Do You Know What Happens When a Morlock Gets Hit By Lightning? (Major X3 Spoilers Contained Within)

Apparently you get a really crappy X-Men movie. I had fully intended to give my review of this movie both a geek and non-geek perspective, but my inner geek is so pissed off that it won’t let my inner non-geek have any say at all. My inner non-geek has been bound and gagged and thrown down the storm cellar. That is how pissed off X-Men 3: the Last Stand made her. She’s gone homicidal. Well, maybe it’s just felonious assault and wrongful imprisonment. That said, I don’t think I can actually work up an actual review, so what follows is a list of things that pissed me off and the much smaller list of things I actually liked.

Warning: Major spoilers follow, so don’t continue reading if you haven’t see the movie yet. And if you haven’t seen the movie yet, please come back when you do and let me know what you think, especially if you can come up with a reason for me to not hate this movie. Anyway, here we go:


Things That Pissed Me Off:

• Halle Berry as Storm – this has been a consistent problem with all the X-Men films, but I think it bears repeating.
• It was even more about Wolverine than usual – he even managed to co-opt Cyclops’s grief. Wolverine is apparently the Lana Lang of the X-Men. Also, he cried a lot in this movie. It was very jarring.
• The fact that they turned the Dark Phoenix into little more than Magneto’s thug. Remember how lame they made Bane in Batman & Robin, just standing behind Poison Ivy all the time? That’s pretty much what Dark Phoenix did for most of the movie.
  It’s the Dark Phoenix Saga, but we don’t get to see the Phoenix Force once. She’s just a chick in an ugly red outfit that apparently commands some really fierce winds. Dark Phoenix was completely unimpressive.
• The pointless Rogue/Bobby/Kittie love triangle. I know they read Astonishing X-Men. How could they not realize that Kittie and Piotr are OMG!Meant2B4Eva!? Also, it was just shoehorned in there for pointless teen angst melodrama.
• The fact that they made Juggernaut a mutant and the fact that he looked really fucking awful. What they hell were they thinking when the let that helmet make it on screen?
• Wolverine not asking about Cyclops until after almost having sex with Jean on the exam table. I just love how he and Storm just completely ignored the fact that Cyclops was just gone. His visor is floating around and nobody cares. That’s teamwork people.
• Speaking of teamwork – it seems that someone needs to explaining what it is to Storm, because the Fastball Special is indeed teamwork.
• Uhg! The Sentinel in the Danger Room sequence. First of all, I don’t buy that Wolverine could take out a Sentinel all by himself, at least not that quickly. Second of all, it looked like crap.
• They made Psylocke and Multiple Man villains, and they didn’t even have the decency to let us see Psylocke’s psi-blade.
• How unceremoniously they killed of Cyclops. I don’t know whether to blame FOX and their spiteful ways, or Halle Berry and her insistence on having a bigger role in this installment if she was going to come back. I’m inclined to blame them all and hate them equally.
• The slightly less, but still unceremonious killing of Professor Xavier. Having Wolverine fall to his knees crying did not make it a dramatic moment. It just made it funny.
• The fact that they took away all of Professor Xavier’s ethics. Putting up mental blocks in Jean’s mind? Setting up shop in someone else’s body? So wrong. I know Xavier acts like a douchebag in the comic books now, but it has been earned and developed over years. The Xavier of this movie apparently never thought anything of playing around in other people’s heads. He’s why people are anti-mutant.
• Did Storm kill Callisto? Why not? Apparently none of the ideals of the X-Men have any meaning in this movie anyway. In the comic books, Storm defeated Callisto without her powers and refused to kill her, even though it was technically a battle to the death for control of the Morlocks (which Storm needed to win in order to save the lives of her fellow X-Men). It was Storm’s defining moment, and established her as truly worthy to lead the X-Men. This movie just insisted on making a mockery of all the great X-Men moments though. Why should Storm come off any better? She’s already being played by Halle Berry.
• Rogue taking the mutant cure. What the fuck? For the sake of their stupid Dawson’s Creek subplot? Bullshit!
• Beast using the mutant cure on Magneto. I assume this was the plan that they worked out as a team. So as a team, Storm, Beast, and Wolverine decided to go against everything Xavier stood for and for the cure on someone?
• Jean Grey does not have a split personality. She is possessed by the Phoenix Force. Jean Grey is not just some crazy freak. And in the end, they even take a way her moment of self sacrifice to once again make it all about Wolverine. I hated that the most. Maybe. No, I still hated them killing Cyclops the most. The character assassination of Jean Grey comes in second.

