some spy stuff in there to throw people off their game. You just don’t expect it, you know? It came out of nowhere.

IVIE: That whole three-episode arc at the end of the second season…

LIU: That was awesome. I was lucky enough to direct one of those episodes, which is more narrative in tone. It’s more fun in some ways, too.

IVIE: You’ve done a range of acting work for both television and film. Do you now find yourself preferring one to the other?

LIU: I love both of them equally. The lack of predictability with television is something that’s constantly changing what your perception of who you think your character is. Suddenly I have a father that’s schizophrenic, or I discovered something else, or I have a relationship with Mycroft. The things that pop up and change the game for you and always keep you on your toes. The wonderful thing about film is that you have something that has a beginning, middle, and end, and you have a concrete amount of time to shoot it. And the process of that can be longer, like editing and advertising and testing the movie, so it’s very different. Television you just continue going, no matter what’s happening outside of your world. You get lost in that vortex a little bit.

IVIE: It’s interesting that America is now embracing the “mini-series” format that has already been so heavily utilized overseas, where there are a set amount of short episodes, and that’s it. In a way, it’s kind of like a cinematic experience.

LIU: I like that, too. It allows you to have a freedom of creativity and at the same time you don’t feel like you have to be contracted to something for that long; you’re really working on a piece of art. And then you’re done and you move on, or it comes back, like Downton Abbey. You don’t know. Those things become little masterpieces. The thing about television is that you see a range of actors now that you may not have seen five years ago even, 10 years ago absolutely not, and I think now there’s no wrong about doing television. There’s no definitive category for what kind of department you fall into anymore.

IVIE: What’s a fun, secret fact about your costar Jonny Lee Miller?

LIU: A fun fact about Jonny Lee Miller is that he oftentimes does handstands on a wall before he does a take, sometimes with pushups, to get blood to his brain and get him geared up for a long monologue that he may have. He stays there, hangs a little bit, and then turns around and does the scene. Most of the time in the brownstone more than anywhere else. He’s in full costume and everything. That’s trivia!

IVIE: I wish I could do wall-handstands by myself.

LIU: Oh my god, I need someone to push my legs up and then hold me there. I’m a cheat!

ELEMENTARY PREMIERES THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30 ON CBS.

[redshirtgal]

Look at that deadly serious face. Would you believe there are two amusing stories involving this gentleman? One from a scene involving his character, the other involving the actor behind the scenes.

The idea to bring in a doctor specifically trained in Vulcan medicine was a good one. But we were not introduced to Dr. M’Benga until halfway through the second season in an episode titled “A Private Little War.” It is because of his expertise that we know all those bizarre life scan readings are merely a sign that Spock is concentrating his efforts on healing the severe gunshot wound he had received on the planet.

Up until this point, we have only seen the stern, serious side of M’Benga. But we find in this scene that he has a wicked sense of humor (and an excellent sense of observation). He informs Nurse Chapel that Spock has been conscious enough the entire time and most likely even realized Christine had been holding his hand earlier. And then you see this little grin as poor Nurse Chapel looks mortified and more than a little miffed.

There is one other scene that is not exactly amusing in itself, but has an side story that is. This is the scene where Dr. M’Benga gives Christine explicit instructions about what to do if Spock shows any signs of consciousness.  But when the time comes and Spock commands her to hit him as hard as she can, Christine just can’t do more than a weak slap. Then Scotty enters and when he sees what is happening, pulls her away. It’s up to Dr. M’Benga to bring Spock back to full consciousness.

Which he proceeds to do by pulling his arm back... and delivering a wallop of a slap that even Scotty would be proud of.

And which Spock calmly deems quite sufficient. But Leonard Nimoy was actually pretty irate just after the slap. The filming of this episode was already behind. While the crew set up for this scene, Leonard Nimoy pulled the actor Booker Bradshaw aside and told him he didn’t want to have to reshoot the scene (because he had a paid appearance scheduled that evening). So according to Bradshaw, Nimoy told him no stage slap - to give it everything he had. So... when the time came, Booker Bradshaw wound up and delivered a slap so hard, it knocked Leonard off his feet. And the Vulcan ears off Leonard. Which sent the stage crew and everyone else on the set into peals of laughter but Nimoy did not see the humor at all. Bradshaw said to his dismay, the star was quite angry and made it clear that this time, he better make it a stage slap.

We see him one more time in “That Which Survives” when he is asked to find the reason Ensign Wyatt died. Dr. M’Benga replies that Dr. Sanchez (in the background)  is already performing the autopsy and promises to report the results to Mr. Spock as soon as he knows them.

