Nobody Does it Better – A James Bond Retrospective and Final Thoughts

In his final James Bond-related post, not to mention the final post for One of Us! period, Drew will reflect on his time spent covering the James Bond franchise at Eli’s behest, summarize his thoughts on the franchise as a whole and the various adventures Bond and company have gotten into along the way, and answer the most important question of all: has he been converted into a diehard Bond fan?

Keep reading to find out…

I can’t believe I’m typing this post right now! It feels like One of Us! has been part of my life for a very long time now, but it also feels like the experience has gone by in the blink of an eye. I know the point of this post is to reflect on my time spent specifically with James, but since this is the last post I’ll ever write for this blog I feel the need to take a moment and reflect on this wild experience. First of all, I enjoy pretty much anything I go through with Eli because he’s my best friend in the whole world and just a great guy in general. Hell, I can even look back somewhat fondly on the time I threw away watching Zardoz because I got to watch it with Eli, and knowing his company can make an experience like that even a little positive made me pretty confident that I could get through One of Us! relatively unscathed.

On my end, things had their ups and downs. By the time we got to the Tenth Doctor I was actually pretty much onboard with Doctor Who, but my time with the Eleventh Doctor was not entirely pleasant and I’m not sure I would have stuck with the show if I weren’t participating in this project. I’m so glad I did stick with it, though, because I had a great time with the Twelfth Doctor and I’m already loving my time with the Thirteenth Doctor. By the way, I know in my big Doctor Who retrospective I said I hadn’t turned into a full-blown fan of the show, but by this point I can throw that out the window because I absolutely loved this last series. And I never would have even watched it if Eli hadn’t made me start watching the show in the first place! Thanks to One of Us! Doctor Who went from a show I had to watch to crank out a few recaps a week to a show I genuinely enjoy, and I’m already dying for the next series to drop in 2020. If that’s not a positive impact, I don’t know what is! And don’t even get me started on how much of a joy it was to revisit The Golden Girls through Eli’s eyes. Reading his post gave me a chance to enjoy these episodes and spend time with these characters I’ve spent so much time with through fresh eyes, and knowing that he’s coming away from this blog with positive feelings for my favorite show has made this all worth it. There isn’t anyone else I would have rather gone on this journey with than you, Eli, so let me say with all sincerity: Thank you for being a friend.

But enough of that, we’re here to talk about my time with the spy who loved me himself, Commander James Bond RN. This has truly been a wild ride! I think the easiest way to break my thoughts down would be to talk about my impressions about the different iterations of Bond before talking about my thoughts on the franchise as a whole. So, to start off, things were pretty rough with ol’ Sean Connery. I could only really remember having seen a few of the newer Bond films when we started One of Us!, but I already had a perception that Connery’s Bond was everything that was wrong with the character. And, well, I wasn’t wrong. My specific problem was his treatment of virtually every woman he interacted with, though to be fair movies in general haven’t been great toward women for a while now. I know a lot of people love Connery’s Bond, but what they describe as suave charm I just see as dull smugness. I mainly enjoyed Dr. No for the novelty of it being the first 007 adventure, but to give credit where it’s due From Russia with Love is a genuinely good movie and I enjoyed Goldfinger for the most part, as well. From there it was all downhill, though, and to this day I think Thunderball is one of the worst films in the entire franchise. It’s like, what is this, Zardoz but underwater? I’m sorry to keep going back to Zardoz, but, man, I really hated that movie.

Anyway, I thought things got interesting with George Lazerbeams for a second there, but then we got slapped with yet another not-so-great Connery flick and I genuinely wasn’t sure I was going to be able to make it through this whole franchise. But then I was saved by an angel from heaven above named Roger Moore. What a delight those movies were! Yes, most of them were dumb as hell, but they were so much fun! Any forced gravitas went right out the window, and I was able to just enjoy watching this goofy old guy skiing around and blowing dudes up with shark bullets. I’ll go to my grave thinking A View to a Kill is one of the best James Bond movies ever made, and I’m so glad I got the chance to see it. Roger Moore’s Bond was fun and charming and lovable even when he was dropping wheelchair-bound villains into smokestacks, and his run was a definite highlight in the franchise for me. We took a hard turn when the franchise overcorrected for all that silly fun with the dark, humorless, unnecessarily grim Bond of the Timothy Dalton era, but we didn’t have to deal with that for long before we got to one of the best films of them all, GoldenEye. I guess when you start off on such a high note there’s kind of no where else to go but down, but I was seriously not prepared for the roller coaster ride that was Pierce Brosnan’s term as Bond. His last two movies had all of the silliness of the Moore era, but none of the campy, charming fun that made those movies so lovable to me.

But after that mess we got to our incumbent Bond, Daniel Craig. I’ll go ahead and say that Casino Royale is the best Bond film ever made in my opinion, and I would be down to watch it again on a moment’s notice. I enjoyed Quantum of Solace and loved Skyfall, and while SPECTRE was a bit of a stinker in the end I’m still absolutely going to see the next movie with Eli when it comes out. And that brings me to my thoughts on the franchise as a whole! My feelings about the entire franchise are complicated. It came from a very dark place in a lot of ways with Connery at its heart, but I think watching the movies in succession like this has helped me appreciate the way it’s evolved and tried to keep up with the times. I think in a lot of ways it hasn’t succeeded in doing that, but the Daniel Craig movies make me think they’re getting there and they give me hope for the future of the franchise (especially with Cary Joji Fukunaga directing Bond 25).

To be honest, I wouldn’t watch a lot of these movies again. If I had my way a Bond marathon would consist of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Roger Moore’s entire run, GoldenEye, Daniel Craig’s run and we’d leave it at that. But even then, cutting out a lot of the movies still leaves you with a some really fun stories, lots of cool explosions and plenty of neat gadgets. This franchise isn’t perfect by any means and there’s still a lot of room for growth, but I’m genuinely glad to have watched these movies and I’ll definitely be taking all of this newfound Bond knowledge with me when Eli and I go to see Bond 25 in 2020. I’m very glad that Eli gave me this task, and I’m even more glad that I had this platform to get my thoughts onto. This has been an amazing experience, and I’m so grateful to have taken part in it.

So, with a wistful tear in my eye, let me say one last time: Thank you for being One of Us!

 Also, seriously, fuck Zardoz.

We Have Always Lived in the Palace - Closing Thoughts on a Shared Experience

The time has come at last to provide my final verdict on The Golden Palace, the Goldenverse in general, and what the experience of updating this blog has meant to me.  This has been a long, strange journey, but have I been converted to a full-fledged fanatic?  Keep reading to find out…

This will be my final post for this project, and as such I have been somewhat reluctant to write it.  Before I get started, let me tell Drew one last time that I adored your most recent recap!  SPECTRE is a bit of a disappointment for me given the approach the writers took with its lead villain, and I wish you had been able to go out with a film more on par with Casino Royale or Skyfall, but c’est la vie.  Still, you definitely went all out with a comprehensive and entertaining account of its events, and I had a fantastic time reading it.  Hopefully I can convince you to accompany me to Bond 25 in 2020, because I’ve loved hearing your reactions (outside of this blog) to the newest season of Doctor Who!  Oh, and just for the permanent record, here is Drew’s FINAL list of Bond franchise favorites (and thanks for letting me pester you for these, buddy):

Best Bond: Daniel Craig (Casino Royale) Best Villain: Raoul Silva (Skyfall) Best Henchman: May Day (A View to a Kill) Best Bond Girl: May Day (A View to a Kill) Best Gadget: Submersible Crocodile (Octopussy) Best Opening Scene: Casino Royale Best Song: For Your Eyes Only Best Title Sequence: Casino Royale

And now, on to business.  I find myself unable to untangle the topics of The Golden Palace, its relationship to The Golden Girls, and my experience with One of Us! in general, so this post is likely to be a rambling mess.  First, did I fall in love with The Golden Palace?  Not really, truth be told, but I had already fallen in love with its three main characters during my time with The Golden Girls.  The trio did their best with the material they had in this spin-off, and it definitely generated some hilarious and memorable moments, but given that only one season of the show was produced, I wasn’t exactly shocked that it didn’t quite reach the standards of its predecessor.  Dorothy was my favorite character from The Golden Girls and the natural leader of the group, so her absence was definitely felt here outside of her guest appearance.  I don’t want to be too down on the show though, because aside from some missteps (I’m looking at you, Oliver), I did consistently have a good time watching it and I grew to be rather fond of Roland and Chuy as sidekicks for the crew.  I really hope that both Don Cheadle and Cheech Marin look back on this chapter in their careers fondly.

Honestly though, I don’t think the question of whether or not I became a huge fan of The Golden Palace is all that important, because I definitely became a fan of the Goldenverse overall and I would have wanted to check out its brief extension anyway.  Despite the spin-off’s flaws, it carried forward the ideals of friendship and togetherness that made The Golden Girls such a joy to watch.  And those ideals were perfectly suited to this project.  I know that the output from Drew and myself slowed down quite a bit after a while, but I always leap at the chance to share experiences with my best friend and this one has been pretty special.  Seeing both Doctor Who and the James Bond franchise through Drew’s eyes was always a delight, and knowing that I’d be able to share a love of Drew’s favorite show made my viewing experience very rewarding.  By the way, just to make things absolutely clear, Drew had to put way more work into this endeavor than I did.  Our posting schedules matched up perfectly, but that doesn’t change the fact that episodes of Doctor Who were twice as long as episodes of The Golden Girls, not to mention the full-length Bond movies and all the various bonus posts that Drew tackled.  So thank you, friend, for putting so much time and effort into this silly (but not really all that silly) project.  Your friendship means the world to me.

I don’t think there is much else to say.   We have one more post from the man himself to enjoy, in which Drew will give us his final thoughts on the experience of being forced to endure the entirety of the Bond franchise, but my part in all of this is now complete.  If someone out there has followed along with any of these posts, I hope you have found something enjoyable to take with you.  If someone stumbles on this in the future (if Tumblr is still actually a thing), I hope that our words brought a smile to your face.  But most of all, I hope you get to experience having someone (almost) as awesome as my pal Drew in your life.  And as always, thank you for being a friend, and for being One of Us!

SPECTRE (2015)

Today Drew is forced to watch and recap 2015’s SPECTRE, the twenty-fourth and final (for now) James Bond adventure. 007 has been put through the ringer over the course of these last few movies, but now it’s all come down to this. Can Bond unmask the shadowy puppet master who’s been pulling the strings this whole time? Can he find out who’s been manipulating not only himself and MI6 but the whole world? When the time comes, will he want to?

Keep reading to find out…

Eli, I can’t believe you’ve done it, you madman! You can now say you’ve watched every single episode of The Golden Girls and The Golden Palace. What a coup! I’m extremely proud of you, and you’ve done an amazing job with your recaps over the years. I know you still have one more post to go, but you should give yourself a well-earned pat on the back! And hey, mister, this duo’s got two powerhouses and their names are You and Me!

Buttocks tight!

Screenplay by John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade & Jez Butterworth, film directed by Sam Mendes

We start off with a traditional barrel shot, which it feels like we haven’t seen in forever, and then we get a menacing quote about the dead being alive. We cut to an absolutely banging Día de Muertos celebration in Mexico City, where Bond, decked out in full skeletal garb, is led to a hotel room by a hot-to-trot Mexican lady. Bond’s only interested in her hotel room because he can use the window to get out on the roof, much to her disappointment. From the roof he can see into another building where a shady deal is going down. He snipes a few henchmen but then a bomb goes off in the room and the whole damn building comes crashing down, taking part of Bond’s hotel with it. I sure hope that lady got out in time! The man Bond was actually after, Marco Sciarra (Alessandro Cremona), survived the explosion, and Bond chases him out into the Black Parade. A helicopter is coming to collect Sciarra, but Bond boards it right after him and gets in an aerial fight with Sciarra and the helicopter pilot. Bond yanks a ring off Sciarra’s finger before kicking him out of the ‘copter to his death, then kicks the pilot out for good measure and barely manages to get the helicopter under control before it crashes into the parade-goers. Bond flies toward Mexico City proper and notices a stylized octopus on the ring he took off of Sciarra.

With that high-flying action behind us, we cut to our opening credits as Sam Smith, the first gay to ever win an Oscar, sings “Writing’s on the Wall”. A nude bond is felt up by some fiery ladies as a spooky octopus waves its tentacles around menacingly. Also, there’s some full-on hentai shit going on as some naked ladies get felt up by more octopi.

C’mon, I don’t need to be Samuel L. Jackson to know tentacle porn when I see it. In addition to this flagrant display of fetishes, we also get some call backs from the last few movies. We see smoky visions of Vesper Lynd and Le Chiffre from Casino Royale, Raoul Silva from Skyfall and even the late, great Dench-brand M. I guess Dominic Greene from Quantum of Solace was too busy to come in that day, huh? From here things get very amateur-filmmaker-going-into-their-first-year-of-film-school-with-a-big-chip-on-their-shoulder as Bond and a woman make their way through a motionless crowd of people and embrace while a massive octopus with a skull-with-eyes for a head looms over them and the nonexistent film strip melts. Bond prepares to shoot someone, but an adorable baby octopus envelops his gun and turns his bullet into ink, which zooms through a crowd of sexy naked ladies. We get shots of a board meeting overseen by a cecaelia and some body horror in the form of an iris made of tentacles (which is actually a pretty cool shot) before we head back to wear it all began with a nude Bond being felt up by some fiery ladies.

With that hour-long sequence behind us we jump to MI6 HQ, where Bond is getting reamed by M (née Gareth Mallory) over the destruction he caused in Mexico. Turns out Bond was going a bit rogue, and M has no idea what Bond was doing in Mexico City. Bond refuses to tell M what he was doing south of the border, and M takes Bond off active duty. Bond meets Max Denbigh (Andrew Scott), the head of the new Joint Intelligence Service whom Bond dubs ‘C’. C seems friendly enough, but M informs bond that he’s intent on dismantling the 00 program for good.

Miss Moneypenny catches up to Bond and delivers him a box of stuff MI6 managed to recover from Skyfall. Bond has Moneypenny deliver the box to his spartan apartment, where he shows her a tape from the late M telling him to hunt down and kill Sciarra. She also notes that he should attend Sciarra’s funeral, which is in three days. Moneypenny points out that the current M won’t sign off on that, but Bond’s not worried about that. He needs Moneypenny to do a little digging for him and investigate a name he heard in Mexico: The Pale King.

Moneypenny leaves and Bond sifts through the stuff from Skyfall, finding an odd, partially burnt picture of him as a boy with a mysterious man and an unknown young man. Bond heads to the Q Branch, where Q implants a tracker in his arm on the orders of M. Q then shows off an amazing new car, which it turns out is actually for the mysterious 009, and gives Bond a normal, totally non-gadgety watch instead. Bond convinces a reluctant Q to make his tracker go on the fritz so he can sneak off to Sciarra’s funeral and heads off to run some errands. He drops Moneypenny and a thank you note and a conspicuous cell phone, then breaks into Q Branch, steals 009’s car and a big gun.

He arrives at Sciarra’s funeral in Rome and immediately puts the moves on the dead man’s widow, Lucia (Monica Bellucci). Lucia rebuffs Bond’s advances, but he later saves her from some assassins at her house and she tells him her husband belonged to a shadowy cabal of businessmen before they fuck the pain away (Peaches. “Fuck the Pain Away.” The Teaches of Peaches, Kitty-Yo, 2000. MP3.). Lucia tells Bond where this shadowy cabal is meeting, and he heads that way despite her warnings that he’s definitely going to get killed. He uses Sciarra’s ring to gain access to the meeting, and he witnesses the group planning all sorts of untoward and illegal activities. Bond notices the chair at the head of the table is empty, though that soon ceases to be a problem as the head honcho (Christoph Waltz), shrouded in shadow, arrives and takes his seat.

The group moves onto discuss the death of Sciarra, and one of the businessmen argues that they should scrap the plot Sciarra was working on. That businessman is promptly killed by Mr. Hinx (Dave Bautista), a hulking beast with metal thumbnails that he uses to gouge out the unfortunate dissenter’s eyes. With that display of power over, the man in the shadows calls out Bond by name. He hints at a past connection with Bond, and reveals his face. Bond seems to recognize him, but he’s set upon by various henchmen and barely manages to make it to 009’s car. He sets off through the streets of Rome with Mr. Hinx in hot pursuit. Bond thinks this is a good time to give Moneypenny a call and finds out that the Pale King is in fact Mr. White (remember him?). He asks Moneypenny to look into a man named Franz Oberhauser, who’s supposed to be dead. With that out of the way Bond gets back to the whole chase thing, and finally gives Mr. Hinx the slip by using the ejector seat in 009’s car before he drives it into a canal.

In Tokyo, C is advocating the Nine Eyes program, which would unite the globe under unprecedented surveillance. M secretly votes against Nine Eyes being enacted, then he receives news about Bond’s car crash in Rome. He orders Q to track Bond down, and Q reports that Bond is in Altaussee, Austria. Bond’s tracked down Mr. White with Moneypenny’s help, and it’s finally time to give that wily rascal his comeuppance. Or, well, it would be if a gnarly case of thallium poisoning hadn’t done most of the work for Bond. White explains that Oberhauser has ordered his assassination because White had a problem with him taking their work, which was always pretty bad, in a much darker direction with a lot of innocent bystanders getting hurt. Bond demands to know where he can find Oberhauser, but White says Oberhauser is everywhere. Bond deduces that White is trying to protect his daughter; White tells Bond to find her, and if he keeps her safe she’ll take him to someone called L’Américain so he can find Oberhauser. White then eats a bullet from Bond’s gun, and Bond leaves.

Back in London, C reveals to M that he’s bugged Moneypenny’s phone so he knows Bond was headed to Austria. Right about that time, Mr. Hinx arrives at the dead White’s house. Bond arrives at the office of White’s daughter, a psychiatrist named Dr. Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux) Bond informs Dr. Swann about her father’s death, but she refuses to take him to L’Américain. Bond goes to a bar where he’s met by Q, who informs him that all hell is breaking loose in London. He tells him Franz Oberhauser is dead, and that he and Moneypenny are both going to get screwed if Bond doesn’t get his shit together and come home. Bond gives that idea a pass, and instead gives Q Sciarra’s ring to investigate. Bond is about to be escorted away by security when he sees Dr. Swann being kidnapped by Mr. Hinx and some nondescript goons.

Bond just can’t keep his feet on the ground in this movie, so he steals a little plane and pursues Mr. Hinx et al. Q, meanwhile, is having problems of his own. He’s been hacking away at the mainframe inside Sciarra’s ring, unaware that he was totally about to be assassinated by a pair of henchmen. He’s only saved by the arrival of a bunch of ski bunnies in the cable car he and the assassins are on. Bond uses his plane to crash one of the cars in Mr. Hinx’s entourage, and the sound of the explosion is enough of a distraction for Q to slip away from his would-be assassins and hide in a closet. After a rather rough landing involving a crash through a barn, Bond rescues Dr. Swann. She’s not thrilled about the idea of working with him, but he convinces her to tag along as he goes to meet up with Q.

Q’s managed to hack into the ring, which reveals that several important figures from past movies, including Le Chiffre, Patrice, Mr. White, Sciarra, Raoul Silva and Dominic Greene (who gets shown on Q’s screen but apparently doesn’t warrant being mentioned by name, which is really making him feel like the middle child of this criminal underworld), are all linked together by Franz Oberhauser. Q doesn’t know what this collection of hoodlums is called, but Dr. Swann does: SPECTRE. Oh shiiiiiii

Dr. Swann finally spills the tea on L’Américain. Turns out it’s not a person, but a hotel. Specifically a hotel in Tangier, Morocco, which is where Bond and Dr. Swann head while Q goes back to London. Dr. Swann checks into a room that her father would always check into, and Bond begins to dismantle it in search of some kind of clue or message while Dr. Swann gets shitfaced on wine like a soccer mom with a kid-free afternoon. After Dr. Swann passes out Bond gets a hot tip from a mouse he has an intimate moment with and discovers a secret room connected to the hotel room. The room is littered with pictures of Dr. Swann as a baby, as well as a VHS that apparently recorded Vesper Lynd getting interrogated, but more importantly it holds a set of coordinates which lead to Oberhauser’s base in the Sahara.

Back in London, C has gone behind M’s back and gotten Nine Eyes approved. He’s also gotten the 00 program shut down, which M is understandably not thrilled about. Meanwhile, Bond and Dr. Swann board a train headed for Oberhauser’s hideout. Bond tries to mansplain guns to Dr. Swann, but she’s a badass in her own right and doesn’t need any lessons from him. They begin to Bond, but this is interrupted by the arrival of Mr. Hinx. Mr. Hinx beats Bond’s ass up and down the train, but Bond and Dr. Swann working together are able to get him yeeted out of the train by a rope around his neck. They then have sex, because of course, before arriving at a deserted waystation on the Sahara. They have to wait a while, but eventually a car comes to collect them and takes them to a secret hideout located inside a crater.

In a very Dr. No-esque scene, Bond and Dr. Swann are greeted politely by Oberhauser’s staff and sent to bespoke swanky rooms (after Bond turns over his gun). In Dr. Swann’s room she finds a picture of herself and her dad, and in Bond’s picture he finds an unburnt copy of that picture that was recovered from Skyfall. Turns out the mysterious other young man who was standing with baby Bond and that unknown man was none other than a young Oberhauser. Dr. Swann and Bond are taken to meet with Oberhauser, who shows off the meteorite that made the crater he’s built his base in. He gives a heavy-handed monologue comparing himself to the meteorite before he gives them a tour of his facility. The tour culminates in a room full of people monitoring news stations and hidden security camera feeds, including one hidden in MI6. Bond deduces that C works for Oberhauser, and Oberhauser’s been striving to dismantle the 00 program.

