JasonX

Nope; they know that the original comic Team X (the un-official codename for Wolverine's spy team) won't get people into theaters, which is why we are getting Gambit and Deadpool tossed into the mix. In particular, Gambit's probably there to make up for the way they omitted him from the main X-Men films (since God forbid the movies have Gambit/Storm as a major couple, as Chris Claremont originally intended, before Jim Lee and Scott Lobdell decided to sweep Storm/Gambit under the rug in favor of shoving Rogue/Gambit down fans throats).

Bingo. They can't prosecute Ronnie without exposing EVERYTHING the Strike Team did and how Vic, the worst of the worst, conned the system to get full immunity for the worst of his sins. They can't even make an example out of Ronnie without exposing how Vic skated on EVERYTHING, which would defeat the purpose of scapegoating Ronnie since more people would take one look at Vic and ask how a monster like him could get away with what he did. And with Acaveda about to become mayor, you think he'll want Ronnie exposing how he enabled Vic and the Strike Team, let alone continued to associate with a man who he KNEW was a sociopathic murderer who killed the friend he recruited to bring Vic down? He'll be offered a plea bargin for three-five years for obstruction of justice, given protective custody/put in a prison far away from people like Antwon Mitchell, and in return will be told to stay quiet about the Strike Team's crimes in exchange for not being prosecuted for his involvement in the crimes of the Strike Team. In a way, I still think of Walt as "That Guy" from "In the Heat of the Night", a show where Walt appeared in multiple episodes in different roles (often in generic henchman roles, but most notably as an emotionally troubled man who kills his cheating girlfriend's lover and then kills himself via a shotgun blast in the face in front of one of the main characters while standing over his beloved dead mother's grave). And while Ryan is crediting Chris Benoit's suicide as the inspiration for the final fate of Shane, I have to wonder in a way, if the above mentioned episode of ITHOTN also might have influenced it (especially since Walt's portrayal of Shane echoed his performance in said episode of ITHOTN, as far as portraying Shane as a haunted man, driven by demons that go well beyond his friendship with Vic).

FYI: the "season seven weekly episode recaplet" for this week's episode accidentally got posted in the main FX website prior to it's airing. While it's now down, it's made it's way onto Youtube, spoiling the episode's big shocks:

Actually, he's fucking dumb. The smart guy thing to do would be to get as far away from Vic as humanly possible, not to mention not put a hit out on Vic's one remaining ally/friend, especially one who has enough dirt to bury both Vic and Shane without even bringing up who killed Terry and who killed Lem. Hell have no fury like a woman with a grudge. Had Vic not gotten into a pissing match with Claudette over Armadillo back in season two, she and Vic would never of crossed swords and Claudette would have allowed Vic to run rampant all over Farmington without a second thought.

One word explains it all: sentimentality. After Shane made his big speach to Vic about being willing to transfer out of Farmington in the event that Vic and Ronnie still didn't want to be around him anymore, it softened Vic's harden heart enough to cause him to want to spare Shane's life.

Not only that, but it sets up an even nastier possible scenerio to the mix of the downward spiral the three are trapped in: Vic and Shane killing Ronnie, because he knows too much and is the only obstacle standing in the way of Vic and Shane both kissing and making up and going on like nothing happened. Which is probably why Ronnie pressed Vic to let the hit go down as planned. So long as Shane is up and running around, Ronnie is dead man walking, what with Shane treating Ronnie as acceptable collateral damage. And if Vic won't punish Shane for murdering Lem, then Ronnie knows that he probably won't bat an eye when Ronie is killed by Shane. As for Shane at the very end, while it was a chilling moment and one that reminds us viewers that Shane isn't a complete fuck-up as far as his moments of insight and awareness. But it doesn't discount the fact that Shane is still Shane Vendrell, sentimental fuck-up who will fold the moment Vic pats him on the head and tells him "good boy". The big irony is of course, that Shane was ready to leave town and never darken Vic and Ronnie's pressence again. Now not only is Shane still alive and around, he now has all of the motivation needed to destroy his former friends. Of course, the smarter thing would be to just continue with the "leave town" scenerio and use the blood money he stole to get him and Mara as far away as humanly possible from Vic and pray that the fall-out from Vic's self-destruction doesn't reach him wherever he and Mara end up at.