Later, Dr. M’Benga’s expression demonstrates his exasperation at not being able to give Mr. Spock an explanation for Wyatt’s cause of death, which Dr. Sanchez had established as cellular disruption. And that’s the last time we see Dr. M’Benga.   Memory Alpha seems to think that Dr. M’Benga was meant to be there from the start and that M’Boya was simply a misspelling of his name in that first draft.  Yet according David Tilotta in an article on StarTrek.com,  Dr. M’Benga was not added to the cast of “That Which Survives” until a few days before filming. In the very beginning, the doctor’s name was given as M’Boya. Then as the script revisions progressed, the character of Dr. M’Boya was dropped and his lines given to Nurse Christine Chapel.. But  Marc Cushman’s These Are the Voyages: Season Two  backs up what David Tillota wrote, saying that one of the researchers from Kellam de Forest suggested to Fred Freiberger that the name should be changed to M’Benga on September 13th. However, he makes no mention of the previous change of M’Boya to Nurse Chapel doing the autopsy. Still, it does seem likely someone would have realized there was no need to create a new doctor when Dr. M’Benga had already been established as highly regarded by his CMO.  Story Editor Arthur Singer turned in a final draft on September 20th and page revisions were added on the 21st. Once Fred Freiberger made a few more changes and created the revised final draft dated September 24th and the page revisions were inserted the next day. Just in time for the first day of production which again backs up David Tilotta’s assertion that Dr. M’Benga was close to a last minute addition/revision. 

Dr. M’Benga was played by Booker T. Bradshaw of Richmond, Virginia. Bradshaw’s background is quite impressive. After working at his father’s life insurance company, Booker decided this was not the life for him and entered Harvard University. During his junior year he appeared on the Ted Mack Amateur Hour as a folk singer. Not only did he win three times, but he made it to the finals at Madison Square Garden.  Booker did return to graduate from Harvard in 1962 with the intention of becoming a lawyer. Fate intervened in the form of a Fellowship at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London but not before he had performed at Carnegie Hall. Bradshaw did receive an honors certificate for his time at the Academy of Dramatic Arts which he completed by touring England with his Academy students as part of a Shakespeare repertory theater.   *photo credit: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/b/bhl/x-hs8414/hs8414

After finishing the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, you would think Booker would head straight into the acting world, wouldn’t you? Oh, he had done some stage plays in Harvard and a few other venues, but another opportunity arose. Bradshaw’s connection in the music world lead him to working for Motown Records in Detroit as their international manager. He specifically arranged the European tours of both the Supremes and the Temptations.  According to several stories he could speak anywhere from three to nine languages, depending on the source. Above is a photo of the Supremes as they were about to start their 1965 European tour in London. Not only did Bradshaw serve as their manager but he also did an interview with them that was reprinted here -  https://motownjunkies.co.uk/2013/03/02/589

Around 1967, Booker Bradshaw came back to the United States to resume his acting career and joined a  repertory theater in Rochester, Michigan run by one of his mentors, John Fernald. Fernald was formerly Head of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. Bradshaw even wrote the lyrics and music for a play produced there titled And People All Around, which was based on the murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi. He also appeared in several plays at the Ebony Showcase Theater, including Day of Absence and Happy Endings in 1967. One of his co-stars in both plays was Isabel Sanford. Some of you may remember her as Louise Jefferson in The Jeffersons, which ran from 1975-1985. The Ebony Showcase Theater was the first black theater created especially for black audiences in Los Angeles.  Above - Booker Bradshaw, Juanita Moore and Isabel Sanford (Louise Jefferson) in Happy Endings.  Photo credit - https://filmismemory.wordpress.com/2015/12/29/the-ebony-showcase-theater/

Booker Bradshaw went on to have a very full and successful career in television and film, both as an actor and as a writer. He landed parts on a number of television shows, including several episodes of Tarzan, the Mod Squad, and The F.B.I. In fact, as this newspaper clipping shows (which was actually a press release that appeared in many newspapers across the U.S.), it was thought his role as Special Agent Harry Dane might  be a semi-regular one. However, he is only credited with appearing in two episodes.  *clipping from p. 35 of The Jackson Sun (Jackson TN), November 7, 1969. 

Bradshaw’s movie appearances were fewer, but included two that attained some notice at the time they were released. Above is a publicity photo from The Strawberry Statement (1970) which was loosely based on the Columbia University protests of 1968. He played the character Lucas who is seen on the far right. Fellow Star Trek actress Kim Darby was the female lead named Linda. 