Oberhauser describes himself as the author of all Bond’s pain and takes credit for the deaths of Vesper Lynd and the previous M. He confirms that Le Chiffre, Greene and Silva all worked for him, and then he plays a recording of Mr. White’s suicide to torment Dr. Swann. Bond is knocked out, and he wakes up he’s strapped to a chair as Oberhauser prepares to fiddle around with his brain. Also, just to give the game away, we get a shot of a certain signature white cat. Dr. Swann is forced to watch while Oberhauser drills into Bond’s brain, and when she demands to know why Oberhauser is doing this he launches into some backstory. Turns out the guy from the photograph is Oberhauser’s father; after Bond was orphaned at a young age Oberhauser’s dad took him in and asked Oberhauser to think of him as a little brother. Bond and Oberhauser’s dad formed a strong connection, so Oberhauser killed his own father out of jealously and faked his own death. As you do. He tells Bond that Franz Oberhauser really did die in an avalanche alongside his father, and the man now torturing Bond is Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Hey, it’s been a while (sort of)!

Blofeld begins to drill into Bond’s brain again, this time with the intention of destroying the part of his brain that lets him recognize faces. Why not! Bond is able to pass the watch Q gave to him forever ago to Dr. Swann, and it turns out there’s a bomb in that little sucker. Blofeld is caught up in the explosion but Dr. Swann is able to free Bond from his restraints and the two beat feet out of there. Bond sets off another explosion which destroys Blofeld’s entire facility, and then, because Bond’s feet have been on the ground way too long, he and Dr. Swann fly off in a helicopter.

Bond and Dr. Swann arrive in London, where they meet with M in secret. Bond lets M know that C is dirty, and they plan to take care of him. Dr. Swann can’t handle being part of all this cloak and dagger stuff anymore, so she peaces out while Bond, M, Moneypenny and Q head off to TCOB. This super squad lasts about a minute before the car carrying M and Bond gets t-boned. M manages to slip away, but Bond is taken prisoner. Q and Moneypenny pick up M while Bond manages to take out two goons with his head in a sack and his hands tied together. M and Q try to keep C’s Nine Eyes system from going online confront the traitor in his office while Bond navigates the ruins of the former MI6 HQ in search of Blofeld.

Bond finds Blofeld safely encapsulated behind some bulletproof glass. The explosion from earlier has given him his trademark scar and milky eye, and he informs Bond that he’s once again captured Dr. Swann. He’s wired the building with explosives, and Bond only has three minutes before they go TF off. Bond can either waste time trying to find Dr. Swann or he can save himself and escape. Blofeld triggers the countdown and heads out, leaving Bond to search for Dr. Swann. Q manages to keep Nine Eyes from going off, but M and C scuffle and C falls to his death. Bond catches sight of Blofeld getting away in a helicopter (the helicopter budget for this movie must have been off the chain), but he manages to rescue Dr. Swann and the two make it outside as the building explodes behind them.

Bond, riding in a speedboat, manages to shoot Blofeld’s helicopter out of the sky with a handgun. Let that sink in for a minute. The helicopter crashes, but Blofeld survives and escapes the wreckage. Unfortunately he scuttles right into Bond’s path, and Bond prepares to execute him. Blofeld urges him to finish it, but Bond declines and turns Blofeld over to M while he goes to meet Dr. Swann instead. Blofeld watches Bond and Dr. Swann walk away together as M informs him he’s being arrested.

Some time later, Bond arrives in Q Branch and gets the newly rebuilt old-timey car so he and Dr. Swann can drive off in style.

The End

~~~~~

Man, I know I’ve complained about how long these movies can get before, but I really wasn’t prepared for this puppy. To start off with some things I liked, I thought Mr. Hinx was a neat henchman and it feels like it’s been a long time since we had a good goon with a physical quirk like his metal thumbnails. It was fun to see some gadgets at play, and in a lot of ways this movie felt like a nod to classic, cheesier Bond films as opposed to the grittier, more realistic movies that have preceded it. I liked Dr. Swann a lot, and I appreciated that M, Q and Moneypenny all got stuff to do instead of just meeting with Bond before he jets off on his adventure and they’re left in the office. Now, I’ve got to comment on Blofeld… First of all, it’s neat to have him, and SPECTRE, back in the game after such a long absence. But why they heck did they need to make it so he and Bond grew up together? And Blofeld has built this entire criminal empire just because he had daddy issues and he was jealous of Bond? There has to be more to him than that! Also, I hated that Silva got turned into a henchman for SPECTRE. It was pretty blatantly stated that both Le Chiffre and Greene were part of a larger organization so I don’t mind them getting retconned into Blofeld’s agents, but Silva’s vendetta against the late M felt so personal and it doesn’t make sense to me that he was working for someone else. A lot of this movie was fun and I enjoyed most of it, but if I think about the motivations behind it all for even a little bit then the whole thing comes apart. This isn’t the worst Bond movie by any means (lookin’ at you, Thunderball), but it feels like it did a disservice to its immediate predecessors and didn’t come anywhere near the heights of Casino Royale or Skyfall.

I give SPECTRE QQQ on the Five Q Scale.

I can’t believe it, but there aren’t going to be any new recaps after that! We did it, Eli! Well, almost. Eli’s going to do a final post recapping his thoughts on his time spent with the Girls in The Golden Girls and The Golden Palace, and after that I’ll put up a post summing up my final thoughts on the James Bond franchise.

Until then, as always, thank you for reading, thank you for joining us on this wild ride and thank you for being One of Us!

The Chicken and the Egg (TGP, Episode 24)

Today Eli is forced to watch and recap The Chicken and the Egg, the final episode of The Golden Palace.  In this installment, Blanche entertains the idea of having another child with a random boyfriend, while Roland uses his martial arts mastery to teach the local elderly community to lay down some street justice.  Will the final chapter of the show serve as a fitting conclusion to this epic saga?  Keep reading to find out…

Well, here we are!  I don’t quite know what to say before I dive into one last recap, as I want to save my thoughts on the project in general for my very last post.  With that in mind, let’s do this.

Buttocks tight!

Episode written by Mitchell Hurwitz, directed by Lex Passaris

Sophia enters the hotel lobby declaring that “It’s gone.”  Chuy guesses that she is referring to her short-term memory, but Sophia ignores him and wonders aloud who the Mexican is.  She says that her purse was stolen by some thug and blames the Bush economy.  With a few more questions, she reluctantly reveals that the purse was stolen while within Rose’s now also-stolen car, which Sophia “borrowed” without asking.  Additionally, the thief might have gotten pretty far since Sophia had just filled up the gas tank using Rose’s credit card.  Roland considers teaching a self-defense seminar at the hotel to deal with these situations, and casually mentions that he has a blue belt in Tae Kwon Do.  Blanche is all dressed up and demanding compliments as she has a hot date with Bobby Lee, a cattle baron from Austin.  Her daughter Rebecca is also coming to visit Blanche’s (shudder) birthday, so we have all the pieces in place for our final outing!

We cut to Blanche and Bobby Lee in the hotel lobby, and he wastes very little time in sitting Blanche down to propose.  He wants Blanche to agree to be his wife!  Oh, and he also wants her to agree to have his children.  Say what now?  She attempts to pump the brakes, but he says that he knows she is older than she claims.  Still, breeding is his business and Bobby suggests letting the doctors worry about the details.  She simply has to say “yes,” and caught up in the moment, she does just that.

Blanche soon makes an announcement to her friends about her engagement and receives congratulations.  She then announces her plan to have a baby and receives mockery.  Sophia calls her a fossil, and Rose suggests that perhaps that ship has already sailed.  Like, way back in End of the Curse.  Rose also speculates that this is all a result of Blanche’s hatred of birthdays, but Blanche says that this is something that Bobby Lee wants and she “owes” it to him to try.  Gross.  Blanche also points out that medical science has come a long way, and she could potentially have another woman’s fertilized egg implanted.  Roland reminds Blanche that she should really consider adoption, and then probably laughs and laughs in his head as he remembers that he is totally off the hook with Oliver, or whatever that little burden’s name was.

Roland dons his Tae Kwon Do garb and prepares to instruct a class of elderly women on the finer points of kicking a man in the balls.  Someone hurls a bottle of estrogen at his head and he shames a masculine-looking lady, so things are really off to a great start.  Roland attempts to bond with a student names Sylvia, who mentions that she enrolled because she wants to put her bastard husband through a window for calling her frail.  To get down to business, Roland reveals that Chuy will be playing the part of the “attacker” in class, and he enters in a padded suit, snarling like a bear.  It takes the old ladies approximately 2.5 seconds to swarm and beat the shit out of him.

Blanche has checked in with Bobby Lee about the possibility of adoption and says that he (predictably) has no interest in caring for someone he didn’t help to create.  Rose wonders where Blanche will find someone with a compatible medical history to give her an egg, and at just that moment her daughter Rebecca shows up.  They hug, and Rebecca says that Blanche can have anything she wants for her birthday.  Blanche only has her sights on an egg.

After having a presumably uncomfortable conversation with her daughter, Blanche tells Rose that Rebecca didn’t agree to her request right away and will have to think things over.  Blanche insists that she isn’t as old as everyone seems to think she is, and Rebecca shows up again to mildly rain on her parade.  Blanche doesn’t want to be lectured, but Rebecca says that although she doesn’t think any of this is a good idea, she is willing to give her mother what she wants despite her objections.

Blanche seems to be having a rough night, tossing and turning in bed.  Unable to sleep, she goes downstairs and discovers that she is super pregnant with a huge belly!  Actually, Rose says that she went to the clinic with Blanche, and she got pregnant too!  The two show off their enormous midsections and Rose complains about all of the morning sickness, varicose veins, cravings, and back pain that come along with pregnancy, and that they had both forgotten about.  The surprises keep coming as Sophia is pregnant too, maneuvering her own belly around on a wheeled contraption.  The trio somehow manages to gather at the kitchen table, where Sophia gives Blanche a good kicking for talking them all into this mess.  Blanche says that she didn’t mean that “anyone” can get pregnant, but it’s too late, this scene has already gone off the rails; Roland is pregnant too and experiencing some major mood swings.  We aren’t done yet, folks, Chuy has a bun in the oven as well!  More specifically, he is carrying his bun in his backside for the sake of a dumb joke.  Blanche apologizes profusely to everyone…

…and then a worried Rose wakes her up from her dream!  Can you believe it?

The parking attendant from the neighboring hotel shows up with Sophia’s purse, and everyone realizes that Sophia actually just accidentally valet parked Rose’s car.  Unfortunately for the attendant, Sophia and her gang of newly-trained Tae Kwon Do grannies choose this moment to wander in, and they all swarm Sophia’s “assailant.”  Blanche needs to talk to Bobby Lee, who arrives at the hotel at just this moment.  She is about to tell him that she doesn’t want to have a baby after all when he breaks down and admits that he is sterile.  Both parties continue to insist that they are not old, but Blanche says that perhaps they can accept that they are “approaching middle age” and still have some fun together.  Bobby Lee throws out a parting reference to his freezer full of bull semen, and leaves.  Rebecca then comes downstairs, and Blanche tells her that she was right.  Rebecca says that she just wants Blanche to be proud of the person she is, and they hug it out in the show’s final embrace.

For one closing scene, we find Chuy fleeing into the hotel elevator to escape the gang of violent older women that Roland has unleashed on the world.  He almost makes it to safety, until Rose foils his plan.  The very last image we are ever to see in the Golden Universe is that of Chuy being descended upon by the angry mob.

The End.

I have to say, while this is the final episode of the series and I’d like to go out on a high note, I kind of wish that this episode and the previous one had been swapped.  I know I enjoyed the wacky antics of Roland policing vacationing young adults and Chuy building a giant burrito, but the pregnancy dream sequence in this episode just seemed silly without actually bothering to be funny.  That, plus I feel like the whole angle of one of the girls (specifically Blanche) lamenting her lost youth and reproductive capability was already done by The Golden Girls, and done better.  Bobby Lee seemed like kind of a creep to me, and it also seemed weird that Blanche was ready to marry a character in the very first scene in which he was introduced.  It wasn’t a total loss, as I kind of enjoyed the idea of a gang of pissed-off grannies wandering the streets of Miami and stirring up trouble, and I liked that the show’s final message was that you should love yourself just the way you are, so I’ll leave things with that very positive thought in mind.  Still, I’m giving The Chicken and the Egg a rating of 3 poofy hairdos out of 5.

I can’t believe that I have written my final recap for this big, crazy project, but I’ll still return one more time to share some final thoughts on the series and what One of Us! has meant to me.  But before then, you can still treat yourself to one more recap from the real powerhouse of this duo, as Drew will soon be sharing his thoughts on the most recent Bond film, SPECTRE.  Until then, as always, thank you for being a friend, and for being One of Us!

Sex, Lies and Tortillas (TGP, Episode 23)

Today Eli is forced to watch and recap Sex, Lies and Tortillas, the penultimate episode of The Golden Palace.  Spring Break has struck the town, along with a swarm of horny and destructive youngsters.  Rose also struggles to connect with a granddaughter who is maturing, and Chuy yearns for lost glory from his younger days.  With so much youthful change in the air, who will emerge as a different person?  Keep reading to find out…

Drew, I absolutely loved your recap of Skyfall!  Don’t worry about the delay, you more than made up for it with such a quality post.  We’re so close to the end now, I’m going to get right to the point as well.  After my pestering, here is Drew’s updated list of franchise favorites:

Best Bond: Daniel Craig (Casino Royale) Best Villain: Raoul Silva (Skyfall) Best Henchman: May Day (A View to a Kill) Best Bond Girl: May Day (A View to a Kill) Best Gadget: Submersible Crocodile (Octopussy) Best Opening Scene: Casino Royale Best Song: For Your Eyes Only Best Title Sequence: Casino Royale

Now, without further ado, let’s head straight to the Golden Palace!

Buttocks tight!

Episode written by Michael Davidoff and Bill Rosenthal, directed by Lex Passaris

A gang of young people is making a real ruckus in the lobby of the Golden Palace, and Roland is complaining that Spring Break has descended on Miami once again.  Hey, point me to the MTV Beach House, I’m ready to party with some veejays!  This is still the ‘90s, right?  Roland is tired of seeing youngsters partying it up year after year and is prepared to play the part of Morality Officer for these college kids.  Blanche, however, is ready to spend time with some barely legal boys, while Sophia just wants to get a rush by using her age and ferocity to frighten them.   A young doofus named Benson checks in, but a skeptical Roland insists on checking the contents of his oversized trunk to make sure he’s not smuggling in a friend for free.  Unfortunately, while his attention is focused on the trunk, a swarm of frat boys rushes into the hotel and sneaks up to Benson’s room.  Roland tells Chuy that he wasn’t always such a hardass and that he used to have a great time with his crew of Stooge, Creeper, and the Snake; wait, is this a squad, or a list of Castlevania bosses?  Chuy never went to college, as he “opted” to go to Vietnam instead, but he still had dreams.  In fact, he once built a 43-foot burrito but failed to get credit for setting a new world record.  Rose’s granddaughter Charlene also arrives to check into the hotel, bringing with her a copy of the St. Olaf News with the comics right on the front page where they belong.  However, she has also brought along her boyfriend Rick, and while Rose is happy to see the kids she is not about to let the two share a room.  That’s a lot of set-up for the episode, so let’s see what happens!

Roland soon stops Benson in the lobby, catching him with a single can of beer hidden in his trench coat.  While this new diversion is taking place and Roland is feeling proud of himself, Benson’s gang smuggles in a comical number of kegs.  Unaware of this development, Roland has a heart-to-heart with Benson and expresses remorse for referring to him as “Mr. Sneaky.”  Chuy is seriously considering recreating the giant burrito from his glory days, much to Blanche’s dismay, and Charlene tells Rose that she feels like she can tell her anything.  In this case, she tells her that she is thinking of getting intimate with Rick.  Rose panics and invokes the Wrath of Santa Claus, also insisting that in her day the clergy would put young women to work until their impure thoughts went away.

Roland goes undercover posing as a youngster, but he’s no Drew Barrymore and is instantly identified.  He says that these kids will cost them a small fortune in damages, but Blanche points out that the hotel desperately needs their business.  Just then, a massive storm breaks out and the kids consider jumping ship for the presumably much sunnier Key West.  Blanche says that she needs a plan to get the kids excited about staying indoors at the Palace, and Chuy eagerly suggests his Burrito Project.  While this would normally be rejected right away, desperate times call for desperate measures.

With an eager and youthful workforce now on board, Chuy begins prepping for the new burritoconda.  Rose is looking for Charlene, and Blanche mentions that she had a chat with her about the girl’s budding sexuality.  Rose panics again and heads to Charlene’s room, where she freaks out upon discovering her granddaughter and Rick.  Together!  In private!  And in snorkeling gear!  Charlene says that Rose embarrassed her, points out that she isn’t a little girl anymore, and informs her grandmother that she doesn’t feel comfortable staying at the Palace anymore.  Rose insists that she was just trying to protect Charlene’s reputation.  Who is she, Lady Mary Crawley with a Turkish diplomat?

Chuy is turning into a real burrito dictator, which is very amusing to Sophia.  He says that this is his one real shot at fame and also seems to be hot for the giant burrito.  Rose can’t find Charlene again and is blaming Blanche.  The gang all sits around the kitchen table and talks about the difficulties with Charlene’s stage of life.  In particular, they talk about how difficult the idea of girls having sex is for fathers, because if there’s one lesson we should be taking from this situation it’s that men really have it rough.  Blanche gets a bit nostalgic about her past as a troublesome temptress, and after yelling at some kids Roland realizes that he is beginning to turn into his father.  He says that something is making him turn old before his time, and then also realizes that he spends all of his time hanging out with old people.  The girls say that it happens to everyone, and Rose comforts him by pointing out that nobody can be expected to stay at the same stage all their life.  She then has her own realization that she has been very unfair to Charlene.

Rose talks to Charlene in the hotel lobby, where Charlene mentions that she and Rick spent the night in a different hotel.  Both Charlene and Rose apologize, and Rose says that she’ll accept Charlene’s decisions whatever they might be.  She spoils this a bit by calling her a “good, clean girl” after Charlene says that she hasn’t been intimate with Rick but points out that although she waited until she was married, that doesn’t make her any better than someone who chooses to do otherwise.  She also says that it will be more special if she knows she is in love, and that she will also know when the time is right.  To Rose’s shock, this is the same advice (almost) that Charlene got from Blanche.  The two make up, and Charlene says she wants them to spend the day together.

Benson complains that his room is padlocked, and Roland reveals that he knows all about the extra kids that the young man has been hiding.  He also insists that he’s going to make Benson pay for everyone he finds in the room, and the two set off to open the door.  Unfortunately, Sophia has already helped the kids escape through the window with a rope made of bed sheets, except for one final kid that she drops onto the concrete below for a laugh.

The burrito monstrosity has been completed, and Chuy measures it: 43 feet and 2 inches, a new world record!  The judges will arrive in an hour to make it official (presumably everyone is just planning to hold the thing in the air until then).  Suddenly, Rose announces that there is a flash flood warning in the area, and that all local business are urged to do whatever is in their power to protect their buildings by keeping water damage to a minimum.  There is no time to find sandbags, and we all see where this is headed.  The girls ask Chuy to sacrifice his burrito for the greater good, and while he eventually gives in, he asks if he can keep 3 feet of it to break the world record.  You see, the previous world record for a giant burrito was only 2 feet 11 inches.  Without warning, the gang of college kids now holding the convenient but unnecessary 43-foot burrito turns on Chuy, chasing him from the premises.

In a final scene, Roland insists that nobody else is escaping from his hotel without paying their bill, just as a giant man in a giant trench coat walks out the front door.

The End.

Maybe it’s just the light at the end of the tunnel clouding my judgment, but I thoroughly enjoyed this episode!  I was able to embrace the wackiness of both the Spring Break shenanigans and the giant burrito challenge, and the show even managed to sneak in a relevant moral about recognizing that people will grow up whether you’re ready to accept it or not.  There were a lot of good chuckles to be had and while I would love to highlight some more scenes, I’m feeling a sudden and undeniable desire to make a run for the border!  Fourth meal, here I come!  I know this episode probably wasn’t as good as Tad or a few others that I rated slightly lower, but darn it, I’m giving Sex, Lies and Tortillas a rating of 4.5 poofy hairdos out of 5!

We still have a bit longer until Drew will return with his FINAL recap, this time of the very latest James Bond film, SPECTRE.  In the meantime, I will be back soon with my FINAL recap of the very last episode of The Golden Palace, The Chicken and the Egg.  Until then, as always, thank you for being a friend, and for being One of Us!

Skyfall (2012)

Today Drew is forced to watch and recap 2012’s Skyfall, the twenty-third James Bond adventure. A powerful enemy with a personal grudge against MI6 emerges, and it’s up to Bond to save M from the ghosts in her past. Can Bond save the day, or has 007 finally met his match?

Keep reading to find out…

Eli, I’m sorry this is so late! I don’t want to waste any time, but let me just say you’ve been doing a stellar job with your TGP recaps and I’m very proud of you for making it so far into this iconic franchise! I can’t believe you’re almost all the way through! Okay, enough of that sentimental nonsense, we’ve got work to do.

Buttocks tight!

Screenplay by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade & John Logan, film directed by Sam Mendes

We start off with Bond and a fierce, no-nonsense MI6 lady (Naomie Harris) pursuing a mercenary (Ola Rapace) who’s gotten his hands on a hard drive which contains a list of undercover agents. After a thrilling motorcycle chase by Bond and some top-notch demolition derby driving by the unnamed agent, Bond and the mercenary end up in a shootout on a cargo train with the other agent in hot pursuit. Bond goes after the mercenary with some heavy machinery that the train was carrying, but because this version of Bond is a human being he ends up taking a bullet in the shoulder. He’s still Bond, though, so he’s able to take the shot in stride and catches up to the mercenary and the stolen hard drive. Their fight is hindered by a trip through a tunnel and a bridge keeps the unnamed agent at a distance, but luckily she’s got a sniper rifle handy. She only has a minute to take the shot before the train and the mercenary disappear into another tunnel, but Bond and the mercenary are still scuffling and she can’t get a clean shot. M is listening in on all of this and the agent tells her she doesn’t have a clean shot and might hit Bond, but M wants that list and orders her to take the shot. She does, but she hits Bond and he falls off the train into a river while the mercenary rides the train into the safety of the tunnel. So, all in all, not a great day. The agent lets M know what happened, and M doesn’t take it well. Bond, meanwhile, is swept away into a river.

That brings us right into our opening credit sequence, which features Bond drifting through a fever dream of an ocean while giant aquatic ladies swim around him and Adele belts out “Skyfall”. The trippy visuals continue with shots of graveyards, spooky forests and Chinese dragons while Bond shoots at his own shadows and navigates a hall of mirrors.

With that spooky little intro out of the way, we cut to M typing up Bond’s obituary. Oh, yeah, by the by, homeboy’s dead as hell. To be fair, this isn’t the first time this has happened, but it definitely took this time. M is taken to a meeting with Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes), chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, who informs her that the Prime Minister has some concerns. It’s been three months since the mercenary got away, and none of her agents have been able to retrieve the hard drive he stole. To cut to the chase, Mallory is forcing M to retire, though in her eyes she’s being fired. Mallory says her ‘voluntary’ retirement will happen in two months, but M says to hell with that. She knows she can’t be M forever, but she’s not going to cut and run with this whole hard drive situation hanging over her head.

On her way back to HQ, M gets a call from Q Branch informing her that someone is attempting to hack into the hard drive. They trace the hack, but, uh-oh, the call is coming from inside the house! Or, rather, the hack is coming from inside MI6 headquarters, more specifically from M’s own computer. A graphic with M’s face in the style of the Queen pops up, followed by a message telling her to think on her sins. M’s car is suddenly pulled over by some upstart bobbies, which turns out to be a good thing as MI6 headquarters suddenly blows right the hell up in the background.

On that explosive note, we cut to a very much alive James Bond somewhere in what looks like the South Pacific. Turns out being shot to death is a handy cover for retirement, so Bond’s just keeping to himself and living it up. That is, until he happens to catch a news report covering the attack on MI6. Back in London, M looks over the coffins of the agents who died in the attack and vows to find whoever was responsible for the attack. M heads home and prepares for a nice drink, only to find Bond waiting for her. M chastises Bond for playing dead, but notes that he’s come home now that the squad’s under attack and in need of his help. M tells him he’ll have to pass some tests before he can return to active duty, which might not be as easy as it sounds.

Since the old HQ got blown up, MI6 has relocated into an old bunker of Churchill's. Bond trains for his exam, but it doesn’t go super well. Bond’s retirement might have been refreshing, but it’s really done a number on his aim. He moves onto the psychological portion of his test, which ends abruptly when the mention of Skyfall. Bond digs some bullet fragments out of his months-old gun wound and has them analyzed. The unnamed agent who shot Bond meets up with him and lets him know she’s been taken off field work after the whole ‘killing 007’ thing. She’s been assigned to help Mallory with this whole transitional period, but she plans on getting back into the field as soon as she can. Bond meets up with M and Mallory, and M lets him know he barely passed his tests though Mallory thinks it might be time for him to retire for good. M says Bond’s ready to go, despite Mallory’s claims that she’s sentimental about Bond.

The shrapnel from the mercenary’s bullet has been analyzed, and with it MI6 is able to identify him as Patrice. He’s going to be in Shanghai in two days, so Bond’s off to Shanghai to retrieve the list after a meeting with the new Quartermaster. Bond heads off, and M reveals that he definitely did not pass the tests. Uh-oh! At an art gallery, Bond meets a babyfaced twink (Ben Whishaw) who’s revealed to be Q. Q provides Bond with documents to get into Shanghai and a gun with a radio transmitter. Not exactly a razor saw belt or an exploding shoe, but it’ll have to do. Bond heads to Shanghai and begins to trail Patrice. He sees Patrice enter a fancy building and execute a security guard and barely manages to grab onto the mercenary’s elevator before he gets away. Bond’s still not up to his old standard, but he does manage to hold onto the elevator and avoid falling to his death. He doesn’t manage to stop Patrice from executing his next target, however, which is a bit of a bummer.

Bond attacks Patrice, and their ensuring struggle results in Patrice falling out of a window to his death before he can tell Bond who hired him to steal the list. Bond investigates Patrice’s equipment and finds a casino token, which leads him to a casino in Macau. Back in London, M’s trying to figure out who blew up her office. This is interrupted by the appearance of a YouTube video which reveals the identities of five agents on the stole list. M calls the office and orders the exposed agents to be called in before they can be killed, but the video promises that five more identities will be revealed in a week before encouraging M to think on her sins again. In Macau, Bond is surprised to be met by the unnamed agent. She lets him know about the exposed agents, then she shaves him as part of some kind of bizarre heterosexual courting ritual. She also lets him know that Mallory has seen his share of fieldwork, so he’s not just some paper pushing democrat.

Bond and the agent head to the casino with her covering the exits while he cashes in the chip he got from Patrice. The chip has an immediate reaction within the casino and attracts the attention of a suspicious woman (Bérénice Marlohe) he saw before in Shanghai. She introduces herself as Sévérine and takes him to the bar for a drink. He asks to meet her employer, and she tells him to be careful what he wishes for. Sévérine puts on a good show of being a badass, but Bond quickly deduces that she’s terrified of the man she works for. She tells Bond that her bodyguards will try to kill him as soon as she leaves, but tells him where he can find her if he survives. Sévérine wasn’t kidding, and Bond is immediately attacked when he tries to leave the casino. His bacon is saved by a combination of some hungry Komodo dragons and the intervention of the unnamed agent.

Bonds makes it to Sévérine on her yacht just before it sets sail. He joins her in the shower, which feels a bit presumptive, and they get to know each other while we jump back to London. M is watching a news story about one of the exposed agents being executed. Turns out three of the five agents have been murdered at this point, and Mallory’s not happy about it. M tells him that whoever is doing this knows how they think, and that he’s cut from the same cloth as Bond. Bond, Sévérine and a whole squad of goons arrive at an abandoned island off the coast of Macau. Bond and Sévérine are separated, and Bond ends up tied to a chair.

Enter the movie’s villain, Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem). Silva shares a charming story about teaching rats the benefits of cannibalism, which is all an allusion to the sort of people that M has turned both Bond and Silva into. Bond deduces that Silva was an MI6 agent stationed in Hong Kong in the late 80s through the early 90s. Silva begins his attempts to erode Bond’s faith in M. He’s hacked right into MI6’s system, so he reveals that he failed every test MI6 gave him before sending him back into the field, and says that by sending him into the field while knowing he wasn’t ready was tantamount to M sending him to his death. Silva gets a little handsy, unbuttoning Bond’s shirt to inspect his recent gunshot wound. He feels Bond up, tasking him to remember how his training taught him to respond to this sort of tactics. Bond hints that this isn’t the first time a guy has felt him up, which delights Silva.

Silva unties Bond and tells him he can have anything he wants if he joins Silva on the dark side. Bond refuses, so Silva takes him outside while telling him about his philosophy of cutting anything superfluous out of his life. Turns out he’s talking about Sévérine, who’s been beated and tied to the ruins of a statue. Silva tasks Bond with pulling a William Tell and shooting a glass off of Sévérine’s head, with both of them knowing full well Bond’s aim isn’t what it sued to be. Bond takes the shot but misses, which prompts Silva to cut to the chase and shoot Sévérine in the head. Bond lashes out and kills Silva’s men, just in time for reinforcements, signaled by the transmitter Q gave Bond, to arrive.

Silva is taken to MI6 headquarters and M confronts him. Silva notes that M is smaller than he remembers; M lies and says she barely remembers Silva at all. Silva reveals that he was captured by the enemy and tortured relentlessly for five straight months. He never broke, though, and kept M’s secrets for her. Until he realized he was only in that position because M sold him out, that is. After that realization, Silva decided to kill himself by biting into his standard issue cyanide capsule. The cyanide didn’t kill him, though. As he makes a point to show M, it dissolved a good chunk of the muscles and bones of his skull, which he’s kept hidden until now through the use of some gnarly prosthetics

Hey, Punky Drewster here. Just jumping in to say that this:

Was one of the most jarring and upsetting moments in any of the Bond films I’ve covered. Okay, back to the recap.

Despite being told by M that he’s headed straight for prison, Silva doesn’t seem too bothered. M tasks Q with hacking into Silva’s computer and finding out what he’s done with the list. Clearly feeling the need to justify her actions, M tells Bond that Silva’s real name is Tiago Rodriguez. He was a brilliant agent, but he got sloppy while spying on the Chinese. M gave him up in exchange for the return of six other agents. She’s never been afraid to take the shot when it was necessary.

Q begins work on Silva’s computer, but it’s safeguarded to heck and back. Q thinks he can handle Silva’s safeguards, though, and gets to work while M is forced to attend a briefing on the future of MI6 and Silva appears to get ready to leave his cell. Q finds a map of the underground on Silva’s computer, but as soon as he apparently hacks Silva’s system all of the doors in MI6 begin to open. Bond rushes to Silva’s cell only to find him gone with his guards dead. Bond finds a hatch to a lower tunnel open, and pursues Silva deeper underground. Q realizes that Silva has planned all of this years in advance, and the map on his computer leads Bond to a locked door that almost results in him being run over by a subway train. Bond manages to shoot the lock off the door in time to avoid getting crushed, but when he arrives at the station he can’t find Silva in the crowd.

Q spots Silva disguised as a cop on the train, and Bond has to run to catch a ride before the train zooms off. Bond realizes the train is headed right for where M is having her briefing. Silva gets off the train before Bond and Bond takes chase, but Silva easily looses him. Bond catches up to Silva, but Silva eludes him by setting off a bomb which destroys the roof of the tunnel they’re in and allows a subway train to come rushing in and almost crush Bond. Silva makes his way up to the surface and, thanks to some fake cops that work for him, he gets a ride straight to M. They storm the building just as M begins to make her case for the necessity for her agents still being in the field. Silva and his goons storm the briefing room and begin shooting up the place, but Mallory saves M’s life by taking a bullet for her. Bond, Mallory and the unnamed agent from earlier all start firing back at Silva, allowing M and the other government officials time to escape while Silva retreats.

Bond snatches up M and whisks her off the grid. He’s going to lead Silva into a trap, with M serving as bait. He tasks Q with leaving a trail that only Silva could follow and loads M into a fancy old car that doesn’t have a tracker in it. Mallory discovers Q while he’s doing all of this, which definitely hasn’t been approved by anyone, but Mallory approves. Bond takes M into the Scottish Highlands where he was born. M asks about Bond’s parents, but she already knows how and when they died and admits that orphans make the best recruits. They arrive at Skyfall, the Bond family estate. Bond takes in his old home and is confronted by Kincade (Albert Finney), who’s been the groundskeeper at Skyfall since Bond was a baby boy. Bond tells Kincade that someone’s coming to kill them, but Kincade is a ride or die sumbitch and he’s ready to scrap.

Kincade shows M a priest hole that she can shimmy her way into if things get too hairy, and then she, Kincade and Bond begin Home Aloneing Skyfall and setting up booby traps all over the place. With all the busywork done, M is forced to reflect on her actions and admits that she’s fucked everything up. Bond refutes this and says she was doing her job. This moment is interrupted by the inevitable arrival of Silva and his men. Thanks to their traps and some handy Q Branch gadgets stored in that fancy old car, not to mention Kincade’s marksmanship, Bond, M and Kincade are able to repel their assailants. Bond realizes Silva isn’t among the dead assailants, and it’s quickly revealed that this is because he’s arriving in style with a helicopter escort.

Silva’s helicopter begins to shoot up Skyfall, and Bond tasks Kincade with getting M out via the priest hole. Silva begins pelting Skyfall with explosives while Kincade and M, who’s been shot but is keeping it under wraps for now, make it outside. Bond admits he’s always hated Skyfall and blows up some propane tanks, causing the entire estate to go up in flames while he escapes through the priest hole. The explosion is so intense that it takes out Silva’s helicopter, which is a real fly in the ointment for Tiago. Silva realizes M has escaped and heads off toward the chapel where Kincade is leading M. Bond emerges from the priest hole and pursues them, but in order to reach M he has to cross a frozen pond. Silva is waiting for Bond, though, and he prepares to have his one surviving henchman shoot 007 while he goes after M. Bond uses the henchman’s gun to shoot through the ice covering the pond, causing them to fall into the freezing water where he’s able to kill the henchman.

Silva arrives at the chapel, taking note of the graves of Bond’s parents, Andrew and Monique. He enters the chapel and confronts M once again. He keeps a gun on Kincade to keep the old groundskeeper from interfering and notices that M has been shot. Despite having her right where he wants her, Silva can’t bring himself to kill M. Instead, he tells her that only she can free both of them and tells her to shoot both of them. This is interrupted by the arrival of Bond, who throws a knife into Silva’s back. Silva dies, and Bond catches M as she collapses. Her wound is a fatal one, and she’s not interested in surviving. She tells Bond that she was right to believe in him, and she dies in his arms. Bond breaks into tears and holds her close as Kincade watches on.

Back in London, Bond is met by the unnamed agent. Turns out she declined going back out into the field and is instead staying right here in London. She gives Bond a tacky old bulldog that M liked to keep on her desk, and he interprets this as a message that she wants him to stay in the fight. Bond and the agent head inside, and she finally gives her name: Eve Moneypenny.

OH SHIII

Moneypenny takes her position outside of the office of the new M, who turns out to be none other than Gareth Mallory. M asks if Bond is ready to get back to work, and Bond says it would be a pleasure.

The End

