Formerly Piratz Tavern

Piratz Tavern, last seen getting some un-helpful aid from reality TV show Bar Rescue, is shutting down for good this weekend. Having eventually made good on my promise to give it another shot, I'm not too disappointed by that news, even if my second visit proved more pleasant that my first. The place was cleaner, service was quicker, the server remembered my orders (that seems like a low bar, but I was sitting at a table with fourteen other people, all working off separate checks), and the pirate-y banter was kept to a minimum. It may not have made for a great night out, but I didn't leave wondering what the hell I had just experienced, either.

The "if you don't like it, you can leave" arguments have persisted, among both staff and regular patrons. It's not a good look to cavil at this stage but self-restraint is not my strong suit and I'll never get this chance again: you shouldn't have to "just know" that most of the menu is best left ignored. And while a person may have a better time if they're willing to go with the flow until there's enough booze in their bloodstream that they can ignore the awkward interactions with the crew, it's not fair to expect anyone to know that going in. That is, you shouldn't have to show up tipsy in order to have a chance at a better time--it's not your cousin's dry wedding.

Lastly, the origin of "grog" is less appropriate than one might assume. It was named for a substance first brewed by the British Royal Navy (mortal enemies of pirates, basically) and introduced by Vice Admiral Edward Vernon, nicknamed "Old Grog" for the grogam coat he wore. Vernon started cutting his men's rum rations with water and lime juice to prevent spoilage as well as ongoing discipline problems among the men (and it was later found to prevent scurvy). Men who remembered the older, purer (and no doubt more satisfying) ration took to calling it "grog" and the name stuck long after those men were replaced by younger sailors with no memory of how good things used to be (scurvy-resistant though those new men were). Grog, then, is a slur for watered-down rum introduced by a well-meaning British naval officer. Not something I'd be eager to drink, but to each their own.

All that said, Piratz has gotten enough crap for wanting nothing more than to be a fun place to gather, with Bar Rescue being just its most public chapter. Looking back on that episode, I'm still not sure whether Jon Taffer was trolling the Piratz crew or whether, in attempting to air out the piratey-ness that he never quite comprehended, he had concocted the worst possible idea to turn the bar around. It's especially confounding when you watch other episodes of the show and see Taffer competently (if loudly) remaking bars without lurching from one gimmick to another. Or maybe having personal experience allows me a level of insight that I'll never be able to have with the few dozen other establish Bar Rescue has profiled. Corporate Bar was a thoroughly terrible idea--at least a Pirate gimmick is vaguely appealing.

Taffer sees bars as a money-making venture, full stop. Tracy Rebelo and her staff--along with their most faithful patrons--saw it as a place for fun. No gimmick was going to make the two sides understand one another. Cue reality television.

For my part, I'll never understand why a bar needs a gimmick at all. Its neighbor across the street never did, unless "noisy but with a good beer list" counts as a gimmick. But even if Quarry House never opens its doors again (and you can support them here), downtown Silver Spring is not losing its status as a bar haven. Because it never was one. It's a late-to-bed suburb with aspirations toward to an upscale nighttime destination. When its residents want to drink out, we take the minutes-long trip into the District. The bars lucky enough to survive here make a lot of coin as twenty-somethings become thirty-somethings and want to have their cake and eat it, too.

Goodbye, Piratz Tavern. You were never for me, but you never tried to be. You knew what you were and what you wanted to be, save for one brief, strange experiment. There's something admirable in that. I'll have a glass of (undiluted) rum in memory of that. And try to not remember all the other stuff.

The Simpsons' Warm Glowing Warming Glow

Or, Dental Plan; Simpsons Fans Need Their Fix.

Some credit is due to whoever was honest enough to tell us that 24-hour Simpsons access will inevitably be bad for our (until now) functioning civilization, leaving us all little choice but to crack each others' heads open and feast on the goo inside. I'd like to say that mainlining Simpsons episodes and being relatively productive in life are not mutually exclusive aims. But, then, I have over twenty years of experience. You might say that I am horrifyingly qualified to thrive in a world in which a Simpsons episode is playing somewhere in the background at all times. But it may be a rough transition for many others.

Simpsons World would come as happier news if over half of the show's now 552 episodes weren't coming from the bleak, post-Golden Age era. But that's a criticism you probably saw coming. Let's try again: those of us who grew up with the show, have seen every episode at least four times, and have the DVD box sets are the ones who'll be most grateful for such a thing. We're also the last people who need it. We can already run entire episodes in our heads and conjure memories of any scene for any reason no reason at all.

Somewhere, there are people sorely in need of this service (I still get sad when someone tells me they weren't allowed to watch The Simpsons as a kid--how do you even have conversations?). But they've had ample time to seek out the show and it seems unlikely to me that Simpsons World will finally make them do it. Maybe if it were bought up by Netflix or Amazon Prime, but even then...

Now, I need to be careful about how I use the first person plural here because I'm not sure to how many people this applies. The Internet makes our numbers appear larger than they are. But conversely, polite company makes us seem fewer than we are. However, there are at least several of us out there. Those of us who were raised by the show; who can quote whole episodes backward and forward; and can peg any freeze frame to a specific episode, naming the proper title of the episode and the season will be the ones embiggening ourselves through this cromulent new service (at one time, I could rattle off a few episode production codes; that's not bragging, it's just a sad, sad fact).

Essentially, Simpsons World acts as a specialized content provider, giving users every episode, along with clips, playlists, etc. Viewers can even construct their own playlists and have episodes and clips suggested for them. Meanwhile, FXX (the availability of which will, like Simpsons World, be dependent on one's cable provider having a deal with the original FX), will have broadcast rights for all episodes, and will likely air lengthier marathons in sync with new episodes being broadcast over on Fox--if an upcoming episode revolves around Krusty, for example, FXX will air a bunch of old Krusty episodes, reminding viewers of a time when they loved Krusty. In celebration of this arrangement, FXX will be running a twelve-day marathon of all 552 episodes.

So, for the cost of also having FXX grafted onto our cable packages (we still need the bundles in order to watch things, apparently), it almost seems more trouble than it's worth. Especially if, as stated, we're prepared to cling to our box sets until physical media dies. However, the playlists might make this thing worth it on their own. Many of us already have themed marathons in our heads; Simpsons World will just make them easier to construct for ourselves and others to watch. That said, I'm not sure what Simpsons fan needs recommendations.

