Chris Hardwick's Blog, page 2118

LEGO STAR WARS Continues with FREEMAKER ADVENTURES Renewal

Which Star Wars animated series recently received four Daytime Emmy Awards nominations, just got renewed for season two, and has characters with no thumbs? LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures! The Disney XD series will return for a second season in the summer, and you can get a glimpse of what’s ahead in the above sizzle reel. Please note the appearance of Hera, I mean General Syndulla, from Star Wars Rebels–and also expert mechanic/ship builder Quarrie!

The rebels from Rebels are around because the Freemaker family aligned with the Rebel Alliance fleet after their adventures in season one. Oh. Boy. Rowan, the young Force-sensitive Freemaker, has to build a fancy ship, the Arrowhead. Hence the appearance of Quarrie. This means Rowan will once again be charged with saving the day as he clicks things into place (man, I have to work on my LEGO puns).

If you haven’t been watching The Freemaker Adventures, it’s worth a look. Unlike other LEGO Star Wars shorts and films, The Freemaker Adventures leans on plot instead of gags. There’s a beginning point, an end point, and growth for each of the main characters. It’s all the fun and silliness of LEGO with actual story. Neat! Gags and references to the Star Wars universe are present, of course, but they don’t dominate every episode.

With a 13-episode first season, you can catch up in no time. Watch the first two installments, “A Hero Discovered” and “The Mines of Graballa,” to see if the tone is to your liking. And because I know you’re wondering about the timeline, the series is set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. It’s not canon but operates within the lines set by canon, if that makes sense.

Do you watch The Freemaker Adventures? Which episodes would you recommend to others? Share your list in the comments.

Image: Disney XD/Lucasfilm

We have theories about Supreme Leader Snoke!

BUFFY Star Sarah Michelle Gellar Hated Season Six. Here’s Why We Disagree

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Six: Even among the most hardcore Buffy fanatics, this season remains divisive for its depressing, adult themes. To this day, even the show’s star Sarah Michelle Gellar and its creator Joss Whedon, are on opposing sides to whether or not they think the season has merit. At the recent Entertainment Weekly reunion for the Buffy cast, Sarah Michelle Gellar said “I’ve always said that season 6 was not my favorite. I felt it betrayed who she was. Even just getting to talk to Joss and be able to get his opinion was not as easy when he’s not upstairs. He had three shows. He had Angel and Firefly so that was hard.”

However, Joss Whedon continues to stand behind that year of storytelling, saying “I love season six. [Producer] Marti Noxon and I wanted to talk about an unhealthy relationship. It was borderline abusive until it actually became abusive. It was on both sides. It wasn’t just that she was with someone dark—she found the darkness within herself. This has to do with the consequences of power.” The relationship Whedon is referring to is Buffy’s sexual relationship with her former enemy turned obsessed stalker, Spike (James Marsters).

On a certain level, I understand Sarah Michelle Gellar’s disdain for her character’s storyline, as well as some fans’ ambivalence to it all. After all, we live in a world where two of the most popular stories embraced by women in popular culture are Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey, both of which have domineering male love interests who control the lives of the female protagonists. Edward Cullen and Christian Grey tell their respective female leads Bella and Anastasia how to think, how to feel, what to like, and even who to like, and are ultimately rewarded for all their horrible behavior with happy ending marriages. It’s frankly gross, and sends a dangerous message to young girls. And yet women across the globe have embraced these as the ultimate love stories of our time. Where’s my barf bag please?

But Joss Whedon and season six producer Martin Noxon knew better. They understood there was and always will be an inherit appeal to the idea of entering into a relationship with someone totally wrong for you, someone who may be domineering and controlling, but is still sexy as hell; it’s something we respond to in our primal, “lizard brains.” But they also knew not to romanticize it. From the moment Buffy and Spike both enter into their secret relationship, we knew that it wasn’t going to end well. The first time they have sex, it begins with a brawl between the two, with Buffy literally beating the crap out of Spike before they actually do the deed. And when they do, the house they are in literally crashes in on them. It’s an on-the-nose metaphor for their relationship, but there is no denying it is also sexy as hell. That one scene is hotter than an entire season and half of love scenes with her previous boyfriend, normal “guy next door” Riley Finn (Marc Blucas), but it also shows what this relationship really is: toxic.

Buffy and Spike’s sexual relationship only lasts six episodes. There are a lot of fans who argue that Buffy would never, ever enter into a relationship with someone like Spike. And were this in any other point in her life, they’d be right. But fans forget just where Buffy was at the beginning of season six. After dying and being ripped from Heaven to return to her mortal life, Buffy is extremely depressed. In fact, Buffy’s whole arc that season is about depression, and the mistakes one makes while in the vice grip of it. She simply wants to feel something, and here’s the guy who is claiming to be in love with her and that she’s the most wonderful creature in all the world. Of course she overlooks all of his past misdeeds and jumps into the sack with him. It doesn’t make her “dumb” or “weak” or somehow less feminist; it just makes her human.