~~~~~

What an amazing movie! Silva was one of the best villains that’s ever been used in this franchise, and his personal motive for revenge against M was so much more compelling than a thirst for wealth or exclusive broadcasting rights in China for 100 years. Javier Bardem was absolutely captivating, and Daniel Craig and Judi Dench both gave stellar performances. I hate to see Dench leave the role of M, because she’s definitely been the best one in my opinion, but what a high note to go out on! I was a little nervous about such a young Q, but he grew on me and I loved this version of Moneypenny right out of the gate. I always wanted to see Lois Maxwell’s Moneypenny shoot some guys or snap someone’s neck with her bare hands, or do literally anything other than be an object for Bond to ogle and slap on the ass. Naomie Harris is giving me everything I wanted and more, and I can’t wait to spend more time with her! I could go on and on, but needless to say I really, really enjoyed this movie. My one complaint would be it’s just so dang long; to give a peek behind the curtains, I just got a new puppy recently and trying to type this recap up while she was trying to eat my ankles left me begging for this movie to hurry up and be done already. But, with that being said, I can’t think of anything that felt tacked on or that I wouldn’t miss if it were cut out. For a movie this long to be this compelling is a pretty amazing feat!

I give Skyfall QQQQ½ on the Five Q Scale.

It seems impossible, but we’re officially in the final stages of One of Us! Soon Eli will be posting his recaps of the final two episodes of The Golden Palace, “Sex, Lies and Tortillas” and “The Chicken and the Egg”, and right after that I’ll be posting my recap of the very last James Bond adventure, Spectre.

Until then, as always, thank you for reading, thank you for remembering and thank you for being One of Us!

One Angry Stan (TGP, Episode 22)

Today Eli is forced to watch and recap One Angry Stan, Episode 22 of The Golden Palace.  The girls receive some news about an old friend that sends them into a state of shock, while Chuy and Roland busy themselves with some raunchy party preparations.  What surprises are in store for our squad?  Keep reading to find out…

Drew is still on hiatus at the moment, so you’ll have to wait a bit longer for his thoughts on Skyfall, the Bond film released to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the film franchise.  While we wait for that juicy write-up, you can pass the time with my next recap of the antics taking place at the Palace.  Here we go!

Buttocks tight!

Episode written by Michael Davidoff and Bill Rosenthal, directed by Lex Passaris

Rose shows off her intelligence by finishing a jigsaw puzzle years ahead of the printed estimate, and then mentions that she received a request from the Carlton Hotel, which recently attempted to poach Roland.  The Carlton is overbooked and wants to know if the Golden Palace could host a bachelor party for them.  The gang could definitely use the business, and besides, Chuy and Roland seem pretty eager to hire a stripper.  Blanche mentions that Stanley Zbornak’s lawyer has also been in contact and wants to speak to the girls.  He arrives soon after, and tells Blanche and Rose that he was left with instructions to find Blanche upon the event of Stan’s death…oh, and Stan is dead.

Wait, Stan is dead?!  I can’t believe it, and neither can Blanche or Rose!  They know they will have to tell Sophia, but they aren’t sure how to break the news with sensitivity.  Sophia arrives, and Rose accidentally just blurts the sad (sad, right?) news out.  Stan’s former mother-in-law is in shock, and Blanche does her best to remind her of all of Stan’s many flaws to help cushion the blow.  Still, all of the girls say they will miss the old lunk.  Apparently he died making love, so they all assume that Stan was alone at the time.

Chuy has a potential stripper all lined up and is laughing about the prospect with Roland, but Roland is beginning to have second thoughts.  Is hiring a stripper and forcing her to entertain a bunch of horny dudes wrong?  The co-workers ultimately justify their actions by deciding that everyone could use a little fantasy in their lives.

Sophia is sitting in the dark waiting for a limo to pick up the girls for Stan’s funeral.  The trio begins to wonder who Stan might have left his fortune to, and they each think they have the best claim (although why any of them would believe they outrank Dorothy is beyond me).  Alone for a moment, Sophia appeals to God to cut Stan a break and let him into Heaven.  Sure, he sucks, but he has done his best.  Right on cue, Stan enters the kitchen and walks up behind Sophia to reveal that he’s alive.

Wait, Stan is alive?!  Yes, he is really there and still kicking, and Sophia seems momentarily thrilled until he reveals that he faked his death to avoid trouble with the IRS.  He didn’t tell Dorothy about his death because, as he and Sophia agree, she definitely would have turned him in.  But he wants Sophia to let her know the truth in a month or so, after he has had the time to evade justice and flee the country.  Much to Sophia’s disappointment, he’s headed to Madrid…or, somewhere…

The bachelor party is about to kick off, and Chuy and Roland are going over their party checklist.  They send their hired entertainer, Bambi, into the kitchen to wait, while they generally just act like pervy creeps.  Suddenly, a gang of wild women appears for “Chris’s” bachelorette party.  Oops!  Rose must have messed up the instructions!  The boys aren’t sure what to do, but the party girls let it be known that they will be happy to see Roland (or possibly Chuy) do some booty shaking.  They also act just as creepy toward the boys as the boys had acted toward Bambi.  After some deliberation, Roland is compelled to get into a giant cake.

At the funeral, the attendees are presented with a video that Stan left behind (you know, in case he died unexpectedly), in which he begins to read a poem for his friends.  Unfortunately, he inadvertently taped over the poem with Bikini Fest.  After a screen wipe, Blanche and Rose say some words about Stan while Sophia boos.  The priest attempts to say some final words, but Sophia can’t take it and stands up to tell those gathered that Stan is still alive.  Blanche and Rose assume she is overcome with grief and delusional and attempt to quiet their friend.

Roland (or rather “Topaz”) finishes putting on a sexy show for the hungry women and says that he feels like a piece of meat.  Bambi has a good talk with him about the business, and we all learn a valuable lesson about objectification.  Despite his successful performance, it doesn’t look like there’s a career change in Roland’s future.

Blanche and Rose talk about the scene that Sophia made at the funeral and mention that Stan left them nothing in his will.  In fact, he left all of his money to some random guy in Madrid.  Weird.  Sophia is in the kitchen alone, and Stan sneaks back in to see her.  The dude can’t even flee the country right!  His ship leaves in 45 minutes and he came to say goodbye (again, for some reason).  Sophia knows that this is a crucial moment and tells Stan that he shouldn’t run.  She loves him, but if he walks out the door he really will be dead.  Stan says that he loves her too, but he’s still a coward, and he still leaves.  Sophia cries because her son-in-law is now really “gone.”

As a wacky bonus scene, the priest from the funeral sits down by himself with a tub of popcorn to watch Stan’s Bikini Fest recording.

The End.

We’re on a roll, because I liked this episode too!  This may not have been a wonderful finale for the character of Stanley Zbornak, but it didn’t feel like a betrayal of who he was in the same way that the Miles episodes of The Golden Palace did.  Let’s face it, Stan has always been kind of a sleezeball (even when lovable), and it seems natural that he would be in danger of losing his fortune to legal trouble.  My only complaint on that front is that his exit is cheapened a bit without Dorothy in the episode.  Then again, she has been through enough, so let’s give the woman a break.  The connection shared by Stan and Sophia was sweet, and I believed that she was as important to him as he said.  The B-plot with Roland and Chuy looked like it might be headed to some pretty gross territory, but thankfully the point was that the show flipped the script on the hornballs and taught them a lesson about objectifying people.  Maybe I’m just feeling positive because I know we’re getting so close to the finale of this huge project, but I’m going to give One Angry Stan a rating of 4 poofy hairdos out of 5!

Drew will be back soon with his recap of Skyfall, his penultimate mandatory James Bond film, and then I will return with a recap of Sex, Lies and Tortillas, the penultimate episode of The Golden Palace.  Until then, as always, thank you for being a friend, and for being One of Us!