The twelve-day marathon is intriguing, but is really nothing more than an extended version of what Simpsons fans have been doing themselves since the olden days. In those days, "binging" was called "marathoning" and nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. In college, I myself once marathoned season three all the way through solely because I was bored and had no girlfriend; that may have been kind of a chicken-and-the-egg situation. And, anyway, would it be worth sticking around much beyond day three or four, if the episodes are run chronologically? Yes, there's the easy knock again. Sorry, it's a reflex.

But that reflex may prove a point: we can't let it go. The show has entwined itself with our DNA, changing us, like when you stand next to a microwave for too long (I don't know how microwaves work). The show is a part of the way we think and a part of the way we engage with the world. And for the same reason that we can't reflect on either old or new episodes without reflexively adding "too bad the new episodes suck" we cannot turn down Simpsons swag, in whatever form it presents itself. Like moths to flame. Or Lisa to the Corey hotline. So we don't need Simpsons World. But damned if we won't use it.

It's a canny move for a fledgling network (which itself seems wholly unnecessary, but I suppose FX needs more time to show movies with director's commentary). They know we can't won't turn away. Why, once we no longer have to get up to change the discs, it won't be long before we're washing ourselves with rags on sticks.

Gotham

Far be it from me to lay into a series that hasn't yet aired.

There's so much that might be good here.

A Gotham Central-esque show could be fantastic. A slowly crumbling city, served by a still barely above board police department, that can work as a conduit for any crime story you want to tell. It's also some fertile soil for original stories and ideas because pre-Batman Gotham remains fairly well uncovered. I'm not sure audiences realize how amazing a character Jim Gordon can be, but he is well worthy of a central role in a TV show. And people love procedurals--just give viewers sixteen of those every year while slyly feeding us an overarching tale of decay. Like The Wire, but with occasional hints of Batman. Plus, Donal Logue as Harvey Bullock? Bill Rawls as... someone?! Yes, yes. Oh God yes.

And it could still be all of that. But.

Just after the one minute mark of the trailer, we see a freshly-orphaned Bruce Wayne hanging out, talking to Gordon. Nothing alarming so far. But then he's... standing on the roof of Wayne Manor? Prepping his rooftop posing routines? No. What? Why? Now those "occasional hints" are brushing against the backbone of the story, which is worrying because Batman's origin is a story that's not only already been told, but has already been told very well. It's precisely because we know what's coming that we don't need to dive into it immediately. There's something original and unique waiting to be told and it's very quickly succumbing to familiar yarns. Or worse, dull ones. Pubescent Bruce is about as un-Batman as Bruce gets. Maybe we'll delve deep into his goth phase.

(Fan-fiction idea that nobody wants: season one's finale opens with the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne and closes with Detective Gordon--a few months into his tenure in Gotham, a little less naive and a little more prepared to drag his adopted city out of the sewer--comforting young Bruce. If we have to wait to see that, it means the show has enough other things going on that it hopefully won't be using Lil' Batman as a crutch.)

Meanwhile, foreboding text shouts weird promises at us: "before Penguin," "before Catwoman," "before Riddler," "before Poison Ivy" in between smash cuts of the junior rogues because Fox is grittily rebooting the definition of "before," apparently. I wouldn't even mind, since these characters are a part of this universe in one form or another. An up-and-comer on the black market named Oswald Cobblepot, for example, could very easily be the focus of a strong season one plot line. But inside of two minutes we get written confirmation of four future villains, with Batman still some ten years from debuting in Gotham. Stay tuned for season two, when Joe Kerr, an albino child with a flair for card tricks and purple suits, confounds the GCPD's psychological profilers.

Why is thirteen-year old Selina Kyle dressing up as a cat burglar and standing on the edge of a rooftop (more rooftop brooding--is nothing sacred)? And what does it have to do with Jim Gordon? I'm going to have to watch to find out, aren't I? They're going to make me watch this thing, aren't they?

All we have is a trailer and already the Easter eggs are cloying. Like the worst excesses of Smallville (except Clark already had his powers). Or the shaky foundation of needless foreshadowing that the Star Wars prequels were built on. There is an assumption that we care about these characters from the start when in fact we need to be given a reason to care. And even when we do care, cramming them all together gives no one time to breathe and makes a lush, complex world achingly small. The more disparate elements you drag in, the less it resembles Gotham Central and the more it resembles Batman Babies.

Comic book mythologies are bloated because they've been developed over decades by dozens or hundreds of creators. The best stories pick a single conceit (or a couple of simple ones) and follow it to a new conclusion, inadvertently creating more mythology. They don't throw everything at the wall, desperately reminding fans that they haven't forgotten about everyone's favorite corner of the canon. They also don't shout out to the casual fans: "hey, don't worry, you already know this story," because they understand that those fans can sometimes care, even if they don't know exactly what's going on from the outset.

(Fan-fiction idea that nobody wants: GCPD Cyber Crime specialist Eddie Nashton grows slowly disgruntled as his efforts go unappreciated and starts a few elicit side projects trying to earn a name for himself. Casual fans get caught up in his slow turn from smarmy good guy to obnoxious quasi-villain before realizing who he's going to be. Meanwhile, diehard fans shit themselves upon recognition of his name--that's the kind of balance the Marvel movies excel at.)

Am I a pedant for reading too much into a trailer for pilot that's only just been picked up for a series? No. I'm a pedant for other reasons. Since this show is going to happen anyway, I can make but a simple request to an uncaring universe. I'm looking at something that could be a landmark for Batman storytelling getting bogged down in canon-service. Good Batman stories have already been told. Good Catwoman stories have already been told. Tell a good Jim Gordon story. Tell a good Harvey Bullock story. Tell a good Gotham story. And let the fans wind that into the rest of the mythology on their own.

Character Allignment (explained via The Wire)

I played Dungeons and Dragons once, in high school, and I haven't had the desire to replay it since. I was too fat to be beat up over playing the game, so that wasn't it. Some have suggested I had a bad dungeon-master, which is possible (I don't even remember who the dungeon-master was, even though I remember most everyone involved). But for me, D&D is too much like writing on the fly in a group, which is never ideal for producing stories. Teamwork and imaginative problem solving, sure, but not so great for a narrative, which I somehow came to assume was the point of the game (it's not). And then there's characterization. While many imaginative players can and will create interesting characters, it's all too easy to wind up with characters who are dull, single-dimensional, and monomaniacally focused on a quest or a single, vague character trait, like being greedy or noble or drunk. I blame the D&D alignment chart.

