My wife thinks I’m Tuco.

Twice in two days, the same lame scenario.

We’ve been following The Strain, an FX series that strangely anticipates the Ebola crisis. Vampires assault New York with a contagion spread by bodily fluids. The purported hero, a CDC doctor, looks and sounds almost exactly like the CDC director who keeps assuring us there’s nothing to fear. Last night was the season finale. The real hero, an old man who’s been there and done that since the concentration camps of WWII, finally corners the master vampire and has a chance at ending the crisis and the series. But he doesn’t.

"I've been waiting for 70 years to kill you. Let me tell you how much I want to cut off your head and end this...

“I’ve been waiting for 70 years to kill you. Let me tell you how much I want to cut off your head and end this…

Keep talking old man while I escape into Season 2...

Keep talking old man while I escape into Season 2…

So, with that bad taste in our mouth, we watched several episodes of the new BBC entry Intruders. Bad people have the ability to occupy human bodies and keep doing their dirty work. One guy seems to know what’s going on and he tracks down the little girl into whom the chief malefactor has transferred his diabolical spirit. He has her in his gunsight and lets her get away because she acts so much like a little girl. Which puts her on the run, with the aid of a nice woman who also thinks she’s a frightened little girl. In the car, the woman gets hints that the girl is not just troubled but deeply weird. Yet she can’t resist the urge to keep asking more and more probing questions. To which the girl finally answers, “You talk too much.”

Proof being, nice woman is savagely murdered at the next rest stop.

But the would be hero keeps tracking her and finally runs her to ground at the house her previous identity had occupied, where the current owner has just been, uh, savagely murdered. By a little girl we’re starting to understand pretty well. Hero has her in his gunsight again and what does he do? He talks about their past relationship and how disappointed he is with having to kill the new persona.

I absolutely, positively have to kill you this time...

I absolutely, positively have to kill you this time…

Actually, sport, I have to be going...

Actually, sport, I have to be going…

I confessed my fading faith in both these shows to my wife. I illustrated with this clip:

To which she replied, “Tuco. That would be you.”

Okay. I guess it would be. Why I never get renewed for a second season or a sequel or anything. My bad.

4 comments

  1. Tim’s avatar

    Sorry for being away but I’ve been under the weather this week with definitely-not-ebola. Thanks for the warning about these two shows. Sounds like they follow Batman morality. That means you never, ever, ever, ever, ever kill any villain or allow them to die. Why? Because that would make you a killer, of course! And then you’d be NO DIFFERENT from them. Gotta bring those baddies to “justice”, which means arresting them, putting them on trial, then getting them locked up at taxpayer expense…until they inevitably break out again and kill more people.

    Batman has been sticking unflinchingly to this model for, what, fifty or sixty years? Last I checked, Gotham City is still filthy, corrupt, and not any safer to walk around in at night. And it’s funny, but you never see Batman advocating NRA range classes or the passage of concealed carry legislation. So how does that go with the liberal mindset? “*I* can be a vigilante b/c I’m rich and can do it better than you. But kill a mugger in self-defense and you bet your ass I’ll haul you off to jail for illegal possession of a firearm!”

    I bring this up mainly b/c of another new show. It’s the umpteenth Batman story being foisted on audiences, namely Fox’s new show Gotham. This one is unique, though, because it will not actually feature Batman since he is 11 years old. Its creators were behind CSI and the Mentalist, to give you some idea of its writing pedigree. Uh, you can skip it in case you were wondering.

  2. Instapunk’s avatar

    Not an argument you can make against The Strain. There have been more beheadings on this show than you’d find credible on network television. The problem I cited was a lapse. The old guy has a sword cane and he whacks heads off at a terrific rate. They just caved clumsily to ensure a Season 2. Bad writing that does no justice to the most violent show on TV. Hell. Even the CDC guy has decapitated a few…

    Otherwise I understand your point.

  3. Ron’s avatar

    The revived Doctor Who does this also. No matter how evil WhateverItIs the Doctor is up against this week, it always turns out to be either misjudged, misunderstood, or the Doctor is just too Above and Righteous to permanently end it.

    Then again, he’s never been up against a same-sex marriage opponent. He’d probably eviscerate one of those, and laugh while devouring its liver.

    @Tim: I hear ya on the Batman mentality. I liked Doc Savage’s approach. He took the baddies off to his secret lab, where he performed brain surgery on them and returned them to society as janitors and such.

  4. Mrs. IP’s avatar

    Tuco? Tuco? I never said that. I said shoot first, talk later.

    You are the “Good” and handsome. My Rock star.

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