Tad (TGP, Episode 21)

Today Eli is forced to watch and recap Tad, Episode 21 of The Golden Palace.  When Blanche receives a visit from an important figure in her life, tensions soon rise as she and her friends are forced to lay bare their secrets.  Will these pals confidants ever be the same?  Keep reading to find out…

Drew, I loved your recap of Quantum of Solace!  It isn’t as highly regarded as Casino Royale but I still enjoy it, so I’m glad you had a good time with the movie as well.  I can’t believe how close you are to the end of the franchise, and I’m psyched to have someone to talk with about Bond!  Keep up the great work just a bit longer, and we’ll have this project tackled.  For now, since there are no changes to your list of franchise faves, I will spring right into action at the Palace.

Buttocks tight!

Episode written by Marc Cherry and Jamie Wooten, directed by Peter D. Beyt

Blanche returns from a trip to Chattanooga, and Chuy and Roland do their best to figure out who she was visiting.  Rose informs them that it’s a big secret and that even she doesn’t know.  Wait, Blanche has apparently been making semi-regular trips to Chattanooga that we didn’t know about for all these years?  Okay, sure.  While this retcon is taking place, Sophia has baked a bangin’ pizza and Chuy can’t get enough.  He mentions that they could make some serious cash if they sold this ‘za locally.  Smells like a B-plot to me!

Before long, Ned Beatty shows up at the hotel and asks Rose if he is in Miami.  He seems a bit confused, but he has come all the way from Chattanooga and he’s looking for Blanche.  When she learns of his presence, Blanche is just as surprised as anyone else.  The newcomer says that he rode all the way there in a car to visit her, and Blanche learns that she has an extremely high taxi fare to contend with.  Blanche lets us know that the visitor is her brother, Tad.  Rose confronts Blanche about the situation, as she was only aware of Blanche having one brother.  Why had she never mentioned Tad?  Well, Tad has an intellectual disability (still generally referred to as mental retardation at the time this show was broadcast), and Blanche says that Tad receives special care in Chattanooga; she further insists that in the South this was something you only whispered about.  This doesn’t fly with Rose, who is an open book in regard to her very eccentric family members and their oft shameful histories.  She suggests that Blanche let her brother visit for the weekend, and Blanche agrees.  Tad is excited because he wants to see some dolphins, and he knows that Blanche has touched a whole team of them.

Chuy tries to convince Sophia to share her pizza recipe with him, even offering up a back massage.  He pledges to protect her legacy and never to reveal the secret.  Speaking of secrets, Blanche hides Tad in the kitchen to keep him away from the hotel guests.  This actually works out pretty well, as he is able to spend some time connecting with Rose over a shared love of Muppet Babies.  Rose says that they can spend the day together, and Tad wins some serious points by telling her that she’s really smart.

Blanche tucks Tad into bed that evening, and he tells her that he had a great day with his new gang of pals.  He is especially fond of Rose, and tells Blanche that he won’t be going back to Chattanooga.  He’s in love with Rose, and he’s planning to stay put in Miami.

Downstairs, Rose is serving up some cheesecake when Blanche serves her up a slice of “Not so fast!” that would make Phoenix Wright proud.  Blanche tells Rose what is happening, but Rose still wants to know why Blanche never told them about Tad.  Blanche insists that everyone has secrets, and forces the others to confess some of theirs, which include Chuy admitting to a role in an X-rated movie and Sophia claiming that Dorothy ate her twin sister.

In the dark of night, Sophia puts Chuy through an arcane pizza ritual, preparing to pass down her family secrets.  Chuy is touched by the gesture and confesses that he was planning to use the recipe to make some fat stacks, but now he will keep her secrets forever.  Sophia believes him, also making it clear that he will keep his trap shut if he hopes to keep his genitals.

Tad gives Rose a rose (which is a little on the nose), and she attempts to let him down gently, but Blanche barges in and abruptly tells her brother that Rose doesn’t love him.  He gets angry and begins shouting that he didn’t do anything wrong, prompting Roland to usher him into the kitchen to cool down.  Blanche is pissed at Rose, but Rose says that Blanche is being selfish; Blanche is ashamed of Tad, and now Rose is ashamed of Blanche.

With the weekend at an end, Blanche prepares to take Tad to the bus stop.  Rose says goodbye to him and tells him that although they can’t be boyfriend and girlfriend, they can be Valentines.  She gives him a Valentine card that she has had for years and says that you only give a Valentine to someone you’re thankful to have in your life.  Tad takes the message to heart and immediately re-gifts the card, giving it to Blanche and asking her to be his Valentine.  She gets choked up by the gesture, and the two hug.  Blanche asks her brother to come stay with them more often, and the two take a moment to sit down and watch cartoons together.

As a bonus scene, Rose is depressed that she hasn’t been able to think of a secret to confess ever since Blanche forced them all to take the skeletons out of their closets.  She just has nothing to hide!  Chuy then reads a crazy newspaper headline about aliens living in Miami, and Rose makes a series of unearthly vocal noises nearby.

The End.

I’ll be honest, when I learned the topic of this episode and saw that Ned Beatty would be portraying a person with an intellectual disability, I was a bit nervous about how a program that is more than a couple of decades old would handle the subject matter.  He did make me a little uncomfortable at times, but I could tell that the show had its heart in the right place, and this ended up being a really good episode!  The B-plot with Sophia and Chuy got very little time, but that was actually the right call; there were some fun jokes, but it was best to get out of the way and let the main storyline take center stage.  We’ve seen things get heated between Rose and Blanche before, but this felt pretty serious and it was understandable why Rose had so much righteous indignation, and why Blanche felt judged.  Her secrecy was sort of a practical necessity for the writers since they were bestowing her with a brother who had never been mentioned before, but I could forgive the retcon since the story was worth telling.  I’m glad that Blanche learned that her brother was a person to be proud of, and I’m glad we’re back on the quality episode train as we’re approaching the station.  I’m going to give Tad a rating of 4 poofy hairdos out of 5!

It isn’t yet time for Drew to share his thoughts on Skyfall, the next James Bond adventure, but I’ll be back soon with a recap of One Angry Stan, the next episode of The Golden Palace.  Until then, as always, thank you for being a friend, and for being One of Us!

Quantum of Solace (2008)

Today Drew is forced to watch and recap 2008’s Quantum of Solace, the twenty-second James Bond adventure. We might have cashed out of the Casino Royale, but Bond’s still got some cards to play and some scores to settle. Bond finds himself caught up in the schemes of a supposed philanthropist, but M worries his hunger for vengeance will get in the way of him doing his job. Can Bond put his personal feelings aside long enough to stay alive, or will he be swept away in a wave of black gold?

Keep reading to find out…

Eli, I’m sorry you’ve been having such a rough time during your stay at the Golden Palace! I think the next episode you have to cover, “Tad”, is probably the best episode of the whole show, so hopefully you get some enjoyment out of that one. I’ve checked out of the Casino Royale, but I still have a lot of Bond adventures to go so I’m gonna get to it! 

Buttocks tight!

Screenplay by Paul Haggis & Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, film directed by Marc Forster

PREVIOUSLY ON ONE OF US!

Bond got tangled up with a gambler named Le Chiffre who laundered money for a mysterious, conspicuously unnamed terrorist organization and got his balls whipped clean off by a rope. Turns out Bond’s new gal pal, Vesper Lynd, was being blackmailed by the organization into stealing money for them. Le Chiffre got shot in the dome by a member of the organization named Mr. White and Lynd drowned in a building. Bond, hungry for vengeance over the loss of Lynd and his entire dick, tracked down and confronted White.

AND NOW, THE CONTINUATION

Bond races through the streets of Siena, Italy with some goons hot on his tail. We were blessed in so many ways by Casino Royale, but one of my favorite things about it was the lack of ubiquitous vehicle chases that have plagued this franchise for far too long. I guess we all have to pay the piper at some point, though, and our check’s getting cashed today. After three straight minutes of driving, Bond loses his pursuers, pulls into a shady tunnel and opens the truck of his car, revealing a kidnapped Mr. White.

Onto the opening credits! Oh, no, wait a second! We can’t be at the credits already, can we? Something’s missing! I can’t quite put my trigger finger on it, but there’s definitely that’s supposed to go in between the opening scene and the credit sequence… Oh, well, I’m sure it’ll come up sooner or later. In a first for the series, we’re treated to a duet at Jack White and Alicia Keys belt out “Another Way to Die” as a CGI Bond makes his way through the desert from Journey. Another thing I loved about Casino Royale was how rad its credits sequence was, and its lack of silhouetted naked ladies flailing around. Once again the gifts of the past have been turned into a curse for the present as those shadowy, irrepressible vixens retake the stage. Honestly, there’s not a lot else I can say about this; Bond’s wandering a desert, shooting his gun at random intervals while the naked lady silhouettes do their thing. At one point there’s this bit where a whole gaggle of them spin around Bond as he falls through space or something and they’re animated like a zoetrope and that’s pretty neat, but other than that this one’s a bit of a snooze fest. The colors are nice, though, I’ll give it that.

Anyway, Bond delivers White to M. Bond and M catch up a bit; the Americans were supposed to get Le Chiffre after Leiter bailed Bond out during the poker game, so they’re not happy about him being dead. Also, Lynd’s boyfriend, Yusef Kabira (Simon Kassianides), the guy she was trying to save in the first place, is also dead as hell. Or is he? Turns out the DNA of the mutilated body that’s supposed to be the remains of Kabira doesn’t match the DNA M got from Lynd’s old apartment while she was out playing CSI. Bond surreptitiously snatches a picture of Lynd and Kabira while M lets him know straight up that she’s concerned about his reliability. Bond assures her he super absolutely for sure doesn’t care about Lynd and has no interest in tracking down Kabira or avenging what’s-her-name. M begins to interrogate White and puts on her best tough gal act, but White isn’t intimidated. If anything, he’s more delighted than anything at the clear ignorance MI6 has in regards to him and his mysterious, conspicuously unnamed terrorist organization. M learns a hard lesson when White reveals that his organization has people everywhere, including MI6. M’s bodyguard, Mitchell, pulls out a gun and shoots an agent before taking a shot at M. Mitchell and White both run for it and M is lying on the ground wounded, but Bond chooses to chase after Mitchell.

Bond chases Mitchell out of the cellar they’re in and onto a crowded street, resulting in a few innocent bystanders getting shot full of lead. It’s another balls to the wall chase scene, and it ends with Bond shooting Mitchell while hanging upside down from a rope after they both fell out of a bell tower. Bond returns to the cellar but both M and White are long gone. He finds her back in London where she and the other members of her Forensics Club are going through Mitchell’s apartment. She’s pretty shaken up, but not about getting shot; Mitchell worked as her personal bodyguard for eight years, and no one at MI6, including herself, had the slightest clue he was dirty. M wants to know what the hell this organization is, who the hell is in it and how the hell Mi6 doesn’t know anything the hell about them.

It takes a while, but MI6 finally gets a lead in the form of digitally marked bills that had been introduced into Le Chiffre’s money laundering operation. Some money found on Mitchell is tied to money belonging to one Edmund Slate (Neil Jackson) who’s currently living it up in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. That’s enough for M, so Bond heads straight for Haiti and begins snooping around the hotel Slate is staying in. Slate and Bond fight in Slate’s room, but the fight doesn’t last long and Slate ends up bleeding out after slicing his neck on a widow and getting stabbed in the thigh by Bond. Jeez, this terrorist organization should really be paying Bond to clean up all their loose ends so efficiently! Bond steals some of Slate’s clothes and assumes his identity. He collects a briefcase Slate had stored at the front desk and makes his way outside, only to immediately be ordered into the car of a mysterious woman (Olga Kurylenko). The woman notices someone following them on a bike, and then both she and Bond find out that someone had hired Slate to kill her. Thinking Slate is Bond she pulls a gun on him herself, then kicks him out of her car and speeds off. The guy on the bike catches up and, also thinking Bond is Slate, chastises him for not killing the woman like he was supposed to. Bond steals the guy’s bike and pursues the woman, following her to a guarded compound.

The woman, whose name is Camille Montes, confronts her lover, Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric). He readily admits to hiring Slate to kill her, accusing her of trying to betray him. She tries to put his mind at ease, but he’s not having it and says the only reason she’s having anything to do with him is because she wants to get to General Medrano (Joaquín Cosío), an exile of Bolivia whom Montes has a grudge against. Greene and Medrano meet, and Greene promises to destabilize the Bolivian government enough to allow Medrano to seize power. In exchange, Greene wants a seemingly worthless patch of desert. Greene and Medrano discuss Medrano’s connection to Montes, specifically that he had her family killed before he was exiled, and then Greene gives Montes to Medrano as a gift. Gross! Medrano takes Montes and he and his posse set off in a yacht, but Bond quickly crashes into it with a speedboat he stole. He rescues Montes right before she can kill Medrano, much to her frustration, because Bond can kill as many people as he wants but heaven forbid a woman in this franchise be allowed to avenge her murdered family. We’re really making up for the chase scene respite we enjoyed in Casino Royale, because now it’s time for a boat chase. It doesn’t take Bond too long to give the General’s men the slip, though the chase does result in Montes getting knocked out on the floor of the boat.

Bond unceremoniously dumps the still-unconscious Montes onto a random dock worker and follows a signal from a tracker he managed to plant on one of Greene’s men. He calls MI6 and asks them to look into Greene. Greene is a much more common surname than, say, Goldfinger or Scaramanga, so you can imagine that this is not an easy task for the old HQ. M is pissed at Bond for killing Slate, but Bond refuses to give a shit about his actions or her frustrations. MI6 is able to put together that Dominic Greene is the CEO of a utility company called Greene Planet, which has been doing a lot of philanthropic work lately and has been buying up land under the guise of setting up ecological reserves. M calls the Americans to ask about their boi, and they send her to Greggory Beam (David Harbour). Beam assures M the American government has absolutely no interest in Greene, but M calls bullshit. Beam is the head of the CIA’s South American section, and how would they have known to sent M to him unless they were keeping tabs on Greene and knew he was in Haiti? Hot damn, the gals in the Forensics Club are gonna have a field day with this one!

Bond follows his tracker to an airfield, where Greene boards a plane. Inside Greg Beam and our old friend Felix Leiter are waiting, and soon the whole crew sets off for Bregenz, Austria with Bond following close behind. While in the air, Greene and Beam spell out their deal for us. The US won’t interfere with General Medrano’s coup in Bolivia in exchange for the US getting the rights to any oil found in Bolivia. Beam is tickled pink by the prospects of some black gold, but Leiter is pretty disgusted by all this. Greene has his man show Beam and Greene a pic of Bond that his man snapped and tells Beam he’ll need to be eliminated. Leiter, a true blue bro to the end, denies recognizing Bond, but after a second look Beam recognizes him and announces to the whole plane that he’s James Bond and that he works for British Intelligence. Way to go, Gregory. After the plane touches down Greene and his man depart and Leiter tells Beam this whole thing is an obviously bad idea. Beam doesn’t care and tells Leiter to keep his nose clean if he doesn’t want to lose his job.

In Bregenz, Greene goes to see Tosca and Bond follows him after pilfering a tux. While all patrons receive a swag bag upon arriving, Bond notices that certain attendees get super secret special bag. Assuming the bag contains invaluable collectables that any PucciniHead would die for, Bond relieves a man of his while they’re in the bathroom and is disappointed to find it only contains a pin in the shape of the letter Q and an earpiece. Greene also received one of these special bags, and during the opera, while all the real fans are being swept away by Puccini’s masterpiece, he and several other people in attendance communicate surreptitiously using the earpieces. Bond listens in while they discuss the various workings of their organization, which they refer to as Quantum, and then chimes in himself in order to spook several of the members into leaving the show. Once they’re up and headed for the exits Bond is able to snap pictures of them, which he sends to MI6. Mr. White, who is also in attendance, is unimpressed.

Bond makes a run for it before he can get pinned down, and runs right into Greene and his posse as they head for the exits. Greene sends his goons after Bond, which results in a shoot out in a fancy restaurant and the deaths of several more innocent bystanders. Bond manages to get his hands on one of the goons, only to drop the guy off a roof when he refuses to say who he works for. Man, Bond just refuses to bring anybody in for interrogation! This guy hates information! The guy lands on Greene’s car and Greene’s man shoots him to death. This is a real fly in the ointment, because that guy was a Special Branch operative working as a bodyguard for Guy Haines (Paul Ritter), a special envoy to the Prime Minister. Now it looks like Bond killed the bodyguard of the Prime Minister’s buddy, which is not a good look.

M calls Bond and tells him he needs to come in while this is sorted out, but he refuses. M cuts off Bond’s access to MI6 resources and puts an alert on his collection of passports while MI6 digs up the dirt on Haines. Being cut off from the family money instantly puts Bond in a tight spot, as he’s not able to buy a plane ticket he needs to keep tracking Greene. He’s able to make his way to Talamone, Italy, where he meets with his old, now-retired friend René Mathis. Keep in mind, the last time Bond and Mathis hung out Bond had Mathis branded as a traitor and he was locked up by MI6. His name’s been cleared in the days since all that happened, which is good, but now Bond is coming to him for help. Bond shows him the pictures he got of the Quantum members at the opera, and Mathis recognizes Haines and says he’s nobody to trifle with. Despite living the good life and having no conceivable reason for wanting to help Bond, Mathis agrees to join him on a trip to Bolivia.

At La Paz, Bolivia, Bond and Mathis are confronted by Miss Fields (Gemma Arterton), a consulate worker with orders to get Bond on a flight to London. The next flight isn’t until tomorrow, so Fields agrees to tag along with Bond and Mathis while they get up to trouble. Bond and Fields immediately sleep together, and Mathis later informs Bond that he’s been invited to a party hosted by Greene Planet. At the party, Greene gives a speech about ecological peril and discusses environmental issues with his guests while also sowing seeds of unrest directed at the current Bolivian government. A positively sloshed Montes keeps this from going smoothly by telling Greene’s admirers about how land he’d previously bought to use as an ecological reserve was sold off to a big company that stripped it bare. Greene drags Montes away, all the while being observed by Felix Leiter. Montes is still obsessed with getting revenge on Medrano, and Greene prepares to push her off the ledge of a balcony when Bond swoops in to save her. Greene sends a man after Bond, but the scrappy Miss Fields manages to trip him down a flight of stairs so Bond and Montes can put some safe distance between them and Greene.

Bond tells Montes he needs her to get more dirt on Greene’s secret projects, but they barely make it out of the party before they get pulled over by some cops. The cops are clearly dirty and they tell Bond to open his trunk, where an unconscious Mathis is found. The cops shoot Mathis in the back as Bond helps him out of the trunk, and Bond kills them in kind. Bond holds Mathis while he dies, following through with his plan to ruin this man’s life right up to the end. Mathis says he forgives Bond and asks him to forgive Vesper Lynd for betraying him. Mathis dies and Bond tosses his body into a dumpster after stealing some cash off him.

The cops blame Bond for Mathis’ death, so now M thinks he’s on a full-blown rampage, and after the whole Mitchell thing it’s easy to understand why she’d be ready to believe someone she trusted was dirty. Bond and Montes get their hands on a plane, which Bond flies while Montes guides him to the land Greene bought from Medrano. During the flight Bond causally informs us that Montes was formerly an agent of the Bolivian Secret Service. Bond spots some sinkholes in the desert, and then their plane is suddenly shot up by some of Greene’s flyboys. You guessed it, we’ve had car chases, foot chases and a boat chase, so naturally it’s time for a plane chase. Bond barely keeps his bird in the air, but the other plane is still coming for them and it shoots out one of their engines. Bond uses the smoke from the dead engine to blind the enemy pilot and trick him into flying into the side of a mountain.

Bond has Montes put on a parachute in preparation for abandoning the plane, but then out of nowhere a helicopter pops up and picks up the crashed plane’s shooting slack. This is too much for the plane, and it’s finally going down. Bond jumps out with Montes and only one parachute between the pair of them, and they fall into a sinkhole. They manage to grab onto each other and deploy the ‘chute just before hitting the ground, but they still hit hard enough to knock both of them out. M is called into a meeting with a government bigwig and informed that the British government is now preparing to do business with Greene. M protests and asks for time to gather evidence to prove Greene is a rude, crude dude. The official doesn’t really care if Greene is a bad guy or not, and tells M to pull Bond in before the Americans can kill him.

Back in the sinkhole, Montes tells Bond about her tragic backstory and her thirst for vengeance. Now that he knows how horny Montes is for killing Medrano Bond apologizes for stopping her earlier, and the two set off to find a way out of their hole. They discover that Greene has secretly dammed up an underground river, causing an artificial drought, and when they make it to the surface they see some Bolivians desperate for the water Greene is hording below the surface. Bond takes Montes to his hotel, where he’s informed that Fields has left a note for him. The note tells him to run, but he’s got to check his room first. In the room he finds M and a whole squad of goons. Bond and M are both mad at each other; Bond is mad at M for getting into bed with Greene over nonexistent oil, and M is mad at Bond for getting so caught up in his grief over the loss of Lynd and his thirst for vengeance. Bond finds out that Fields has been killed by being drowned in oil and that her oil-coated corpse has been left on his bed. M knows Greene is behind this just as much as Bond does, but she still blames Bond for her death. Fields was an office worker who was only in Bolivia to collect Bond and take him home, and she only got caught up in all of this because she had a crush on him. M suspends Bond and has him escorted away by guards, but he beats the guards up in an elevator. Bond catches up to M and points out Fields’ bravery before telling her that the two of them need to finish this. M says there’s nowhere to go and that there’s a capture or kill order out on him, but she doesn’t stop him from scampering over a balcony to escape the never-ending swarm of agents coming to collect him. She tells her assistant to have him followed because he’s onto something, and tells the CIA to piss off because Bond is her agent and she trusts him.

