Have you ever thought about what some of your favorite TV characters might like for Christmas?

For some, it’s not too hard to imagine. Others are a little more tricky.

After all, no one thinks Cersei Lannister is pining for a Plantgem Garden in a Box unless it comes with seeds for Water Hemlock or Deadly Nightshade.

Regardless, it’s an interesting and fun thought experiment throughout the holiday season when everyone is going bonkers over Walmart parking spaces and fighting in the ‘Return’ lines.

M134 Minigun – Joffrey Baratheon – Game of Thrones

I know what you’re all thinking: Joffrey Baratheon could have won the Game of Thrones if only he had something better than a crossbow and a “sweet, caring” disposition.

If anything, the last two seasons would have been much more entertaining than the crap fest David Benioff and DB Weiss delivered.

Joffrey was a terribly misunderstood character, and in modern times, his inclination for manic sadism and narcissistic rage is nothing a good middle school guidance counselor couldn’t fix. Throw in a minigun, and he becomes the penultimate redemption arc.

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If you need a refresher course on this particular mini gun, Predator and Terminator 2 are fine examples of the destructive firepower this puppy is capable of dishing out.

Now, imagine such raw power in the hands of a gleefully grinning Joffrey Baratheon. Who needs a dragon when you can turn the Black Dread into an oozing, twitching sponge at a rate of up to 4,000 rounds per minute?

All Joffrey needed was the opportunity to show everyone what a just, fair, and benevolent king he could be, and with a minigun on his Christmas wish list, that goal was within reach.

Unfortunately, the powers that be deemed it not to be so. We got purple-faced, choking Joffrey instead of a demonic loon standing behind an M134. Oh well.

Watch Game of Thrones Online

Jamie Fraser Blowup Doll – ‘Black’ Jack Randall – Outlander

Black Jack Randall is the Ramsay Bolton that Ramsay Bolton should have been — a far more believable sadist who eats, sleeps, and breathes the agony of others.

Randall’s lone flaw is his comprehensive obsession with Jamie Fraser, a man who unwittingly draws out Randall’s latent homosexuality and hatred.

Jamie brings out the best and worst in him in Outlander, with the ‘best’ being an inhuman desire to dismember every aspect of Jamie’s existence just to watch the man writhe within the cold agony of his losses.

But, even the likes of Black Jack are capable of getting into the spirit of the season, and nothing would satisfy Randall’s obsessive lust for Jamie Fraser than a blowup doll of the same name and likeness.

Of course, some of the devilish delights that Randall takes part in would likely deflate the poor doll, so he’ll have to alter some of his more violent and extreme practices.

Randall is nothing if not versatile in his demonic inclinations, however, and I’m sure he’ll figure out a delightful role for a Jamie blowup doll within his day-to-day demands.

Watch Outlander Online

A Metric Ton of Xanax – Carmy – The Bear

There are few people in this world who need to calm the hell down more than Carmy of ‘The Bear’ fame. Granted, Carmy’s entire family is suffering from some degree of psychological neurasthenia.

Nor does he surround himself with the most mentally healthy people. Sydney is probably the calmest of the bunch (maybe Marcus), but she has her moments as well.

As a psychological comedy, The Bear and Carmy’s role probably stresses people out in the real world more than their jobs and home lives do.

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When he’s not a walking example of PTSD, he’s dealing with self-inflicted perfectionism, repetition neurosis, or general anxiety. The guy simply needs a truckload of Xanax on his Christmas wish list in a bad way.

It will probably take a metric ton of the stuff to calm him the hell down and get him through a single day without projecting his own meltdown on those around him.

At least he has a singular focus: getting the restaurant up and running and making it a perpetually successful fine-dining business.

Now, if he could just calm the hell down for five minutes, he might not go into cardiac arrest before he hits the grand old age of 35.

Watch The Bear Online

Udemy 21-Day Charisma-Boosting Course – Geralt of Rivia – The Witcher

Poor Geralt. The Witcher began with so much promise, with Henry Cavill in the lead role. But, alas, this too shall pass. There were signs in Season 2, but Season 3 really went downhill.

At some point, The Witcher became a show about everyone except for The Witcher. Now that the lead role doesn’t lead much of anything, Netflix went out and found a replacement actor with all the charisma and personality of a doorknob.

Liam Hemsworth is the less famous Hemsworth brother for a reason. He’s the guy you call when you need more side commentary in your B-movie. He’s the kid whose Christmas wish list is usually ignored in favor of hand-me-downs, clothes, and presents Chris Hemsworth doesn’t want.

Watching him in The Hunger Games makes people want to repeatedly slam their faces into hard, immovable objects. He would have been fine in The Vampire Diaries or One Tree Hill, but alas, Nepotism is alive and well in Hollywood.

Imagine taking every role Henry Cavill ever played and replacing him with Liam Hemsworth. Yeah, it’s that bad.