Five episodes into the final season and Vic Mackey is fucked. Seriously, the show has done a great job showing Vic spiralling out of control as far as Vic over-reaching with the mother of all schemes to save his ass and Farmington, with no safety net or allies or relief from any sides. I think the writers put it best when they showed Shane Vendrell having to act as the voice of reason towards Vic. When Shane is voice of reason, telling you that your crackpot scheme sucks and will blow up in your face, you know you are fucked. Vic's various allies are turning against him/being shoved in a manner that will only serve to turn them against Vic. His treatment of Danny was appalling (though Danny herself isn't exactly blameless; then again, Danny has a history of being tactless when it comes to interacting with others and should have known that Vic would react negatively at being told, point blank, to sign away his parental rights to their child) and will probably serve to drive her away from Vic. Ronnie is on the record as to telling Vic that he will sell Vic and Shane out in a heartbeat to save himself, and who's loyalty to Vic is hanging on the thin thread of trust that Vic will honor his pledge to avenge Lem via killing Shane. And there is Acaveda, who in a suprise move that should suprised no one, has stripped Vic of possession of the blackmail box and as such, preventing Vic from ending the gang war even if he tried. Vic probably wishes he had kept copies of the rape photo, since his leverage over Acaveda is pretty much limited to playing to Acaveda's own screwed up sense of right and wrong. The turning of Cassidy against her father is only the icing on the cake, given the extremes Vic has gone through to shield his family from his true nature. Yet it's also another example of Vic's short-sightedness, since going back to season one, Vic showed more concern for his autistic son (and later his youngest daughter) than he did for Cassidy. In taking care of his two special needs children, his non-special needs child has grown up bitter and resentful and surly, which is a recipe for hell for any parent, especially divorced parents who spend most of their time working/engaging in complex schemes that need constant attention less they blow up in their faces. And that's not even touching the issue of I have to think, given how apocalyptic things are progressing, that

Been gone for ages but I'm back..... ------------------------------------------------------------------- The season premire for the finale season of "The Shield" does a nice job setting up the sort of apocalyptic tone for the series as it reaches the finish line. Ronnie finally gets the spotlight at long last as we see him kill in cold blood (granted, an evil hitman and not say, one of his fellow officers) and we see Vic once again repeating the same mistakes he made with Shane by cutting off Ronnie when Ronnie wanted to talk about what he had done and the feelings he was feeling over having taken a human life in cold blood. Granted, at least Vic was gentle with the way he shut Ronnie off, telling him that he doesn't want him becoming like Shane, but it was Vic's very much "We are not having this discussion EVER" response to Shane, when Shane wanted to talk about his inner angst over killing Terry, that contributed to Shane becoming the monster that he currently is. The use of the Social Distortion song "Reach for the Sky" at the beginning of the episode worked well to set the tone for the season thematically, especially as far as both Shane and Vic are concerned. They are literally trapped in an endless loop of lies, violence, murder, and corruption that has stripped them of any real sort of future and a past that will consume them and bring them down if they ever stop running for a second. Especially now, as they have basically reunited and put aside their MAD stalemate to engineer a gang war that will require a hell of a lot of lying and manipulating to keep for collapsing and destroying everything and everyone they loved. And of course, Vic is telling Ronnie that once the duel threat of the Armeniens and the Mexican Mafia are taken cared of, that they'll deal with Shane, is the sort of thing that looms ominously for all parties considered as far the fact that it's only a matter of time before Shane and Vic's reconcilliation ends in death and/or Ronnie turning against them in order to save his own hide... The Billings lawsuit plotline also gets resolved and in satisfactory fashion, as far as Billings not only getting smacked down and but also smacked down hard not once but twice! And nice to see Dutch finally use the vending machine scam of Billings' to twist the knife after the end of last season. Meanwhile we have Corrine and Mara, both in their own little worlds of denial: Corrine, having to deal with her denial over the type of person her ex-husband really is and Mara's denial over Shane's ability to quit Vic Mackey. Of course, of the two Mara's the one who has access to the MAD document while Corrine probably has Dutch on her speed dialer, willing to give Dutch whatever he needs to bring down Vic. And I'll toss in this prediction: Acaveda is dead man walking. The Mexican Mafia will have him killed for playing him like he did with Vic's help, especially since Vic still has unfinished business with him over setting Lem's death in motion.