Outside the hotel, Montes swoops in to give him a ride. Meanwhile, Leiter and Beam are chilling in their hotel room when Bond gives Leiter a call. Leiter meets Bond in a bar, and the two discuss the ethics of oil, money and Greene. Leiter had to report making contact with Bond so some CIA goons are about to tear this place apart, but Leiter has enough time to tell Bond that Medrano can’t stage his coup until he pays off some officials and he has to get money from Greene before he can do that. Leiter tells Bond where Medrano is meeting with Greene to get his cash, and lets Bond get away before his fellow CIA agents can capture and/or kill him.

Bond and Montes prepare to storm the hotel as Greene arrives with Medrano’s spondoolies. Greene does indeed bring the skrilla, but he also brings a contract for Medrano which will make Quantum the sole provider of Bolivia’s utilities. Medrano’s pissed about this bit of extortion, but after some threats from Greene he signs the contract and gets his money. Montes infiltrates the hotel and finds Medrano’s room, where she hears him assaulting a woman who brought him a beer earlier. Bond, meanwhile, goes on a rampage in the parking garage to prevent Greene from getting away. Montes gets into Medrano’s room and the two start beating the hell out of each other just as Bond catches up to Greene and the two of them start beating the hell out of each other.

Bond set off a chain reaction of explosions during his rampage, so it should be noted that both of these fights are going on while the hotel is exploding around them. Bond gets the better of Greene just as Medrano gets the upper hand and shoots her family’s murderer. Bond chooses not to kill Greene, and instead rescues the trapped Montes from the burning hotel room. He sees Montes through her flashback to her traumatic childhood and then the two escape, catching sight of Greene limping away in the distance. It doesn’t take Bond long to track him down once he finds a car that hasn’t exploded yet, and after interrogating him offscreen Bond leaves him in the middle of the desert with only a can of oil to drink.

Bond drives Montes back to civilization, and the two make plans to dismantle Greene’s dams and get water flowing in Bolivia again. They give each other a kiss goodbye and Bond sets off for Kazan, Russia, where he’s able to track down Yusef Kabira. Kabira has moved on from Lynd’s death and has a new girlfriend who works in Canadian intelligence. Bond explains to the woman that she has access to some sensitive material, and soon Kabira will be threatened and she’ll be blackmailed into giving that information up. Kabira’s entire relationship with Lynd was built on this same scheme, and him getting her involved in the mess at the Casino Royale led to her death. Bond sends Kabira’s new gal pal off and allows MI6 to take Kabira into custody. That’s right, he didn’t kill the guy! Who’d have thought! Bond and M meet outside the hotel, and M lets Bond know Greene was found shot to death in the desert and Felix Leiter got a promotion. Bond lets her know he’s forgiven Lynd for betraying him and is finally moving on from his grief.

The –

Oh shit, just kidding, right before the final credits role we get our first real barrel shot featuring Daniel Craig! I knew something was missing from earlier!

The End

~~~~~

Phew, let me catch my breath after being so long winded! I know from my general understanding of the Bond franchise that this movie didn’t receive the same fanfare that Casino Royale did, but I’ve got to say that I really enjoyed it! I think Casino Royale is probably the closest to a perfect Bond flick that I’ve seen so far and I can’t say that Quantum of Solace reached those same heights, but it was still a very well-made movie. I think one of the things I appreciated so much about Casino Royale was its willingness to step away from established tropes and do something that felt fresh and new to me, and that’s one area where I think Quantum of Solace stumbled. There were so many chase scenes in this movie! Boats, cars, planes, you name it, Bond was being chased by it. Also, I know this is a weird thing to be so bugged by, but I was really disappointed to see the return of the naked lady silhouettes in the credits sequence. Let’s leave those in the past already! One thing I loved about this movie was the character of Montes, and her being able to claim the vengeance she’d more than earned felt like a personal apology from the franchise over the travesty that was Melina Havelock’s arc in For Your Eyes Only. But we still had to have a disposable woman character murdered in order to piss Bond off in the form of Miss Fields (to be fair, that’s one trope Casino Royale also used). I don’t think Greene was as memorable a villain as Le Chiffre, and even though I think Mathieu Amalric did a fine job in his performance I never found myself really digging his character. Maybe it’s the fact that oil as a motive has already been used in the franchise, I don’t know. One thing I really liked was how much screen time M got, and she even got her own little arc about learning who she can trust. I also just really love Jeffrey Wright as Leiter, and was glad we got to spend more time with him here. Also, this is just a frivolous aesthetic note, but I really loved the way the each location name was shown with its own bespoke font. There were plenty of things I didn’t like about this movie, but there were a lot more things that I liked and overall I think this is a standout entry in the franchise.

I give Quantum of Solace QQQQ on the Five Q Scale.

Check back soon to catch Eli’s recaps of the next couple of episodes of The Golden Palace, “Tad” and “One Angry Stan”, and after that believe it or not I’ll be covering the penultimate James Bond film when I recap Skyfall.

Until then, as always, thank you for reading, thank you for that sweet, sweet vengeance and thank you for being One of Us!

Pro and Concierge (TGP, Episode 20)

Today Eli is forced to watch and recap Pro and Concierge, Episode 20 of The Golden Palace.  When Sophia is offered a vacation and Roland is presented with a new job opportunity, will the remaining staff members be able to carry the load?  Sophia’s absence may increase productivity, but can the hotel really manage without its manager?  Keep reading to find out…

It still isn’t quite time for Drew to share his thoughts on Quantum of Solace, so I’m not going to waste any time with preliminary pleasantries.  Let’s head straight to the Palace and get things started!

Buttocks tight!

Episode written by Kevin Rooney, directed by Lex Passaris

Rose is looking for a vacation destination, but not for herself.  She thinks that Sophia, who is napping while vacuuming, has been working hard and deserves a break.  Blanche is on board and the two friends begin to conspire, but this only makes Sophia nervous.  Despite the fact that we know Shady Pines is a great place to live now, she still has traumatic memories from her first stay and is mistrustful of the idea of being “sent away.”  She says that she doesn’t want a vacation, and besides, who else would get the spare change out of the couch?

Roland is speaking to Chuy in the kitchen, and mentions that he was offered a job at the prestigious Carlton Hotel.  He’s a hot commodity!  Roland was flattered and agreed to have lunch with the hotel’s owner, but is planning to decline.  Chuy thinks Roland should use the situation to convince the girls to give him a juicy raise, but this isn’t Roland’s style and he makes Chuy promise that he won’t tell anyone about the job offer.

Rose soon informs the others that they’re in big trouble, because she spotted Roland having lunch with the owner of the Carlton!  Chuy wastes very little time in spilling the beans that Roland was offered a job, but fails to mention that Roland has no intention of taking it and makes a big deal about what a career opportunity this is for their coworker.  A panicked Rose is immediately prepared to sell something off (other than Blanche) so they can afford to give Roland a raise, and everyone casts a momentary glance at Sophia.

Rose and Blanche continue to push Sophia to take a vacation against her will.  She finally agrees to take some time off, and then checks into the swanky Golden Palace penthouse.  Hey, they never said she couldn’t take her vacation right here!  Chuy brings in Roland, and the girls reveal that they know about the job offer.  Blanche shocks everyone by declaring that she’s offended Roland even entertained a job offer from a competitor (despite the fact that he didn’t), and fires him on the spot.  Everyone protests, but Blanche has made up her mind.

Blanche begins interviewing people to replace Roland as manager, but has no luck after sixteen applicants.  Rose is angry at Blanche for taking this action and losing such a valuable member of their team and extended family.  Chuy applies for the position and mentions that he’s a Brown man (kinda), but he’s quickly rejected.  Blanche and Rose could now really use Sophia’s help, but she’s on vacay and is too busy amusing herself by riding the elevator up and down.  Blanche finally mentions that she did what she did for Roland’s sake, to give him an opportunity with the Carlton instead of wasting his career with them…

…but actually, Roland is pretty miserable renting out bicycles by the airport.  The uniform certainly doesn’t help matters.  Chuy tracks him down to apologize, and Roland tells him that he didn’t get the job at the Carlton because he had just been canned from the Palace.  Chuy vows to get him his job back, but Roland says that he doesn’t want him to try.

Eventually, the girls badger Chuy to tell them about Roland’s new job, but he refuses.  We cut to Roland, and find out that he is actually desperate for Chuy to blab for once and get him out of this nightmare scenario.  Sophia returns from her staycation and finds everyone depressed.  Chuy finally lets the truth of Roland’s situation slip, and everyone rushes off to save him from bicycle jail.

Upon reaching Roland, Blanche tells him why she actually fired him and asks him to come back.  He pretends to be reluctant and asks his former co-workers to beg and do the Funky Chicken.  He then agrees to return, the audience (or a passing band of nearby strangers) applauds, and Rose rewards him with a St. Olaf story.

It turns out that Blanche found a way to make some extra money for the hotel and give Roland a raise.  We then see Sophia dressed in bicycle rental attire, but she’s probably going to get into legal trouble for biting children.  As a final gag, Chuy tries to use the job offer tactic to score a raise for himself, but to no avail.

The End.

I really, really want the show to be great and to finish strongly, but I feel like it has settled into sort of a rut of mediocrity.  I know it was cancelled after a single season and so I shouldn’t get my hopes up, but I can’t help but to root for the successor to The Golden Girls to live up to the original’s well-deserved reputation.  The plotline with Roland’s firing was fine, and even had the potential to be pretty powerful, but it just kind of seemed forgettable in the end.  I’m writing this recap about a week after watching the episode (I know, I know), and without my notes I would honestly be struggling to remember what even happened.  I also thought there was a LOT of lost comedic potential with Sophia’s stay in the hotel.  It would have been a real hoot to see her giving the place the Home Alone 2 treatment, but the most that we got was an elevator ride.  That moment was kind of fun, and it was entertaining to see Roland peddle bicycles (get it?), but there just wasn’t enough to redeem the episode.  Unfortunately, I have to give it a rating of 2.5 poofy hairdos out of 5.

Check back soon for Drew’s take on Quantum of Solace, the next James Bond adventure, and then I’ll return with a recap of Tad, the next episode of The Golden Palace.  Until then, as always, thank you for being a friend, and for being One of Us!

A New Leash on Life (TGP, Episode 19)

Today Eli is forced to watch and recap A New Leash on Life, Episode 19 of The Golden Palace.  When Rose is faced with the possibility of losing a new canine friend, and Roland is faced with the possibility of having Chuy for a father, what drastic measures might these desperate figures take to avoid a dreaded fate?  Keep reading to find out…

Drew, I absolutely LOVED your recap of Casino Royale (the official release, as well as your bonus posts about the other versions)!  I think it’s a fantastic film as well, and if I didn’t have such a nostalgic attachment to GoldenEye, this would definitely be my #1!  I’ll be really curious to get your take on Quantum of Solace, which picks up right where Casino Royale left off but suffers a bit as a result of being in production during a major writer’s strike.  I can’t believe how close you are to the end!  For now, let’s get that list of franchise favorites updated!  Here are Drew’s new faves, after my inquiries:

Best Bond: Daniel Craig (Casino Royale) Best Villain: Le Chiffre (Casino Royale) Best Henchman: May Day (A View to a Kill) Best Bond Girl: May Day (A View to a Kill) Best Gadget: Submersible Crocodile (Octopussy) Best Opening Scene: Casino Royale Best Song: For Your Eyes Only Best Title Sequence: Casino Royale

Talk about a winning hand!  Anyway, I still have my own responsibilities to take care of, so let’s get down to business and head to the Golden Palace once more.

Buttocks tight!

Episode written by Marco Pennette, directed by Lex Passaris

As we begin, Blanche informs Sophia that a friend with the perfect old lady name of Gladys has broken her hip.  Sophia has no pity, but coldly takes pleasure in the fact that Gladys wants to give Sophia her tickets to attend The Price is Right.  Unfortunately, the show is taking place in two days, and the girls inform Sophia that she will need to come up with some money in a hurry if she wants to be able to afford an expensive trip to L.A.  Still, she insists that she’s going.

Chuy tells Roland that his mom is looking for him, and Roland says that his mom wants to hang.  However, so does a hottie named Camille Jenkins, so his mom will have to take a raincheck.  A man named Charlie Sardisco checks into the hotel and quickly catches Blanche’s interest.  He also catches Rose’s interest when he mentions that he races greyhounds at the dog track…wow, he must be fast!  Rose goes to introduce herself to his pooch, Flo, and Blanche says that she would like come to the track to see the action.  Sophia simply sees an opportunity to make some fast cash, and she has a date with Bob Barker.  Speaking of dates, Roland’s mom shows up for their day out.  He blows her off, but she already knows about Camille and even helped to set up the date.

Rose quickly falls in love with Flo the dog, but Sophia tells her to leave the pup alone and let her focus on her upcoming race.  Roland returns, and Rose mentions that his mom spent the entire day with Chuy.  Roland seems concerned about this.  He bumps into the pair as they return from their outing, and they tell him that they had a great day and lost track of the time.  Roland was ditched by Camille and says that he can spend the next day with him mom, but she has already made plans for another day out with Chuy.

Roland starts getting defensive about the idea of his mother dating Chuy, perhaps soon to be his new papa.  Charlie Sardisco enters the hotel with Flo, and scratches Blanche behind the ear.  Rose lends Flo some encouragement, while Sophia threatens her.  Then, alone with Rose, Charlie offhandedly mentions that if Flo doesn’t make him some big money in the race, he will “have to” have her put down.  That’s right, if she can’t win a race, her life has no value and she deserves to die.  He has some bullshit excuse, but Rose is understandably pissed and no longer wants anything to do with him.

In a brief scene, Roland spies on his mother and Chuy and sees the pair share a quick and innocent kiss.  He orders Chuy to stay away from his mother, but a rightfully offended Chuy says that he’ll just stay away from Roland instead.

At the track, we hear that Flo has been scratched from her scheduled race, and then Charlie reveals that somebody stole his dog!  We quickly cut to the hotel, where we see Rose placing fake spots on Flo in a poor attempt to pass her off as a Dalmatian.

Blanche later returns to the hotel, finds Rose speaking with the devil, and tells her about the pilfered pooch (while Sophia munches down on some dog food).  Roland tells the girls that he’s having a tiff with Chuy and they break out the cheesecake.  Blanche says that it’s difficult to think of your parents as sexual beings, freaking Rose out.  But the girls also tell Chuy that his mother’s life didn’t end just because her marriage did, and that if Chuy makes her happy, that’s all that matters.

Charlie accuses Rose of stealing his dog, and the truth comes out when a disguised Flo appears.  Confronted with accusations of casual dog murder, Charlie says that Rose just doesn’t understand “the sport.”  Gross.  She quotes some upsetting statistics about the 50,000 dogs murdered annually as a result of his hobby.  He disregards her as one of “those” people, but everyone else tells him off and refuses to support him any longer.

Roland’s mom talks to him about the time she has spent with Chuy, and he apologizes to his friend.  He gives the pair his blessing, but also almost chokes Chuy out when he hears they went to a hotel together.  Not to worry, as Chuy simply took her to a divorce support group, and she apparently has no feelings for the poor chef.  Roland apologizes once again, and his mom reminds him that she’s a big girl.

Charlie returns to the Golden Palace, and tells Rose that Flo came in 5th in the race…not good enough to bother feeding her any longer.  Rose wants to take Flo off of his hands, but Charlie is hesitant to agree until she gives him a lecture about responsibility.  He finally agrees to give Flo to Rose until she can find the dog a good home (which I assume will be before the next episode).

In a final scene, we hear Roland telling Rose that their neighbors are complaining about some naughty doglike behavior, and she goes off to scold Sophia.

The End.

Well, Charlie was a real piece of shit, huh?  I can’t say that I loved this episode, but I’m at least glad that it served as a bit of a PSA about taking responsibility for the animals in your care, and you know, not killing them if they lose a race or something.  I kind of wish that Chuy and Roland’s mom would have actually dated for a while.  I think that could have made for an interesting ongoing storyline, but alas, it was not meant to be.  Still, I had a pretty good time watching the episode, and I’ll give it a rating of 3 poofy hairdos out of 5!

I’ll be back soon with a recap of Pro and Concierge, the next episode of The Golden Palace, and then Drew will return with his take on Quantum of Solace, the next James Bond film.  Until then, as always, thank you for being a friend, and for being One of Us!

Casino Royale (2006)

Today Drew is forced to watch and recap 2006’s Casino Royale, the twenty-first James Bond adventure. Everyone knows James Bond becomes the most famous and infamous spy of all time, but did you ever wonder how his career in espionage began? Well wonder no more, because today we’re hopping in the Wayback Machine and joining the newly minted 00 agent on his first big mission. Can Bond play with the big boys, or is he going to get sent back to spy school with his tail between his legs?

Keep reading to find out…

Eli, I’m back from my mini vacation and I want to jump right into the action, but I have to take a moment to congratulate you on two more wonderful recaps! I know you’re still not loving this batch of The Golden Palace episodes, but I’m loving your recaps all the same. Okay, you’ve waited long enough, it’s time to dive in!

Buttocks tight!

Screenplay by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade & Paul Haggis, film directed by Martin Campbell

We start out in Prague, Czech Republic, and this crazy black and white style makes me think maybe I’m watching the wrong version of Casino Royale. MI6 section chief Dryden heads up to his shadowy office, where he’s confronted by James Bond (Daniel Craig). He informs Dryden that M isn’t crazy about him being a double agent. Dryden lets us know right away that this is a prequel by informing Bond that he’s not a 00 agent because he hasn’t killed anyone yet. Well, about that. Some flashbacks show Bond in the process of doing said killing while Dryden pulls a gun on Bond. Bond anticipated this, however, and took the liberty of removing the bullets from the gun. Bond unceremoniously kills Dryden, and in one last bit of flashback we see him kill Dryden’s contact, Fisher, in a bathroom. Bond shooting Fisher leads us right into the coolest gun barrel sequence so far, and now we’re onto the opening credits!

Chris Cornell belts out “You Know My Name” while a stylized rendition of Bond fights dudes and hearts, spades, clubs and diamonds whiz around. Everybody’s really getting into the spirit of this whole casino thing, but, wait a second, something’s missing! Where are all the silhouettes of naked ladies dancing around? Could it be? Will my gay spirit finally know peace? Bless you, Casino Royale, bless you! We get a shot of someone confirming Bond’s new 00 status, and Bond regards us with his steely blues as the sequence comes to an end.

After that jam session we head to Mbale, Uganda, a man called Mr. White (Jesper Christensen) is making nice with Steven Obanno (Isaach de Bankolé), the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army. Mr. White, who works for a mysterious and conspicuously unnamed organization, is introducing Obanno to a man who will be entrusted with the Army’s considerable pile of cash. The man in question is Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), who promises a hefty return on investment and promises Obanno no complications. Obanno is convinced, and Le Chiffre promptly calls his accountant. I don’t know how stocks work so I’m going to do a bit of summarizing here. Basically Le Chiffre is using Obanno’s money to buy put options on an aerospace company called Skyfleet, and all that means he’s betting that the company will fail and he’s doing said betting with somebody else’s money.

With that economics lesson behind us, we jump to Madagascar, where a large crowd is horny as hell to watch Rikki-Tikki-Tavi fight a cobra to the death. Bond and another MI6 agent, Carter, are here to capture a bomb maker named Mollaka (Sébastien Foucan), but Carter is really bad at being a spy and Mollaka makes a break for it. Bond chases after him, and the two end up on a construction site where Bond nearly runs Mollaka over with a bulldozer. The two scale a skyscraper in the making and Bond causes a man with a welding torch to fall to his death, setting off an explosion. That dude wasn’t a spy or anything, by the way, he was just a dude trying to do his job and Bond got him blown right the hell up. No time to worry about collateral damage, though, Bond and Mollaka take their fight to the tippy top of a crane. Mollaka tries to take a shot at Bond, but he’s out of bullets by this point so he just throws his gun at Bond’s head. Bond catches it like a badass and throws it back at Mollaka, then they fight and Mollaka jumps onto another crane and then onto a building where he continues to run away. Bond’s not one to be outdone, so he too makes this crane-to-crane-to-building journey and continues giving chase. They cut through crowds of people still hard at work despite there being a huge explosion outside a minute a go, Bond Kool-Aid Mans through a wall, everyone’s jumping all over the place and things are just going a mile a minute here.

Mollaka eventually draws near to his destination, which turns out to be the Embassy of Nambutu. Mollaka arrives in the embassy, but Bond’s not going to let a little thing like that stop him from getting his man. He storms the embassy and continues kicking Mollaka’s ass, which results in an alarm getting raised and him being shot at by a bunch of guards. A lot of innocent office works are caught in the crossfire, but eventually Bond ends up holding a gun on Mollaka while surrounded by a bunch of armed guards. Bond surrenders Mollaka only to shoot him in the back, grab his backpack, blow up a nearby propane tank causing a lot of damage to the embassy (again, there were a lot of office workers just minding their own bee’s wax in there) and make a break for it. In the backpack, Bond finds a bomb and a cell phone containing a mysterious text which only says ELLIPSIS.

From here we jump to Le Chiffre’s yacht, where he’s in the middle of a high stakes card game and also crying blood from his scarred-up eye. Le Chiffre is notified about the situation in Madagascar and he’s not happy about it. Ellipsis, whatever that is, expires in 36 hours and Le Chiffre says that’s all the time he has left.

We hop over to London, where M is not happy about all of the press coverage Bond’s adventure in Madagascar is getting. Okay, just to address this, the Daniel Craig movies take place before any of the other films I’ve covered for this blog, but M is still being played by Dame Judi Dench. That doesn’t make sense as she was very explicitly first introduced to Bond in GoldenEye, but, honestly, she’s the best M there’s ever been by a long shot so I’m cool with letting the timeline weirdness slip. Anyway, she wants to know where the hell Bond is so she can rip him a new one, and right on cue we jump to Bond who’s hacking into Mollaka’s cell to find out who sent the message about Ellipsis. He traces the text to the Bahamas, specifically the Ocean Club on Paradise Island. M arrives, because this is her house and Bond broke in, and commences her plan to rip him a new one. He’s fine with one less bomb maker in the world, but M wanted Mollaka alive so MI6 could find out who’s been funding terrorist organizations all over the world. Mallaka was just a gun for hire, and thanks to Bond they don’t know who hired him in the first place.

M laments promoting Bond to 00 status too soon, but Bond points out that spies don’t live too long so she shouldn’t have to worry about that mistake for too long. She tells him to go chill out somewhere while she handles the Madagascar incident, and Bond takes the initiative to head to the Bahamas. He quickly finds his way to the Ocean Club where he’s mistaken for a valet. A club member gives him the keys to his fancy car, and Bond purposefully crashes it to cause a distraction so he can sneak into the Club unnoticed. He’s able to sneak right into the security office, and uses recordings of the date and time when the Ellipsis text was sent to get a shot of the guy who sent it. Bond talks to the receptionist of the club under the guise of booking a room, and in no time at all discovers that the man in Alex Dimitrios (Simon Abkarian) who just happens to live right up the beach.

Bond goes for a swim, emerging from the ocean like Honey Ryder’s illegitimate son and catches the eye of Solange (Caterina Murino), Dimitrios’ wife. MI6 knows Bond’s been using their system to gather intel, and they figure out he’s doing digging on Dimitrios. M checks him out, and finds out he’s a known associate of Le Chiffre. Guessing by M’s reaction to this, that’s bad news, son. Later that night, Bond joins Dimitrios in a game of cards and stomps him while once again taking notice of Solange, toward whom Dimitrios is noticeably cold. Afterward, Bond gives Solange a ride to his place in the car he won from her husband.

Dimitrios is called to Le Chiffre’s yacht, and Le Chiffre isn’t happy about Mollaka, the man Dimitrios hired for Le Chiffre, being under surveillance by MI6. Dimitrios doesn’t care if Le Chiffre trusts him or not, but he does value his reputation so he offers to hook Le Chiffre up with another bomb maker. Meanwhile, Bond is in the process of seducing Solange, but this extramarital fun is interrupted by a call from Dimitrios informing Solange that he’s flying to Miami. Bond ditches Solange to follow her husband, and in Miami Dimitrios discovers him. The two get into an intense knife fight that they manage to keep secret from the huge crowd of people around them, and Bond kills Dimitrios. Dimitrios has already hired another bomb maker, though, and Bond has to chase after the guy to stop whatever the hell is going on. The two wind up at an airport, where Bond discovers that Ellipsis is actually the passcode needed to get into a secure door. Bond calls MI6 to give them a heads up, and they find out that Skyfleet (remember them from earlier?) is unveiling a new airliner that Dimitrios’ man is here to blow up.

Bond pursues the man to the hangar holding the airliner, where he attaches a tiny little bomb to a fuel tanker and drives it toward the airliner. Bond manages to hitch a ride on the tanker and, after quite a bit of difficulty and a lot of collateral damage, he manages to foil the plot and stop the airliner from being destroyed. He’s then promptly arrested because he caused a lot of damage at this airport, but at least he got the satisfaction of watching the bomb maker accidentally blow himself up with his own bomb.

We cut to Le Chiffre, who was really banking on Skyfleet going belly up following the loss of their airliner. Because of Bond’s interference his plans have failed, and he just lost all of the money Obanno gave him to invest. Le Chiffre thinks his plans failed because someone talked, and when Bond returns to the Ocean Club after getting bailed out by MI6 he finds that Solange has been tortured and murdered. M explains Dimitrios’ connection to Le Chiffre to Bond, and tells him that since Le Chiffre lost all his money betting the wrong way he’s now set up a high stakes poker game at the Casino Royale in Montenegro. M explains that Le Chiffre will score a ton of money if he can win the tournament, but MI6 can’t let that happen. If Le Chiffre loses even more of his clients’ money they’ll be after him, and he’ll have no choice but to accept MI6’s offer for sanctuary in exchange for him spilling the tea on the mysterious, conspicuously unnamed terrorist organization he works for. Bond’s known for being good at cards, so M’s putting him in the tournament (after injecting him with a tracking device so MI6 can keep tabs on his location).

We jump straight to Montenegro, where Bond meets Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), a British Treasury agent who’s tagging along to protect the $10 million the government had to provide Bond as a buy-in for the tournament.  Lynd’s already taken care of the $10 million, and she has another $5 million in her pocket if Bond gets into trouble during the tournament. Bond and Lynd flirt by psychoanalyzing each other and soon arrive at their hotel. Bond immediately drops his MI6-provided cover name and checks into the hotel as James Bond, because he knows that a man as well connected as Le Chiffre already knows Bond’s with MI6 and has agreed to let him in the tournament anyway. Wait a second, a legitimate reason for Bond to be using his real name? Casino Royale, you’re making all my dreams come true!

Lynd isn’t crazy about Bond being reckless and leaves him to drool over the car M has had delivered for him. Bond and Lynd soon meet up with René Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini), Bond’s Montenegro contact, and prepare for their evening at the Casino Royale. Bond and Le Chiffre come face to face as the tournament is about to begin. To start things off, all players much choose a password to give to the money man so that if they win he can use their specific password to wire their winnings to them. Bond is up first and he chooses a password that seems to tickle him pink. With all of the pleasantries out of the way, the tournament begins!

Bond loses the initial hand to Le Chiffre, but Bond, Mathis and Lynd meet at the bar and Bond assures Lynd he has things in hand. He’s already discovered Le Chiffre’s tell, and Mathis has provided him with a bug which, after the game goes on a break after four hours of playing, Bond is able to slip into Le Chiffre’s inhaler. During the break Le Chiffre heads up to his room to meet with his girlfriend/henchwoman Valenka (Ivana Miličević), but, uh-oh, Obanno is there to crash the party and he wants to know what the hell Le Chiffre did with his skrilla. He threatens to cut off Le Chiffre’s hand for betraying him, but Le Chiffre will need his hands to play cards so he plans on taking one of Valenka’s instead. Just kidding, he’s not that bad of a guy! With his message delivered he leaves, but he and his goon spot Bond and Lynd eavesdropping nearby and attack them. This leads an intense fight in a stairwell, during which Bond kills both men with Lynd’s help. Bond sends Lynd off to get Mathis so he can dispose of the bodies, but Lynd is pretty shaken up by all this.

After another round of play, Bond returns to his hotel room and finds Lynd sitting fully dressed in the shower. He joins her clothing non-optional shower party and comforts her as she processes her recent trauma. The next day of the tournament soon begins, and Bond is fed his own ass by Le Chiffre. Turns out that tell he discovered so easily earlier was a deliberate plant by Le Chiffre, and after calling Le Chiffre’s non-bluff Bond’s lost his entire $10 million. Lynd is pissed, and she refuses to use the $5 million she has in reserve to bail Bond out, so it seems 007 is double 0 fucked. His ego not being able to handle losing, Bond grabs a knife and is ready to just straight up kill Le Chiffre. He’s stopped at the last moment from another tournament player who introduces himself as Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright, beloved by yours truly for his role in Westworld). Leiter knows Bond is a spy and admits he’s with the CIA. He tells Bond he’s not going to last much longer in the tournament, but offers to buy Bond back in. There’s a condition, however: when Bond wins, the CIA gets Le Chiffre.

Bond agrees, and soon there are only a handful of players left in the tournament, including Bond, Leiter and Le Chiffre. Le Chiffre has Valenka secretly poison Bond’s martini, and soon Bond’s rushing off to the bathroom to make himself throw up. That doesn’t quite do it, though, and he has to stagger back to his car to take advantage of the cache of antidotes he has stored there. He calls MI6 and they walk him through injecting a cure and working the car’s defibrillator, but there’s a loose wire in the defibrillator and he passes out before he can fix it. Luckily Lynd arrives at the last moment and saves him. He jumps right back into the tournament against MI6’s advice, and it’s a good thing he did because Leiter just lost his last hand to Le Chiffre and, as he expected, he’s out of the game.

The final phase of the tournament begins, and the hot poker action culminates with all the remaining players going all in on one final hand. Despite Le Chiffre having a solid hand, Bond wins the day with a straight flush, much to the nearby Leiter’s delight. Bond lets Leiter know he’s good to make contact with Le Chiffre and he and Lynd go out for a romantic dinner. The dinner is cut short when Lynd is called away by Mathis. Something gets Bond suspicious, and sure enough he gets outside just in time to see Lynd snatches by Le Chiffre’s men. He gives chase and finds Lynd tied up in the middle of the road like something out of a Snidely Whiplash cartoon. He’s forced to swerve to avoid running her over and gets into a nasty car accident as a result.

Bond survives the wreck, only to be snatched by Le Chiffre’s men himself. Le Chiffre informs Bond that Mathis works for him, and his men cut the MI6 tracker out of Bond’s arm. Bond and Lynd are taken onto a boat, with Lynd getting thrown into a room by Valenka while Bond is stripped naked and tied to a chair with the bottom cut out of it. Le Chiffre begins to torture Bond by striking his bare ass/balls/dick region with a knotted rope, and golly gee is it ever intense as hell. Le Chiffre assures Bond that if he keeps this up for too long Bond’s entire dick situation will be wrecked for life, but Bond refuses to give up the password that will give Le Chiffre access to the tournament winnings. Bond holds out against the torture so Le Chiffre prepares to just chop his dick off with a knife when suddenly Mr. White (remember him from earlier?) bursts in. Le Chiffre tells him he’ll get the money for White’s mysterious, conspicuously unnamed terrorist organization, but White says he’ll pass and shoots Le Chiffre in the head.

Bond wakes up in the hospital some time later and hazily recognizes Lynd and Mathis. Bond lets MI6 know Mathis is dirty and some agents come to drag him away. Lynd and Bond give into their attraction to each other as the money man from earlier arrives to give Bond his winnings. Turns out the password he chose was V-E-S-P-E-R, which is adorable, and the money is deposited just like that. Bond and Lynd head to Venice for some romantic alone time, and Bond tells Lynd he’s ready to quite MI6 and spend the rest of his life with her. All seems to be going well, but while sailing Lynd catches sight of a man with an eyepatch and seems unnerved. She and Bond are still planning to run off together, though, and she goes to withdraw some cash while he buys road trip supplies.

Things go south from here. Bong gets a call from M, informing him that the cash from the tournament was never deposited. Bond calls the money man and asks what happened to the money, but he says not only was the money already deposited to the account Lynd gave them but it’s actually being withdrawn right now. Dang it, Vesper! Bond rushes to the bank where Lynd is getting the money and follows her to an old building where she’s meeting with that guy with the eyepatch from earlier. They notice Bond and take Lynd hostage while Bond chases after them. Bond holds his own against a whole squad of assassins, but the old building is so damaged that it begins to sink into the canal. Bond continues to fight his way through the sinking building, but Lynd is trapped in an elevator. She refuses to let him rescue her, instead choosing to drown and golly gee is it ever intense as hell.

Bond manages to drag Lynd to the surface, but she’s dead as can be and he can’t resuscitate her. Bond breaks down while Mr. White, with Lynd’s suitcase full of stolen cash in hand, watches on before making his exit.

Later, M calls Bond and explains that MI6 found out that Lynd had a boyfriend who was captured by the same mysterious, conspicuously unnamed terrorist organization that hired Le Chiffre. They threatened to kill him unless she did what they wanted. Bond has shut down his feelings and is ready to move on, but M points out that the only reason he wasn’t killed by Mr. White after Le Chiffre was dead is because Lynd made a deal; she’d give White the money in exchange for letting Bond live, even though she knew they’d probably kill her.

M says they probably won’t know who’s behind all of this since the trail’s gone cold, but Lynd left her cell phone for Bond to find and with it he’s able to track down Mr. White. Mr. White receives a call from Bond and asks who he’s speaking to, which sets Bond up to shoot him in the leg and then introduce himself as Bond, James Bond.

The End