Geralt needs a charisma and personality-boosting course on his Christmas wish list this year to send The Witcher off on a good note by the end of Season 5.

Watch The Witcher Online

A Controlling Stake in Milk Stork – Homelander – The Boys

For a megalomaniacal wannabe despot with ambitions for world domination, Homelander sure loves breast milk.

But why should Madelyn Stillwell have risked her life or Firecracker (her lactating replacement) risk her life when Homelander can simply add Milk Stork to his Christmas F***ed in the Head Wish List?

Milk Stork advertises itself as “breast milf shipping for moms and employers.” Well, Homelander isn’t exactly a mom, but he’s more than happy with Firecracker playing that role in The Boys.

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Firecracker went the extra mile by taking medication to force her body into lactation mode, and, besides her unhealthy obsession with all things Homelander, she doesn’t have to.

Since its inception, Milk Stork has successfully shipped over 11 million ounces of breast milk. Now, Homelander can indulge in an unlimited supply, boosting Milk Stork sales and improving employment and deliveries in the process.

It’s all for the economy and Homelander’s insatiably infernal lust for the product of twin comfort melons. Firecracker may be an obsessed fan, but her calcium cannons can’t possibly keep up with the raging breast milk gluttony of a doofus like Homelander.

Watch The Boys Online

Motherly Advice from Norman Bates – Oz Cobb – The Penguin

Oz has a burgeoning empire to construct, a confused sidekick to tutor, and a hodgepodge of powerful families and gangs to deal with. The last thing he needs is a Christmas wish list unless it comes with crisp, clean stacks of $100 bills.

His overtly sexual connection with his mother is weird, for sure, and he’s had no end of trouble handling her mental mortification throughout the season.

What better expert to turn to than the legendary, infamous Norman Bates, who essentially turned his mother into a telepathic, everlasting corpse?

Norman Bates found a way to truly connect with his mother, and there’s no more adept person for Oz to turn to. Granted, Bates’ mother is basically beef jerky and dust in an old chair, but she’s still able to hang around and dominate his life in perpetuity.

Oz may believe that his entire life is an effort to live up to her frantic and delirious expectations, but he’ll never find out if he’s successful if she’s room temperature and pushing up daisies in Gotham Cemetery.

Salting and dehydration require time and preparation, and Oz can use both Bates’ advice and his methodology. The sooner the process begins, the sooner Oz can expand his ‘worthiness’ timeline in The Penguin.

Watch The Penguin Online

Doberman Pinscher Pup – The Ghoul – Fallout

Georgia Dow released a therapist analysis of The Ghoul and his dog, lovingly denominated as ‘Dogmeat.’ Apparently, Dogmeat, a Belgian Malinois, is a sort of service dog for the Ghoul, reminding him of his humanity and, perhaps, his previous dog (from his human life), Roosevelt.

Herein lies the problem. Roosevelt was a blue merle border collie, while Dogmeat is a Belgian Malinois. Yawn. The Ghoul is a violent survivor in Fallout who cares very, very little about the lives and well-being of those around him.

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At more than 200 years old, he’s done a fair job at keeping his head squarely on his shoulders and his feet moving forward. For that kind of lifestyle, a Belgian Malinois is like bringing a chihuahua to a knife fight with a hundred opponents.

Belgian Malinois were bred for herding and taking on hard work. They have stamina and agility, but Dobermans were bred for aggression, defense, and war. In fact, there’s a shrine for Doberman veterans at Marine Corps Base, Quantico.

They don’t build combat shrines for Border Collies and Belgian Malinois. The Ghoul’s Christmas wish list should have a Doberman pup on it. Maybe then, he wouldn’t have to stab the thing and heal it again.

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Have you ever wondered what your favorite unhinged characters might request for Christmas?

Leave us a comment below and let us know if we’ve hit the nail on the head with the gifts listed above or if we’re totally off the mark!

The post The Unhinged Christmas Wish List: Gifts Only TV Characters Would Ask For appeared first on TV Fanatic.

The mask has long fallen, but people often take time to recognize or perhaps understand the ugly realities of the false institutions they’ve come to rely on.

Still, others are desperate for meaning and purpose, embracing any authority that offers a moment of animus. Such is the state of things in Silo Season 2 Episode 5.

Things are coming apart at the seams, and Bernard’s mask is slipping of his own volition. Gone is the false smile and sense of amicability, replaced by a perpetually smug scowl, a veneer covering a blind rage.

Blind in the sense that Bernard’s control is slipping. His quarry continues to elude as barriers collapse beneath the weight of the mob.

Handing out credits will no longer work to soothe the crowd, and the carefully crafted machinations that forged division are bearing fruit, just not in the way Bernard expected.

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Amidst the unraveling bedlam, Dr. Peter Nichols delivers a heartrending speech in the face of the priggish despot himself, walking away in silence afterward.

