This morning, I started reading through the old work that I plan to renovate as a novella. It’s not going to look very much like it did in its original form, I believe.
I posted my thoughts about Mystery by Jonathan Kellerman on Onyx Reviews last night. I didn’t have very much good to say about it, I’m afraid. It doesn’t advance the characters a whit and it doesn’t really break any new ground in terms of the series, plus it had some serious deficits. Might be time to take a break and write another standalone.
We finished the second season of Deadwood last night. Lots of dramatic turns of events. I was most surprised by the stabbing after the wedding. The suicide didn’t surprise me nearly as much. Good to see Gerald McRaney again. I loved the parallel drawn between the wedding and the transaction in Al’s office. Let no man put asunder.
I’m this close to pulling the plug on Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior. It’s not a terrible show—it’s just one that has no purpose. The original is fine. I can’t think of many procedural spin-offs that have worked for me. Law and Order: Criminal Intent is the only one that comes to mind, and it has only eight new episodes left, and thankfully they are with Goran and Eames. Last week’s episode of CM:SB was marred by the constant outpouring of sympathy the team had for their sniper because the perp was also a sniper. I didn’t really get it, especially when they belabored the fact. This week’s was just meh.
Count me among the surprised when Winona stole some money from the evidence locker on Justified. That seemed terribly out of character, though people under stress can do stupid things. (And do we think she might be pregnant?) Then, when she just happened to end up in the middle of a bank robbery a short while later I found myself thinking the writers were really having an off week. Then I forgot about all those little quibbles when the geriatric crowd took over. A bank robber with an oxygen tank (reminded me of Piney from Sons of Anarchy) versus his old nemesis, Art, the only guy left at the U.S. Marshal’s office. The guy Raylan forgot to count when he was enumerating how many marshals were still around. Art, who backed up Boyd when he complained to the ATF guys about the way they were disrespecting Ava. It really was his episode, though Raylan got in a good few cracks, too.
My favorite Raylan retort came when he was confronting the doofuses at the bank. “Do you know where I come from? Harlan County. Down there we know the difference between dynamite and road flares.”
But the piece de resistance was the scene between Art and Frank at the airport. Slowest police chase in history. When Art threatened to shoot the oxygen tank as Frank shuffled toward his getaway plane (“Do you remember the end of Jaws?” he warned), Frank ditched the tank and kept shuffling. “My knees aren’t going to hold up to a foot chase,” Art complained. He takes chase, slowly, and returns to bring the oxygen tank with him, but he was saved further indignity when Frank collapsed when his emphysema got the better of him. As the two men lay in the dust, Art asked, “Don’t you wish you’d quit smoking now? Shit’ll kill you,” as he put a chaw of tobacco in his cheek.
Definitely an episode that would appeal to someone who was staring down the barrel of time. Frank turned out to be a charming rogue, a cagey old guy who faked out his partners so he could turn them in and take all the money for himself. That was brilliant. He just wanted one last shot at the lives he hadn’t yet lived. After he itemized all the things he wanted to do during his Shawshank-style getaway, Art asked him if his ticker was up for all that. “I was willing to give it a try,” Frank answered. Later, Raylan teases Art about his new hearing aids. “My wife kept complaining that I couldn’t hear her, but I decided to get them anyway.”
I think this was the first episode without any sign of the Bennetts. Frank made up for it. Great character.