As fun as the chart can be for we nerds to play with, it's a seriously flawed tool for character building. No real, live human being can fit into one square perfectly. Abstractly, one's personality might be most at home in a particular cell, say Lawful Neutral, but will tend bleed out into adjacent cells (Lawful Good, True Neutral) as the pressures of the world force different, non-dice controlled reactions out of them. Be honest with yourself: do you fit into one of those nine paradigms every day of your life? Do your friends?
 
And if a real person has no comfortable home on the chart, what chance does a compelling, realistic character have? Or at least a character that a writer wants to be compelling and realistic. Batman, for example, after seven decades of different creators and continuities, can be made to fit into all of the alignments at once. Superman can do it, too, but you have to stretch a bit more.

Then you have something like The Wire, one of the most compelling dramatic narratives ever allowed by the powers that be to grace our television screens, with characters based on real world drug dealers, cops, and politicians. Those who have seen the show (otherwise known as The People Who Should Be Allowed to Vote) know that many of the characters contain staggering shades of complexity, shifting back and forth as the crushing reality of the Baltimore drug wars impinge upon them, playing off of each other like characters in a really good novel. It shouldn't be possible to do an alignment chart of The Wire characters, right? Probably not, but here it is:

That's... actually not bad. I wonder about McNulty, though--Chaotic Neutral seems to fit him just as well, but as much as a self-destructive fuck-up as he is, he does typically work to benefit others.

Also, if Avon is Chaotic Neutral, I'm tempted to slide Stringer into Lawful Neutral; but then I get to thinking about D'Angelo and suddenly Stringer's placement here works a bit better. For balance, you could drop Avon into Chaotic Evil, since he's just as much a part of Baltimore's rot as Stringer, but no one beats Marlo Stanfield for that title (except maybe Snoop).

And Omar is about as True Neutral as they come ("It's all in the game."), but seems to me to slide across the middle, into Lawful ("A man's gotta have a code.") and Chaotic ("Well, you see Mike-Mike thought he should keep that cocaine he was slinging, and the money he was makin' from slingin' it. I thought otherwise."). Recall season two's "All Prologue," in which Omar casually obliterates Maurice Levy.

Real people, and realistic characters, have no true alignment. Fans are welcome to have fun guessing, but writers and creators must note that, for the same reasons that their creations can never be their own, dynamic character relationships will always be too messy to fit into the alignment chart. And that to try is to needlessly diminish a character's potential.

By the way, I did run Nos Populus characters through the alignments, after finishing the book. James Reso is generally Chaotic Neutral, with forays up and down the Chaotic wing. I'll let readers decide where they think the rest of the characters fall.

Video Games and Story-Telling

L.A. Noire came out a couple of years ago to well-deserved good reviews. After running out of Uncanny Valley jokes, the player discovers that the graphics of L.A. Noire are as mesmerizing as they are groundbreaking (how many games can produce gag reels?). And the experience of roaming through post-war Los Angeles is intoxicating--almost enough to guise the fact that the driving seems interminable. And the tone; my God, the tone. Unhelpful though this phrase often is, L.A. Noire is a unique experience.

I like Raymond Chandler novels and a host of other noir-related and -inspired works, so it may seem as though I'm gushing about something I was bound to love (that co-developer Rockstar Games was then coming off Red Dead Redemption was just sweet, sweet frosting). Except... I didn't love it. The above praise runs right alongside my apprehensions about the game, the things that make me hesitant to pop the disk back into my X-Box (and then the second disk... and then the third).

L.A.P.D. Detective Cole Phelps is a miserably dull antagonist, easily out-shown by insurance fraud investigator Jack Kelso. The cases, particularly on the homicide desk, quickly prove frustrating as it becomes obvious that Phelps is being strong-armed by his superiors against the player's will (more on that later). I also don't care for procedurals, which L.A. Noire unapologetically is; this is partly a personal thing, but the best noir-ish pulp fiction is as much about quirky character moments and shaggy dog yarns as it is about the mystery.

This is not a review of L.A. Noire. No one's interested in that in 2013, including me (though I'd probably give it a B/B+). My point is that every so often I play or remember a game that gets me thinking: what makes video games work, from a storytelling perspective? More importantly, what makes the cinematic ambitions of the medium fall flat? And I'm talking specifically about the story-driven games. The Angry Birds and the Fruit Ninjas, for all their addictive properties, can't be properly judged on the same metric.

Literature (novels, short stories... you know what literature is) excels at intimate character-building: motivation, psychology, thoughts. The best novels dig deep into an idea and use slowly-developed details to create a textured whole. Other storytelling mediums can do this, but not as comprehensively. Where a story on the page may relatively lack for immediacy and clear character dynamics, it still reigns as the best medium for case study-type stories.

Television, at its best, takes the long-form format of the novel and uses it to deliver detailed character relationships and paced, intricate plotting. The really good ones explore characters and themes at length and in depth over one or more seasons (Game of Thrones comes to mind, of course, but remember that David Simon conceived The Wire as a kind of "novel for television").

Film combines all of these into a condensed run-time and go to work with rarely subtle manipulation. It rewards spectacle and sweeping scope. Some will moan about the bullying nature of the medium, but when done successfully, it's hard to complain. If the first ten minutes of Up don't devastate you, I'm not totally sure you're human. And while the last 45 minutes of Argo seemed to count off every suspense cliche in the book (yes, there is a book of suspense cliches), damned if it wasn't effective.

Video games can perform elements of all of these but they tend to lack the strong narrative thrust. There is no Dickens or Kubrick to take the player from point A to point B exactly when and how he wants to.

Roger Ebert suffered a rare lapse into ill-informed shooting off at the hip a few years back when he said that video games could never be art. To his credit, he walked the statement back (kind of). And though the original statement was short-sighted, there's some truth there. Games require a certain degree of player agency. Too little agency and the player might as well be watching a movie. Too much and there's little to no room for the developer to tell the story he wants. The developer can add music, but has little guarantee that the cues will sync up as perfectly as they do in film. He can add interior monologue, but the player may choose to skip it (and will complain if she doesn't have that option). He can create a complex, engaging lead character, but at some point the player must be allowed to put her own stamp on that character.

And he can try to force a story in a given direction, but as games have evolved into sandboxes and as they've engineered morality systems, it becomes harder and harder to tell a story honestly. If the developer's desired story needs a character to be a good, upstanding person, it falls apart if the player decides to be an immoral monster, whose only aim was to "dominate the game." To end a story in this fashion, you have to supply a series of potential good-evil-medium alternate endings and every player can tell that that was all you did.