Bernard’s regard in the face of such intransigence promises a potentially vengeful future for the poor doctor, who has lost everything to the false order of the Silo.

Even the most innocuous statements, such as “my people” (an employer referring to his employees in terms of camaraderie), are enough to set Bernard off into boiling assertions of lordship and domination.

For the book readers out there, one missing puzzle piece falls back into place, thanks to Bernard’s paranoia and need for a Shadow. Speaking of Bernard’s paranoia, Robert Sims is officially his enemy, feeling his way through the newfound power dynamics of Judicial.

With the Silo falling into complete disarray, Sims’ wife is making her own moves as well, aiding and abetting Knox and Shirley just as the mindless mob descends on them.

The Sims are still going through the motions of adherence to Bernard’s rule, but they conspire and contemplate when alone.

Though Robert and Camille Sims don’t get much screen time, it’s clear that Bernard is losing control, even as he maneuvers desperately to fix it.

If the fall of Silo 17 teaches nothing else, it’s that there is no such thing as permanent control—permanent domination over people. Eventually, their curiosities will break their submissiveness, and there is no manner of control a regime can leverage to stop it.

Most of Silo Season 2 Episode 4 revolves around Knox, Shirley, Walker, and Carla’s journey, and nothing much changes in Episode 5. They’re still trying to make their way back to Mechanical.

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Only a handful of subplots are thriving within the constrained setting of the Silo, which makes the constant jumping around unsettling. It also steals any real investment into each storyline.

What’s even more frustrating is the plot’s plodding pace. We spend mere seconds at a time with Sheriff Billings, Bernard, Robert/Camilla, Juliette, and Knox/Shirley.

It’s especially egregious with Juliette, who again makes very, very little progress in any direction that conveys progress.

Some scenes are longer than others, and perhaps only Shirley and Knox make any real progress toward their singular goal. However, despite their efforts, they spend as much time traveling up as they do traveling down.

We’re halfway through the season, and it’s not hard to imagine Silo Season 2 wrapping things up still within the confines of the first book. If you’ve read my previous reviews, you’ll know that the first book is rather thin.

We’re not talking about a Stephen King or Brandon Sanderson doorstop here. Even The Stand (both series) managed to wrap everything up in a single, limited series.

I’m all for a rich plot with complex characters, but often it feels as if they just meander around their respective Silos, accomplishing so much that has little to do with anything.

It’s a gorgeous wax finish on a Suzuki X-90, one of the worst cars ever made. It looks beautiful, the characters are perfect, and it’s going nowhere as fast as possible.

Juliette begins the primary plot (even though she probably gets less screen time than most of the other subplots) still searching for a way to put together a suit that will allow her to go outside.

It ends with Juliette being sick and without a suit. Maybe she’ll call in for Episode 6. That’s an entire two hours of television now, and Juliette progressed from no suit to no suit and sick.

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It’s frustrating to watch, and even though there are several intriguing things going on, especially in terms of Silo’s secrets, subtle hints at underlying mysteries, and Bernard’s back and forth with Lukas or Dr. Pete.

Robert and Camilla plot and continue to plot. Bernard plots and continues to plot. Juliette seeks and continues to seek. Billings investigates and continues to investigate. Knox/Shirley escape and continue to escape.

I’m sure you can see the pattern by now. Again, at the risk of beating a dead horse, it seems like Apple TV+ simply wants an eight-season goliath out of three relatively thin books.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not boring to watch. However, it’s the kind of television that makes you unconsciously lean forward in your seat, attempting to telepathically urge a singular message: “Move forward, move forward, and move forward.”

As an ardent book reader and a fan of Hugh Howey, I find the characters to be mostly perfect in their roles. Bernard was a little whiny in the books, but Tim Robbins has a naturally whiny face, even though his approach is slightly more fervent and commanding.

I will never be able to read Juliette Nichols again without seeing Rebecca Ferguson in the role. Even characters that shouldn’t be there at this point, like Sheriff Billings, are natural in their roles and emanate “belonging” in Silo’s world and story.

It’d be nice to see things start moving with a real sense of flow. There are five episodes remaining, and I hope I am wrong about the story not going anywhere until Season 3. There are ten episodes this season, and we’re only halfway there, so I’m still hopeful.

Watch Silo Online

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Well, believe it or not, Yellowjackets wasn’t the first in the entertainment industry to cover the savagery of the human survival instinct and what people will do to continue drawing breath for one more moment.

Yellowjackets draws us into the depths of human tragedy, desperation, and the primeval substructure of the human mind when the belly draws tight and hunger strikes like a ravenous demon within.

Very little in the world is as distinctly frightening and protractedly painful as raw hunger, and Yellowjackets plays on these moments. A healthy human can live an entire month without food.

