I like winning contests. Gives me a boost. The theme for the 2014 AE Micro contest was “senses,” so I wrote a flash story called “Phantosmia,” which was one of the five entries selected for publication in this little do-it-yourself booklet. It’s a neat concept. If you’re so inclined, you can print the pdf and follow the instructions to assemble a booklet containing the winning entries. Not quite as hard as putting together IKEA furniture. Otherwise, you can just read the five stories at their website. Mine is on page 5.
Phantosmia means phantom smells, which is a symptom some people who have seizures experience. Unfortunately, the smells are generally bad odors rather than something you might appreciate, like chocolate. The story is only 200 words, so it won’t take more than a minute or two for you to digest.
I’m about 2/3 of the way caught up on The Blacklist. What a delightfully immoral/amoral character Red Reddington is, and I couldn’t picture anyone else doing it the service that James Spader does. He is a Renaissance man and a hedonist who cares deeply for those in his inner circle but who is willing to pull the trigger on anyone who crosses him. He is judge, jury and executioner. He denies that he’s Lizzy’s father, but he thanked her adoptive father for raising her (before putting a pillow over his face). He insists her husband Tom is bad news without providing any evidence to back up his allegations. I wonder why he doesn’t just take Tom out if he perceives him as such a threat. Good to see Alan Alda pop up, too.
The penultimate season of Justified finished last night. Quite a few bangs, but also a big setup for the context of Season 6. Raylan’s gambit with Kendal makes more sense now: he wasn’t expecting Daryl to leap to his nephew’s defense. He was expecting Kendal to grasp the seriousness of his situation and recant his confession. I liked Raylan’s monologue about being forced to kill a pig by his father. Also the way he handled Kendal, threatening adult repercussions, but getting him a hot cocoa. Turns out, Raylan’s ploy went somewhere in the middle: he convinced Wendy, who was the one who ultimately got her son out of trouble. He didn’t interfere when she decided how to handle her brother, and he got his last lick in at Daryl, too. “Didn’t I tell you you were gonna wish I’d killed you? Well. Dontcha?”
Tim’s a pretty fearless guy, standing up to Daryl Crowe, who must have five or six inches and a good chunk of pounds on him. But Tim has been in dark places and confronted people vastly more dangerous than Daryl. He tends to take risks, though, like trying to follow his prey through a live intersection, a decision for which he paid the rest of the episode. Notice how he’s taking ibuprofen and rubbing his temples later on. Rachel’s no slouch, either, confronting the three Mexicans (“In case it wasn’t obvious, this is the part where you drop your guns”) and caressing Boyd’s coat as she tells him that getting him is now her personal mission in life.
Boyd was in a major pickle, but he put all his eggs in one basket: Raylan. He figured his old nemesis would get him out of trouble, and it paid off. Poor old Jimmy didn’t have such luck, and Boyd himself narrowly avoided becoming someone’s skin suit, and also being stuck in a cage, like a parrot. What exactly does Yoon do with the flesh of his enemies, that’s what I want to know. Boyd pulls of a neat little behind-the-back shot that he boasts about to Tim, who responds, “Good guys don’t need to shoot people with their hands cuffed.” At least Boyd had the decency to fix up Ava’s place after the shootout. One of the Mexicans was played by the actor who was one of those chilling Salamanca brothers from Breaking Bad.
Ava proved she could handle herself in tight spots but her overall situation in prison was becoming untenable. She had a perpetual target on her back. So when Raylan came back with another offer, she didn’t have much choice. It wasn’t quite as good as the last one: instead of getting Boyd to cooperate with the Feds, she now has to spy on him. Raylan was all set to go to Florida (so Winona can finally take a nap), and was deflecting all objections to his departure until the idea of taking on Boyd arose. It’s funny that he thought the person at the center of all the calamity in Kentucky was himself at first.
So, not exactly an explosive season finale, as these things go, but rather a launching pad for things to come. Boyd seems thrilled at the prospect of getting back to robbing banks, and it’s not entirely clear whether Vasquez is really after Boyd or Katherine Hale, who may have been the brains of her husband’s operation, if that smile of hers is to be interpreted.
Don’t be scared. Everything’s gonna be fine.