What makes Buffy so relatable is not just her strengths, it’s her weaknesses too. Like many young people in vulnerable positions, she’s drawn to unhealthy relationships. The key difference between Buffy and later heroines like Bella and Anastasia happens at the end of episode 15 of season 6, titled “As You Were.” In this episode, Buffy arrives in Spike’s lair, and calmly and simply tells him its over between them for good. She acknowledges her own mistakes and walks away, and although there is much more Buffy/Spike drama to be had before the series is over, she never enters into a physical relationship with him again. Their relationship doesn’t end with weddings and domestic bliss. At that moment, Buffy pulls herself out of her depression and begins making the right kind of choices for herself again.

This is why Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a seminal feminist show, and will always be one, and why season six at its core is a great season. It allows its heroine to make human mistakes, especially about relationships, acknowledge them as mistakes, and come through to the other side. There’s no doubt that Whedon and Noxon were giving fans a certain amount of titillation by giving us all the “Spuffy” sex scenes that they did. And that’s okay: part of entertainment is giving fans a certain amount of gratuitous fun of the sexy variety. But Whedon/Noxon understood that the ultimate take-away from season six was how Buffy handled realizing she was in something toxic, and finding the strength to say “no more” and move on. It’s what makes her a true role model, and what makes the show truly great.

—

What are your thoughts on Buffy’s most divisive season? Let us know down below in the comments.

Images: Twentieth Century Fox

Her Universe Gets Heroic with DC Comics Activewear Line

You don’t have to don a cape, utility belt, or gold tiara to bring heroes from DC Comics into your workouts. You can if you want, but you can also pursue a more simple alternative: wear Her Universe‘s new DC activewear collection. Designed exclusively for Kohl’s, the fashionable tops, shorts, and leggings almost look too nice to cover with sweat. Key word being almost.

This line features items in juniors and plus sizes (if you’re an adult woman interested in the line, I recommend sizing up if you can’t make it to Kohl’s to try things on in person). The pieces are inspired by DC’s holy trinity of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. I think they missed an opportunity for a Cheetah-themed bodysuit—especially since Eckstein voices the character in DC Super Hero Girls—but I understand why they’d focus on the most popular heroes. Take a look at this lightweight Batman bomber:

And I’m all about this Lasso of Truth shirt:

This activewear isn’t all about looks. The items have been put through the ringer. Like she did with the Marvel activewear line released in 2016, Eckstein created a series of workout videos inspired by the heroes. You can follow along for Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman workouts at YouTube. Wonder Woman in action:

There’s not a workout that involves sitting on the couch and watching TV, but I guess that’s not really what an activewear line is made for.

If you want to add some DC Comics flair to your workout gear, browse more of the collection in the gallery below and make your list. Then, visit a Kohl’s store near you or shop on their website. Will you be adding a touch of Wonder to your gym time? Head to the comments and let me know.

Images: Her Universe

Did RICK AND MORTY’s Season Premiere Confirm a Popular Fan Theory?

Attention, Rick and Morty fans! This post contains major spoilers for the season 3 premiere of the series—you’ve been warned!

Adult Swim celebrated April Fool’s Day by surprising Rick and Morty fans with a looped and streaming premiere of the long-awaited first episode of season three. But amid Lawyer Morty’s capering and Rick’s body-jumping, did “The Rickshank Redemption” confirm a popular fan theory about Rick’s supposedly tragic backstory? The answer is: it’s complicated.

The season three premiere kicks off with a Nathan Fillion-voiced Galactic Federation agent urging Rick to reveal crucial memories, specifically the moment where he invented his signature portal gun. Instead, the belching mad scientist drives to a 1998 McDonald’s to get some of that sweet and sour Szechuan Sauce the fast food chain unleashed as part of its Mulan promotion, because its flavor can only be found in memories. (Le sigh.) But after that “brain melting” bit, the pair arrive at a humble garage, where a younger, Blue Pants-Wearing Rick is fiddling with a flawed teleportation gun, only to have another Rick pop in and gift the portal gun.

“Imagine doing anything you want, and then hopping to a timeline where you never did it,” says Portal Gun-Giving Rick. “Imagine traveling anywhere you want, with no one being able to stop you.” But when BPW Rick calls this suggested existence “lonely,” PGG Rick retorts, “Lonely? Dude, you have yourself, your infinite selves. It’s a nonstop party where the only guests are the person we like.” Still, younger Rick passes.

“Excuse me? Broh, Ricks don’t pass on this,” PGG Rick declares, and maybe threatens. When BPW Rick chooses a quiet life with his wife and young daughter Beth instead of being a “god” or “the infinite Rick,” a portal opens just in time to drop a bomb that annihilated the family of this “different Rick.” Which forces him to escape his tragedy, and this dimension using the portal gun.

Taken at face value, this tragic backstory is exactly the kind fans of the series have speculated Rick must have to explain his long absence from his family’s lives and tendency towards dark attitudes. What we know of his timeline is that he ran out on Beth and her mom, and then reappeared years later, once she was married to Jerry, had Summer, and her second child Morty was already entering adolescence. So, what if the Beth of Cronenberg dimension—where the series was based before “Rick Potion #9″—actually lost her Rick to death like the Beth in the dimension of the current series’ focus? What if the Rick in her home never was Rick C-137, but a different Rick who accidentally caused the annihilation of his Beth, or his Morty, or even his entire universe in a different dimension?