That’s a very long time to die. Unfortunately, Yellowjackets didn’t coin the act, though it represents historical events whose details are the stuff of nightmares.

The Donner Party (1846-1847)

In this case, “party” refers to a group rather than everyone singing, dancing, and having a grand old time. The Donner Party was a part of the Oregon Trail that the famous video game didn’t really cover.

The Donner Party departed from Independence, Missouri, following the Oregon Trail westward at a wagon’s pace and with all of the typical hangups that came with traveling in large groups in the 19th century.

Those who eventually stayed in the Donner party made two mistakes, which would eventually lead to the ill-fated survival cannibalism for which they will always be known.

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The first was the decision to split from the main group and head in a new direction. The second was to ignore the heated advice of James Clyman, an experienced mountain man.

They took the Hastings Cutoff, well off the beaten path, and ended up in the Sierra Nevada, which is not exactly hospitable in the winter. Heavy snowfall, severe weather patterns, Paiute warriors killing their oxen, and difficult terrain assaulted them relentlessly.

But the lack of rations did them in.

Thanks to Patrick Breen’s diary, we know some of what happened later. They attempted to build rudimentary cabins, but it was not enough, and the threat of starvation drove them out over the mountain passes.

They started dropping like flies at this point, and the feasts began. All told, there were 42 deaths and 47 survivors, many of whose bellies were full of their fellow travelers.

Over the years, a few documentary-style movies have covered the Donner Party. But does it merit a series?

A limited series would be a sweet idea, especially if they base it on Alma Katsu’s excellent book, The Hunger, which covers the Donner Party with a dash of the supernatural.

Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 (1972)

For those of you who have seen the movie “Alive,” this will be a familiar story. Flight 571 lifted off from Carasco International Airport carrying 45 passengers and crew, including the Old Christians Club rugby team from Montevideo, Uruguay.

On October 13 (of course, it would be on the 13th), the plane crashed into the Andes Mountains in Argentina thanks to “pilot error.”

They spent over two months out there, and crops don’t grow on mountains at sub-freezing elevations, even if it was a glacial valley between peaks.

In fact, there was only one thing to eat unless some passengers had potato chips or snacks in their bags — none of which lasted very long.

Thanks to the immediate dead and those who succumbed to injuries and the freezing temperatures, there was plenty of food to go around. The event became known as the “Miracle of the Andes.”

Of the 29 survivors, only 16 made it out alive, thanks to the flesh of the fallen. But, it wasn’t necessarily the survival cannibalism that captivated the world. It was their ingenuity and willpower that drove them to survive in the harshest of conditions.

They were hit by an avalanche, killing eight, and were all suffering from malnutrition and altitude sickness. None of them had any experience mountaineering, yet they constructed a sled, manufactured sleeping bags, and sent the strongest out to search for rescue.

Eventually, rescue arrived. By then, they were all shadows of their former selves—bones loosely draped in skin, their bodies having consumed their fat and then the muscle to survive.

Society of the Snow is a more modern interpretation of the 1972 Andes flight disaster, directed by J.A. Bayona and based on Pablo Vierci’s 2009 book.

The Essex (1820)

On November 20, 1820, the Essex set out on a whaling ship to the Southern Pacific Ocean. Those aboard the ship would become famous at the time and historically, along with serving as an inspiration for Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.

Today, some would call their fate well-deserved. As a whaling crew, they were attacked by a sperm whale, sinking the ship, with the men escaping in three small whaleboats.

They endured a month at sea, which included starvation, exposure, and dehydration before they beached at Henderson Island. Three men chose to stay on the island while the others moved on.

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Those who went on made a grave mistake, leading to 12 of their deaths, with only 5 remaining, thanks to desperation and survival cannibalism.

The irony is that they all would have probably survived if they had followed the Captain’s instructions to sail their three whaleboats toward the Society Islands. However, the men disagreed because they worried the islands were full of cannibals.

It seems Fate has a very dark and grim sense of humor. Ultimately, the three men left on the island survived, and the 17 men who departed resorted to survival cannibalism somewhere out on the waves of the Pacific.

The Heart of the Sea, starring Chris Hemsworth, is the most recent film about the events surrounding The Essex. A limited series that draws out the encounter with the sperm whale would be an interesting take, but an ongoing endeavor would need a lot of filler and unrelated content.

The Siege of Leningrad (1941-1944)

Survivor cannibalism isn’t something people associate with World War II, at least not very often, unless you’re a historian with all the finer details at hand.

Throughout the siege, never let it be said that the Russian Secret Police (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) failed in their duty. They ultimately arrested 2,000 for cannibalism.

A siege is far more than just holding a city or large township in check. It also means supplies are cut off, with no food, water, medical supplies, or anything else that matters flowing into and out of the city.

Can you imagine no imports for over 2 years? It was no surprise that the people resorted to desperation, eventually turning to cannibalism.