But Booker Bradshaw’s biggest role probably was that of politician Howard Brunswick in Coffy (1973). He was the boyfriend of the title character played by Pam Grier. She played the title character, a nurse who is out to get revenge on the drug dealers who were responsible for the death of her sister. Being a folk singer/media mogul/ theater actor/TV & film actor was evidently not enough. Bradshaw also became a quite accomplished television writer. Between 1973-1976 he and David P. Lewis together wrote scripts for shows like Columbo, Planet of the Apes, and McMillan and Wife. Bradshaw went on to do scripts for Different Strokes, Gimme A Break, and four episodes of The Richard Pryor Show. During the 80s he became a voice actor. Sadly, his impressive career came to an end when he died suddenly of a heart attack in 2003.

[aion-rsa]

Line of Duty: the Best Crime Thrillers to Watch Next

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Line of Duty is over, perhaps for good. It’s time to dismantle that evidence wall, file the exhibits away, and close the door on AC-12. With H unmasked, we can all rest our adrenal glands and get back to a healthy, Jimmy Nesbitt-free sleep pattern.

Once that’s achieved, if you start to feel the itch for more seismic shocks and sleights-of-hand, here are a few suggestions of what to watch next – eight TV thrillers that provide similar doses of double-dealing, truth-concealing, witness-squealing, case-breaking shenanigans. Add your own recommendations below!  

Bodyguard

Bodyguard proved that there was life after the Red Wedding for Richard Madden. His performance as  David Budd, a former combat soldier living a new – and equally dangerous – life as a Principal Protection Officer (PPO) in the London Met deservedly netted him a Golden Globe and a Scottish Bafta award.

Budd’s job protecting the abrasive yet vulnerable British Home Secretary Julia Montague (Keeley Hawes) is complicated by their conflicting ideologies, Budd’s fractured home-life and PTSD, and a wide-ranging conspiracy that brings together Islamic terrorism, organised crime, intra-governmental malfeasance and dodgy cops.  Be prepared to watch from behind half-closed eyes, wincing in anticipation of the oblivion that’s promised around almost every corner.

Bodyguard has the kinetic ferocity and explosive twists of 24; the grim and gritty characterisation of a Jimmy McGovern project; and the ‘Oh my God it was them along… or was it?’ twists of Line of Duty, which follows as it was also created by Jed Mercurio and World Productions.

Watch on: Netflix UK

The Americans

What if you were so deeply embedded with your enemies that you were indistinguishable from them, both inside and out, and even started to become increasingly disillusioned about what side you were supposed to be on? That’s the central conceit of FX’s slick and superlative spy drama The Americans, set in Washington DC during the height of the Cold War. Russian operatives Philip and Elizabeth Jennings have fake pasts and fake identities, but they also have very real American teenage children, who have been raised oblivious to the devastating secret thumping Poe-like in their parents’  hearts. Other shows trading in similar tropes may well deal in deception and corruption, but the cross that the Jennings have to bear in the name of ideology makes even the biggest conspiracies in Line of Duty and Bodyguard seem like a fib told by a child to avoid punishment for stealing freshly-baked muffins from their mother’s windowsill.

The heat on the Jennings is turned up even further when an FBI agent tasked with uncovering Russian agents moves next door with his family; further still when the two families become friends, further blurring the lines between truth, lies, identity and loyalty.

Whom do you trust when you can’t even trust yourself? 

Watch it on: Amazon Prime Video UK (available to purchase)

Edge of Darkness (1985)

Edge of Darkness is steeped in the same Thatcher-tainted, Reagan-ruled, greed-is-good, hyper-capitalist era as The Americans, but is a contemporaneous piece rather than a period piece, having debuted in 1985. 

The tragic tale follows tortured policeman Ronald Craven (Bob Peck) as he tries to unravel the truth behind his eco-activist daughter’s murder, while he himself starts to unravel in a sea of lies, half-truths, hard truths and shifting allegiances. Craven snakes his way through a colourful cast of misfits, agitators, loudmouths, snobs, yobs and psychopaths, as the battle for power – nuclear, economic, hegemonic – and perhaps the survival of the earth itself, swirls and dances and ricochets around him.

It’s a series that’s unafraid to immerse the viewer in complexity; leaving them to fathom the ever-morphing labyrinth of motivations and revelations on their own; leaning heavily into ambiguity whenever it serves the shape and tone of the story. Often, the viewer is left as bemused and perplexed as Craven himself in the face of this deadly puzzle, but they will still find themselves – also like Craven – unable and unwilling to rest until the pieces fit together.          

The late Bob Peck – whom many will only know as the game keeper from Jurassic Park, who utters his memorable final line, ‘Clever girl…’, seconds before becoming a velociraptor hors d’oeuvre – puts in a mesmerising, career-defining performance as Craven, effortlessly embodying the full gamut of the man’s grief, guilt, obsession, melancholy and mania. Craven seems at once mythical and otherworldly, and yet solidly, painfully, exquisitely human.

Watch on: Amazon Prime Video UK (available to purchase)

The Shield

“Good cop and bad cop left for the day. I’m a different kind of cop.”