These suggested actions are horrific. Yet we’ve seen Rick do similar things before. Hell, in the pilot’s cold open a drunken Rick stumbles into Morty’s room and mumbles a plan to blow up the Earth, all save for himself and his grandson. In “Rick Potion #9,” the improvising genius creates a love elixir that leads to everyone—save his immediate family—to be transformed into horrible “Cronenberg” monsters, forcing Rick and Morty to flee to a dimension where they can replace some recently deceased doubles of themselves. (This very episode gets a prolonged call back in “The Rickshank Redemption.”) First with Summer digging up a Rick’s corpse to recover its portal gun, then with Morty showing his adopted dimensional sister the Cronenberg world to prove how dangerous Rick can be.

But just as fans of that tragic dimension-jump theory were squealing with win, Rick dropped the set walls and devastated act and insisted it wasn’t a memory, but a “totally fabricated origin story” intended to trap his extraterrestrial interrogator. It’s the kind of outsmarting, gut-punch reversal the series revels in. And it’s reprised at the end of the episode, when Rick threatens his rescued grandson, claiming that he was more concerned with toppling the government and son-in-law that crossed him than he was actually saving the lives of Summer and Morty. “I’ll go out and I’ll find more of that Mulan Szechuan teriyaki dipping sauce,” Rick froths, “Because that’s what this is all about, Morty! That’s my one-armed man. I’m not driven by avenging my dead family, Morty. That was fake. I’m driven by finding that McNugget sauce!”

Rick and Morty co-creators Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon are messing with us one way or the other. Perhaps this twist was their April Fools prank, their latest Rick Roll. Because like Rick, this show revels in deflecting vulnerability with a brash joke.

It happened at the end of season one as well. In “Ricksy Business,” Rick and Summer threw a party that initially left Morty frustrated and cleaning up on his own. Which is when Bird Person broke down the tragic truth behind Rick’s seemingly silly catchphrase of wubba lubba dub dub. “It’s not nonsense at all,” Rick’s oldest known friend explains, “In my people’s tongue it means, ‘I am in great pain; please help me.'”

Later, Rick freezes time so he, Morty, and Summer can clean the house, preventing Jerry and Beth from barring the titular pair from further adventuring together. Six months will pass with this trio bonding while the rest of the world stands still. And at the end of the finale, Morty notes that Rick hasn’t said “Wubba lubba dub dub” in a while. And Rick replies, “Don’t need to. I have a new catch phase, it’s ‘I love my grandkids.'” But rather than end on the season on a simply sentimental moment, Rick then bellows, “Psych! Just kidding. My new catchphrase is I don’t give a fuck!” Then he puts on a booty-shaking jam and breaks the fourth wall, yelling, “Roll credits! That’s the end of season one.”

Not only does Rick deflect from a tender emotional truth—he cared enough about his relationship with his grandkids to freeze time to preserve it—but he then he acknowledges the viewing audience. Which suggests our watching him also impacts his behavior, like a bastardization of the Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle.

So is this tragic backstory fake? Probably mostly. But there are some things here that ring very true to what we know of Rick. For one: we know he’s not above jumping to a new dimension when things don’t go his way. Like the BPW Rick, the show’s main Rick loathes the Citadel of Ricks, a point Morty brings up in this very premiere episode. Murdering his family would be a good reason for that, and great motivation for him destroying the place and its armies of eccentrically coiffed doppelgängers.

Cynics may claim that “the moment that changed everything” for Rick is indeed the Szechuan sauce reveal. However, it’s implied Rick has seen great loss, from galactic battles to the death of his wife. But he doesn’t tend to look back. We never hear him talk about his presumably dead wife Diane. He’s never told Beth about his adventures across space, something she laments to Bird Person during the reception in “The Wedding Squaunchers.” Even Tiny Rick didn’t want to look back to resume his true form in “Big Trouble In Little Sanchez.”

So here’s what I venture we should take from the images flashing across Rick’s melting brain in this season premiere: It is not canon. But neither is it as completely false as Rick claims. Even at his most vulnerable, Rick buries his true feelings behind ludicrous jokes and oblique references. Being the smartest man in the world has made him lonely. Even when he’s with his family, he hides parts of himself, namely his past. When it comes to the show’s writers, there are in no rush to unlock the key to Rick’s fortress of emotional defenses. And if that means—as Rick suggested at the end of “Rickshank Redemption”—nine more seasons and more Szechuan-styled shenanigans to be found among this cartoon’s most gutting moments, then, we’re on board, broh. Don’t even sweat it, dawg.

What do you make of the flashbacks, real or manufactured? Let us know in the comments below.