Most of what we know about their cannibalism comes from diaries written by the survivors. One little girl wrote about how her father ate the family dog to avoid going that far.

One of the diaries included the chilling observation of the startling similarities between brutally malnourished men and women. When we shrivel away, we all tend to look the same as everyone else, with gender-specific characteristics all but wiped away.

Life became hell on earth, and parents refused to part with children, not out of love, but because their children represented “uncooked meat.”

There are plenty of nonfiction books and even a few documentary-style movies covering the siege’s events, but nothing longer than that.

Considering how long the siege took place, a lengthy series would be an interesting take, but it’s hard to imagine there being any light and hope in a protracted retelling.

The Jamestown Colony (1609-1610)

The settlers of Jamestown called it “The Starving Time,” and for good reason.

Not every colony survived and became prosperous, with some being wiped clean from the earth and others collapsing into madness and survival cannibalism.

Several factors accounted for the subsequent starvation in the fledgling Jamestown colony: food shortages due to a severe drought, poor harvests, strained relations with the local natives, delayed supply ships, and a siege by the Powhatan warriors.

The colonists ate everything in sight before turning on each other, including dogs, cats, horses, cattle, rats, mice, and the leather from their shoes. Eventually, inevitably, the food ran out.

The colony was rife with dysentery and typhoid fever, so there were a lot of dead bodies to go around, along with spreading the disease even further. Fewer than 60 eventually survived out of 500.

In fact, the remaining colonists decided to haul up stakes and run, eventually sailing back to England.

Unfortunately, they were soon intercepted by a returning governor, Thomas West, who forced them back to nightmare land to rebuild.

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The movie The New World brushes up against the events that led to starvation and survival cannibalism in Jamestown but mostly focuses on the romantic relationship between Captain John Smith and Pocahontas.

A well-made series has a lot of potential, but today’s levels of divisiveness over historical relations between colonists and natives would be difficult to navigate.

The Medusa Shipwreck (1816)

No, there were no snake-haired half-women, half-snake tails involved, but the reality was no less terrifying and repulsive.

In fact, “Medusa” was the name of the French frigate that accidentally beached itself, thanks to the ignorance of the navigator and Captain Hugues de Chaumareys.

It was July 2, 1816, and the beginning of a horror show that started with 400 souls and ended with only 15. Lifeboats and a raft were deployed, and the survivors may have wished they simply drowned at sea.

Most of the lifeboats reached the coast of Africa, where the survivors successfully made it inland, finding refuge in Senegal, a French-occupied territory.

However, those on the makeshift raft were not so lucky. The only thing they had to drink onboard was wine. As you can imagine, wine is great at a party and not so great as a mechanism of survival.

Rations rapidly dissipated, and with only wine to drink, drunken fights and death were common. With no more rations, survival cannibalism became the order of the day.

Storms, feasting cannibals, fights, and bouts of survival of the fittest reduced the crew from 150 to 15. The strongest remaining crew members threw the weak and wounded into the sea.

A movie covering these events seems more likely than a series, though a short, limited series might do the trick. The events were terrible, but many of these events are fairly straightforward, and potential showrunners would have to stretch things out and elaborate beyond what makes a good story.

The Greely Expedition (1881-1884)

Exploration is a fascinating subject from the auspicious comfort of your living room. It conjures happy images of adventure, camaraderie, and discovery.

Well, I’ve been through SEER training and well away from civilization far more times than I can count. I can attest to the fact that there is a sense of discovery and camaraderie, but “happy” and “adventure” rarely spring to mind.

A large measure of respect and awe is due to those who brave the unknown in search of wonders. Regrettably, that’s not how things turned out for the Greely Expedition.

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The party set sail from St. John’s, Newfoundland, in July 1881 to establish a meteorological observation station and collect scientific data. They were successful in establishing Fort Conger upon their arrival in Lady Franklin Bay.

Sadly, their relief supplies aboard the Neptune did not arrive in 1882 as they expected. Needless to say, their remaining supplies didn’t last long. Starvation, disease, and survival cannibalism ensued not long after.

The only difference between the Greely Expedition and the others on this list is that the survivors denied indulging in cannibalism despite the fact that a body was exhumed from the site, all but confirming that it took place.

The shame of cannibalism runs deep, intrinsically tied to the very core of human beings. As such, the denial was not surprising, though the results gave voice to the lie.

Several documentaries cover the Greely expedition, including one from PBS America. In some cases, the events leading up to historical tragedies aren’t very notable, and it’s difficult to translate them into an entertaining narrative without compromising the historical facts.

Unless, of course, writers and showrunners go with a Dan Simmons or Alma Katsu angle.

The Franklin Expedition (1845)

The Terror, released in 2018, was loosely based on the Franklin Expedition, adding supernatural elements pulled from Dan Simmon’s book of the same name. Thanks to its fictional aspect, the series definitely carries a horror classification.