Things I Actually Liked:

• Angel – When he was flying he looked good, and the character was true to form. Warren is a rich kid, dearly loves to fly and would never give up that freedom, and he even got to have an unperverted hero moment hero moment when he saved his father.
• Kittie Pryde – I thought the actress was pretty good and the characterization, what little there was of it, was good too. Don’t know about her calling Juggernaut a dickhead though.
• Leech – I just liked that they even mentioned him, let alone had him in the movie.
• Beast – Kelsey Grammer was great. And they had him say “Oh my stars and garters.” That made the geek in me smile. I also thought it looked really great when he was fighting. It was all very Beast-like. And Wolvie called him furball too, which I also liked a lot.
• The Fastball Special
• Bobby getting all iced up – it looked like crap, but after 3 movies, it was about damn time we got to see Iceman really be Iceman.
• When Wolverine was fighting that guy whose arms kept growing back, and then he just kicked him in the groin and said “Grow those back.” Heh. That was Wolverine.
• The fact that they killed Cyclops so early in the movie – yes it’s my most hated thing about the movie, but the fact that he died so early meant that they couldn’t have him do something completely out of character like join Magneto or something. I really think they would have done that.
• I suppose it was a good summer popcorn flick if you didn’t care about any of the characters or the stories the movie was supposedly based on.

OK, so did I miss anything? Is there good stuff I overlooked? Is there bad stuff I blocked out? Am I completely off? Let me know what you think.

A Friendly Service Reminder

I a still planning on posting my opinions on the season finales of both Veronica Mars and Smallville. I was just waiting until I had a chance to watch them both again. The Veronica Mars finale I wanted to watch again, because it is hard to digest everything and form an opinion on the first viewing. The Smallville finale I wanted to watch again because I hope it will be better the second time around.

I also just realize that I never commented on the Supernatural finale, which I had intended to do. I've decided it's too late for that now, but I do want to say just one thing about it. And that is: NO! Not the Metallicar... Seriously, the Winchester Boys without their Impala is like Michael Knight without KITT.

Finally, since this entry is all about shows on the future CW, what was up with all the beards? I think the Smallville boys (2 current and 1 former) must have made some sort of pact, or maybe it has something to do beiong stuck up in Vancouver. I like Tom Welling's the best. He looks like the prettiest lumberjack ever.

I just wanted to add that I also have a pretty big Spider-Man rant that's been brewing for a while, so that's going to be coming up. And I hope to see X-Men 3 this weekend, so I plan on getting a review (or rant) up fot that. I'm going to be out of town for the long weekend, so I probably won't get to any of this before net week though. Expect the X3 review to be my next update (unless I don't get to see the movie), since I will try to get that up on Monday night. If I wait to long, I might have forget the details, and then I'll have to see it again. If the movie is what I expect it to be, I really don't want to give FOX my money twice.

A Farewell to the Wigs, the Accents, and the Rubber Dresses

Last night, the final to episodes of Alias aired, and while I do think it was the right time for it to end, I am sorry to see it go. I didn't think season 4 was very good, but in season 5 it really had its legs back. I was hesitant at first. Killing Vaughn off in the first episode and then adding a whole bunch of new characters did not sit well with me. But once everyone settled in, and I felt certain that Vaugn wasn't really dead, I was able to sit back an enjoy the ride. (Yes, my enjoyment was contingent on Michael Vaughn being alive. I am a girl and I have a crush on Michael Vartan.) One of my favorite shows of all time was back to what it should be.

And now it's gone...

Overrall, I would say it was a satisfying end. Several months ago, I had said that if Alias didn't end with Sydney, Vaughn and the baby walking along a beach somewhere, I would be very upset. The producers did me one better, but I will get to that later. In addition to being satisfied that Sydney got the happy ending she had earned, I thought that they did a very good job of tying things up in the end. I had actually predicted back in season 1, when they met the guy in Italy about the Rambaldi clock, the Rambaldi's end game was some sort of secret to eternal life. It's kind of cool that I was right, but I think a lot of people saw that coming.