So says LA Detective Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) seconds before demonstrating his no-holds-barred interrogation technique to an obfuscating paedophile. It’s not that Vic considers himself above the law, more that everybody else is below his. He often does the right things for the wrong reasons, or in the wrong way, or the wrong things for the right reasons. Or at least for reasons that he thinks are right. And he’s got a justification for everything, from bribing fellow officers, to partnering with organised criminals, to even murdering suspects.

Impossibly corrupt, relentlessly self-righteous, fearless to the point of psychopathy, Vic is the badge-wearing heir apparent to Tony Soprano, but burdened with little of the gabagool-guzzler’s guilt. Viewers are left under no illusions about the lengths Vic will go to protect himself and his kingdom, nor about the sort of show they’re watching, when at the close of the first episode he executes an officer who has been placed in his Strike Team to investigate his corruption, framing a similarly deceased drug kingpin for the crime.

So begins the toxic, spreading rot of secrets, lies and double-dealings, each action an effort to cover over and stay a step ahead of the misdeed before. Vic’s three-man Strike Team would follow him into Hell, which is just as well, because that’s exactly where he leads them, along with his family, and anyone who ever associated with or went toe-to-toe against him. The Shield begins as a punchy, kinetic pop-corn spectacle of a series, but slowly evolves into an almost Shakespearian tragedy, rich in sadness, sacrifice and betrayal. The final act – hell, the final few seasons – will leave you in no doubt as to The Shield‘s place in the pantheon of small-screen greats.    

Watch on: All4 (UK)

Read more

TV

Celebrating Jimmy McGovern’s Cracker

By Jamie Andrew

TV

Line of Duty Series 6 Episode 7 Review: H Unmasked At Last

By Louisa Mellor

Dexter

If Internal Affairs set up an office in the Miami Metro Police Department, the last person they’d suspect of foul play would be the handsome, unfailingly polite blood-spatter analyst Dexter Morgan, doyen of the Homicide bowling team and daily bringer of doughnuts. Whereas Vic Mackey flaunts his corruption in plain sight, Dexter has to stay in the shadows. Dexter’s corruption is a little more extreme than Vic’s: he’s a highly active serial killer. That he only kills according to a strict ethical code – only other murderers, and only those who’d escaped, or would escape, justice by more legitimate means – makes him a complex, compassionate and compelling figure, one with whom we sympathise easily: perhaps too easily. Dexter makes us complicit by proxy. We find ourselves rooting for a serial killer, hopelessly lost in the hedge-maze of his amorality.

Dexter’s relationships with his sister, Deborah (Jennifer Carter) – a detective at his precinct – and Rita (Julie Benz) – first his girlfriend, then his wife and eventually mother of his son – are his only toe-holds on humanity, which is why the show regularly has them dancing on the edge of his dark secret. No more so than when Dexter has to help the department investigate the crimes of a serial killer the media dubs The Bay Harbor Butcher, a serial killer who just happens to be… Dexter.

While it’s true that Dexter came to a perfect natural conclusion after four great seasons, it’s also true that it limped on for another four seasons after that, capped by a finale that is quite possibly one of the weakest and worst of any drama series ever made. Thankfully, it’s coming back for a ninth season later this year, hopefully to right past wrongs.   

Watch on: NOW (UK)

Cracker

If you only know the larger-than-life Robbie Coltrane as the much-larger-than-life Hagrid in the Harry Potter series, you’d do well to check out the mid-90s UK crime-series Cracker, and see Coltrane at his most searing, endearing, dangerous and iconic. Here he plays Eddie ‘Fitz’ Fitzgerald – quite simply the role he was born to play – a sharp-witted, full-blooded, foul-mouthed, fast-living psychologist who impresses (and largely imposes) his way into a consulting gig with the Manchester Police, helping them to solve their more grizzly and unusual crimes. The storyline that sees Fitz investigating one of ‘his’ own is perhaps its most harrowing and heart-breaking – a network of tragedies dovetailing into one other – with a denouement that casts a long, sad shadow over the rest of the series.

Warning: If you are a Harry Potter fan, and you decide to watch Cracker, do take the time to psychologically prepare yourself for the sight of Hagrid in bed with Harry Potter’s mum.  

Watch on: Britbox (UK)   

Luther

Detective John Luther (Idris Elba) has the presence of a bear, the heart of a lion, and the mind of Columbo. With his razor-sharp stare, long, lived-in coat and propensity to stick his neck precisely where it’s needed but never wanted, Luther’s ‘Oh, one more thing’ is just as likely to be a fist as it is a verbal death-blow.