Images: Cartoon Network

 

No Doubt and AFI’s Singer are Now DREAMCAR, Hear Their New Song

For the moment, the future of No Doubt seems very much uncertain. Gwen Stefani rekindled her solo career last year with This Is What the Truth Feels Like, her first album since 2006. In response, the rest of No Doubt — guitarist Tom Dumont, bassist Tony Kanal, and drummer Adrian Young — decided to move on without their lead singer. They needed somebody behind the mic, though, so they recruited AFI frontman Davey Havok for a new supergroup, DREAMCAR. Now, the band has an album on the way, and they just shared a music video for their song, “Kill For Candy” (via Consequence of Sound).

The video is shot from a POV perspective, switching back and forth between the vantage points of various band members as they run through the song in an artistically lit practice space. As for the song, even though it comes from two bands who were at their most relevant a decade or more ago, it’s a lot of fun. There are shades of The Cure here, and it’s a perfectly upbeat jam for shaking off the winter blues.

If you’re into it, the good news is that the group also announced some tour dates, including a couple stops at Coachella, so check those out below. Listen to the song above, and hit up us on Twitter to let us know what you think of it! Also give us a shout if you’re proud of us for not saying that No Doubt’s future is in “doubt!”

DREAMCAR 2017 tour dates

04/05: Santa Ana, CA at Constellation Room

04/06: Santa Ana, CA at Constellation Room

04/09: San Francisco, CA at Great American Music Hall

04/11: Los Angeles, CA at Roxy Theatre

04/12: Los Angeles, CA at Roxy Theatre

04/15: Indio, CA at Coachella Music Festival

04/19: San Diego, CA at Music Box

04/20: Phoenix, AZ at Crescent Ballroom

04/22: Indio, CA at Coachella Music Festival

05/18: Washington, DC at 9:30 Club

05/19: New York, NY at Irving Plaza

05/22: Philadelphia, PA at Theatre of Living Arts

05/23: Boston, MA at Paradise Rock Club

05/25: Toronto, ON at Phoenix Concert Theatre

05/26: Detroit, MI at St. Andrews Hall

05/27: Chicago, IL at The Vic

Featured image: DREAMCAR

Marvel is Wrong About Diversity Killing Its Comics

When it’s time to blame someone, go for anyone who isn’t a straight white man. At least, that’s what Marvel did with its statement about how “diverse” characters are driving down their comics sales. According to an Entertainment Weekly report, Marvel’s vice president of sales David Gabriel said: “What we heard was that people didn’t want any more diversity. They didn’t want female characters out there. That’s what we heard, whether we believe that or not. I don’t know that that’s really true, but that’s what we saw in sales.”

Based on our own research, he’s right: it’s definitely not true. At all.

But it’s not only gender diversity that’s to blame. Gabriel also points the finger at racial diversity for a real one-two punch: “We saw the sales of any character that was diverse, any character that was new, our female characters, anything that was not a core Marvel character, people were turning their nose up against.  That was difficult for us because we had a lot of fresh, new, exciting ideas that we were trying to get out and nothing new really worked.”

It’s true that Marvel comics haven’t been selling so well in comparison to other publishers; in February 2017, only two of the ten highest-selling monthly comics were Marvel titles. And Marvel has been introducing and reviving numerous “diverse” characters—that is, non-straight-white-male characters—in an attempt to appear less dedicated to preserving the status quo. Right now, Sam Wilson has taken up the shield and name of Captain America, placing a black male hero in the role of one of Marvel’s most emblematic characters. Similarly, who could forget Kamala Khan, a Pakistani-American Muslim girl and the new Ms. Marvel? Or the queer Asian-American heroine Cindy Moon, the latest introduction to the Spider-verse? Or Ta-Nehisi Coates/Brian Stelfreeze’s Black Panther and its Roxane Gay-penned spin-off, World of Wakanda?

That’s a lot of change in a relatively short amount of time, so the reason Marvel isn’t selling as many comics as before—assuming that’s a correct assessment—must be those darn diverse characters. Any fan can accept trans-dimensional travel or shape-shifters from outer space, but the idea that women or people of color can also be good at fighting is a (rainbow) bridge too far, right?

Apparently not. Comic Book Resources has crunched some numbers and found that The Mighty Thor, starring Jane Foster as the Goddess of Thunder, is Marvel’s second-highest selling superhero title; likewise, Invincible Iron Man, which stars a black teenage girl, ranks among Marvel’s top 10 bestsellers. Under Ta-Nehisi Coates’s authorship, Black Panther became the top-selling comic of 2016. Not just the top seller among Marvel comics, but the top seller, period. Maybe it isn’t diversity that’s the problem.

But if diversity isn’t to blame, what is? Part of the answer is that Marvel fails at actually putting principles of diverse representation into practice. While heroes who don’t fit the straight white male mold are in greater supply than they were in previous years, most Marvel creators are still white men. This leads to issues such as characters of color whose attitudes towards race come from white authors, which does not sit well with many readers.

The Silver Surfer speaks for a lot of us here.