~~~~~

What a great movie! I knew this was well-received by Bond fans, but even outside of the franchise it was just a really solid film. I loved Craig as Bond, and I loved Lynd’s take on a Bond girl. I know there’s a whole copyright issue that keeps the movie from being able to call the terrorist organization SPECTRE, but I actually liked the way it was introduced without being named. I thought Mad Mikkelsen was great at Le Chiffre, and this movie was so engaging that it actually managed to get me excited about a game of cards. I’ve seen a lot of takes on the character of Bond while making my way through this franchise, to the cheesy but lovable Moore to the overly gritty but flat Dalton, and I have to say I think I like this version best. He wasn’t overpowered or perfect and he made a lot of mistakes, but that makes sense to me since this is supposed to be the beginning of his career. I know people have a real boner for Connery’s take on the character since he was the first Bond, but honestly I just wasn’t that impressed by his run and his films are among those I found least enjoyable. I can’t wait to see Craig in action again, though, and that’s something I haven’t really felt since the end of GoldenEye. There were a lot of things, like the wild gadgets and the never-ending vehicle chase scenes, that I was glad to be rid of, and in their place we got some buck wild fight scenes that had me on the edge of my seat and some wonderful tension between Bond and Le Chiffre. This was an amazing movie and by far the best Bond film I’ve watched so far!

I give Casino Royale QQQQQ on the Five Q Scale.

Tune back in soon to catch Eli’s next round of fantastic recaps as he covers the next two episodes of The Golden Palace, “A New Leash on Life” and “Pros and Concierge”, and once he’s done blowing our minds with that I’ll take the stage and deliver my recap of Quantum of Solace, the next James Bond romp. Wait a second, Quantum of Solace? How can I already be on Quantum of Solace?! There are only two more movies left after that one! Can you believe we’ve come so far?

Until then, as always, thank you for reading, thank you for grappling with the unflinching passage of time and thank you for being One of Us!

Casino Royale (1967)

As a second special bonus post, today Drew is watching and recapping 1967’s Casino Royale, the first non-canonical James Bond film. The original James Bond is called out of retirement in order to foil the evil machinations of SMERSH, but to do that he has to put together a crack team of James Bonds. Can the true 007 come out of this one unscathed? How many James Bonds can fit into one movie? And can this movie’s plot possibly be more confusing?

Keep reading to find out…

Screenplay by Wolf Mankowitz, John Law & Michael Sayers, film directed by Ken Hughes, John Huston, Joseph McGrath, Robert Parrish, Val Guest & Richard Talmadge

James Bond is chilling with his dick out at a public urinal in France when he’s approached by Lieutenant Mathis (Duncan Macrae), who shows off his ‘credentials’ at the urinal. The two head off, presumably to beat each other off in the bushes, and we head to an opening credit sequence that feels like something out of Monty Python.

Following this we jump to a caravan of cars making their way through the English countryside. A group of men, including M (John Huston) carpool down a road lined with twelve zoos-worth of lions. They eventually arrive at the home of Sir James Bond (David Niven). Wait, this guy is James Bond? Who was that guy with his dick out earlier? I’m confused already! The men with M are representatives of various intelligence organizations, and we learn that this James Bond is the true, original James Bond, while MI6 gave his name and number – 007 – to a younger, hyper-sexualized killing machine when he left the spy game 20 years ago. Bond isn’t interested in the world of espionage anymore, and only wants to focus on his garden (and presumably his harem of pet lions). M explains that things have gotten very, very bad lately and he’s lost numerous agents, including, maybe Bond’s hypersexual successor. The other intelligence heads report similar losses, which is why they’re willing to overlook their differences and come together to stop this menace to their organizations.

M begs Bond to return to the field, even producing a letter from the Queen asking him to return to action, but Bond refuses. So M has a bunch of soldiers blow up Bond’s house, presumably with his old butler still inside. Looks like Bond is back in action, baby! SMERSH finds out Bond is back in the game and resolves to destroy the aged spy. Oh, by the way, M straight up died in that mortar attack on Bond estate. Yeah, you heard me, M is dead as a doornail. Bond delivers his former boss’ remains to his widow, but it turns out that SMERSH has replaced M’s widow with one of its agents, Agent Mimi (Deborah Kerr). We get an absolute cavalcade of Scottish jokes as the McTarry clan prepares to mourn M.

Bond retires to his suite and two SMERSH agents posing as M’s daughters begin the difficult task of seducing him. Unlike his replacement, who can’t keep his pants on to save his life, the original Bond is famously chaste and SMERSH thinks the best way to destroy him is to break his pure image. Bond is bathed by one of M’s fake daughters, who makes a gross point to mention that she’s 17. Later, at the bacchanalia which passes for a funeral celebration all of the SMERSH agents get so shitfaced that they can’t seduce Bond, so he just goes to bed after they all pass out. Agent Mimi quickly recovers, though, and makes her way into Bond’s bedroom and demands he comfort her in her grief. This is an affront to Mimi’s fake Scottish honor, so she says Bond will have to face off against a gaggle of Scotsmen in a game involving carrying very large stones.

Bond succeeds, mainly because all of the Scotsmen injure themselves trying to lift the stones, and Mimi is so turned on by his prowess that she drops her Scottish act and genuinely falls in love with Sir James. The bevy of beauties posing as her fake Scottish daughters are not happy about their fake mother deviating from their mission and lock her in her room while they and James go out to shoot birds the next day. Agent Mimi’s love won’t be denied, though, and she eventually manages to sneak out of her room while her fake daughters launch explosive ducks toward Bond. The ducks are attracted to a magnetic button that had been covertly sewn into Bond’s pants, and Bond and Mimi take turns throwing it back and forth with the fake McTarry girls. Bond eventually succeeds in blowing up the van the McTarrys arrived in, and Mimi, after sharing a kiss with Bond, goes off to join a convent.

Bond finally escapes Scotland, only to be led into a highspeed chase with another SMERSH agent. That’s right, this isn’t even a canonical Bond film but by golly we’re still going to sit through a chase scene. Bond eventually gets the better of the SMERSH agent and she’s killed by the explosive truck that was meant to kill him. Bond arrives at MI6 and gives a big old smooch to Miss Moneypenny (Barbara Bouchet), who explains to him that she’s the daughter of the original Miss Moneypenny. The new head of MI6 lets Bond know about the sheer number of spies who have been killed lately, though he points out that the hypersexual, murderous agent who replaced Bond as 007 is no longer in the field and is now working in television. MI6 has, however, lost track of Bond’s nephew, Jimmy Bond (played by avid statutory rapist and all around piece of shit Woody Allen). Aware of SMERSH’s preference for female spies, Bond says they need to find an agent who can withstand feminine whiles. Moneypenny is forced to make out with a bunch of dudes because that’s all she is to these people, and finally settles on Coop (Terence Cooper). Bond says that he’s going to put together an elite squad of agents and call them all James Bond to confuse SMERSH, so Coop is now James Bond. Bond is put through rigorous anti-horniness training that involves body slamming beautiful women who try to seduce him. One of the women is known only as The Detainer (Dalilah Lavi), who’s so impressive that she’s brought into the James Bond squad and is now James Bond also.

Bond next seeks out Vesper Lynd (Ursula Andress, whom you might remember as Honey Ryder from a little flick called Dr. No), a retired spy who was presumed to have been eaten by sharks. Lynd isn’t interested in taking a mission, but it turns out she’s in trouble for tax problems and Bond is willing to make those issues go away if she helps him. That’s right, Vesper Lynd is now also James Bond. Bond goes to meet with Evelyn Tremble (Peter Sellers), a master of baccarat (wait a second, could we actually be getting close to the plot?) and gets him hot under the collar with her feminine charm. Tremble joins Bond in her decadent home and the two bang while Bond makes sure Tremble really is unbeatable at baccarat. Bond has Tremble put on a series of costumes, including an honest to god Hitler costume which prompts Tremble to do a Nazi salute, and eventually Bond asks Tremble if he’s heard of a baccarat player named Le Chiffre (Orson Welles). Bond tells Tremble she wants Tremble to go head to head against Le Chiffre; she’ll put up the money if he’ll play and then they’ll split the profits. Tremble’s quickly convinced, but there’s a problem: Le Chiffre will never agree to play against him, because he’s read Tremble’s book and will recognize his name. Not a problem, says Bond, as she’s got a new name for him: James Bond.

Bond arrives James Bond 007 training and is greeted by Q (Geoffrey Bayldon) and his gay-for-laughs assistant (John Wells). Bond is given a two-way television/radio wristwatch and a super gadget suit. Meanwhile, Bond gets a lead and finds out SMERSH has a cover organization called International Mothers’ Help which pairs nannies and au pairs with wealthy families. Bond decides to send his daughter, Mata Bond (Joanna Pettet), the result of his union with his one true love, Mata Hari, under cover. Mata isn’t a spy, but Bond thinks she has potential. Bond heads to some vaguely Asian country and watches his daughter put on a dance so rich in cultural appropriation that an unborn Scarlett Johansson is already green with envy.

Despite being estranged for pretty much all of Mata’s life, the two are happily reunited and Mata admits that she’d totally bang Bond if he weren’t her dad. Mata’s totally down to be a spy like her late mother and is instantly on board with infiltrating International Mothers’ Help. That’s right, Bond’s little girl is in the game and she herself is now James Bond. The SMERSH agent running MHH loves the idea of Bond joining their ranks and she’s instantly accepted and told about an upcoming visit by Le Chiffre. We find out that Le Chiffre is a compulsive gambler and has been using SMERSH funds to fund his habit, and if he doesn’t come up with some dough to make up for his losses he’s going to be liquidated. He plans on selling off his fancy art collection to raise the dough, but Bond quickly realizes that the art collection is actually comprises of compromising photos of important world leaders that various intelligence agencies want to buy to use for blackmail. Bond is told she can’t let Le Chiffre raise the money he needs through the sale of his collection, so she quickly snatches them and makes a break for it. She dispatches legions of agents in the goofiest ways possible and eventually escapes with a cabdriver who actually works for MI6.