One of the things I liked best about the first part was how they spread the moments around between the characters, Marshall especially got his moment to shine, which I thought was due to the character. I also really loved that over the course of the last half of this season, we got to see all our old favorite characters. When I had initially heard that Merrin Dungay would be guest starring, I assumed they had found a way to bring back Evil Francie again. I was pleasantly surprised to see original Good Francie in flashback. I was also surprised that I got a little choked up when Tom died. I do think that, had the show gone on, I really might have grown to love Rachel and Tom. In the first half of the season, I felt that Rachel was being forced down out throats a bit too much, and that they were trying too hard to make Rachel and Tom the new Sydney and Vaughn. But in the second half of the season, I think they fit in more organically, and in the past couple of episodes, I had really grown invested in the nascent relationship. For that reason, I found their goodbye touching and nicely understated.

The second part was the really heartbreaking part though. Even though I expected it, I was still a little shocked to see Jack get shot in the chest, and was thrilled to see Sydney lash out at Sloane and shoot him seven times. The moment I completely lost it though was during Jack's speech to Sydney. It was so touching and a little inspiring. "Nobody else in the world can do what you can do," he told her, and you knew he meant that she was just that extraordinary, and not because of any Rambaldi prophesy. He just loves her so much, and with all the flashbacks in this episode, I was reminded of how Sydney's relationship with her father had evolved since the first episode. It was so strained then, but by the end, she really was daddy's little girl.

The flashbacks to different points in Syd's life, showing how she became a spy, were wonderful as well. I loved seeing that Sydney was exactly who she was meant to be. They did white wash the fact that Jack used Project Christmas to condition her to be a spy, but since we had already known that she had solved that puzzle before he put her in the program, I'm more than willing to let that go. When we had initially found out about that, Jack told her that he had done it to protect her, and that makes perfect sense to me. Project Christmas was just another step towards her becoming the hero she needed to be. Also, I thought the scene when she told Jack about her job with Credit Dauphin, was interesting. We had already known that he had hoped to recruit Sydney into the real CIA, but Sloane had gotten to her first.

I was glad that in Sydney's final confrontation with her mother she showed compassion to the very end, always willing to give Irina the chance to turn back from her obsession. Seeing Sydney completely give up on her mother would have been too disheartening. Sydney had been willing to trust her mother at every opportunity since season 2. One of her defining characteristics was her constant need for her mother's love. And I think it's telling that earlier in the episode, Jack had admitted to Dixon that he was wrong about Sloan. As badass as Jack is, I think it's hard for him to give up on the people he loves, whether they be family or friends. I think Sydney inherited that from Jack, as we have seen them both make mistakes with trust in regard to both Sloan and Irina. As nice as it was to see that Sydney hadn't grown so cold that she could wouldn't try to save Irina, it was awesome to see what Jack did to Sloan. Jack had made mistakes, mistakes that indirectly caused a lot pain to Sydney, but he wasn't going to leave this world without doing what he could to make sure that he saves Sydney from further pain. The best line of the night: "You could beat death, Arvin, but you couldn't beat me."

Now for the end, I loved it. I do think that Sydney and Vaughn earned their happily ever after with their little family (and I have never been the type of person who needed for stories to end happily), but I loved the fact that Sydney never really gave up the spy game. It's who she is, and the fact that Isabelle takes after her mother seemed only natural to me. I'll miss Sydney Bristow, as I still miss Buffy Summers, but I am more than satisfied with the way Alias ended. And at least I still have Veronica Mars, so I'm not left without any of my favorite television heroines.

Enthusiasm Waning

I finally got around to watching the X-Men clip that aired on Fox last Thursday night (you can tell how excited I was to see it). It’s amazing how everything I see with regard to this movie just makes me less enthusiastic about it. First there was the clip I got from YouTube, which was just terrible. Even Wolverine was bad in it, and he’s the one character they have always gotten right. (I think Jackman is holding back, saving the goods for when he gets his own movie.) And I pretty much officially hate Halle Berry now. She is so not Storm. The Sentinel looked awful. The dialogue was atrocious. In general, it just didn’t look good. At least it had the Cannonball Special, though. That filled me with fangirl glee.

But on to the Fox clip. The worst thing about it was that it just wasn’t all that exciting. And no one really looks all that good. Beast should be furrier. Warren should be more handsome. Juggernaut should not make me laugh. The whole scene where the mutants are having a meeting to discuss the cure and Magneto gets up and makes a big speech just looked cheesy. It just looked so…phony street urchin or something. Remember how crazy the gangs in The Warriors looked? I got that kind of vibe from the assorted mutants, except instead of brightly colored spandex, it was just variations on black. If they are not going to be wearing their costumes, just let them dress like normal people. I couldn’t even figure out who any of them were supposed to be. Also, the whole thing just really lacked a certain cinematic quality. I thought it should have an epic feel, but it just seemed to be lacking. Hopefully it will look better on the big screen.