When Brian Michael Bendis writes Miles Morales as being upset with a fan who mentions his black heritage, or when Nick Spencer has Sam Wilson apologize to Steve Rogers for any activism-fueled anger he may have displayed in the past, it comes off as tone-deaf and leaves readers understandably less than thrilled. The same comic features multiethnic villains who are parodies of the “Social Justice Warrior” stereotype, who shout phrases like “You should be an ally, not helping to defend oppression culture!” and “Consider this your trigger warning!” as they throw grenades at Sam. (Spencer later jumped into a critical Twitter thread by Blerds Online to explain why he was in the right, which didn’t help.)

Let’s also remember SHIELD #8 (2015), written by Mark Waid, where a black woman viewing her young son’s corpse remarks, “He was no angel“—the same phrase used to vindicate Michael Brown’s murder.

Hiring more creators of color, more female creators, more queer creators, and really any creators who bring experiences from outside the current bubble to their work would help Marvel to avoid such egregious mistakes in the future. Diversity extends to the people behind the scenes as well as those on the page.

Side note: even if Marvel does do all this, there will be some comics that don’t sell and have to be canceled as a result, because the comics market can be cruel. In the event of a “diverse” comic getting canceled, Marvel needs to look at the specific places where that comic fell short (art, storytelling, marketing, premise, etc.) rather than simply resorting to the tired “diversity doesn’t sell” excuse. After all, Marvel’s canceled its share of comics featuring white male heroes and never made a public statement about how straight Caucasian men don’t sell. The company has to stop blaming difference and start figuring out how to do difference right.

It also doesn’t help that Marvel is unwilling to consider how other initiatives (namely big crossovers and continuity reboots) can do much more than the presence of a female and/or non-white hero to turn readers away. At the moment, Marvel is gearing up for Secret Empire, yet another major event that will presumably Change Everything Forever. But wasn’t it only yesterday that Tony and Carol Danvers were squaring off in Civil War II?

Launching this summer, Secret Empire is a nine-issue miniseries focusing on Hydra infiltrating the ranks of Marvel’s most powerful superbeings, led by Hydra agent Steve Rogers. (Kind of like the Skrulls in 2008’s Secret Invasion, except this time with Earth-based fascism.) As is standard for big company-wide events, numerous Marvel titles will tie into the main Secret Empire miniseries, meaning that fans will once again have to spend serious cash to find out what’s going on. Problem being? Many readers don’t want to invest that kind of time or money in something that’ll just get wiped out of continuity a few months later. Plus, a recent cover solicit featuring Magneto—a Jewish character who lost his family in the Holocaust—as a Hydra agent isn’t doing much to win readers’ hearts or wallets, either. This is what readers are sick of: not diversity, but Marvel sticking to the same old formula and rejecting the very factors that could turn it around.

What else could Marvel do to shake things up? Which underrated women, characters of color, and/or LGBTQ characters should get their time in the spotlight? Let us know in the comments!

Images: Marvel

8 Things We Learned On iZOMBIE’s Season 3 Set

Hungry for some new episodes of iZombie? You’re not alone.

It’s been almost a whole year since The CW’s zom-rom-com ended its second season on quite the cliffhanger, so thankfully when Liv (Rose McIver) and the rest of Team Z return for season three, the drama is picking up right where it left off. After all, when you end a season with a full-on zombie attack and the introduction of a secret zombie military operation planning to go public, you really can’t do a time jump.

When Nerdist visited the iZombie set in Vancouver, in between eating brains (seriously), the stars of The CW’s hit series sat down to reveal everything there is to know about season three from the new big bad to potential new zombie cures and, of course, all the braaaaiiiiins Liv will eat.

There’s a Growing Zombie Army

McIver revealed the new zombie military force Fillmore Graves (another win for the pun-inclined series) will be a “huge” part of the new season. In fact, while they may not appear to be “evil” in any way, they’re actually season three’s big bad, and it’s a new kind of “villain” for the series to tackle.

“That’s the big new realm that we enter,” McIver said. “We spend a lot of time in [the Fillmore Graves] offices and their environment and with those characters, so they play a very significant role this year. Liv is still kind of trying to work out throughout the course of it quite where she stands with them, whether she’s on their side or not, whether she agrees with how they plan on handling this potential zombie outbreak or not.”

…And Someone We Love Will Join Their Ranks

At the bow of season two, Liv, Major (Robert Buckley) and Clive (Malcolm Goodwin) were still in shock at the mere existence of Fillmore Graves. By the end of the season three premiere, however, at least one member of Team Z will join up with the mysterious new pro-zombie operation.

“It’s going to pose some interesting questions for everyone in the group,” Buckley teased. “It is a main component of Major’s arc this year. Fillmore Graves, the people he meets and is friends with and the relationships he forms. It’s a big part of his journey.”

The Race For the Cure is On

Meanwhile, Ravi (Rahul Kohli) will be working harder than ever to stop the zombie outbreak before it starts by finding that cure. Right now, Ravi has a cure for zombie-ism … but it wipes out every memory a person has. It’s really not a good option.

