Under the Dumb?

Fall TV is here again!  The Walking Dead starts in a month and it is time to start flexing the fingers.

Bur for now, lets finish off the summer shall we?

I don't watch much summer TV, I oddly don't watch much TV at all.  But that doesn't mean I don't like to talk about it!  The issue is that no one I see on a daily basis watches the shows I watch so I have no one to talk to about them. Will you be my friends?

Lets start with Breaking Bad.  I don't have much to say about it.  I have been watching it since it launched, I forget how I stumbled across it, but I happened to catch the pilot.  The show is coming to a screeching end and this week, is the first time I have really had a problem with any thing.

Here goes:

 The White Neo Nazis had the DEA agents in their sights.  There were 6 or 7 of them.  There were two agents.  Walter was in the SUV and Jesse was in the car.  All of the nazis were pointing, nay, AIMING their guns, a combination of assault rifles, hunting rifles, pistols and one badass automatic shot gun at the DEA agents.

SO there is a lot of "Drop IT" and "Show me your badges" going back and forth, until finally the leader of the nazis just gives the signal to open fire.  Each of the nazis gets off at least 4 or 5 shots before the agents even move.

How the hell did neither of them get hit?

Breaking Bad is full of outrageous situations and narrow, implausible escapes. But for the most part they were absurd situations. There was nothing to pick at because what was going on was so out of the ordinary that there was never any sort of logical solution.  That is what makes the show great.

But this case?  Those guys were not a bunch of first time shooters. They were hardened killers, that efficiently wiped out an entire drug ring just a couple episodes prior.  Now when they have two lightly armed DEA agents dead to rights, they roll 1s and pull the big whiff?  It just bugs me.  Thoughts?

A striking image that makes Breaking Bad great.

On with the real reason I am typing today.

Under the Dome.

Here is another absurd situation. A mysterious dome/sphere appears around an entire town and the surrounding country side, woods and lake.  Hi jinks ensue.

How can I really nit pick about any thing that goes on under the dome?

Well that is why I am here!

First, it was originally envisioned as a 13 episode show. However, it feels like they shot the first couple not expecting it to last on TV more than a month, then realized they had a small hit on their hands and threw the rest of the episodes together.

For example, when Jr. had the girl tied up in the bomb shelter.  He was saying "The dome is making you sick" in regards to his perception that the dome has caused her to stop loving him. But really, she just stopped loving, or never did love the creep.  Chicks do that.  Any way, after more or less writing him off as a minor character, they bring him back in as a major player by making him the fourth member of the fellowship of the dome.  They they have to explain away his weirdness and he explains what he REALLY meant when he told her the dome was making her sick.  Get it?  I know the show was written for 13 episodes but this just seems like klunky writing. Like in lost when three years later they finally tried to explain why there was a polar bear in the pilot episode, and the smoke monster. They were strange and cool in the pilot, but really had no meaning or purpose.  Later in the series, (after it became a huge hit) they "wrote in" reasons why they were there.

Now for the last 10 weeks or so, the show has had ups and downs. Strangely, "Ye old cement factory" is the place to be. It has doubled as a MOAB shelter and as a fight club.  I guess I have to scope out local cement factories to add to my zombie survival plan!

But there are other silly things. Like the relative size of the dome.  At first it did not seem all that huge. But last night, Big Jim took a boat out to a house on an island in the water that was trapped Under the Dome.  It looked pretty damn far! Speaking of the lake, I don't remember what the plot twist was that stopped them from drinking the lake water... but why not drink the lake water?  There was almost two episodes dealing with the need for water and the destruction of the water tower.  People died for a well.  WHY?  That massive amount of water that Jim was boating across to get to a secluded island with a house on it was surely enough water for them to drink!  It was definitely not time to start killing farmers for their well... Make sense!

Then there is the issue of what happened on that island.  Small point, but why on earth would the lady there be using an M1 Carbine?  Wouldn't there be something else available other than an 80 year old rifle that I can't even imagine there is still ammo for?  (don't bother googling the gauge of the gun or its ammo availability, it is not really the point and doesn't really matter.)  The point is that if they were going to go old, why not go really old and give her a Colt Peacemaker.  Even if the old guy was a WWII veteran and he maintained his old Carbine over the years. I can't imagine many WWII vets bouncing around their various properties as her story says.  I suppose the gun was also used in Korea and even Nam, so that may explain it a bit, but still. It bugs me that they would have given her such a dated fire arm.  Why not just a simple hunting rifle or shotgun?

Then in exact opposition to that, when Big Jim and Barbie are going out to relieve a stubbon citizen of his weapons, Barbie picks a sweet AR-15 (or clone) off the pile.  It had a scope and laser dot sight.  That thing was easily a 2-3 thousand dollar gun. I could be wrong, but from what I know of guys who own AR-15s, they are pretty much intended for home defense and survival situations. You know, like if you were living some place where there was limited resources being burned by the minute and a population of people getting edgier and edgier, scavenging for food and killing each other with no end to the crisis in sight...  I find it hard to swallow that any one with a weapon like that, UNDER THE DOME, would voluntarily give it up just to make the streets safer.

That doesn't make sense!  How is my voluntarily giving up my AR-15, when others are NOT giving up their guns, making me safer?  None the less, some one coughed it up and it was in a pile of guns.  Maybe the guy needed some toilet paper and traded it.  Whatever.  In the end it was just an easy plant so that they could have the following scene where Barbie bounced the glowing red ball back and forth between Big Jim's and the other guys head.  They wanted the image on TV to add drama to the scene.  Nothing more. I hate that.

Last point before I get to work today.

The stand off between Barbie, Lady Cop and Big Jim.  If you looked in the background, the car she seemingly came out of was there BEFORE Jim shot those two people. And mere seconds after he shot, she was there telling Barbie to freeze.  How could she possibly have missed Jim shooting them?  And what the hell was Barbie thinking?  First, he had no idea that Jim had manipulated her.  He wasn't there.  As far as he knew, the girl was still trusting of him, as was established by their relationship in the first 10 episodes.  Why would he think that she would not listen to her and backhand her instead of getting her to listen to reason?  But then there are the circumstances of the whole thing.  You don't need to be Gil Grissom to piece together the scene.  Jim's gun fired the shots and it was a different model and I think caliber from Barbies.  The shots were fired from the direction of Jim.  Jim's gun is missing two bullets.  Etc etc.  All Barbie had to say was:

Hey lady friend cop who I have saved, and has witnessed me saving at least a dozen people. I know I have my gun pointed at the shady town assemblyman, but hear me out.  He shot them. His gun is on the ground. It matches the bullets in their heads. Mine has a full magazine. His is missing two rounds. His hand has gun shot residue that you can test with the kit in your trunk.  I have not fired a gun in days.  They were killed from his angle while I was walking away.  He then threatened and attempted to kill me so I disarmed him. I am making a citizens arrest...

You get the point.

Instead he inexplicably backhands her and runs off. Only the guilty run.

Doh, there goes the bell

More later.

Jawaballs