Over the course of five seasons Luther is betrayed by those closest to him, mangled by loss, framed for murder and even strikes up an unusual but oddly touching relationship with a serial killer. It’s electric, captivating TV, and Idris Elba wears and lives Luther’s rage, sadness, regret and fuck-you-ness so intensely that you won’t be able to draw your eyes away from him. A barnstormer all round.

Watch on: BBC iPlayer (UK)      

State of Play

The cast-list alone is enough to commend this early 2000s conspiracy thriller: John Simm, Philip Glenister (prior to the duo teaming up in Life on Mars), David Morrissey, James McAvoy, Bill Nighy, Amelia Bullmore, and Line of Duty‘s own Kelly MacDonald. Thankfully, almost everything else about this mini-series also screams excellence, especially the crackling, incisive and deeply honest writing from Clocking Off, Cracker and Shameless-stalwart Paul Abbott.

State of Play follows a group of journalists as they stumble onto the greatest story of their lives – ministerial corruption, contract killings, corporate greed, industrial espionage, illicit affairs – that pits the police, the government, and even their own friends and loved ones against them. It’s a twisting, turning, shifting, shocker of a masterpiece: a true titan of the genre. 

Watch on: Amazon Prime Video UK (available to purchase)

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Line of Duty series one to six are available to stream now on BBC iPlayer.

The post Line of Duty: the Best Crime Thrillers to Watch Next appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[cutshawsnidowoa]

A Safe Place for Domestic Violence Survivors and Their Pets

The post A Safe Place for Domestic Violence Survivors and Their Pets by Sandy Robins appeared first on Catster. Copying over entire articles infringes on copyright laws. You may not be aware of it, but all of these articles were assigned, contracted and paid for, so they aren't considered public domain. However, we appreciate that you like the article and would love it if you continued sharing just the first paragraph of an article, then linking out to the rest of the piece on Catster.com.

It’s a sad reality that any member of a household can become a victim of domestic violence, even the family cat. And, because abusers are well aware of the bond between their victims and their fur kids, they often exploit that bond to control and punish their victims. And even kill.

Here is the dark truth: In a variety of surveys of domestic violence survivors, between 49 percent and 86 percent reported that their pets had been threatened, harmed or killed by their partners.

Even though intake interviews at domestic violence shelters do not routinely ask about pets, in a national survey, 85 percent of domestic violence shelters indicated that women coming to their facilities spoke of incidents of pet abuse.

Currently, less than 10 percent of shelters have any provisions for pets to stay with their families or be kept safe until they can be reunited.

Kyle the Cat

An internet feline favorite, Kyle witnessed the murder of one of his pet parents, was held as police “evidence” until the case came to trial, and then was turned over to a shelter for adoption. And that’s where Jen Rice found him and gave him a forever home. She created an Instagram account for Kyle to highlight the issue of domestic violence.

Although Kyle passed away in 2017 after having spent seven-and-a-half years living with Jen surrounded by love and care, she continues to work tirelessly in his memory to draw much-needed attention to this problem that often exists under a veil of silence in many homes.

“We think he was abused, too,” Jen says. “He had a wonky ear, and flinched and mewed every time I tried to pet him and show him physical love and affection.

“I loved Kyle unconditionally and he meant so much to me. When I became aware that he was a survivor of domestic violence, I educated myself on the facts associated with pets and domestic violence. I was utterly shocked to learn that the majority of domestic violence shelters don’t accept pets. I couldn’t imagine having to choose between my safety and being separated from Kyle and, even worse, leaving Kyle behind in an abusive household. If anything, pets are needed the most during those trying times to provide comfort and distraction.”

Through Kyle’s Instagram page (@mycatkyle), Jen shed light on the fact that domestic violence victims have to make decisions between pets and safety. Learn more at mycatkyle.com.

Urban Resource Institute

The country’s first entirely pet-friendly domestic violence shelter opened its doors in Brooklyn, New York, last October. It’s specifically designed for survivors and their pets to live together and seek solace from abuse. The seven-story building is outfitted with 30 one- and two-bedroom apartments, where up to 100 people can heal together in safety. The shelter also includes dedicated spaces for pet grooming and play, and offers unique animal-centric programming to help residents of all species thrive.

The shelter is run by Urban Resource Institute (URI), the largest provider of domestic violence shelter and support services in the United States. In 2013, URI established the PALS (People and Animals Living Safely) Program and subsequently began retrofitting existing URI shelters with pet-friendly elements. The program now has six facilities in Manhattan.

They have had huge support from the Nestlé Purina Pet Care Company, which not only contributed to the construction of dog parks in the facilities but also provided food and welcome kits for all resident with pets. For more information, visit urinyc.org.