Le Chiffre is informed of the failed auction, and resolves to raise the money through gambling. He was probably planning on gambling soon anyway, so what the hell. Bond heads off for his game with Le Chiffre, but Bond wonders if he might be a double agent. He contacts Bond to ask her, but she assures him that Bond is having enough trouble being a single agent. In France, Bond is seduced by a SMERSH agent named Miss Goodthighs (Jacqueline Bisset), who drugs him and sends him off on a colorful hallucination until he’s shaken awake by Bond with barely enough time to make his game with Le Chiffre. At the titular Casino Royale, Le Chiffre is on a winning streak and also putting on a magic show for his fellow players. Bond escorts Bond to Casino Royale and Bond quickly deduces that Le Chiffre is cheating by using infrared sunglasses which allow him to see every card on the table. Bond tells Bond she’ll take care of Le Chiffre’s cheat-glasses and tells him to just focus on baccarat. Bond manages to snatch Le Chiffre’s glasses while he’s not looking, and Le Chiffre delights Bond with another magic show.

With the preamble out of the way the game gets underfoot. Le Chiffre has the upper hand for a while, but then Bond raises the stakes and quickly wipes the floor with Le Chiffre. Bond is kidnapped by two men, so Bond steals a racecar and gives chase. Suddenly Bond wakes up in Le Chiffre’s clutches and Le Chiffre begins to psychologically torture Bond in an attempt to make Bond give up the check for his casino winnings. Bond rescues Bond from his hallucinatory nightmare, only to turn around and kill him herself. SMERSH agents arrive and execute Le Chiffre.

Meanwhile, Bond wants Bond to let her into MI6 so she can see her father at work, but he refuses and sends her on her way. She wanders around, only to be kidnapped by a man on a horse and taken aboard a SMERSH flying saucer. Bond is instantly aware of his daughter’s kidnapping, and while trying to make plans for her rescue he’s interrupted by the arrival of a nun seeking donations. Turns out it’s actually Agent Mimi, who passes Bond a note telling him Bond has been taken to Casino Royale. Bond and Moneypenny head to the casino and are immediately ambushed by SMERSH agents. They’re taken deep underground to the lair of Dr. Noah (get it? like Dr. No? get it?), the head of SMERSH.

Dr. Noah taunts Bond and Moneypenny as they flee through his lair, and soon they’re brought face-to-face with a robotic James Bond double that Dr. Noah is planning to use to take over the world. It’s soon revealed that Dr. Noah is, in fact, Jimmy Bond, James Bond’s awful nephew. Jimmy reveals that his plan is to release a biological weapon that will kill all men taller than himself and make all women beautiful. Fun. Bond and Moneypenny are taken away by SMERSH agents and Jimmy goes to taunt Bond (whom we haven’t seen since she and Bond were wrestling way back at the start of the movie), who’s been captured, stripped and bound to a table. Bond taunts Jimmy for being such a grotesque little goblin of a man, and we have to watch him dance around and make an ass of himself while trying to impress Bond. He shows off a pill disguised as an aspirin but is actually a million little bombs.

Bond tells Jimmy she’ll be his co-ruler of the world so he’ll untie her, but she grabs the bomb pills while he’s not looking. Meanwhile, Bond, Bond, Bond and Moneypenny make preparations to escape. Jimmy shows off his room of robot doubles and we find out every world ruler is actually under his control. Bond slips the bomb pill into Jimmy’s drink and he begins to explode as she flees. Bond, Bond, Bond and Moneypenny escape and avoid being shot by SMERSH agents long enough to reunite with Bond. The four Bonds and a Moneypenny head for the surface and emerge into Casino Royale. Bond prepares to call for help, but he’s confronted by the treacherous Bond, who reveals she went through a lot of trouble to get him here so she could kill him.

The American cavalry arrive on horseback to do battle with the SMERSH agents, and an absolutely bonkers fight breaks out. The bombs inside of Jimmy finally go off and Casino Royale explodes, killing everyone inside. All of the Bonds and Moneypenny are seen in Heaven, while Jimmy is sent down to roast in hell where he belongs.

The End

~~~~~

Jeez louise, I need a nap after all of that. To be fair, there were actually a lot of genuinely funny jokes in this movie and I laughed out loud several times while watching it, but man alive was it ever goofy. The plot was maybe one of the most convoluted I’ve ever seen, and I have no idea why Coop or The Detainer needed to be in the movie at all. Everyone involved seemed to be giving it there all and I can tell this movie was a lot of fun to watch, but it’s so long that it really was exhausting to get through. Toward the end it got so incoherent and chaotic that I honestly wasn’t sure what was going on at times, and I had to consult the movie’s Wikipedia page more than once to keep track of what was happening. I don’t know that this movie fully succeeded as a Bond parody, or even as a coherent comedy, but I’m still glad to have checked it out and it’s got me very excited to check out the canonical Casino Royale next!

Casino Royale (Climax! S01E03)

As a special bonus post, today Drew is watching and recapping “Casino Royale”, the third episode of Climax!’s first season from 1954. This is the very first adaptation of a James Bond story and the first onscreen depiction of 007 (though don’t expect him to be called that here). Bond, an agent of Combined Intelligence, is sent to beat a Soviet agent at a game of baccarat but soon gets swept up in gambling, violence and an old love affair. Can “Card Sense Jimmy” make it out of this one alive?

Keep reading to find out…

Episode directed by William H. Brown, Jr. and written by Charles Bennett & Anthony Ellis

We don’t start out with a gun barrel so to speak, but there is a fun sort of tube sequence that leads us into a Rod Serling-esque opening monologue from the host of Climax!, William Lundigan. He describes the purpose of a shoe (card dispenser) in baccarat. He does some fun card flips, and then it’s time to jump into the action.

Act I

James Bond (the distinctly American Barry Nelson) arrives at a casino only to be immediately shot at by a would-be assassin. Bond is largely unshaken by this attempt on his life and simply asks for some chips so he can get to a-gamblin’. He’s noticed by the lovely Valerie Mathis (Linda Christian) and makes contact with a British man named Clarence Leiter (maybe this is Felix’s dad?). The two go off to talk cards and Mathis is approached by a hot shot named Le Chiffre (Peter Lorre) and hints at an existing relationship between her and James “Card Sense Jimmy” Bond.

Bond and Leiter discuss the rules of baccarat a little too long, and then reveal to each other that they’re spies, with Leiter attached to Station S of the British Secret Service and Bond working for Combined Intelligence in Washington, through a complicated little ritual involving broken matchsticks. While Bond explains even more of the rules of baccarat Leiter explains that Bond’s mission is to take down Le Chiffre, a ruthless Soviet agent. Bond isn’t supposed to kill Le Chiffre, he just needs to exploit his gambling addiction. Le Chiffre is gambling with Soviet money, and the Soviets aren’t happy about that. If Bond can clean Le Chiffre out he won’t be able to pay the Ruskies back and they’ll take Le Chiffre out without Combined Intelligence having to get its covert little hands dirty.

Leiter lets Bond know Le Chiffre’s constantly got three guards around him and a penchant for carrying razors. They’re also staying in the room right above Bond’s, so he can look forward to some good old 50’s bugs in his room. They’re interrupted by the arrival of Mathis, whom Bond recognizes from a previous gambling binge some time before. Leiter takes his leave and Bond and Mathis head for the hotel with Le Chiffre and his trio of body guards close behind.

Mathis joins Bond in his room and the two instantly start smooching. Bond puts on some loud music so Le Chiffre can’t listen in, and then tells Mathis he knows Le Chiffre sent her to make contact with him. Mathis denies any knowledge of the microphone Bond insists is in his fireplace, and after Bond gets a little too rough and grabs her face he seems to believe her. He turns down the music and makes her go through the spiel Le Chiffre told her to say, about how Le Chiffre knows he’s with Combined Intelligence and how he shouldn’t gamble against the Soviet or he’ll kill Bond. Le Chiffre, still listening in, is pleased by Mathis’ performance, and Bond then sends her off as she genuinely pleads with him not to play against Le Chiffre.

Mathis arrives at Le Chiffre’s room and Le Chiffre wonders how Bond and Mathis actually feel about each other. Le Chiffre hears Bond make a call to the casino manager asking that police keep an eye on him to keep him safe after that assassination attempt earlier, so Le Chiffre will have a hard time taking Bond out before the game.

The next day, Leiter retrieves the money Bond will use to gamble against Le Chiffre and is held at gunpoint by one of Le Chiffre’s men, but Leiter gets out of it by giving the money to a nearby staff member. Bond arrives and is formally introduced to Le Chiffre by Mathis. Bond and Le Chiffre take their places at the baccarat table, but then Bond is called away for a phone call. The anonymous caller informs him that if he wins against Le Chiffre then Mathis will be killed. Bond is alarmed by this and tells a passing Leiter to keep an eye on Mathis as he returns to the table.

Act II

After some initial struggles Bond soon wipes the casino floor with Le Chiffre and wins the game of baccarat. One of Le Chiffre’s men holds a gun disguised as a cane to Bond’s back, but Bond spasms his way out of that situation. Bond realizes he’s lost sight of Mathis and rushes off to find her. Leiter tells Bond to hurry up and write a check so Le Chiffre can’t get his hands on the money, so Bond does and hides the check behind the number plate on his hotel room door. Bond receives another phone call threatening to kill Mathis if Le Chiffre doesn’t get that skrilla, but then just then Mathis herself arrives. Bond is relieved, but less so when Le Chiffre and his bodyguards arrive right behind her.

Le Chiffre reveals that Mathis is an agent of the Deuxième Bureau, the French Secret Service, and that she provided part of the funding Bond needed to take down Le Chiffre. Le Chiffre gloats over finding out about the involvement of the French, then cuts to the chase and holds a gun to Bond’s chest while demanding the check.

Act III

We open on Bond knocked out on the floor, having been decked by one of Le Chiffre’s goons. Leiter calls Bond’s room, but Le Chiffre holds a gun on Mathis so Bond plays it cool and makes it seem like everything’s copacetic. Le Chiffre has his goons take Bond into the hotel bathroom and torture him… I think. There’s definitely a torturous-looking device that Le Chiffre uses to do something unpleasant to Bond’s toes, but this is a TV show in 1954 so all of the actual torture happens out of view of the camera. Le Chiffre makes Mathis watch all of this, threatening that he’ll kill Bond the first time she screams. Le Chiffre has his goons go to town on Bond’s little piggies, and Mathis can’t take it anymore. She tells Le Chiffre that while she doesn’t know where the check is hidden, when she arrived Bond was holding a screwdriver.

Le Chiffre and his goons go off to take Bond’s room apart while Bond and Mathis orchestrate their escape. Remember Le Chiffre’s love of carrying razor blades? Well he had one hidden in his cigarette case, which he happened to leave in the bathroom. While Mathis blathers on about her desire to run away and start a new life with Bond, she secretly passes Bond the cigarette case and he uses the razor to cut the two of them free.

Le Chiffre finds the hidden check, but Bond calls him in with a plea for water. Le Chiffre’s goon enters the bathroom and Bond wails on him like an absolute gorilla, prompting Le Chiffre to investigate for himself. Since this is a TV show from the 50’s we don’t see what happens next, but soon enough Le Chiffre’s goon is shot dead and Le Chiffre himself stumbles out of the bathroom clutching a gunshot wound. Bond retrieves the check and tells Mathis to call the police, but Le Chiffre grabs her and holds her hostage with yet another hidden razor blade. Mathis manages to duck out of the way long enough for Bond to shoot Le Chiffre dead.

The End

~~~~~

This was a real trip! After spending 20 films with a very British Bond it was wild to have this American Jimmy Bond play the hero. It felt like there was very little actual spywork in this adventure, aside from the covert conversation with Leiter in the beginning (which I have to admit was actually pretty cool), so much as there was just an absolute ton of cards. Peter Lorre did a great job of making Le Chiffre feel like a dirty little creep, and I really enjoyed seeing him chew the scenery. I can’t say that Jimmy Bond would really hold up against the various incarnations of Bond I’ve grown to know in the movies, as he was very much the stalwart American golden boy, but this change of pace was a lot of fun and I’m glad to have checked out this piece of 007’s history.

Say Goodbye, Rose (TGP, Episode 17)

Today Eli is forced to watch and recap Say Goodbye, Rose, Episode 17 of The Golden Palace.  It’s time to yuck it up, as a comedy competition is coming to the hotel!  Blanche’s son is also heading to town to make a big announcement, and Rose becomes romantically entangled with a man with a familiar face.  Will we be laughing until we cry, or simply weeping?  Keep reading to find out…

Drew, I can’t believe you’ve made it all the way through the first 20 Bond films!  Die Another Day was truly an abomination, and after adding an invisible car and a giant ice palace to the franchise, it’s no wonder they decided to set the whole thing on fire and reboot it.  But hey, at least it was a third entry in the Charles Robinson Trilogy!  Thankfully, the quality of the Daniel Craig films ranges from pretty good to amazing, with Casino Royale often considered the best Bond film of all.  I hope you like it!  Only four more movies to go!  I doubt there were any updates to your list of franchise favorites this time (I didn’t even insult you by asking), and I have matters to attend to at the Golden Palace, so let’s get down to business!

Buttocks tight!

Episode written by Jim Vallely, directed by Peter D. Beyt

Roland mentions that the ballroom is being temporarily converted into a comedy club for a special competition at the Golden Palace, and Chuy announces that he wants to enter.  He has even crafted a quirky alter ego, “Corny Castillos,” and is ready to knock ‘em dead!  Roland thinks that he’ll need a writer if he doesn’t want to bomb, and offers up his services to a skeptical Chuy.  Sophia has some questions about the competition as well, and suggests a funny older guy she used to know, or at least she would if she could still remember his name.  Blanche mentions that her son Matthew is coming to visit as well.  On top of all this, a man named Bill Douglas arrives to check-in.  Blanche thinks he looks a bit familiar (but not too familiar), chalking this up to the fact that he owns a mattress factory and she has been a frequent customer.  As soon as Rose gets a look at the man, however, she runs away screaming like an unworthy champion gazing into the Magic Mirror gate.  She makes it to the kitchen, where Chuy says that she looks shaken, if not stirred.  In response, Rose produces a picture of her late husband, Charlie (sitting atop a cow, of course), who looked exactly like Mr. Douglas.  Seeing Charlie’s doppelganger alarmed her, but Rose resolves to apologize to the man.

It isn’t long until Roland is presenting some truly lame jokes for Chuy’s approval.  Blanche’s son Matthew arrives, and quickly sits his mother down to make an announcement.  We are on a tight broadcast schedule, after all.  Blanche assumes that Matthew is gay, and seems rather pleased about the two of them sharing an affection for men, but Matthew insists that this isn’t the case.  Instead, he announces that he is leaving his job as a stockbroker to become a stand-up comedian.  Blanche is positively scandalized and wonders how her son could do such a thing to her.  She is in denial, but Matthew assures her that he really did quit his job to show her what he’s got in this comedy competition.

Rose speaks to Bill Douglas in the dining room in an effort to explain her earlier freak out.  Instead, she lies about what happened and switches gears to a St. Olaf story (prompting Sophia to immediately exit the room after entering).  Bill mentions that he and his wife actually honeymooned in St. Olaf, which seems pretty damn weird.  He also says that his wife passed away a few years back.  Bill asks Rose if she would like to go to dinner with him, and she agrees to go with her new/old handsome husband.

Roland is being pretty critical of Chuy’s admittedly terrible act, and Sophia mentions that her old comedy friend is coming, though she still can’t remember his name.  Say, do you think maybe they’re setting us up for a guest star?  Blanche forbids Matthew to enter the competition, and we find out that she broke into his room and took a look at his joke notepad, and probably his diary too.  He has written some mildly insulting jokes about her, and she isn’t down with that.  Matthew insists that she invaded his privacy, and mother and son both storm off.

Rose and Bill return from their date, and it’s obvious that they had a great time.  She mentions St. Olaf again (and once more, Sophia flees the room), and she also makes another attempt at telling him the truth about his resemblance to Charlie.  Before she can do so, however, Bill tells Rose that he feels very comfortable with her, and gives her a kiss.  Rose can’t help herself, and wastes no time in turning the moment into a make out session.

Blanche has decided that she won’t be going to the comedy show, and says that she simply can’t bear to see Matthew go on.  Sophia mentions Rose’s date, and receives a threat of bodily harm in return.  Rose admits that she thinks she loves Bill, but Blanche insists that she only thinks she does because of his resemblance to Charlie.  The girls tell Blanche that at least she only needs to look at Matthew when she misses her late husband, George, causing Blanche to reflect on their similarities.  Even Sophia says that she needs to hear a familiar male voice in her life sometimes too, and Roland goes to get Dorothy on the phone.

Finally having a change of heart, Blanche speaks to Matthew and tells him about how she met his father.  George was a carnival barker, and always wanted to make people smile.  And we all know that nobody can resist a carnie’s bark.  She gives Matthew her blessing to perform, and the two of them hug.  Rose also sits Bill down to come clean about the Charlie situation.  She shows him a picture, and he wonders why he is looking at himself and Rose sitting atop a cow.  Realizing the truth, he says that they would never really know for sure how Rose felt about him, and doesn’t think their relationship will work out after all.  He says he will leave, but she doesn’t want him to.  She never got a chance to say goodbye to Charlie, and seeing him leave her again will be too painful.  Bill asks her what she would say if Charlie were there, and she has a chance to express those feelings at last.  The two then say goodbye, and Rose cries.  Sophia attempts to comfort her by mentioning that her old comedy friend has arrived…

…Hey, it’s George Burns!  He tells some old jokes to cheer up Rose, and they work like a charm.  He soon takes the stage to do his act, and even sings a little song to make Rose happy.  The audience eats it up, and we end on a happy note.

Well, almost.  We also get a brief final scene in which Chuy takes the stage as “Corny Castillos,” and almost instantly freaks out and runs away.  Adios, Señor Stinky.

The End.

I wouldn’t say this episode was bad at all, but it seemed like a return to middle of the road in terms of quality.  I thought the comedy competition aspect had some potential, but it didn’t seem like the writers wanted to come up with any actual jokes.  The only material we heard from Roland or Chuy likely came out of the nearest third grader’s joke book, and once the competition we didn’t get to hear either Chuy or Matthew perform (though we did get to see Chuy run away).  The only performance that we saw at all was from George Burns and let’s face it, while he is a perfect guest star for the series, it’s not like anything he said was actually very funny.  Well, okay, the joke he told Rose before taking the stage was fine, but it seems like he could basically get by during his act without telling any jokes or even really singing.  But hey, at his age I won’t begrudge him that ability, and the audience seemed to be on board.  The Charlie doppelganger plotline had some potential too, but didn’t develop into much.  It seemed dumb to me that Bill had honeymooned in St. Olaf when the idea of the place is that almost nobody has heard of it, but oh well.  It was nice that Rose got to say goodbye to Charlie.  My favorite part of the episode was probably that Blanche was instantly accepting (and even encouraging) of her son as a gay man, but couldn’t stomach the thought of him as a comedian.  Overall, I would give the episode a rating of 3 poofy hairdos out of 5.

It isn’t quite time for Drew to review Casino Royale, the first film in the rebooted James Bond universe, but I’ll be back before you know it with a recap of You’ve Lost That Livin’ Feeling, the next episode of The Golden Palace.  Until then, as always, thank you for being a friend, and for being One of Us!

Die Another Day (2002)

Today Drew is forced to watch and recap 2002’s Die Another Day, the twentieth James Bond adventure. Bond is captured and tortured by some bad guys, and now 007 is out for revenge! Can Bond handle going rogue, or will MI6 shut down his quest for vengeance before it can even begin? Will Bond find those responsible for his imprisonment? Why is it so sunny in here?

Keep reading to find out…

Eli, I loved your last two recaps so much! I know there was a stretch of less-than-stellar episodes for you to wade through, but I’m so glad you enjoyed these last two romps! I still can’t believe how close you are to the end of the show, but, speaking of, I’m close to the end of an era myself. This is the final Bond film before the big reboot, and it’s crazy to think of how far we’ve come over the course of this blog! I can’t stand it anymore, the anticipation has me way too excited to lay out any other preamble!

Buttocks tight!

Screenplay by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade, film directed by Lee Tamahori

We start with a shockingly three-dimensional gun barrel sequence, and then we jump to the coast of Pukch’ŏng County, North Korea. Bond, alongside two of his fellow MI6 agents, surf into North Korea and attract the attention of a helicopter, which they quickly commandeer. This helicopter was bound for the headquarters of Colonel Tan-Sun Moon (Will Yun Lee), located in the Korean demilitarized zone, and Bond soon arrives after placing some explosives in a suitcase full of diamonds that the helicopter’s original passenger was transporting. Just to give you an idea of how comically evil a villain Moon is going to be, the first time we see him he’s beating up his anger management therapist for lecturing him. Bond is greeted at Moon’s HQ by the surly Zao, who surreptitiously snaps a pic of 007 when he arrives. Bond and Moon meet, and it’s really driven home that Moon is a rude, crude dude with a bad attitude when it’s revealed he’s trading weapons for African blood diamonds. Moon shows off the weapons Bond’s supposed to get for the blood diamonds, but turns out Zao wasn’t taking Bond’s picture just so he could add it to his scrapbook. He’s done a background check on 007, and since Bond is the worst secret agent in the world it doesn’t take any time at all for Zao to inform Moon of Bond’s true identity. Moon blows up Bond’s helicopter, but he’s distracted by a call from his daddy, General Moon (Kenneth Tsang). He leaves the killing of Bond to Zao while he scrambles to hide all the illegal weapons he’s got in the demilitarized zone before his dad finds them and he gets grounded. Thinking, “Why the hell not?” Bond triggers the explosive in the suitcase full of diamonds, causing and explosion that allows him to escape and results in Zao getting a high-velocity diamond facial. Bond escapes on one of Moon’s hovercrafts (why not) and blows up most of his headquarters before chasing after Moon as he races across the mine-laced demilitarized zone. There’s a lot of shooting, some mines get blown up and Moon fires off a flamethrower for no good reason before Bond and Moon end up on the same hovercraft and Bond kills Moon by driving the hovercraft off a waterfall. Moon’s zaddy arrives, and he’s none too pleased about his dumb kid getting killed.