Take the aforementioned frustration in L.A. Noire: when a developer tries to take a gamer for a ride--the sort of emotional rollercoaster ride that might be praised in a good film or book--the gamer may resent it. Not least because she expects to be able to win the game. As far as we've come, we're still limited in our ability to explore the human experience in video games the way we do with other art forms.

Red Dead Redemption gets that compromise mostly right, by killing the main character in a cut scene mere seconds after the player is forced into an ambush (yes, L.A. Noire pulls a similar character sacrifice, and if Cole Phelps were as interesting as John Marston, I'd be talking about that). While we're on the subject of genuinely artful games, Bioshock, another personal favorite, is renowned for it's eye-sexingly gorgeous environments, a surprisingly deep examination of philosophy and human nature, and a creepy atmosphere that relies on the player's imagination to fully reveal itself. It's a refreshing example of show-don't-tell that neatly covers up the fact that 80% of the plot is killing objectivist zombies.

I'm sure every developer has Earth-shattering ideas for great, cinematic games. Hell, every gamer likely has, as well: this Cracked article showcases seven decent game ideas and explains, with an empathetic quivering infecting the prose, why those games can't happen for various reasons of mechanics and logistics. I also recommend Cracked's take on ominous trends in video games, which ends up focusing mostly on the economics of the industry. Turns out that when you expensively produce distraction-oriented entertainment that'll go to market at $60 a pop, you tend to get stingy about creativity in favor of more a stable model, helping further hinder the role of "art" in the development process.

This isn't to say there isn't art in modern gaming, but there is something eating away at me as I play games that come so close to real art and just miss it.

The Continuing Promise of The Walking Dead

The best part about cautious pessimism is that it leaves just enough room to be proven wrong and not feel too bad about it. The worst part is that the cowardice of the lack of position allows no ability to gloat when you end up being sort of right. So when I wrote last fall that this third season of The Walking Dead had all the pieces to form a really solid action/horror/drama series but it that it might not do it, I wasn't saying much. I had been burned by the show before, but loved the spirit of it too much to bury the thing. And here we are, about to enter the second half of a mostly-terrific third seasons and I haven't a cowardly leg to stand on.

That'll show me. I won't be looking, but it'll show me.

Quick rundown on what went right in the first half: Lori is dead. Carl's growing into a stone cold zombie apocalypse survivor. Rick is half-mad. The Governor is more so. The town of Woodbury is one of the most interesting sociological experiments I've ever seen on television. We now have real inter-character conflict brewing, rather than a dull back and forth "what now?" And Daryl is still Daryl.

The dialogue remains a wet fart in a dark room. Too many of the characters (particularly the female ones) are still wooden and conspicuously bad at decision-making. And come season's end, we might be able to look back on some uneven pacing. But the show has made enormous strides. And for someone who's wanted to be a fan since the first promos back in 2010, that feels great to be able to say.

I've recently been playing through The Walking Dead tablet game. As an interactive, plot-driven story, it delivers a far more immersive experience than the show does. It features characters that the player may not necessarily like, but are developed enough to have what qualifies for pathos, something rare even amongst the more popular characters of the show. And because the plot branches into new directions with each decision from the player, there's much less remove from the events of the story and it's easier to feel the emotional impact of bad consequences. I haven't yet gone back through to play the game with different decisions, but it seems that most consequences are bad consequences.

The narrative differences between television and video games deserve a post or two to themselves, so I won't go too in-depth with that analysis just now. Suffice to say, there are some types of moments that may always fail to land as well as we'd like. But the moments that do are sweet.

A few episodes ago (specifically, "When The Dead Come Knocking"), Glenn was tortured for information about the group and then narrowly avoided becoming walker-chow while tied to a chair. These made for some genuinely harrowing moments, made all the more dire by Maggie's parallel experiences, after which she gave up the desired information in order to save Glenn. I don't know if the writers intentionally chose to put two of the characters the audience likes most in this situation (at least I do; my wife has expressed some misgivings about Maggie), but the episode is better for that decision.

This is what the show needs. They've shed a lot of the--sorry--dead weight. And I look forward to more of the good times. Good times for us... Rick's people suffer for our entertainment, after all.

The Following

HBO. AMC. FX.

These are networks that I could see doing something worthwhile with the premise of The Following. They might even be able to make Kevin Bacon interesting. I don't trust Fox to do either of those things.

It might be the not-so-recent shift of good drama to cable. Or the fact that those dramas have been replaced with interchangeable forensic procedural and the more recent surveillance genre, which is anything but subtle in its derision of the remaining shreds of the concept of privacy (if you want an example of the basics vs. cable, compare CBS' Person of Interest with Showtime's Homeland). Or the fact that the basics can't handle anything outside of a handful of single camera sitcoms and animated shows; and even some of those have opted/fled for the freer, more forgiving lands of cable/content providers (hint hint, Community). Or the lazy reality show ideas that now include celebrities... high-diving? Say what you will about Bravo and TLC's lineups, at least there's admirable talent on Top Chef and a surreal, David Lynch-esque psychology to the Real Housewives and Honey Boo-Boo fare. The networks, by comparison, are dull and outmoded.

Some of my friends tell me The Following looks promising. With a more creative outlet behind it, I could agree with that sentiment. But all I see is a Trojan Horse forensic drama steeped in every thriller cliche from the disgraced FBI agent to the manipulative and creepily calm serial killer. Oh, and Kevin Bacon is there, too. Did you see that Kevin Bacon is doing TV now? Yes, that Kevin Bacon: the guy you've never really liked in anything, but was never offensive, either, assuming you didn't think about his films too much (John Lithgow's son died, you shallow, narcissistic asshole). That adds intrigue to a thing you've seen a thousand times since Twin Peaks made it kind of cool, right?

We're living in a golden age of quality television (it can be easy to miss, but see here). We should all be happy for that. And it's possible that the networks have finally caught on, or will in the future. I haven't seen The Following yet. Having written this, I'll probably now have to (dammit, Fox). My sense is that, at best, it'll be the networks' launching pad into the golden age. In which case, great. At bottom--and most likely--it'll offer a decent case study of why the networks aren't getting there. In which case, at least we'll know.