Another problem I have with the whole thing is the plot. I just can’t get excited about the mutant cure when not too long ago, Joss Whedon dealt with that topic in Astonishing X-Men. And he did it brilliantly. I know that’s not the only mutant cure storyline, but it’s the one I’m familiar with, and it’s the most recent, so it’s what this film has to live up to. Are Brett Rattner and the writers up to the task of matching on film what Joss Whedon and John Cassaday were able to do in the comic books?

Finally, Comics Continuum has an interview with James Marsden, aka Cyclops. There’s some interesting stuff about the character. I’m not sure about the “role reversal” between Scott and Logan in the movie, but since Scott is grieving for his wife (get used to it buddy), I’m keeping an open mind. Technically, he should be married to some chick that looks just like Jean and living in Alaska, but I don’t think we’ll be seeing that. What worries me is that they say “Cyclops is featured heavily early in X-Men: The Last Stand.” What happens to him for the rest of the movie?

Speaking of Cyclops, something else that bothered me about the clip that aired on Fox, was Wolverine trying to be the sensitive one talking to Cyclops about Jean’s death. They tried that at the end of X2 also, and it didn’t work then. And Logan just says wholly inappropriate things, like “Maybe it’s time for us to move on.” The guy who has a thing for the grieving husbands dead wife does not get to use the word “us” when referring to their grieving process. I mean, how obnoxious is that to remind a guy that while his wife was a live, you were constantly trying to put the moves on her?

All that said, I'm still going to see it opening weekend.

A World Without Heroes

Last night was the second part of the two part series finale of Justice League Unlimited. The title of this blog entry is a tribut to that. (Also, I wanted to try and have the title of my blog keep the referencing in line with the references in the episode titles. Points for getting the connection.) I waited until after both parts to post my notes on the episodes, so watch out, this is a long one.

“Alive” began with Lex Luthor once again trying to reunite with Brainiac. “I’m going to be a god again.” Lex Luthor is so badass. How cool was it that he reconfigured Grodd’s cloaking device into a hyper spatial drive? Now the headquarters is as awesome as the Legion of Doom headquarters I grew up with.

Tala – hell hath no fury like a witchy woman scorned for an alien computer. Figures she’d go running back to Grodd, but did anybody think Grodd was actually a match for Luthor? No way.

I loved seeing all the Society members duke it out. That was one of the best battles I have ever scene on this show. Toyman totally creeps me out, and I think Killer Frost is freaking cool (no pun intended). But the showdown between Luthor and Grodd was the best, with Lex showing that he is always 10 steps ahead. After Lex gets the upper hand, somehow counteracting Grodd’s mind control powers and using them against him, Lex traps him in an airlock, where they share this exchange:

“Goodbye Grodd. It could’ve gone the other way.”
“It really could have, couldn’t it?”
“No, but why speak ill of the dead?”

And then Lex has Grodd sucked out into space. Too cool. After that, he finally finds a good use for Tala. “I’m a sick person too.” Yeah he is.

Gayest line of the night: “Brainiac, I’m coming!” The look on his face is so euphoric too. The writers? They are totally going there intentionally.

Sadly, Lex did not get to reunite with Brainiac. Instead, when the reconstitution was said and done , there stood…Darkseid. Hells yeah.

Finally, I think it’s safe to say that “We have a little problem,” is the most intriguing line ever uttered on this show. The League and the Society team up. Superman and Lex Luthor fighting side by side. The week of waiting was agony. So was the wait worth it?

You betcha. “Destroyer” managed to out do “Alive” on every level, which had to be a tough thing to accomplish.

Lex Luthor: “Darkseid took Brainiac away from me. I can’t hear his voice in my head anymore.”
Superman: “Oh come on. It’s Lex flippin’ Luthor! Why should we trust him?”
Lex Luthor: “Let’s be clear about this. We’re not here to help you save the world. You’re here to help me get revenge on Darkseid. When this is over, it’s back to business as usual.”
Superman: “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

OK, so we didn’t get Lex Luthor and Superman fighting side by side. We got Lex Luthor and Batman fighting side by side, which is nearly as good. And since Superman was pretty tied up in the awesome fight against Darkseid, I’m more than happy for how it worked out.

