Before the Walking Dead Ends...and then After the Season Finale

Photo: Carol and Daryl, from this website, called Heavy.com


...a few comments about it, and about whatever else:

--Those who need to watch their step in tonight's Walking Dead season-ending episode:

* Glen: When a love song plays and you're making loving gestures with your pregnant wife while naked in a shower, you really need to be careful in the next episode. Plus, he almost died once, and the comics show Negan getting him early in Negan's tenure. And who do we see tonight? Negan. And I think Glen's had his character arc, which is always a problem. So, working against him are that, and the comics, and his almost-dying, and one other thing: I saw an interview, not during the Talking Dead, in which Lauren Cohan says this season ends very, very sadly. She said that over and over again. Her character in the comics kills herself after she loses her baby (which was maybe hinted at in the last episode) and after Glen dies. The show won't kill off Glen, Maggie and the baby all at once, but all that is against him, too.

* Maggie and/or her baby: But see above.

* Carol, who I think was badly stabbed at the end of the last episode. Rick and the Zen master (who my better half hopes gets his tonight) do follow a trail of blood, after all, and the producers did hire her stunt double to play a walker, to fool us for a moment, when we just saw the back of her, and she (of course) looks a lot like Melissa McBride. Plus, the whole fool-me-once dying thing. See: Glen.

* One of Abraham's GFs, and Abraham himself.

* Safe: Rick, Coral (I mean, Carl), Daryl (It's just a flesh wound), Father Gabriel (for now, and how has this guy survived for this long?), Enid, and, well, everyone else not mentioned above.

* My better half has heard ("...from a website I trust," she says, for whatever that's worth) that only one character gets it tonight, but she also said it was possible that one major and one minor character gets it. We shall see.

And, in other news:

* Mark my words: Trump doesn't want the Presidency, and he won't get the nod anyway. He's got to win the voters and the delegates over, and he hasn't done that. The delegates announce the party's choice, like the electoral college actually elects the Presidency. One often means the other, but not always, as Al Gore--and the rest of us--found out with Dubya.

* His campaign manager has been arrested. He's been banned from Great Britain. A mayor from West Hollywood has said he's "not welcome" in her city. And he should have every woman in the country pissed at him, plus most minorities, and certainly every Latino and Latina. So why are his numbers still so good? More than Trump himself, his numbers say a lot more about the mindset of a lot of Americans.

* Allen Craig ($9 million) is in Pawtucket right now, in the minors. Pablo Sandoval ($17.6 million) and Rusney Castillo ($11.2 million) are both on the bench and don't look to get much playing time this year. So the Red Sox are paying $37.8 million this year to three players to not play.  Why can't I get a contract like that?

* The snow's not accumulating, but it's really coming down in furious spurts, then drying up. All day today, and part of tomorrow. Power flickered on and off in the 50+ mph winds today. And, yeah, it's April 3rd.

* Game of Thrones cost about $1 million per episode when it first started. For this upcoming season, it's $10 million per episode. No wonder there's only 9 episodes a year.

* My guess is that the show's producers--who don't pay George R. R. Martin's book contract--have quietly asked him to let the series jump ahead of his books, so for the first time, many fans won't know what's coming.

***Just finished watching the season finale. All is as I suspected, except you don't see who gets it. My guess remains with Glen, but I have to say that the ending left me very frustrated, and not in a good way. A fan can't feel the outrage, or the loss, or the whatever, for a character until the fan knows which character gets it. And here, except for Carl and Rick (remember Negan's last comment before he swings), everyone else is at least a possibility. Because everyone on the Talking Dead says that the first episode of next season--when we know who got it--is a jumping board to everything that happens the whole season, and possibly for many seasons later, it has to be a very important character who gets it, possibly even Rick himself. I'm still going with Glen, but if they want to veer from the comics and really shock us, it could be Carl or Rick or Maggie. My second guess, if not Glen: Carl.

Quick Jots 2.21.16

Just a few quick things before dinner:

--I saw The Witch today. Excellent movie, not at all as insinuating as Blair Witch, though--like Blair Witch--you'll either really like it, or really not. It is slow-moving, but in a good build-up kind of way. I'll write a review soon, but suffice it to say that it's The Crucible meets The Shining, with a healthy dose of The Village and Blair Witch thrown in. This movie is strangely audacious and in-your-face at the end, and it's got things to say about feminism, out-of-control religious conservatism, and blame. If you've ever been creeped out by a walk in the woods, then see this, but beware that it takes its time and you have to be patient with it to enjoy it--just like a long, pleasant walk in the woods.

--Goodbye, Jeb. We hardly even knew ya--and that's not a bad thing, either.

--Bush lost for two reasons, equally: his last name, and his lousy stage presence as a performer.

--The latter of which says something very potentially dangerous about this year's crop, by the way. A performer performs, and his actions on stage are a performance. Remember that when you vote.

--People I trust--all of whom have seen politics play out far longer than I have--all say that Cruz is far more dangerous than Trump. The reason? Cruz is quiet, and he says and does very offensive things very quietly. Trump is so in-your-face, they say, that he won't be secretive about anything and therefore won't get away with anything.

--But Trump still scares the hell out of me. Mostly because I don't trust my contemporary American society, or the typical voter. Just throwin' it out there. My state votes so Democratic for presidents that Trump won't matter here. But I've been proven wrong before.

--I'm reading that Trump is the Republicans' worst nightmare as well. I don't think November will be as much of a slam dunk for Hillary or for Bernie as I'm reading and hearing it will be. But I've been proven wrong before.

--I like Bernie Sanders, by the way, but I would never vote for him. I'd have a cool drink and conversation with him, but he's too wayyyyyyy out there for me, and too old. This will become an issue when he says who his running mate will be. Whoever it is, that person will be much younger, that's for sure.

--Speaking of the whole political scene, I don't really like anybody out there right now. It looks like I'll again be voting for somebody not because I like that person, but because I feel strongly about voting against somebody else. And it looks like that Somebody Else will be Trump.

--Great Britain, by the way, is currently trying to ban Trump. Permanently.

--Everyone in New England, take heart: Spring Training started this past weekend. Even if you're not a baseball fan, doesn't that just make you feel good?