I Forgot "Mr. Plow"

The A.V. Club acknowledges up front that no ten episodes can truly summarize The Simpsons. This admission takes some of the sting out of their snubbing of season five. One could nearly summarize the series by picking ten episodes from that season alone. Maybe it was an unadvertised challenge, leaving season five and making a difficult task even harder for no good reason. But then we scroll down and see "$pringfield" and "Bart Gets Famous" hanging out with the honorable mentions, teasing us. Like God teased Moses in the desert.

Still, it's not a bad list. It's not as though any of the ten episodes chosen by A.V. Club contributor Kyle Ryan fail to meet the criteria; "most quintessential" is easily conflated with "best" but is not the same. If I were allowed to list the thirty most quintessential episodes, I would surely hit all ten of Ryan's choices; and that would be thirty out of the 248 pre-fan fiction era episodes. That Ryan considered all 24 seasons for inclusion makes the job... well, marginally more difficult, anyway (his list includes the season eleven finale, "Behind the Laughter," while season fifteen's "The Regina Monologues" is among the also-rans). And that I agree with just four of his top ten has as much to do with the fact that the series is difficult to encapsulate as it does with the fact that Ryan is a stupid moron with an ugly face and big butt and his butt smells and he likes to kiss his own butt. 

This is a difficult task and it's probable that no two lists would look exactly alike. But that's the point of lists. You see someone compile a list of the greatest albums of all time and they put Nevermind at 18, while Led Zeppelin IV languishes at 69. Now you have to make your own goddamn list because that'll show 'em! Then you get stuck, because you know that London Calling and Born to Run both belong in the top five, but one of them has to give and, Jesus, this is hard, but at least it'll be better than that other list!

I had narrowed this list down to about thirty entries when it began to get hard. Ten cuts later, it got heartbreaking. That's why God gave us honorable mentions. It helped to remember that this is not a list of best or favorite episodes (still, cutting "Homer Goes to College" really hurt).

• "Treehouse of Horror" - Included here as a stand-in for all the "Treehouses" that followed. As the show went to hell, you could usually expect good things from these, even when they were airing closer to Thanksgiving.
• "The Way We Was" - Ryan chooses this one for its indispensable Simpsons mythology. And while it wasn't the best flashback episode they'd do (that would be "Lisa's First Word"), it did make the rest possible.
• "Marge vs. the Monorail" - The Simpsons does singing and dancing better than the original musicals it parodies. Of course, it helps when you have Phil Hartman. 
• "I Love Lisa" - Lisa gets an unfair rap from fans, oblivious to how important pathos is to comedy. And this episode has that in spades. And some prime Krusty material to boot.
• "Last Exit to Springfield" - Call and response time: "Dental Plan..."
• "Cape Feare" - You want to know how wrong Ryan's list was? No Sideshow Bob. On a list of the most quintessential Simpsons episodes, Bart's second mortal enemy goes unlisted. No stepping on rakes, no Die Bart Die, no H.M.S. Pinafore, no "Hello, Mr. Thompson." For shame, Ryan. I Kill You Scum.
• "Rosebud" - While "Last Exit" provides a decent dosage of Mr. Burns, no such list is complete without the full Monty.
• "Bart's Inner Child" - Two things: 1, Albert Brooks. 2, Springfield's easily provoked mob mentality, displayed more beautifully here than in perhaps any other episode. 
• "Bart Sells His Soul" - The Simpsons did religion/spirituality better than anyone before or since and this one toes the line of spiritual crisis without spilling into melodrama, something the subject often seems prone to. The sheer volume of Milhouse doesn't hurt, either. Plus, you know, ALF. In pog form.
• "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show" - There, but for the Grace of God... 

Comic Book Guy: Last night's Itchy & Scratchy was, without a doubt, the worst episode ever. Rest assured that I was on the Internet within minutes, registering my disgust throughout the world. 

Bart: Hey, I know it wasn't great, but what right do you have to complain? 

Comic Book Guy: As a loyal viewer, I feel they owe me. 

Bart: What? They're giving you thousands of hours of entertainment for free. What could they possibly owe you? If anything, you owe them. 

Comic Book Guy: *pause* Worst episode ever.

Also ran:

• "Homer at the Bat"
• "Homer the Heretic"
• "Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie"- Possibly the first to ever to be dubbed "worst episode ever"
• "Lisa's First Word"
• "Homer Goes To College"
• "The Boy Who Knew Too Much"
• "Itchy & Scratchy Land"
• "You Only Move Twice"
• "Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment"
• "Behind the Laughter"

(Picture courtesy Simpsons quotes that nobody gets anymore)

David Petraeus (Ret.), Reality TV Star

I feel like I'm supposed to care about the Petraeus thing. I tried, too. Nothing's clicking for me on this one.

As far as I can tell, there's no deep national security significance, at least not given that Petraeus has resigned and the biography's been written (unethical, maybe, but that's more on Broadwell than Petraeus) and that he's still available for any questions we might have. Sure, it could mean the guy's ego was so huge that he thought no one could take him down. But it's just as likely that the guy was humble enough to know that he needed to step back. All character hypotheticals are moot now that he's gone, anyway. At worst, this thing makes him the last in a line of 2000s-era War on Terror guys to to have the bear eat them, rather than the other way 'round. Probably not great for national morale, but what from the Bush II years is? I say junk the whole lot of it. Forward, etc.

And this is the CIA, for Christ's sake. When did morality become a standard for judging anyone over there? You don't have to be an adultery apologist to see the disconnect of priorities here. Drone warfare? Shit, what's that? Powerful guy consensually boning two separate women who aren't his wife? Raging media hard-on. Sure, it's slimy, but come on.

It doesn't matter how long ago graduation was, we're all stuck in high school. And where do semi-powerful, emotionally-stunted-at-high-school, semi-powerful adults best fit in? That's right: reality TV. I've seen several people comment that the entire embarassment would make for some ripping good melodrama. That should be a sad observation, but I say let it be done. At least there, it'll be relegated to a realm I don't have to pay attention to. Put them out there and let them play in the sandbox of their making, wallowing in the precise amount of dignity they've earned for themselves. And we'll watch them, chortling and groaning in equal measure, because TV's bottomless chum bucket has claimed Vanessa Redgrave respected, high level government officials.

When The Walking Dead Shows Promise

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.

The problem with The Walking Dead has always been one of expectations. The show as a whole was probably never going to live up to that amazing pilot that set the bar so high, but neither was it totally unfair of us to expect that it would. The conceit of the show promises one of two things, either of which could make for great television:

1. A sustained psycho-drama focusing on the slow deterioration--and possible resuscitation--of the human spirit in the face of crushing apocalypse.
2. Straight-up zombie-killin'.