A great rescue is always exciting, but somehow, superheroes always seem to come off as even more superhero-y when they are saving the bad guys. Not just anyone would jump off a building to save a guy like Lex Luthor. Batman? He does it without even thinking about it. I love that.

Actually, I loved that even though this was predominantly a Superman and Lex Luthor episode, with a heavy side of Batman, a lot of characters got to show off their stuff in the big battle. Naturally, the original seven all got big moments. I think my favorite had to be the return of Jonn J’Onzz to the fold. His dragon was very cool, and I loved Wonder Woman’s reaction to seeing him again. It was a rare look at the innocence of the character, which we haven’t really seen on Justice League Unlimited. Mostly she’s just an awesome warrior type and leader, which is very cool too.

Also, I know I normally gush about Lex Luthor and The Flash. Superman has never really been my favorite character, but sometimes I just really love him. This monologue that he gave while beating the crap out of Darkseid just really showed why Superman is the best of the best: “Batman won’t quit as long as he can still draw a breath. None of my teammates will. Me? I’ve got a different problem. I feel like I live in a world made of cardboard. Always taking constant care not to break something…to break someone. Never allowing myself to lose control, even for a moment or someone could die. But you can take it. Can’t you big man? What we have here is a rare opportunity for me to cut loose and show you just how powerful I really am.” I can’t even begin to argue why he shouldn’t be the most revered superhero character after that entire scene.

Still, I have to wonder how Metropolis is going to pay for all those repairs. Also, Darkseid still beat him, but he was totally cheating. Fortunately, the Metron had shown up to bring Lex to what they need to defeat Darkseid. I loved Lex’s supreme hubris in this exchange:

Metron: “I have to warn you. Only a twelfth level intellect has the slightest hope of surviving what you are about to experience.”
Lex Luthor: “Then I’m over qualified.”

The anti-life equation – I don’t get it. What happened there? I do appreciate that Lex went to go put on his “power suit” before saving the day though. You want to look good at a time like that. I think it was interesting that Superman’s perspective was that Lex “died” (have to agree with all the other Leaguers, no way Luthor and Darkseid really died) saving the world. Lex had made it clear from the beginning that he was in it because he blamed Darkseid for the loss of Brainiac and wanted revenge. Lex really is that selfish. And yet, I really don’t think Lex would want the world to come to an end. He just had his sites set on bigger things – like everything everywhere – and Darkseid took that away. So for Lex, Darkseid’s crime was bigger than wanting to take over Earth.

The end was great though. What are a bunch of superheroes supposed to do when they are faced with having to deal with a bunch of criminals who just helped them fight off invasion forces from Apokolips? Give them a five minute head start of course. (How cute was it that Giganta ran up to kiss Flash before taking advantage of her head start?) Most fittingly, the last three lines of the episode, and therefore the series, were said by the big three:

Superman: “A head start. You’re getting soft in your old age.”
Batman: “Don’t you have a tall building to go leap?”
Wonder Woman: “And the adventure continues.”

The final shot of Justice League Unlimited is the Leaguers chasing after the Society members, ending with a close up of the Bat symbol on Batman’s chest, which is so perfect since Batman: the Animated Series is where Bruce Timm’s whole universe began. It’s just too bad this is the end.

Veronica Mars 2.21

Well, I finally got to see last week's Veronica Mars on Sunday (stupid Nets), and I wanted to comment on it before tonight's season finale. So here goes:

1. I was kind of disappointed that they went to the crazy veteran well with Lucky, but I think it's pretty clear that Lucky's brand of crazy was from something entirely different than war related reasons. I did find his shoot out (well, not really) of the school was pretty scary (sing-songing Gia's name to the Chia Pet jingle is just creepy) and I liked that we got some hero moments from Veronica and Wallace. I even thought it was pretty brave of Jackie to even attempt to call the police. I was surprised that school security guards get to carry guns, with actual bullets instead of those rubber things though. That's pretty good for the security guards -- all the power of being a cop without the pesky training and background checks.