“While it works, it causes amnesia. So he’s now attacking it from two angles,” Kohli said of Ravi’s hunt. “So he spends the season or a good part of it trying to cure two different things. But just like how there were different phases of the cure—some were deadly, some didn’t work, some did work — the same kind of situation happens with the amnesia cure as in it’s not exactly perfect, and that in itself and the methods he comes up with and the solutions he has aren’t particularly good, and they cause him to have his own little drama.”

…Before it Kills. *gulp*

Adding even more pressure to an already strained Ravi is the fact that Major is living on borrowed time with an older version of the cure in his veins that eventually will kill him.

“At the moment, the best that we can do is cure it, but lose your memory, and that’s the situation we’ve had which is why no one else has taken the cure, like Liv,” Kohli said. “So Major’s on borrowed time and his journey and what he goes through will obviously motivate Ravi. … [T]o lose the Major we know and have a cured dude who doesn’t remember anything, doesn’t remember us, doesn’t remember Liv? Does he give in and we lose Major altogether?”

Blaine Goes Good Guy?!

Currently suffering from the effects of Ravi’s latest cure is former series villain Blaine (David Anders). Now a human with no memory of his life before he took the cure, Blaine doesn’t even remember that he was a bad guy. Could he actually become a member of Team Z and have a real relationship with Peyton (Aly Michalka)?

“We were surprised, too,” Michalka said with a laugh. “We all didn’t think Peyton would fall for a guy like Blaine. Especially because she’s the kind of girl who has a good head on her shoulders; she seems very practical. Blaine, it was one of those things where it came out of left field and even surprised her that she was attracted to this guy. After finding out that he’s the one who turned her best friend into a zombie, that obviously gave her caution, and finding out he’s a murderer as well. The one thing that was his saving grace is he lost his memories. He doesn’t remember any of this part from himself from the past.”

“It’s been an opportunity for him to reinvent himself,” McIver agreed. “Best thing that could have ever happened to a villain, isn’t it? Like lose that history, lose the memory of anything you’ve ever done wrong and it’s very hard for anybody to hold something against him. And we also have information about his backstory and the more we come to understand his father and where he’s from, kudos to the writers for being able to build a three-dimensional villain who we can understand a lot better. And with the device of losing his memory, we’re able to forgive and open up a whole different kind of realm for Blaine to play in and he does it incredibly well.”

She paused, then added, “I don’t trust him. I’m still very sketchy about him in general. That’s Liv and Rose speaking. It’s a journey, but he’s proving himself so far to be well intentioned and definitely loves Peyton and seems to be trying to make up for things, so, what can you do? Just let it unfold as it will.”

Much to Ravi’s chagrin, Peyton will continue to explore a relationship with Blaine now that he’s changed into a caring, empathetic person with no memory of his shady past.

“Peyton looks at that as maybe this is a good thing; maybe he is a great guy deep down,” Michalka said. “At the beginning of this new season, he’s still comforting Peyton throughout this trauma that we left off on last season. Now that zombies are possibly going to be found out from society, that puts everyone on a high stakes sort of scenario. Her and Ravi’s relationship is definitely still there; you can see there’s a great connection there and a great friendship. But at the end of the day, she’s still struggling with these feelings she has for Blaine. We’ll see where it leads them.”

Major’s Got Major Issues

A big aspect from season two being carried over into season three is the accusation that Major was the Chaos Killer. He totally was the Chaos Killer—even though he didn’t actually kill anyone, thanks a lot Max Rager, yadda yadda yadda—and he has been publicly cleared of all charges, but that doesn’t mean the public will apologize to him anytime soon.

“Holy smokes. It’s not something that Major is going to escape easily,” Buckley said. “It’s not like a bad haircut people are going to forget about. A large amount of the population thinks he’s in fact a serial killer. And even if he’s not a killer, he’s someone who kidnapped people and destroyed families and homes. That is something that will impact every aspect of his life: his love life, his employment. That is something that he will be struggling with a lot this season. He really hasn’t had much of a life. His love life is in shambles, he has no job, he has no real personal life outside of a couple of friends. He’s trying to find who Major is again.”

So what does that mean for Major and Liv, romantically speaking?

“I think both Liv and Major would love to see it work. But as we’ve seen in the two years, they are just absolute stars at not having the stars aligned,” Buckley said with a laugh. “They are just the champions of not having a successful relationship ever since their engagement. I think we will see them continue to try and navigate the waters and see if there is a shot.”

So don’t give up hope just yet if you ship Liv and Major. “In my heart, I still think there is a shot,” Buckley said. “I root for them. We’ll see this year. But from the jump, I’m holding on to hope.”

A New Mystery Character Arrives

Of course that makes us wonder: does season three’s addition of Jason Dohring add a wrinkle to any potential Liv and Major relationship? So far, the cast is staying mum on who the Veronica Mars alum is playing.

“Every time [showrunners] Rob Thomas and Diane [Ruggiero-Wright] bring back characters they’ve worked with before we know it’s because they really love the experience of working with those actors and, so it’s always a gift when they arrive on set,” McIver said. “He’s got some great ideas for his character. I can say it’s not something you’ve seen him do before, and you’ll be very interested, and Liv is still trying to wrap her head around quite where he fits in into the bigger picture.”