Sadly, TWD never really succeeds at either of these. Not consistently, anyway. The show occasionally finds time for really creative zombie kills (such as last season's "Triggerfinger," when the walker came for Lori, while she was trapped in an upside-down car). However, those comprise about ninety seconds out of fifty-two minutes. The rest of the run-time is often devoted to Rick's vacillations about what the group should do next. That in itself could be worthwhile if it didn't stretch for ten episodes. And if the creators had better staged the Rick vs. Shane, good vs. evil struggle for the group's soul. But they never could and the group went nowhere. And then Shane was dead.

Meanwhile, characters bicker back and forth and engage in aimless relationship squabbles--yes, relationship squabbles, because no one on this show has a sense of perspective. And that's how, like any other soap opera, all the characters become unlikable no matter how much you really want to like them. Well, not "all the characters;" the show could improve immeasurably if they kill off every character whose name doesn't rhyme with "barrel." 

And this disappointment is made worse because it's borne out of frustration. Because every so often, TWD demonstrates what it's capable of.

The first season--limping some after the pilot--ended with the destruction of the CDC and a group of survivors on the road, with no safe haven. That could make for some great drama in the second season, with these people moving into new, hostile territory every week and learning about the post-zombie apocalypse world. Then the whole group is consigned to The Farm. Promising new arcs were teased there, only for most of them to fizzle out, if they got that far. Lori is pregnant and Shane is dead. You're caught up.

Then, the climax of "Pretty Much Dead Already" capped off a half-season-long arc about Sophia's whereabouts in an earth-shattering way. It was stunning. And heartbreaking. Yeah, the slow-burn reveal came about two episodes later than would've been ideal, but we could let that slide. After all, this meant they finally got to leave The Farm. It meant several characters confronting new realities and new roles within the group. It meant that the writers were finally done biding their time. And then... they stayed on The Farm. And nothing changed except that instead of talking about "finding Sophia," they were talking about "remember how Sophia used to be alive?" It was remarkable how fast the show fell back into a rut.

Then there was that season's finale, which opened with a literal barnstorming: a big, lengthy group kill-in of invading walkers. It was exciting and satisfying in every way that this series had missed out on being since the pilot. Now they had to leave The Farm. And now the group was split up, promising new drama. But, just moments after Rick is breaking down over the fact that his wife is missing and his group has splintered, most of the group rolls into view, hugs are exchanged, and nothing more is said. Andrea is missing, I guess, but she runs into Michonne, who--even for those (like myself) who haven't read the comics--already looks crazy badass. Meanwhile, back at the group, people are getting hyper-pissy about Rick keeping secret the thing about everyone being infected. Which, yeah, dick move. But, really, what were you going to do with that information except moan? You know, like you're doing right now. Just twenty minutes previously, we were wallowing in zombie-rific action and now we're mired in the same old go-nowhere muck, with a slight hint at an exciting new direction. Like the direction we've been promised before and have yet to see the fruits of.

And yet we tune in. Because we know the tools are there. We know the material exists in abundance because we've seen them tease some truly great stories and we can't help but think about the possibilities. As Cracked's Dan O'Brien has written:

The Walking Dead is successful because people are tuning in but watching a different, better show in their imaginations, every single week.

Which leads us to last night's season three premiere. The Farm is a (bad) memory. The group is on the move and Rick is finally looking assertive and decisive; nothing like killing your former best friend/cuckold/would-be murderer to get the blood flowing. The introduction to the prison has pitfalls of its own, but it might be worthwhile for the introduction of a new crew of survivors, assuming they don't squander that opportunity, as they did in "Nebraska" last season. The Governor may force some interesting character choices.  And T-Dog got more than half a line. There are a lot of places to go from here, most of them good. Things might finally be looking up for The Walking Dead.

But I think I've said that before.

Political Ad Nauseam

For the first time in my life, I'm living in a media market inundated by presidential ad campaigns. I suppose that Virginia proved to be a bellwether late in the 2008 race, but I don't recall all that many ads at the time. Or perhaps I wasn't watching as much TV. The real kicker is that I don't even live in any swing territory; neither Maryland or DC are up for grabs. Obama and Romney are fighting over the handful of counties on the other side of the Potomac that just happen to share airwaves with the rest of the DC Metro area.

Initially, I refused to keep track of the ads that popped up during the Ravens-Eagles game on CBS yesterday (couldn't even flee to Fox since there was only the one game on at 1:00). But before long I realized that I was subconsciously keeping score ("keeping score" being one of those sicknesses that poisons modern political thinking and why people like me shouldn't be allowed to comment on politics). Here a Romney ad, there an Obama ad.  They seemed to be coming one for one. As the ads continued, and the game itself became more and more absurd, and I began to succumb to a migraine that I will assume is unrelated to the nonsense on my screen, I left the room altogether to take a nap. I've since happily forgotten how many ads I endured during the first half and the fourth quarter. But I can--and will, despite myself--try again next week. And the week after. And every week until the election, through Week 9: over half the regular season drowned in political ad nauseam.

I think I understand some of what the undecideds and un-interesteds have been griping about all these years. If you don't care about the election, there's a decent chance that your only exposure to the candidates and the issues are through these ads. And if you only know the election through the ads, you have every right to hate everything about politics. One guy says the other is lying; the other hurls back the same charge, with slightly different sinister music. One guy makes a claim that you know can't be verified but sounds good; the other makes a very similar-sounding and equally vague claim. Without context, politicians really can start to blend together in the mind's eye, giving rise to the very false common wisdom that "they're all alike." Even the positive ads grate, unrelenting and legion as they are--and because they remind us that we haven't yet seen the last of this campaign. It's enough to make a sane and decent person swear off the institution altogether.

And if I were slightly more cynical, I'd theorize that this is exactly the game plan--shake off the interest of everyone except the die-hards, who are so much more reliable and easier to control. Eventually, those are the only people you're talking to until political discourse on the airwaves is indistinguishable from the Internet.

Bar Rescue, "Piratz"

Piratz was--and is again--a bar in Silver Spring, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, DC. It is pirate-themed. And it is not doing well. Owner Tracy Rebelo is, we are told, $900,000 in debt and living with her teenage daughter in her parents' basement. Hence the bar being featured in an episode of a reality TV show (if it had been thriving, Piratz could've gotten a nine-episode deal for its own show).