A cat owner spending time with her cat in the shelter. Courtesy Bayer

Noah’s Animal House

For more than 10 years, pharmaceutical company Bayer, known for a variety of flea and tick medications, has supported an organization called Noah’s Animal House (noahsanimalhouse.org), a full-service boarding facility on the grounds of The Shade Tree Shelter, the largest women’s and children’s shelter in Las Vegas. With Bayer’s help, Noah’s Animal House recently opened a second pet shelter on-site alongside a domestic violence shelter in Reno.

According to Staci Columbo Alonso, founder of Noah’s Animal House, since the founding of her organization, more than 1,600 pets have been housed close to their families so that they have access to their beloved pets.

Cats being cared for at Noah’s Animal house. Courtesy Bayer

RedRover

Purina has also joined forces with RedRover, an organization that provides temporary emergency sheltering, resources, financial assistance and emotional support when animals and people are in crisis. Through an initiative called The Purple Leash, the company is committed to giving more than $500,000 in grants to keep pets and people safely together while escaping domestic abuse. (The color purple designates Domestic Violence Month, which draws attention to this issue annually in October.) Grants available from RedRover include:

Safe Housing on-site grants enable domestic violence shelters to create space for pets to live on-site with their owners.

Safe Housing startup grants allow domestic violence shelters to create their own program to help victims of domestic violence and their pets escape together.

Safe Housing off-site grants enable domestic violence shelters to partner with another local organization, such as an animal shelter or rescue sanctuary, to build housing at their facility specifically for animals whose owners are staying at the domestic violence shelter.

Safe Escape Grants help offset the cost of temporary pet boarding while a domestic violence survivor is at a domestic violence shelter — up to 90 days.

Learn more about RedRover and these grants at redrover.org

Grants Fur Families

Bayer also launched this initiative whereby 13 domestic violence shelters in various parts of the country will receive approximately $10,000 each to help support survivors and their pets by improving their existing pet-related facilities or open on-site pet facilities for the first time. Learn more by following @Bayer4Pets on Instagram and Twitter.

The PAWS Act — Pet and Women Safety Act

Last December, President Trump signed the provisions of the Pet and Women Safety (PAWS) Act into law as part of the 2018 Farm Bill. The PAWS Act establishes a federal grant program for entities that provide shelter and housing assistance for domestic violence survivors to enable them to better meet the housing needs of survivors with pets.

The new law also takes the important step of including pets, service and emotional support animals, and horses in federal law pertaining to interstate stalking, protection order violations and restitution. These provisions provide law enforcement with additional tools for protecting victims from their abusers.

#pawsforthiscause So what can YOU do?

Work with domestic violence shelters in your area to make them aware of the various financial aid options available to them to assist residents with pets.

If you are planning to donate your car to an organization, a victim of domestic violence could be a well-deserving recipient. When victims leave an abusive situation, they often do not have their own transportation.

Offer your services to foster a pet if a shelter doesn’t have any provisions for pets.

Share the video on domestic violence created by Bayer at petandwomensafety.com. Use hashtags #GrantsFurFamilies and #GivingTuesday.

If you know someone who needs immediate help, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline 24/7 at 800-799-SAFE (7233).

Thumbnail: Courtesy Jen Rice

About the author: 

Sandy Robins is an award-winning, multimedia pet lifestyle expert, author and pet industry personality. Her feline muses, Ziggy and Tory, like to disrupt the workflow by demanding games of fetch with wand toys and directing food operations in the kitchen. Learn more about Sandy at sandyrobinsonline.com.

Learn more about Cat adoption on catster.com:

Cat Adoption Checklist: Are You Really Ready for Cat Adoption?

7 Tips on Cat Adoption

The Catty Wagon — A Custom-Built Mobile Adoption Vehicle

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[radioleary-blog]

The Password is Fidelio

Fidel Castro was found dead. Looks like our 1961 CIA secret plot to kill him was more effective than we thought! I guess they chose a more long-range method of execution, probably for plausible deniability. That way, the blame and blowback couldn’t come back to haunt the President. Of course, that was President Kennedy, so he’s the one doing the haunting now. And there was blowback for Kennedy, but it came from the grassy knoll at Dealey Plaza. Back, and to the left.

How arbitrary and unfair is the world when we lose a great man like JFK way back in 1963, but an asshole dictator like Fidel Castro got to live until right now? It might even be worse than when Chris Farley died, and yet we still have David Spade. Although, ‘Joe Dirt 2’ was such a disaster that in the credits, it lists the director as “Zapruder”.