The New Braaaaiiiins are Better Than Ever!

But what McIver is most excited for fans to see from this season of iZombie are all the different kinds of brains that Liv is going to eat, and all the personalities she’ll become as a result.

“One of the earliest ones we see, which I love so much, is Liv and Major on father-daughter brains,” McIver said. “Liv is the father and Major’s the teenage daughter. It’s the part Robert Buckley was born to play—a 16-year-old school girl who sings along to pop songs on the radio in a beautiful falsetto.”

Along with that comedy gold, McIver reveals Liv will eat a “dominatrix brain.”

“That’s a lot,” she said with a laugh. “Poor Clive and Ravi definitely bear the brunt of that. And especially, now that Babineaux knows about Liv’s reasons for the way she behaves, he’s having to put up with things in a different way, so that’s a very funny episode. Liv’s on a Dungeons and Dragons brain, like a dungeon master, which has been like learning a foreign language for me. I didn’t know that world growing up, but the good thing about that is because it’s somebody who narrates and who is able to command groups and has a sense of adventure and this imperious kind of voice throughout it, that flows into her own life and her ability to kind of manipulate situations and make decisions for groups and encourage people to adventure.”

The brain that surprised McIver the most with how easy it came to her, though, was a “hot mess brain.”

“That was my favorite,” she said. “Very Amy Schumer/Trainwreck/can’t remember where she’s left anything, hasn’t got anything together. I didn’t expect that to be as easy to play as it was.”

What are you most excited to see from this season of iZombie? Tweet me your thoughts at @SydneyBucksbaum!

Images: The CW

iZombie season three premieres Tuesday, April 4 at 9 p.m. on The CW.

Somebody Hacked Yoshi Into SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 2 and It Works So Well

Although Nintendo and Sega were once major rivals, they coexist pretty peacefully now… probably because Nintendo is still monolithic and Sega no longer poses a real threat. Anyway, during the ’90s, it would have been basically impossible for characters from the two companies to appear in each other’s games. That happens all the time today (Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, Super Smash Bros., etc.), but imagine what that would have looked like back then. That’s what one hacker did when he put Yoshi’s Island-era Yoshi into Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (via Kotaku).

The gameplay is a lot smoother than it has any right to be. Although the Sonic games are all about speed, the more leisurely-paced Yoshi exists in this world just fine. In the gameplay video above, Baby Mario is replaced on Yoshi’s back by Sonic and Tails, and Yoshi carries them as he gets up to all his old tricks: swallowing stuff, making and shooting eggs, hovering.

It’s a really natural-feeling experience, and the video description says it was “made by Xenowhirl for the Sonic Hacking Contest 2010.” The ROM file had been unreleased until now, and while the video uploader had included a download link, it has since been removed by request. The request seems to have come from the commenter who wrote, “this hack was never [publicly] released and this is more than likely a leaked copy. Any chance you can take download links down until there’s confirmation that Xenowhirl actually put this out himself? It was entered privately and to see it spreading around is very [disappointing], especially as someone involved with the contest myself.”

Still, if you want to give this a try yourself, it’s probably possible to find a download link. What other characters do you think would be surprisingly effective in the Sonic universe? Give us a heads-up in comments, and maybe some valiant hacker will make it happen.

Featured image: Tpot/YouTube

Get Ready To Hit the Road in PREACHER Season 2 Promo

Tonight, The Walking Dead is wrapping up its seventh season and freeing up its weekly time slot. But fans won’t have to wait very long to get their Sunday night fix. The second season of Preacher is set to hit this summer, and a “powerful” new promo has set the stage for an epic road trip.

As originally envisioned in the classic comic book series by Garth Ennis and the late Steve Dillon, Preacher was the story of Jesse Custer, a man driven to literally find God alongside his best friend,Cassidy, as well as Jesse’s ex, Tulip O’Hare. The facts that Cassidy was a vampire or that Tulip was an assassin were ultimately less surprising than the revelation that Jesse was imbued with the word of God. Basically, no one can say “no” to Jesse, and that power has made him a target.

The latest season 2 footage plays up that threat as Jesse and his friends find themselves under attack from local law enforcement officials as well as masked group of men who may be from the Grail, a secretive organization that was briefly glimpsed in the first season. However, the most ominous part of the trailer is the reintroduction of the Saint of Killers. Even God can’t tell this Saint to stand down, and he’s gunning for Jesse.

Of course, the trailer also features a dose of the series’ bizarre sense of humor, including a man in a very disturbing dog costume and the absolutely charming way that Jesse, Tulip, and Cassidy enjoy “Come On Eileen” by Dexys Midnight Runners.

Preacher season 2 begins on Sunday, June 25.

What did you think about the new Preacher video? Let’s discuss in the comment section below!

Image: AMC

THE WALKING DEAD Recap: This Was Your “Life”

Editor’s note: This post contains spoilers for the season finale of The Walking Dead! Proceed with caution, survivors. For reals, if you haven’t yet watched this week’s episode, “The First Day of the Rest of Your Life,” we highly suggest you do so before proceeding. Okay? We good? Let’s go.