Spike TV's Bar Rescue pits bar expert and nightclub consultant Jon Taffer against bar-owners and their failing businesses. Taffer is a self-aggrandizing asshole, who yells far more than should be necessary for an adult. But nice, reasonable people don't usually get reality shows, so there you go. And we quickly see that, despite his flaws, Taffer generally knows what he's talking about and that he has the connections and resources to give struggling bars anything they might dream of.

As soon as the episode begins, Taffer is hung up on the idea that a pirate bar is an innately awful idea--especially in Silver Spring. I think he's half-right. A pirate bar could feasibly do well in places like St. Petersburg, Florida, or Nassau, Bahamas, where people might reasonably be looking for piratey kitsch. Keeping it in DC, a friend remarked to me that a place like Piratz--albeit toned down--might perform well in an area like H Street, where quirkiness is rather more likely to be embraced. But what Rebelo has is a building in downtown Silver Spring, where office workers dominate the lunch and happy hours, and the nighttime crowd isn't so gung-ho about donning their pirate gear, either.

Taffer rightly decides to target the office workers. He less rightly decides on an office-themed establishment, complete with motivational posters and While You Were Out notepads. Because everyone wants to go drink and have lunch in the same atmosphere in which they were just working. He also renames the bar: "Corporate Bar and Grill" (for all that Taffer is good at, he has trouble with names. In another episode, he re-christens a California dive-bar "Racks." Did I mention that this was in an attempt to differentiate the bar from the strip club next door?). Before the makeover, Rebelo pleas to Taffer that she doesn't want her bar to become just another soulless enterprise. Taffer replies that businesses don't have souls. And that's true. But in the bar business, it seems to me--and I have no claim to the knowledge or experience that Taffer has--the successful businesses are the ones that can project the veneer of a soul. Ostentatiously removing any trace of that seems to invite only the ironic visitors, looking for a quick larf at the idea that they're sipping PBR's at a board room table. 

But any of these solutions (moving the bar, changing the bar) assumes good management to see them through. Piratz real problem is that neither Rebelo nor her staff know what they're doing. Worse still, they don't seem to know that they don't know what they're doing. I visited Piratz with some friends a few years back and it wasn't until watching Bar Rescue that I was able to identify exactly what was wrong. I owe Taffer that much credit.

When a couple of Taffer's acquaintances sit down to do some reconnaissance (while wearing pirate gear because--and this is true--such attire the only hope for quick attention from the servers at Piratz), they are greeted by would-be episode stealer One-Eyed Mike, who slurs "just gonna seat yerselves wherever the fuck ye like, are ye?". This is roughly the level of awkward that I recall. And we haven't even gotten into the more important aspects of bar hospitality. Taffer soon sees that the menu is too long, that the atmosphere is more distracting than it is enchanting, and that the staff manages to be both inattentive and intrusive. I can confirm all of these from experience. It's little surprise that the food and drinks are lousy; what kind of quality comes to mind when you think of the authentic pirate diet?

I won't even get into the push-back from the Piratz staff. Their attitude is that this is a pirate bar and that anyone who doesn't like it should leave. It's a twist on the "haters gonna hate" logic that's so insidious because it's simultaneously wrong and irrefutable.

When Rebelo asks her staff at the new Corporate Bar, "How bad do we just want a vat of grog right now?" it's genuinely depressing. She never wanted a bar. She wanted a place to dress up with simpatico Renn Faire dorks whose passion would be perfectly acceptable (healthy, even), if they could put it aside long enough to acknowledge the damage it was doing. What Rebelo has is an insanely expensive hobby. She knew enough to call Bar Rescue and set up the potential turnaround, but couldn't be bothered to look at all the problems Taffer loudly pointed out to her. She didn't need a streetwise consultant; she needed an intervention.

According to the episode's postscript, the pirates reclaimed Corporate Bar within days of Taffer's exit. I considered paying them a second visit, just to bookend this post. And I may yet do that, just for the curiosity of what Yelp tells me is now a disconcerting hybrid of the old Piratz and the former Corporate Bar. But curiosity is what led me to Piratz the first time. And if Bar Rescue has taught me anything, it's that you need to learn from your mistakes. Otherwise, Jon Taffer will yell at you a lot.

Moving

Few things compare to the emotional, psychological, and physical toll of having half of one's life consigned to boxes, with the other half still to be boxed. There are worse fates, of course; petty, unjust imprisonment, for one. But among life's more banal hardships, moving remains the king of White People Problems Mountain.

I've moved something over a half dozen times in my life (not counting in-and-out-of college dorms, which should never count). One trick I've learned to stave off the spiritual costs of moving is to have beloved television shows provide background noise for the packing marathon. Unfortunately, our DVDs were among the first things that were packed--I sure hope someone got fired for that blunder--depriving us of the first eleven seasons of The Simpsons (I consider anything after that to be fan fiction, at best). But Netflix streaming has sufficed. We started with Archer (you can add season three anytime, Netflix), before moving onto Parks and Recreation, which we're now through for the third or fourth time. Turns out Bob's Burgers is available for streaming, so that'll probably be next. We could shotgun Arrested Development again, but I seems a waste to stream a show I already have on DVD, even if the discs are presently confined to a box at the bottom of a mountain of boxes. It'd be nice if Party Down were still available; almost as nice as if Party Down had never gotten canceled

It'd be nicer still if my laptop's backlight hadn't given out, leaving me without a portable method with which to reach Netflix. My wife has a working laptop, of course, but she's been using it to feed her mild addiction to Bar Rescue (a show that's inspired a few thoughts, some of which may end up here soon).

I suppose I could watch the Republican National Convention while I finish packing (or the DNC, for the unpacking), but I don't hate myself that much. Sure, it means passing up a few scraps of semi-decent blog material, pried from the sickly muck of over-cooked tripe. And, yes, it means missing out on the handful of short-lived, shorter-traveled memes that will spring from the accidental belch of one professional bloviator or another during the otherwise uber-choreographed circle jerk. But, again, the required level of disregard for my basic well-being is a little beyond my reach at the moment. I'd like to be able to live to see my next apartment.

This is all longhand for saying that there may not be a lot of updates round here for a few more days. Enjoy the last weeks of summer, children. Fall will not be so kind.

Intro to Sympathetic Characters

Community is one of the most clever and creative shows on television today.  It's certainly the most ambitious sitcom going, perhaps ever.  And it has John Goodman occasionally.  Commercially, it's been rough, yes, but I'd rather get a handful of seasons of an Arrested Development than another nine-and-counting seasons' long sludge pump of Two and a Half Men.  I love the show.  And I hope it gets its six seasons.  A movie?  Eh, maybe.  But I'd see it regardless. 

