Fear the Reaper

The website for Nancy Kilpatrick’s Danse Macabre anthology is now online. I received my contributor copy last week, and the book will launch at World Fantasy in Toronto. My contribution is “Therapy,” which won the final Wee Small Hours contest when Hellnotes was run by Judi Rohrig.

I finished editing and submitted my essays to Screem magazine this weekend. The main piece was 5400 words long and the companion piece was 2700 words. I won’t reveal the subject matter, but there’s also an interview as part of it.

I also whittled my next Dead Reckoning review piece down to 1500 words, so it was a productive weekend, all in all.

I finished the first season of The Closer. I think I remember some of the episodes, but not all of them, so I may go on to the second season to see if I can find where I picked up on a regular basis. I like the symmetry of the first season, which opened with a mass resignation in protest over Brenda leading the new division and ended with a mass resignation in protest over the complaint Taylor launched against her. The turning point for Flynn was clearly the moment when Brenda backed him in the allegations that he may have planted evidence to convict a serial killer. She never wavered in her support of him, so when the tables were turned, he did the same.

We’re tearing through season two of Justified. That Bennett clan. What a bunch.

Heading into the mid-term break for Burn Notice. A few good explosions and twists in last week’s episode, which I only got around to watching yesterday. All that subterfuge for a couple of initials, but once they had the file, the head of the private security firm just blurt out the guy’s name. I wonder where that will all lead. Apparently the actress who played Angela is a big telanovela star. She and the script were good. I didn’t see that coming.

An interesting turn of events in Breaking Bad. First we had to deal with the blow-back from the final moments of last week’s episode. The entire time they were cutting up that motorcycle I’m sure most people were translating that into a similar process for the boy’s body. A smart way to depict a dismemberment without spilling a drop of blood. Walt then breaks down their options for dealing with Todd and Jesse essentially doesn’t get a say when Mike sides with Walt. But Hank is starting to crawl up Mike’s butt too much, so he’s out. And Jesse’s out. Everyone’s out except Walt, who can’t stand it that he sold his share in his college venture for $5000 and the company he named is now worth over $2 billion. No wonder $5 million seems like pennies to him now. His whole perspective has changed, as Jesse rightly pointed out. A year ago, he would have been happy with a tad under $800,000. The concept of $300 million from the 1000 gallons of methylamine has blinded him.

Saul had a great scene in the DEA offices. After Hank asked him where he got his law degree, he informed them of the TRO he had a judge issue. The judge didn’t like it when the DEA harassed a senior citizen (sorry, he said to Mike in passing). Walt tried to show a human side, saying that he hadn’t slept for a few nights, but he belied his statement a couple of minutes later by whistling as he worked as if he didn’t have a care in the world. I think that’s the moment when Jesse decided it was time to cash in. He and Mike might have made it, too, if their buyers hadn’t insisted on putting Heisenberg out of business by buying all the methylamine. Note to Mike: watch more TV. It’s never a good idea to tie someone to a radiator. They almost always find a way to escape, even if it means sustaining second degree burns from an impromptu arc welder.

That had to be the most awkward dinner ever. Just about every interaction involving Skyler this season has been difficult to watch because it’s so painful to see her in that position with no way out. I wonder if she’s going to end up killing herself. And once again Mike was on the verge of putting a bullet in Walt’s head. How many times is that this season? And once again Jesse stopped him, because Walt has a surefire solution to their predicament. Everybody wins, he says. Where have we heard that before?