The utter lack of old school Real World (and Road Rules) on the filesharing networks/bit torrent is pretty sad thing, especially vintage Real World (IE the first seven or eight seasons). And due to the Real World S1 set DVD bombing saleswise (in part because they pretty much hacked the first season into a horrific mess to remove all of the music), we won't see the rest of the seasons on DVD in butchered form either (or even in syndication, since music rights problems caused the show to be pulled from syndication as well).

Leaving such a note would give the WWE/Vince ammo galore in terms of painting Benoit as being a bitter malcontent/loon who murdered his family and then tried to justify his crimes via blaming Vince for making him do it. As it stands, if said above sceneriois true, then Benoit was going for the "death by a thousand cuts" style revenge against the WWE and Vince. Letting the public and the media assume/speculate/declare the worst case scenerio to attack Vince and generally thrust the WWE into the spotlight in the worst possible manner imaginable would be a far crueler revenge if Benoit's vile actions indeed were motivated in part by him wanting to take the WWE down with him in the process...

Given that Michael Vick has and is a huge joke in terms of being an underachieving dick that makes Peyton Manning look like "Little Miss Over-Achiever" ten years running, he should be suspended and run out of the league forever.

Jericho is the only chance they have left to spark a "big angle"; the idea thing would be to wholesale redo the Ric Flair/Terry Funk feud from 1989. Jericho comes back to be part one of three WWE Legends Judges for a match between Cena and insert heel here and afterwords Jericho asks for a title shot. Cena gets uppity and dismisses Jericho's request and Jericho snaps and essentially cripples Cena, getting rid of him for 2-4 months and forcing him to vacate the title in the process. Jericho wins the WWE Championship in a tournement, with him squashing all of the major top wrestlers on Raw (including HHH) and raining misery down on everyone on Raw until Cena comes back to reclaim the belt, with Cena chasing after Jericho for the belt.

Chris Benoit has made it to Encyclopedia Dramatica http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Chris_Benoit

Not really; at best Vic has leverage to get his job back but the question is HOW he's going to get his job back seeing how he now has about two-three days max to blackmail TPTB to get his job back. Especially since he no-showed his review board hearing, which will only make Vic saving his job seem even more suspicious than before. Let alone, the issue of what fresh hell Vic has unleashed now that he's got the developer's blackmail files in hand. The Armenians may be the least of Vic's worries if the Mexican Mafia come after Vic and his loved ones. As for next season, a lot of problems for Vic are on the horizon: the Armenian mob, the Mexican Mafia, the inevitable doublecross by Acaveda; I would not be suprised if Shane/Vic doesn't happen and Shane dying a redemption death eliminating the Armenian mob boss he's now being blackmailed by. Also, the "Ronnie is my successor" comment could lead to some interesting stuff for season seven, in terms of Claudette annointing Ronnie the new leader of the Strike Team in the event Vic saves his job, and attempting to "turn" Ronnie against Vic in order to usurp control over the team from him. Especially if they have Claudette remind Ronnie what happened to him the last time Vic pissed off the Mexican Mafia (his face was disfigured). The notion of Ronnie turning against Vic could be the only thing that could possibly force Vic to reconcile with Shane, especially if they have Ronnie throw Terry's death into Vic's face as part of their falling out....

Some new news about the MST3K sets going out of print: Volumes 3 and 9 are now officially out of print, with Volume 9 going for around $90 on Ebay. Volume 3 is still pretty common to find on Ebay, at the moment though that could change in a year or two when the inevitable backlog of stock dries up (which it will most likely do so, since V3 has the second "Shorts" compilation).