We lost Kennedy so long ago, it was before the Beatles came to America to appear live on the Ed Sullivan Show and take America by storm. Think about that, folks. That means that if Kennedy had lived, he could have protected the U.S. from the British Invasion..! But while LBJ was exponentially deepening our military involvement in Viet Nam, we lacked the military might at home to protect the borders from an invading army of Skiffle bands and adorable, jangly guitar acts. There was no stopping them. And they weren’t always sending their best, folks. While our soldiers were fighting Ho Chi Minh, there was no one to stop Herman’s Hermits. We fought at Da Nang, we should have fought Donovan. Tet offensive? Not as offensive as the Troggs. And it was literally an invasion by The Zombies. I’m not sure what happened to them, I think after they recorded “Time of The Season,” Rick Grimes killed them with a machete.

But I digress.

Fidel Castro. If you’re young and don’t know much about this short, disheveled, rumpled, cigar-smoking old man, well, he was kind of like Peter Falk as Lt. Columbo. Except instead of going around solving murders, he went around ordering them.

But if you’re young, you don’t know who the hell Columbo is either. Columbo? Herman’s Hermits? Jesus Christ, I gotta start using references from this century. If I only knew what article of speech Wiz Khalifa was, I’d use it in a sentence.

We don’t know much about Castro’s death at this point, only that was very despondent over the break-up of a long-term relationship. Apparently his BFF Vladimir Putin dumped him recently for Donald Trump.

I hear that Castro might have survived, but the ambulance they sent for him was a 1958 Ford Edsel, held together only by bread-ties and a sense of communist solidarity. It might be a worker’s paradise, but not if you want to work in a car dealership. Thanks to our embargo, the last time there was a new car in Cuba, Fredo Corleone was driving around in it with Johnny Ola. I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart. You broke my heart!

I seriously think the best thing that came out of Cuba in the last 50 years was Godfather II. Sorry, cigars, close, but no cigar. Godfather II takes the cake, and the cake is shaped like Cuba.

And I’d have to say the second-best thing to come out of Cuba was Al Pacino again as Tony Montana in Scarface. I just wish there was more cocaine in the movie. There was more white powder in Scarface than when Jack Nicholson chased Danny through the hedge maze in a snowstorm in The Shining.

And the third-best was Al Pacino again in Carlito’s Way. Yeah, I know he was Puerto Rican in that, but so what, Pacino is cool.

Fidel Castro was the world’s most powerful Socialist. Except for one Senator from Vermont.

Now with Castro’s death, the worst island Dictator in the world is now unquestionably Jeff Probst. If Castro tortured his political prisoners as badly as any Survivor reward challenge, Amnesty International would have a stroke. And Jeff Probst has kicked more people off the island than the Mariel boatlift. “I’m sorry Elian, bring me your torch, the tribe has spoken. You’ll have to leave the island immediately. Unless you have a diplomatic immunity idol.”

It’s sad that Fidel died before realizing his biggest dream, taking over as the new host of NBC’s Celebrity Apprentice. Now who will lecture Boy George, Vince Neil and “Snooki” on workers controlling the means of production? Come on, host Arnold Schwarzenegger can’t even pronounce Marxism. “Mox-zhissom!” Nope. Castro would have been perfect, he was really good at firing people. Well, firing at people. In fact he had a whole squad of people just to do the firing. I forget what they were called. Squad of firers? No, that’s not it. Anyway, he...Firing squad! That’s it! In fact, I think the first celebrity he “fired” was Ernesto “Che” Guevara. I was hoping it would be Omarosa.

Castro left his brother Raoul to rule Cuba, and left his beard to every hipster in Brooklyn.

So long Fidel, I don’t know where you’re going, but I know it rhymes with “Fidel”.

[avanneman]

David French, daring to speak the unspeakable, so to speak

"Make no mistake," the National Review's sometimes rational (but not this time) David French warns us in light of the recent Manchester bombing, "there is an emerging bipartisan consensus that a certain amount of terrorism is just the price we have to pay to live the way we want to live. Now, to be clear, very few people will come out and say this explicitly, and national-security establishments do their best--within certain, limited parameters--to stop every single terror attack, but more than 15 years after 9/11 it's clear that there are prices our societies aren't willing to pay. And neither our nation nor any of our European allies is willing to pay the price to reduce the terror threat to its pre-9/11 scale.

"Consequently, an undetermined number of civilians will die horribly, at concerts, restaurants, nightclubs, or simply while walking on the sidewalk. It almost certainly won't be you, of course, but it will be somebody. And they'll often be kids."

Dave's fussy first paragraphs represent a variation on a favorite conservative gambit, to announce that "liberals would probably rather die than come out and say it," before "explaining" what liberals "really think," though they somehow never say so themselves. Over at the Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf graciously agrees with Dave--"sure, Dave, that's what I do think"--though Conor first points out that if you change "terrorism" to "gun ownership", you get a pair of grim paragraphs that probably won't be apperring in the National Review any time soon.1

As Conor explains, more seriously, we "tolerate" a lot of things that we could put a stop to, or at least control far more effectively than we do now. "[I]f you favor allowing cars to drive faster than 25 miles per hour, or allowing kids to ride in them, then you are willing to say that a certain amount of deaths are the price we pay to live as we want."