That said...

I want to like the show more than I do.  Part of it is that I'm more of a Parks and Recreation guy (oh, Ron Swanson) and the stupid, baseless competition between the two fan groups has been hard to totally stay out of.  But most of it is the bear-hug embrace by its fans.  Pop culture nerds and Internet-shackled geeks (among whom I count myself and a number of friends) worship the show and I get why.  However, that sort of thing also runs into a neurosis of mine: the contrarian streak.  If I don't already adore something--and sometimes even if I do--it's hard for me to hear constant praise of it without wanting to become a dissenting voice, even if I have no real desire to dissent.  I call it the Joss Whedon-effect.  It's unfair, irrational, and entirely my problem.  I'd like to say it makes me a stronger critic of writing, both my own and that of other people, but it has very little practical application and is kind of dickish.  And it forces me to obsess over cracks that may not be a big deal otherwise.

Very few shows work well when their characters are hard to sympathize with.  Everyone knows All in the Family made a horrible and unlikable person basically sympathetic by showing why he was the way he was (it helps, I think, that most every family has an Archie Bunker).  Cheers' Cliff Clavin was generally more obnoxious than horrible, but fans knew there was a good guy in there--he just happened to always be trying too hard.  Some shows get away with making characters bad people, but work because we understand--and maybe even share--the badness and because it's funny: Seinfeld is still the king there.  I already mentioned Arrested Development, where the lack of sympathy is probably part of what doomed the show, but the regular watchers whom the show rewarded (much as Community does its die-hards) saw enough glimpses of humanity underneath the cartoons; and for shows where the cartoons are funny enough (see 30 Rock in its prime), this works.  Then there's the professional wrestling model, where as long as the heel gets his comeuppance every so often, he can sink to any depths.  South Park can get away with having Eric Cartman do vile, vile things, so long as he's appropriately beaten down a couple of times a season (it also helps that he's nine).  Which brings me back to Community and Abed Nadir. 

At the end of last October's "Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps," we see that a series of personality tests taken by the group--tests which had previously been assumed to identify one member of the group as a "psychopath" and are then shown to be interpreted backwards, producing six psychopaths and one "normal"--has revealed Abed to be the most normal of the group.  Now, ignoring the fact that if any of them is normal, it's Troy (a friendly, likable, eager guy who's maybe a little dull-witted at times but that's about it), this still seems disingenuous.  Season Two's "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas" was one of a few that has highlighted how deep Abed's psychoses go.  Now, a character as thoroughly screwed up as Abed can still be a decent person, and in a sitcom setting may even be charming.  But when we're also supposed to swallow that he's the sane one?  With that revelation, I began to suspect that Abed may be the show's way of rationalizing the socially awkward behavior of its nerd fanbase (of which I am one).  That what's most important to be yourself, at the expense of anyone and everyone around you.  "Digital Exploration of Interior Design" from a few weeks ago features Abed refusing to compromise on something so trivial as blanket fort versus pillow fort, in a literary reference no one could miss: of course it would be the show's resident manchild who would demonstrate the most John Galt-tendencies, even moreso than the resident industrialist.  And at least Pierce Hawthorne is acknowledged as an asshole in the show's universe.  

Then came this week's episode: "Virtual Systems Analysis."  In it, Abed descends to the lowest point that I think he can for me.  In the beginning of his fantasies, he describes his mission as Dr. Spacetime to protect "innocent unremarkables."  He later huffs and wants to give up playing when Annie doesn't play exactly as he wants.  Remember: we're presumably supposed to like this guy; this guy who makes everyone stop what they're doing to indulge his fantasies.  His roommate and best friend Troy tells Annie that she has to be careful around him, not to "break him."  This seals it then, doesn't it?  Abed's a fragile, selfish child that the others put up with because the point of the show is that friendship trumps everything.  Well, if it trumps everything...

But then, the show did something less expected and very welcome.  Go see it if you haven't already, but for the first time since October, it breaks Abed down and admits angrily points out that "there is something wrong here" and more remarkably, Abed appears to accept it.  He is given comeuppance and comes out a tad healthier--he gains empathy.  He may or may not still be the sane one, but at least that can no longer function as armor. 

Series creator Dan Harmon has announced that he, like Abed, has Aspergers and frequently has trouble empathizing with people.  In that light, Abed's recent arc makes a lot more sense.  A writer can come up with some very powerful stuff when working through personal issues.  With this, the former rationalization of horrible selfishness and childishness becomes Dan Harmon hitting a wall with his own issues, which lends itself to Abed's revelation.

Abed probably hits a little close to home for me.  Not just the aforementioned contrarian streak, which causes me to start picking apart the most mundane things in an attempt to understand them (much the same as Abed does, albeit coming from a different place).  Nor the occasional social awkwardness.  My empathy sense fails on occasion, too, and while it's again coming from a different place (my WASP-yness, his emotional trauma) the fall backs to pop culture tropes in place of genuine emotion (sci-fi television in his case, The Simpsons in mine) strike a chord.  But also because, perhaps like Harmon, I created a character who is too much like me for my own liking.  All of my characters are me, some more so.  James Reso actually became easier to write when I accepted that, had a dozen or so things gone differently, he could be me.  Or not too unlike me. 

So it was all the more troubling when I was having friends read early drafts of Nos Populus and a common note was that James could often be childish, irritating, or even cruel (sound familiar, Abed?).  And, it's true, he can be those things.  But for the book to readable, I needed to pull back and show James' human side, how he got to where he was, and how he could also be a decent guy when he understood what he was doing.  If I could do that, then the reader's reaction to the bad things he does later is more in line with what I wanted.  Or at least, the reader's reaction is something other than "couldn't have happened to a more deserving son of a bitch."  Did I succeed?  Read it and tell me. 

I'll give Community the benefit of the doubt and assume they'd been working Abed to make this turn all along.  And, like with Pierce last season, they needed to push him to his worst in order to redeem him (even if Pierce's payoff never totally happened).  But it required a good long stretch of Abed being near unbearable.  And maybe they can "put him back together" as Annie seemed to this week.  But if they can't, and the demands of an ongoing television show bar them from making that kind of permanent change, is it deserving of it's fans, it's viewership?  Was the character--and it's creator--ever worth our time and investment?   

Well, maybe for now I'll just hope that Community can do it.