General Moon has Bond waterboarded while we finally head to the opening credits. This credits sequence is… troubling. Madonna sings out the mediocre techno ballad “Die Another Day” while we’re treated to scenes of Bond being brutally tortured interspersed with CGI ladies comprised of ice, fire and electricity dance around and some scorpions just kind of crawl around and mind their own business. Also diamonds. It’s a mess, and honestly the dime-store techno bassline makes it a little hard for me to get too invested in the vignettes of Bond being beaten and sodomoized with a hot poker by a sexy Korean woman in jackboots.

After what feels like a lifetime this bit is finally over, and a bearded, bedraggled Bond is brought before General Moon. Bond has managed not to break in all the time he’s been held here, and Moon lets him know it’s time for him to go. Bond is taken to a bridge where it seems he’s going to be shot, but then Moon’s goons lower their weapons and we find out this is all actually a prisoner exchange. Bond is being traded for the bedazzled Zao, and the two share pleasantries while they make their way back to their respective governments. On the British side, Bond is greeted by Damian Falco (Michael Madsen) from the NSA and…oh, my stars and garters, could it really be? Dare I dream?

That’s right, folks, Charles Robinson is back, babey!!! And not a moment too soon! I have no doubt he singlehandedly wrestled Zao into custody after Bond was done bonering everything up. Charles Robinson didn’t become the most valuable man in MI6 by being reckless, and he leaves nothing to chance. He has Bond sedated so that he can be checked for any kind of biological weapons. M, no doubt having met with Charles Robinson to mine his formidable intellect, goes to meet with Bond through a sheet of glass. M doesn’t mince words and lets Bond know that if she’d had her druthers he’d still be getting dicked by scorpions back in North Korea. She thinks they paid too high a price for Bond’s freedom by letting Zao go, but Bond didn’t ask to be traded and couldn’t kill himself because he… I don’t know, cut out? ripped out? his cyanide capsule years ago.

M explains that an American prisoner was killed in Bond’s prison a week ago, and they think Bond broke under torture and was mined for intel by the North Koreans. M gives him a vote of confidence by entering his glass prison to let him know she doesn’t think he’ll kill her, but she tells him he’s going for an evaluation and won’t be sent into the field any time soon. Bond… Okay, listen, Bond, like, meditates or something and lowers his heartrate to the point that the monitors he’s hooked up to think he’s dead. Some medical staff rush in to save them, he jolts them with an EKG machine and makes a break for it. Just go with me here.

Bond, now officially gone rogue, heads to a hotel he’s known at and gets a shave, haircut and new suit. The hotel manager, Mr. Chang (Ho Yi), sends up a masseuse to entertain 007, but Bond knows she’s packin’ heat and Chang, who’s actually with Chinese Intelligence (maybe he and Wai Lin have worked together?), is filming him from behind a half-silvered mirror. Bond tells Chang he won’t hold a grudge over all this if Chang can get him into North Korea so he can get his hands on Zao. Chang finds out Zao isn’t in North Korea anymore, though, he’s in Havana. Bond heads to Cuba and meets up with a British sleeper agent/cigar factory owner, Raoul (Emilio Echevarría). Raoul lets Bond know he can find Zao on an island which sports and unusual gene therapy clinic. Bond heads to a hotel which sports a view of the strange island, and there he catches sight of Giacinta “Jinx” Johnson (Halle Berry), who emerges from the ocean like the second coming of Honey Ryder.

Bond and Johnson seem to really hit it off, by which I mean they immediately hit the sheets, but the next morning Bond is left alone as Johnson sets sail for the clinic on Isla Los Organos. Bond knocks out another hotel guest and uses his ticket to get a ride to the island as well. He loads his new unconscious friend into a wheelchair and brings him along to the island, where he causes a distraction by hurling the man and his chair into a wall. He then finds a secret, mirror-lined passage and slinks his way through. Johnson, meanwhile, is apparently getting a consultation for gene therapy. Just kidding, though, she immediately kills the doctor, burns the evidence of her being there and lets us know she’s definitely a spy.

Bond finds Zao in the middle of a procedure that’s meant to rewrite his DNA to make him look like a white dude right as Johnson finds Zao’s file an stops the procedure right in the middle of things and leaves Zao looking like a naked mole rat of a man. Zao wakes up and he and Bond fight, but Zao gets away while Johnson sets off a bomb to shut down the whole facility. Bond and Johnson both chase after Zao, but he gets away in a helicopter. Johnson is almost killed by some guards, who don’t seem to notice Bond, but she avoids death by disrobing and then cliff diving down to an awaiting speedboat. Bond examines a bullet which Zao was wearing as a fun, festive necklace until Bond yoinked it off during their fight. Inside the bullet are some diamonds, which Bond has Raoul examine. The diamonds are being sold by Gustav Graves, who alleges to have found them in Iceland a year ago despite Raoul being able to definitively identify them (somehow) as African blood diamonds. Hey, that sounds familiar!

Who cares about all of that, though, because the most important man in MI6, Charles Robinson, arrives at work just in time to catch Miss Moneypenny spying on a conversation between M and Falco from the NSA. Falco thinks M played a part in Bond’s escape, and Charles Robinson sagely watches on as M shoulders the weight of Falco’s threats to make things right at MI6. Bond, meanwhile looks some stuff on Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens), who makes an interest by parachuting down to meet up with his publicist Miranda Frost (Rosamund Pike) in front of a bunch of reporters (and Bond). Bond tracks Graves and Frost to a fencing… club? academy? class? I don’t know. It’s hosted by Verity (Madonna in the cameo no one asked for), who introduces Bond to Graves. Bond, despite being on the run from MI6 and, like, a secret agent, uses his real name because why not.

Bond and Graves immediately get into a cock measuring contest via proxy in the form of a fencing match, during which Bond lets Graves know he’s figured out that Graves is selling blood diamonds. Graves challenges Bond to up the stakes and the two start fighting with real swords and completely wrecking Verity’s swordfight clubhouse. Frost eventually breaks up the fight and Graves invites Bonds to a science demonstration. A bellboy gives Bond a mysterious envelope with a key in it, and he goes to an abandoned subway station to meet up with M. M’s not here to capture Bond, though, she just wants to compare notes on Graves. M warns Bond about Graves’ political connections and agrees to give him some unsanctioned help.

Bond arrives at MI6, only to find Moneypenny dead from a gunshot to the head. He takes out several attackers and is joined by Charles Robinson himself, so you just know everything’s going to be alright. But then the unthinkable, the impossible, the inconceivable happens and Charles Robinson, the unshakable foundation upon which the stability of the British government rests, is gunned down. No, I can’t accept it! I won’t! And I don’t have to, because this is all a training session taking place in the VR Zone. C’mon, you know a Q-Branch simulation is the only place a facsimile of Charles Robinson could ever be bested! Q (née R) brings Bond safely out of the VR Zone and takes him to his workshop in the subway, where Bond proceeds to touch everything like a five-year-old at a toy store. Bond is outfitted with a sonic ring that can smash unbreakable glass and, get ready for this, a car that turn invisible.

We’re due for a twist, so we get to sit in on a meeting with M and Frost, who, it turns out, is an MI6 agent spying on Graves. Frost things Graves will blow her cover, but M says that in all her time spying on Graves Frost has turned up dick all and M wants Bond to go in and shake some shit up a bit. Bond heads to Graves’ ice palace in Iceland where he’s greeted by the imaginatively named Mr. Kil (Lawrence Makoare) before Graves scoots up in his super speedy sled car thing. We get another mention of Graves never sleeping, which is a thing that just keeps getting brought up. The famous Jinx Johnson arrives while Bond heads to the bar before his DTs can get too out of hand. Bond and Johnson meet up while Zao arrives at the ice palace. He pulls Graves out of a crazy dream machine which he has to use to stay sane due to his permanent insomnia, and it turns out Graves is actually Moon post-gene alteration.

The shindig finally gets underway and Graves unveils Icarus, a satellite which can reflect Sol’s light toward Earth and function as a second sun. Bond hides out in his magical invisible car so he can snoop around in Graves’ private business, but immediately gets caught because he’s just no good at stealth. Frost saves Bond from being discovered by Mr. Kil by making out with him while Johnson Mission Impossibles her way into Graves’ inner sanctum. While Frost and Bond are busy getting busy, Johnson is doing some actual work. Unfortunately she finds Zao waiting in Graves’ dream machine instead of Graves himself, who sneaks up behind her and electrocutes her with a souped-up Power Glove.

Zao and Mr. Kil interrogate Johnson, but she ain’t a canary and she ain’t in the mood to sing, so Zao leaves Mr. Kil to slice her up with a mining laser (paging Dr. Goldfinger). Bond finally arrives at Graves’ greenhouse lair in time to save Johnson, but first he has to deal with Mr. Kil. Bond gets his ass handed to him, but the still-restrained Johnson manages to kill Mr. Kil with the mining laser. Bond sends Johnson off to find Frost and get in touch with MI6 while Bond confronts Graves and reveal he finally knows the dude is actually Moon. Frost arrives, only to turn her gun on Bond. Turns out Frost set Bond up in North Korea and she’s been a double agent the whole time. Frost is about to execute Bond, but luckily he’s got his glass-shattering ring which allows him to… well, shatter some glass. Specifically the glass floor of the green house. You get it.

Bond escapes in Graves’ super sled, but Graves brings in some North Korean generals so he can demonstrate the destructive capability of Icarus to them. Icarus hyper-focuses the sun’s like way beyond what could be useful for a farmer trying to get that sweet wheat all year ‘round, and Bond barely out maneuvers the solar death beam by driving the sled off the side of an ice shelf and using the sled’s anchor (?) to keep himself from falling into the frigid sea. Graves solves this problem by just carving off the whole chunk of ice and making a prophetically topical joke about global warming. Bond survives, though, by jumping into a Nintendo 64 surfing game and shredding away to safety.

Johnson is discovered by Frost and Zao, who inform her she’s going to die… eventually. Bond steals a Ski-Doo and makes it back to the ice palace where he retrieves his inviso-mobile, which is useful for about a minute until another Ski-Doo crashes into it. Zao uses the thermal vision of his own car to spot Bond, and the two set off on a merry chase while the now-abandoned ice castle begins to rumble around Johnson. Graves fires up Icarus and begins to melt the ice palace, but not before Bond crashes into it (the car chase is still going on, BTW). Bond tricks Zao into driving into a pool formed out of melted ice and then shoots a chandelier down onto him instead of just shooting him in the head.

Bond retrieves the almost-drowned Johnson and gets her into the warmth of the greenhouse in time to save her. The two head to a US bunker on the South Korean side of the demilitarized zone where they’re greeted by the one, the only, the legend, the icon, Charles Robinson. With a mind to rival Watson, Charles Robinson lays down the skinny in no time flat. Graves and Frost are in North Korea, and neither the American nor the British governments can go get him before Icarus is used to destroy any of North Korea’s enemies (i.e. everypony). M’s sending in Bond anyway, and Falco decides he needs a reason to be in this movie so he sends Johnson in too. The two are airdropped in, and Charles Robinson, with the sage, cautious wisdom of an old barn owl, worries that they’ll be detected. Falco’s dumbass has the nerve, the gal, the audacity to tell Charles Robinson to “relax”, so you know that sonofabitch has some comeuppance headed his way.

The missiles Falco has sent to destroy Icarus are instantly destroyed by the mirror’s solar laser, because of course they are you dumb stupid idiot. Bond and Johnson, meanwhile, have landed and stowaway on Graves’ plane. Graves calls for his zaddy to be brought down, where he reveals himself in his new white face and shows off a plastic mech suit that allows him to control Icarus via a computer mouse trackball installed in his Power Glove. He fires up Icarus to show off and make his papa proud, but General Moon tells him the other countries will nuke the hell out of North Korea to shut this shit down. Graves doesn’t take paternal rejection well and 86es his dear old dad. Bond tries to shoot Graves but his shot is deflected, resulting in a window getting blown out and the plane violently depressurizing.

Johnson manages to stop the plane from crashing, but then Frost is there to hold her at swordpoint and of course she’s wearing an ornate bra and elbow-length gloves for no damn reason. Who even cares at this point. Icarus’ death beam is still going, by the by, and Charles Robinson, with the time-keeping prowess of the White Rabbit, lets everyone know it’s headed right their way. Johnson flies the plane right into the beam’s path, giving her time to get the better of Frost. Johnson and Frost fight with blades while Bond and Graves just ineffectually punch each other. Johnson eventually gets the better of Frost and kills her (with a very saucy, “Bitch!” thrown in for good measure) while Graves gets the better of Bond and prepares to escape the falling plane. Bond prematurely triggers Graves’ parachute, which results in Graves being sucked into the plane’s engines and most definitely dying.

Bond and Johnson find a helicopter hidden in the plane, Inception style, and manage to ride it out of the exploding plane in time to avoid death by ground. Bond makes what I think has to be a weird 69 joke before the two fly off into the sky with a crate of diamonds in the back of the helicopter.

Moneypenny uses Q’s VR shades to live out a fantasy involving Bond banging her at MI6, because that’s all this movie has to say about her character, but Q interrupts her before she can rub one out. Glad everyone thought this scene definitely needed to be in this already-over-two-hours movie.

Bond and Johnson have sex on top of the stolen diamonds (imagine how uncomfortable that would be) and we’re finally done here.

The End

~~~~~

Woof! I know way back in my introductory post I mentioned that I’d seen this movie (or at least parts of it) at some point in my checkered past, but, lemme tell ya, there was a whole lot that I’d forgotten/suppressed about Die Another Day. Just to start out with some positives, I actually really liked the design of Zao’s diamond-encrusted face, and I really liked seeing Halle Berry here. She didn’t get anything worthy of her talents to work with, but still. Then there were things that started out neat, but didn’t work in the end. I liked Frost a lot when she was introduced, but then she got reduced to a sword-wielding lunatic in a bra for the final conflict with Jinx. Icarus seemed fun, but then I remembered that this is not the first, not the second but the third Brosnan Bond film with a satellite at the heart of its narrative. We had GoldenEye, then Carver’s dumb satellite news network and now Icarus. That’s three out of four Brosnan films with satellites as key players. I love space as much as the next gay, but, I mean, get a new shtick already! Then there’s stuff that was just silly. Bond stopping his heartbeat? The Power Glove? The ice palace? The invisible car? That Madonna song? C’mon. I know you have to suspend disbelief for any of these movies, but jeez louise. And while I know I don’t normally dwell on the technical side of things during my recaps, but the special effects in this movie were very bad. If we weren’t getting some unnecessary slow-mo, we were having shots like the one of Jinx cliff diving or the truly horrendous kiteboarding scene that legitimately made me gasp when it first started. While there were definitely some fun moments and some little touches I liked, on the whole this flick is a mess and a far, far fall from the glory days of GoldenEye.

I feel I can only give Die Another Day QQ on the Five Q Scale.

We’ll see you again in a hot minute as Eli serves up a couple of fresh recaps of the next two episodes of The Golden Palace, “Say Goodbye, Rose” and “You’ve Lost That Livin’ Feeling”, and after that it’ll be time for me to move onto a brand new Bond as I tackle the next James Bond adventure, Casino Royale (and maybe you can look forward to a few special treats before then, who can say?).

Until then, as always, thank you for reading, thank you for analyzing this (Sigmund Freud) and thank you for being One of Us!

Señor Stinky Learns Absolutely Nothing About Life (TGP, Episode 16)

Today Eli is forced to watch and recap Señor Stinky Learns Absolutely Nothing About Life, Episode 16 of The Golden Palace.  Somebody get me a cold drink, because things are really heating up!  While Roland and Chuy are involved in some hot and sweaty athletic action, Blanche is involved in an even hotter match with the seductive proprietor of a nearby hotel.  Will things cool down, or should we prepare ourselves for a beach orgy?  Keep reading to find out…

It still isn’t quite time for Drew to dive into my least favorite entry in the entire Bond franchise, so I’m just going to keep things moving!  Forget the shenanigans, let’s head straight for the Palace!

Buttocks tight!

Episode written by Marc Sotkin, directed by Peter D. Beyt

As we open, Blanche discovers that the owner of a neighboring hotel is suing the Golden Palace, claiming that a portion of the Palace’s parking lot is on his property.  Blanche plans to arrange a meeting and use her feminine wiles to deal with the situation.  Suddenly, a gang of gay men in colorful garb bursts into the lobby to stir up a ruckus.  No, wait, it’s only Roland and his “friend” Brad the pool guy, celebrating a recent beach volleyball victory!  Chuy brings up the rear looking significantly less excited.  Apparently, he sucks ass at v-ball and didn’t get to play since Roland is hungry for the glory of defeating all the other local businesses; the glory, and a sweet, sweet trophy.  Rose offers to help Chuy out, as she has a little volleyball experience herself.  Oh, and Blanche comes onto poor Brad so strongly that he is forced to flee the hotel in terror.

Soon after, Chuy asks about volleyball practice, and Rose mentions that she has already made the team.  Chuy can’t believe it, but Roland says that he saw her in action and she’s good (or at least better than Chuy).  Blanche returns from a business meeting at the bank, and reveals the shocking news that she was thrown out over a simple misunderstanding.  Specifically, she told the bank manager that she would like to get him in a hot tub and drink him like soup.  Rose scolds Blanche for her blatant sexual harassment, and Roland backs her up.  They point out that she even makes poor Brad feel like his employment has strings attached, a prospect that causes Blanche to feel simultaneously ashamed and excited.  Blanche reconsiders her approach to the upcoming meeting with Mr. Gentry of the neighboring Mecca hotel over the parking lot dispute, and pledges to behave herself.

We cut to the next volleyball game, where Rose and Chuy are clearly outmatched, even with Betty White showing off her legs.  Not to worry, as Roland and Brad swap into the match and instantly transform into golden gods of bumping, setting, and spiking.  They save the game, and Chuy goes back to sulking about his poor performance.  Back at the hotel, Blanche is dressed up like a stuffy librarian in preparation for her no-nonsense business meeting.  Lawrence Gentry (Ricardo Montalban) arrives for the meeting, and a horny Blanche almost instantly excuses herself to slip into something more comfortable.  KHAAAAAAN!

Blanche is frantically looking for a slutty outfit when Rose and Sophia show up to stop her.  Rose shares a St. Olaf story on the topic of promiscuity, and Blanche pulls herself together enough to return to Mr. Gentry in her modest attire.  He compliments her Dr. Quinn cosplay and invites her to dinner, as Blanche struggles to keep things professional.  He keeps flirting, and she does her best not to jump his sexy bones.  Eventually, she proposes a mutually advantageous plan that involves coordinating their computer systems to benefit both properties at their peak hours, and Mr. Gentry seems surprised that a lady could possess such business acumen.  Blanche does agree to having lunch with Lawrence soon, and he mentions that he has a loin cloth.

Roland and Brad are engaged in another hot, sweaty, and very close match when Brad predictably injures his ankle on a patch of slippery beach sand.  Roland wants to put Rose in to play, but she’s busy cheerleading and Chuy asks to go in instead.  Roland reluctantly agrees, but begins doing all the work himself.  This prompts Chuy to delay the game in order to share a sad tale of childhood humiliation, revealing that he was branded Señor Stinky in his younger days for his complete lack of athletic prowess (and presumed stinkiness).  The game resumes, Roland allows Chuy to participate, and Chuy immediately blows the match.  Oops.  Roland gets mad, bestows the title of Señor Stinky upon Chuy once more, and walks off.

It must not be long before Roland feels guilty about his beach madness, and we find him apologizing profusely to Chuy.  He may have lost the match, but he doesn’t want to lose his friend.  Chuy accepts his apology, but agrees that there’s no way he’s playing next year.  Blanche and Lawrence re-enter the lobby after setting up their computers and presumably forwarding several political e-mails to their grandchildren.  Their business matter resolved, he flirts some more and proposes a new, more personal relationship, planting a kiss on Blanche.  She agrees that it’s time to transition from business time to “business time,” and they simply have to decide which hotel to defile.

In a brief final scene, we see Chuy beating Roland at a game of volleyball.  It helps that Roland is blindfolded with one had tied to a foot, behind his back.

The End.

We’re on a roll, because I had a lot of fun with this one!  It was fun to have Khan himself show up, even if Ricardo Montalban had to deliver a line about rich Corinthian leather.  And although I definitely appreciate that Blanche was able to take a stand for professionalism and decency, it was also obvious from jump that she and Mr. Gentry were ready to get down to Poundtown, so I’m glad that they could give in to their true natures in the end.  I also got a kick out of the beach volleyball scenes, and Don Cheadle looked like he was pretty good!  I like to imagine that v-ball is one of his hidden talents, and he lobbied fiercely to be given an opportunity to show off his skillz.  Even though Roland was a jerk to Chuy after losing, I have to say that Chuy really did contribute absolutely nothing.  He just stood there, even after insisting he be swapped in as a player, and giving that whole speech!  I smell sabotage.  Even so, I’m going to give this episode a hearty rating of 3.5 poofy hairdos out of 5!

Check back soon for Drew’s take on Die Another Day, Pierce Brosnan’s last outing as Agent 007, the twentieth official Bond film, and the final entry in the franchise before its reboot!  Soon after, I’ll be back with a recap of Say Goodbye, Rose, the next episode of The Golden Palace.  Until then, as always, thank you for being a friend, and for being One of Us!