More words of wisdom are available regarding Manchester and terrorisim over at (appropriately enough) "Reason", where Ron Bailey points us in the direction of this article in UK's venerable Telegraph: "According to The Telegraph's comprehensive analysis, 90 people died in Britain between 2000 and 2015 as a result of terrorism [most of it due, not to Muslims but the Provisional Irish Republican Army--AV addition]. The Telegraph notes that more than 1,000 people were killed by terrorists in the U.K. during the prior 15-year period—basically a reduction of 90 percent. That decline can be attributed to the abatement of IRA terrorism after the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 and the inclusion of 271 deaths from the Libyan bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988."

Even if you take out the Lockerbie bombing, we're still looking at 90 deaths versus 750. According to Wikipedia, the total number of deaths inflicted by the IRA, from 1972 through the 1998 agreement was more than 1,800, including over 1,100 British security personnel. These figures look even larger when you consider that the UK has a population of about 65 million, compared to a U.S. population of about 300 million.

The struggle strained democracy in the UK, but it also strained the UK's relationship with the U.S., because most of the funding, and many of the weapons, that sustained the IRA came from here. Throughout this period, the IRA openly engaged in fund-raising in areas of the U.S. with heavy Irish populations. Illegal weapons shipments, particularly from New York, were common as well.2 All of which suggests that the terrorist activities of al Qaeda, ISIS, and similar groups, while hideous, are far from unprecedented and, most importantly, do not require the abandonment of our fundamental freedoms, as Dave would like to suggest that they do.3

Rather amazingly, Dave argues that there was a time--back in the Bush days--when Uncle Sam had balls and wasn't afraid to do what needed to be done. Under Bush, we had 27 terrorist incidents or "plots", while under Obama, we've had 67.4 Case closed!

Well, no. In the first place, most terrorist "plots" have been phony, under both administrations. Every FBI agent knows that "terrorist plot = promotion", so it's not surprising that they've been proliferating. Because the FBI has been inventing them. Furthermore, Dave entirely overlooks (that is to say, conceals) the fact that murders attributable to Islamic terrorists constitute nothing more than a drop to the bucket of the thousands of violent deaths that occur in the U.S. every year, about which French would do nothing, because he sees there no political profit--no political profit and no opportunity for reducing basic American freedoms--in the name of "security".

Remarkably, Dave (quite stupidly, it seems to me) even goes to the length of praising George Bush for "taking the fight to the enemy", invading Iraq and incurring tens of thousands of American casualties (which somehow don't count in Dave's figures). Some of us are even so skeptical (so wicked) as to believe that the invasion of Iraq is directly related to the emergence of ISIS5, that Bush's "War on Terror" was entirely duplicitous, unnecessary, and indeed ultimately counterprodcutive, helping to spread the scourge instead of removing it.

The "War on Terror" in both the Bush and Obama adminstrations have cost hundreds of billions of dollars and counsumed thousands of American lives. And none of this has made us "safer". On the contrary. At the same time, while there have been a few bloody incidents of Muslim terror in the U.S. during the Obama Administration, the loss of life is almost trivial--to the extent that violent death can be trivial--compared to any number of other categories of needless death. And David French's diagnosis is that we allow ourselves too much freedom. There is more than a whiff of fascism in all this--white shoe fascism, to be sure, but fascism nonetheless. And it's disappointing that a "thoughtful" voice on the right would argue so mendaciously against the principles for which the United States supposedly stands. "They hate us for our freedom? Then we won't be free any more! That'll teach 'em!"

Afterwords In an earlier "Reason" article, Brian Doherty pointed out that in continental Europe, as in the UK, deaths from terrorism were far higher in the past than now.

Of course, Conor's alternative would only apply the U.S. When it comes to guns, our "European allies" are willing to bite the bullet in a way that we sissified Americans aren't. ↩︎

Remarkably (to me, at least), the deep involvement of the U.S. Irish community in support for IRA terrorism was the subject of a (again) remarkably pointed episode of the generally "lovable" TV detective series Columbo, "The Conspirators" (1978), in which a pixiesh "fund raiser" turns out to be a cold-blooded murderer. I guess you can never tell about those Irish. ↩︎

Terrorism on the scale of 9/11 is not tolerable. But Dave doesn't talk much about 9/11 itself (because it happened on Bush's watch?). In any event, 9/11 could have been prevented by using locking steel doors for airliner cockpits, which are in fact now standard. ↩︎

Davie gets his data from the scrupulously non-partisan Heritage Foundation. ↩︎

Michael Kinsley argues this point in Vanity Fair. ↩︎