However, the real story of the Franklin Expedition is no less terrifying. In 1845, Captain Sir John Franklin led an expedition to the Canadian Arctic in search of the Northwest Passage.

The expedition consisted of the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror, two ships with ironically macabre and prophetic names. They departed from Greenhithe, England, on May 19 and were last seen in Baffin Bay later that July.

No one bothered to send a search party until two years later, thanks to the ample supply of provisions on both ships and the slowness of communication then. There were no survivors from the expedition, so accounts of survival cannibalism were secondhand.

Researchers finally discovered the wrecks of the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror nearly 170 years later. Testimonies from the local Inuit, bone analysis from dead crew members, and later, archaeological excavations told the tale.

In fact, experts suspect that the level of starvation and deprivation was so bad that some of the crew cracked open the bones and sucked out the marrow, a practice known as ‘end-stage’ cannibalism.

Both ships likely became encapsulated and frozen in the glacier. The shifting ice eventually compromised their integrity, and they sank soon after. The Terror, a series based on Dan Simmon’s book of the same name, had to embellish quite a bit, both in the historical narrative and the supernatural.

The Siege of Potidaea (432 B.C.)

A siege in 1941 Leningrad was no different than a siege in 432 B.C. The results are always the same: deprivation, desperation, and eventually, starvation. The Siege of Potidaea took place during the Peloponnesian War on the Chalcidice Peninsula.

Potidaea made the “brilliant” decision to thwart Athens, specifically concerning Corinthian magistrates and hostages. It was probably not the best decision ever made.

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Naturally, Athens besieged the city, with the impasse lasting two years, more than long enough to send the inhabitants into a frenzy of survival cannibalism. Worse, it was a land and sea blockade, with nothing going in or coming out.

In fact, the siege probably lasted as long as it did because of the surplus of dead bodies for the defenders to fall upon in a starvation fever.

Several historical accounts describe the descent into cannibalistic madness that took place within the city walls. The Peloponnesian War is not well represented in the entertainment industry, and historical events like the Siege of Potidaea are ripe for plucking.

The Siege of Ma’arra (1098)

Survival cannibalism goes hand in hand with sieges for obvious reasons. This particular siege took place in 1098, during the First Crusade. Raymond IV of Toulouse and Bohemond of Taranto led the siege of Ma’arra, which only lasted a couple of weeks.

Strangely, the survival cannibalism that took place after the sacking of the city came from the Crusader’s side, not the citizens of Ma’arra.

Apparently, the besiegers were near starvation, and sacking the city was no different than walking into an all-you-can-eat buffet with Ma’arrans on the menu.

According to some accounts, it wasn’t even a shameful act, as is often the case in the worst of circumstances. The crusading army made a spectacle out of it, consuming the flesh of the conquered in the streets as both a consequence of extreme hunger and an act of celebration.

According to the chroniclers of the time, Fulcher of Chartres, Albert of Aachen, and Ralph of Caen, cannibalism extended to both Muslims and Christians alike. Basically, if you were dead or dying, your nationality and religion made no difference.

There are plenty of movies out there that at least touch on the Crusades, and there’s also Knightfall, which only made it to two seasons on the History Channel.

With the right creative minds behind it, there’s no reason a fairly epic series couldn’t cover the Siege of Ma’arra.

Care to share your own knowledge of survival cannibalism in the archives of history? Which of the above events creeps you out the most?

The post Yellowjackets and History: 10 Shocking Survival Cannibalism Incidents appeared first on TV Fanatic.

Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut because Silo Season 2 Episode 4 opens up with a grievous deus ex machina that lays out everything Mechanical is up against. It’s literally written on a wall for them to read.

Apparently, despite all their visits to this dark and otherwise unknown area of the Silo, no one ever read these gigantic messages written on a 100′ x 100′ wall and thought, “Gee, that sounds really bad.”

It’s a genuinely face-palm moment, a cringe-inducing flash of “what the actual…” well, you know the rest.

It’s an occasion of “Hey, let’s get this show on the road” condensed down to, “Just write the story on a wall that everyone sees, but no one actually reads until just the right moment.”

While some of the hour returns to the things that make Silo a solid, if slow, series, other scenes are simply immersion-breakingly absurd. I’ll get to that in a few.

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Much of what characterizes Silo Season 2 is the ever-present mystery of the outside world, and Silo 17 is at the heart of it. Juliette’s time there is unnerving, to say the least.

Her lone companion is a man-child, whose mind is also suffering from decades of being, well, solo. Every moment she spends with him is a study in passive anxiety, wondering when and if Solo will explode and become violent.

Shane McRae’s balance between a child and a hair-pulling psychotic is scantily restrained like a balloon that’s half a PSI too full.