It is perhaps fitting that this episode aired on WrestleMania Sunday, given the shocking finishes, sudden heel turns, surprise returns, and of course a mullet-sporting coward yelling through a megaphone–yes, Eugene was totally goth Jimmy Hart this week. And the show was everything we love about The Walking Dead along with some of what we don’t; the latter being some of the padding and foot-dragging in reiterating stuff we knew and taking time to get to the inevitable battle just to make this an extra-long episode. That’s outweighed by the plusses, however: a genuine attempt to tell some of the individual storylines in innovative ways, a seemingly innocuous cold open that turned out super-portentous, and a good half-hour or so of adrenaline-pumping action. To bring back the wrestling analogy just briefly, the climactic run in by Shiva the tiger was like Hulk Hogan’s hulk-up: you knew it was coming, and would be awesome, but the wait was such agonizing metaphorical foreplay.

The opening, with Sasha listening to music and then not, seemed completely WTF until you listened closely–the bassy rumble underneath meant something. As the narrative returned to her again and again, it became more apparent. She’s hiding somewhere, and it’s either in a moving vehicle, or a place where vehicles are moving close by. And then our surprise return: Abraham! It was good to see him again, but it had to be a dream, right? This show isn’t going to pull a Bobby Ewing twist and have the whole last season be in Sasha’s head, right? You know they’re just sadistic enough that that could happen.

Sasha warned him not to go on his last mission–was she changing the past? She told him she had a vision he would die. But how? Wait…drowning? Bingo: this wasn’t a dream. It was an actual flashback.

With war with the Saviors being plotted, much hinged on whether Dwight was sincerely seeing the light. Well, the jury’s still out on that. But damn, that was a very pointy knife near actor Austin Amelio’s eye. Either he’s super-trusting, or there must have been some digital enhancement. And Daryl has one heck of a steady hand. But as for Dwight, Rick had a very Sun Tzu take: “If he’s lyin’, this is already over.”

Meanwhile, Negan was still working on Sasha, and she actually managed to talk him down from three vengeful kills to one…hypothetically. “If you had a dick I would still have these feelings,” responded Negan, which we should probably not take as a formal admission of bisexuality, but just his desire to say the word “dick” aloud as many times as possible.

In a nice example of misdirection, the Saviors busted out a chainsaw to clear some trees of the road, and given the longstanding relationship between zombies and chainsaws, I thought for sure the term “Chekhov’s Chainsaw” would apply. Fake-out: they never used it to grind some live meat. But Shiva turned out to be Chekhov’s Tiger.

Last week, I called Eugene as the one who would die, and the episode definitely tried to fake in that direction, with him saying, “If people die today, it’s because of the choices they make,” and Sasha responding, coolly, “Yes, it is.” It was indeed foreshadowing, but not the way I thought.

Eugene kicked off the big climax with his Jimmy Hart act, seemingly sealing his fate by proclaiming, “I am Negan,” but Rick’s countermeasures were sabotaged and TWIST! The Scavengers were in league with Negan all along! Bah Gawd, that’s a heel turn, King! Just goes to show you should never, EVER trust somebody named after the White Witch of Narnia, i.e. Jadis. With all apparently lost, Negan busted out a coffin, which we had all by now figured out contained Sasha before he even said it.

And then admit it…you lost your sh** when this happened:

She took the suicide pill after all, weaponizing herself into a zombie. It’s like a MacGyver-style suicide bomb for this world. Much death and destruction ensued, most of it random extras, and Negan tried to pull the eenie-meenie-minie-moe routine again, this time with Carl as the definite intended victim. Silly villain: they got you monologuing again. And we got an awesome tiger mauling, though not of Negan.

The season ended as many do, with remembrances of seasons past, and a grave and gathering threat as Negan officially declared war, and threw some shade Eugene’s way like he suspected something.

Oh, and a final dedication to the memory of Bernie Wrightson, which was a cool thing to do.

Undead afterthoughts:

–When Negan served Sasha a blueberry pancake with a smiley face, I’m just going to assume that was a Watchmen reference.

–“The Saviors are a dragon with many heads.” The metaphor you’re looking for is a hydra, Ezekiel…oh, wait, wrong comics.

–Lens flare over the church steeple reminds us Preacher is coming back soon. Bring it.

–“I lay with him after. You care?” is a surprising dismissal of Rick as a sex object. perhaps that’s why it didn’t bother Michonne much at the time.

–Speaking of: I consider myself fairly hardened to the show’s gore, but seeing Michonne’s face beat into hamburger was quite upsetting. I’d rather not watch that again.

–“Allergy medication” is a good metaphor for death. They do suck.

–Negan actually departed from his practiced patter at least twice this week, and sounded like a real human with stress and feelings. More of that, please.

–Rick paraphrasing Casablanca dialogue is perhaps a big hint as to why the character is named Rick in the first place.

Was this the finale you wanted? Disappointed there weren’t more deaths? Glad you don’t have to riot? Leave us your thoughts in comments below.

Images: AMC

We still want to see this happen, BTW