2. I think Jackie is this season's Logan. We started out the season hating her, then we learned more about her and just couldn't help but feel for her. She has a lot of issues, especially of the daddy variety (just like Logan), but she really is a good person. Actually, Jackie never even did anything anywhere near as bad as the stuff Logan did, and often continues to do, so the only thing she really had to overcome was general obnoxiousness. I guess it stands to reason, though that she wouldn't be as bad as Logan since her dad isn't as bad as Aaron Echolls (more on him later). Jackie has also proven herself to have integrity, so I guess she's better than Logan on that front too. Still, I maintain that she is like Logan in that our attitudes have changed toward her. Sure, she hasn't won everyone over, but even Logan has his detractors. Also, I was just as hard on Tessa Harper as everyone else when the season started, but I really do think that she has put in some really top notch performances in the second half f the season.

3. It says a lot about a show that it can make the audience feel heartbroken over a character getting caught for orchestrating another character's death. Poor Weevil. I really think he had the intention of getting his life straightened out, and e was going to start by actually graduating. I have a feeling his situation isn't going to get resolved in the next episode, so I really hope that Veronica finds a way to get him off the hook next season. After all, it was the Fitzpatricks who technically killed Thumper, not Weevil.

4. I am totally back to loving Beaver and Mac together. They must hook up again. I want that relationship to continue for a long time. Now tat Bright and Hannah are broken up on Everwood (sniffle), they are the cutest couple on TV. I'm worried though. The Beaver and Kendall Casablancas Phoenix Trust storyline is still unresolved and I have a horrible feeling something bad will come of it. Now that we know Kendall is a lot more on the ball than she originally seemed, I can't help but wonder if she might not be able to get the upper hand on little Beav. I don't think that would lead to good things for my favorite pair's future.

5. Apparently, the guy standing next to Beaver, when Veronica found him staring at "Amber is a bitch" scratched into is car door, who told Veronica he hadn't said a word to anybody was the kid who caught Lynn Echolls's suicide on film last season. Is this just a really random callback, or will that prove to be significant in tonight's episode? You never know with this show.

6. I was hoping for a bit more Veronica and Logan interaction in this episode. I still don't think Logan's good enough for our Veronica (he still does some pretty reprehensible things, after all) but his drunken "epic love" speech from the previous episode made me into a 'shipper, even if I know that feeling won't last. It's interesting that they have set up two similar romantic situations for Veronica. If you will recall, the fortune Duncan gave to Veronica was revealed to say "True love stories never end." Then you have Logan describing their love as epic. And then there is Veronica's reaction to both. She clearly wanted to believe the fortune, but she was also receptive to Logan's words. Who does she really prefer? I doubt she knows, but I think Logan is going to be around for the long haul and I would be really surprised if Duncan doesn't pop up every once in a while. Then again, if Duncan gave her an STD, that might cut him out of the picture completely. Then again, the fact that Aaron Echolls's attorney knew about Veronica's STD kind of puts that whole thing in question. How did the lawyer fid out about it?

7. The revelation that Woody Goodman is a child molester is a non-shocker, but I still wonder where that is going. Since we found out about it now, I'm certain that he did not cause the bus crash. However, I wonder if he is going to face justice at all. He did take off in this episode and, given the Echolls verdict, I wouldn't be surprised if he turns out to be the Michael Jackson to Aaron's O.J. Also, remember when Beaver ad Mac initially broke up? I wondered if there was some deeper reason for him not wanting to have sex with her. Now we have a child molester in the mix and we know that he's been coaching little league for years. I can't help but wonder if Beaver Casablancas is going to play a part in all of that. Also, the email with the recording of the guys talking about what Goodman did to them was not from one of the email aliases on the list that Keith gave Veronica, which makes me wonder where it did come from nd who the third, and unheard, voice was.

8. I was actually shocked by the verdict though. I could not believe Aaron Echolls got acquitted, and yet, of course he got acquitted. What celebrity actually gets convicted of murder? It was absolutely the realistic ending and I should have expected nothing less. Poor Logan. You know Aaron is going to make him pay for this. And I'm sure he's got some payback in store for Veronica as well, but she's able to handle herself much better. She also has Keith. I wonder if Aaron Echolls is going to be sticking around for a while, or if the finale will find him paying a less than legal price for his crimes. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if someone killed him, but I also wouldn't be surprised if they kept him around to torment Logan and the Marses whenever they got a little too comfy.

There are still so many balls left in the air and only one episode left. How many of the still unresolved plot points will be dealt with and how many will be left open for next season (assuming there will be one)? By this time last season, I knew exactly who killed Lilly Kane. This season, I have no idea what the resolution to the big mystery is. Fortunately, the Nets are off tonight, so I get to watch the finale at the same time as everyone else. I cannot wait.