Juliette is the voice of reason, but she also has much to do. Exploring Silo 17 is neither a simple nor unhazardous journey. The place is half full of water, and if you fear drowning, this episode may make you a little queasy.

Book readers know there is more going on just past the perimeter, out of sight and out of mind…for now. Unfortunately, as is the case with the first three episodes of Silo Season 2, the feeling of progress is fleeting.

Back in Silo 18, Knox, Shirley, Carla, and Walker decide to ascend the Silo and meet with Judge Meadows. Despite the decision marking the near beginning of the episode, they don’t reach the top until the end of the episode.

Unfortunately, Judge Meadows is no longer in a state for receiving company. Even worse, Judge Meadows is where things truly fall apart.

In an earlier scene, Bernard does something truly horrible, and what follows is a series of romantic gestures that seem so out of place I had to check to make sure my iPad didn’t switch me to some other show.

The level of unreality is truly bad, and it’s hard to imagine putting anyone in Judge Meadow’s place and expecting them to behave the same way.

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It doesn’t end there. The events that transpire afterward are equally ridiculous. Robert Sims’ Lord of the Rings speech is as out of place as everything else and is the icing on the cake in a seemingly bizarre effort to speed the plot along in the most convenient ways possible.

What’s worse is that it doesn’t take much to sit down and think of a few slight modifications here and there that would right the ship. If an armchair TV critic can do that much, surely the writers can as well?

The remaining subplots are relatively short but accomplish much. Robert Sims is still butthurt over Bernard’s decision to skip him in the running for the Head of IT’s shadow.

Robert, Bernard, and Juliette are the entertainment manifestations of all the great empire quotes.

“A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.”

-Will Durant

Fitting. The “without,” in this case, is the poisonous world beyond the exterior vault doors and automated flamethrowers of the Silo’s threshold.

The “within” is the conflict Sims is generating with Bernard, even as both seek to silence Knox, Shirley, and the rest of the “peasants” from Mechanical.

Judge Meadows is the unfortunate victim of Sims’ machinations and Bernard’s counter. Destruction from within, indeed.

The power dynamic between Robert and his wife, Camille, is fascinating to watch. Ultimately, she’s just as responsible for the internal unraveling as her husband, Bernard, and everyone else.

Thus far, Silo Season 2 is almost entirely conflicting dynamism. As slow as things are moving, there’s pleasure in watching political oscillations and the resulting reactions.

Unfortunately, Juliette is in a bit of limbo as a result. Things are moving along in Silo 17, but only if you’re measuring in millimeters.

Sheriff Billings enjoys a little screen time as well. In this case, he gets to sift through the true meaning of being the Sheriff as he investigates Cooper’s shooting and the source of the firebomb from Episode 2.

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Despite his physical setback, he’s fairly decent at it, asking the right questions, determining motives, and arriving at a logical conclusion, at least in part. The larger, ever-growing conspiracy around him is a bit above the Sheriff’s pay grade.

Silo Season 2 Episode 4 is not going to set anyone buzzing or have you bouncing off the walls in anticipation. The mystery at the center of Silo is a gigantic black hole, sucking us back in with each succeeding episode.

But the reality is that Juliette began the episode in search of a fire suit. An hour later, she found one. Sure, mission accomplished and all that good stuff. But at the show’s current pace, it doesn’t feel like she is anywhere closer to her ultimate objective.

Knox, Shirley, and company made it to the upper levels to speak with Judge Meadows, and the episode ends with them still on the upper levels, mission most decidedly unaccomplished.

This episode relied heavily on convenience and a glaring plot hole. It’s unfortunate because I am really enjoying Silo and hope that this is not a sign of a decline in the overall quality of the writing.

And, as exciting as some of the subplots are in Silo 18, the first four episodes relegate the primary protagonist to short snippets of screen time. There are some big questions in Silo, and Season 2 looks as far from answering them as the beginning of Season 1.

Why is the outside world dead? Why does IT viciously repress history? Who placed IT in charge and why? How is Juliette going to get back, and what will she do when she does?

If the heroine’s journey were measured in quarter-inch segments, it would be a mile long and only the first handful of inches behind her. Episode 4 covered another quarter and did so in a questionable fashion.

Watch Silo Season 2 Online

The post Silo Season 2 Episode 4 Review: The Harmonium appeared first on TV Fanatic.

I learned the unholy truth about unscripted television—it’s not really unscripted. Or maybe that’s a little too specific to be entirely accurate. It’s safer and more “realistic” to say that unscripted television is not unwritten television.

The entire series is planned, from almost every shot to every eventuality. Its design maximizes drama to drag in the viewers.

The scenes and dialogue may not exist in the form of written copy, but the scene and the end result are pre-planned.

Think about it. How many people will sit on a couch and stare, completely enraptured, in your day-to-day life, or anybody’s, for that matter?

We’re talking about 30 minutes to an hour of reality TV, where every piece of dialogue and every event is entertaining. Does anyone on the planet live like that?

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Hollywood’s best actresses and actors may be famous, but they still have to pull their underwear out of their ass cracks in the morning, brush their teeth, and go through the motions of being social animals.

In fact, even the most rich and famous lives are probably as regular as yours and mine. The only difference is that they show up on a set and play pretend for a day.

No, for something to be entertaining for an entire season, it requires careful planning, crafting, and guidance. The formula is a success—or at least it’s been a successful formula since the inception of ‘unscripted’ television in the 1970s.

Apparently, nothing lasts forever. Producer Patrick Caliiuri thinks it’s worse than worse can get, claiming that multi-Emmy winners are working for Doordash and pulling independent contractor gigs to make ends meet.

The brutal reality of the aforementioned economics is busy frog-marching smaller to mid-size production companies to the guillotine. Most of these are in the business of creating reality TV series for the masses.

Many of the problems unscripted TV faces are immediately attributable to forces outside its sphere of influence, such as industry-wide cost-cutting measures, continued fallout from the pandemic and the writer’s strike, and the entertainment industry getting too far ahead of itself with massive budget failures.

Jobs are scarce, and the platforms that make their name in the reality TV business are not ordering new shows.

“I’ve worked in the industry for 20 years, and all of a sudden, the faucet just turned off.”

— Patrick Calilguiri

It’s not just reality TV, however, as all of the ailments listed above are industry-wide, which definitely includes scripted television. The problem is that unscripted TV is a smaller part of the overall pie, and the damage looks correspondingly more devastating because of it.

When a contraction like this comes into play, it has the trickle-down effect of Reaganomics, only in the reverse. As budgets are cut, hiring decreases, salaries plummet, and fewer jobseekers make the cut.

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You’re either a part of a long-term, highly popular franchise, or you’re eating on the floor with the rest of the kids.

If it’s painful for the veterans, it’s downright devastating for the small-time gig workers trying to break into the business by creating new concepts for unscripted TV.

“I’m writing all day. I’m writing scripts, I’m writing half-hour pilots, I’m writing features, I’m creating reality shows, but at the same time, I can’t help but think that for the most part, it’s over for me.”

— Wendy Miller, Unscripted Producer

For the average TV viewer, all is quiet on the western front. It’s not like these happenings are front and center, especially when you can turn on the TV and see Catfish, The Bachelorette, Jersey Shore, Naked and Afraid, The Challenge, etc.

But does ‘contraction’ mean ‘death?’ Is reality TV dying, or is it the equivalent of an economic or stock market cycle? Hopefully, it’s cyclical, but it’s not easy to say one way or the other just yet.

Unfortunately, there’s potential for the problem to continue and get even worse. I brought up the whole “reality TV isn’t real” subject because it’s applicable here.

“Maybe this slowdown is karma for creating TV that is as far from reality as you can get. We’ve all been instructed by network executives to amp up drama — cheat this, make her say that at this moment, make that argument look more epic.”

— Timothy Hedden, Reality TV Editor

There is no such thing as drama on the scale that reality TV presents. If there were any truth to it, relationships, family, and socializing in general would go away in a hurry.

No one needs that kind of stress in their lives with everyone they meet. Not wanting in your life and enjoying it on TV are two different things, however.

The problem lies in the extensiveness of its proliferation. It’s becoming too much. When you go to the movies, you expect entertainment. The movie fails if there are scenes within that break immersion.

Reality TV is breaking immersion in a bid to draw in more advertising dollars, go viral on social media, and put more butts in seats for each new release.

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But people aren’t stupid, and too much of a good thing is bad. The amount of drama the industry is forcing editors to insert into reality TV shows is quickly reaching absurd levels.

Even if the audience doesn’t believe what they are watching is real, there is still a fine line, and crossing that line breaks immersion. Ultimately, the combination of two things is dragging the industry down.

The first is the downward trend in terms of budget, job cuts, and trimming the fat in general. The second is forcing irrational levels of drama into these shows.

Cutting production time in half, episodes in half, and editing time in half is one thing. Forcing false content into “reality” is a disastrous combination.

The result is a sinking viewership rating that coincides with an industry downturn. Major companies that control a plethora of smaller networks are predictably sharpening their knives, with major cuts on the agenda.

The sad thing is that reality TV is far more chummy and receptive to the gig economy, which is filled with thousands of writers trying to carve their way into the industry.

While Hollywood will survive based on its enormous bedrock, those thousands of writers have no such luxury.

The good news is that there are challengers to Hollywood’s throne, and they come in the form of independent studios cropping up throughout the U.S. and opportunities overseas, where burgeoning companies are more receptive.

Hollywood may believe itself to be the lone king on the hill, but other tides are rising.

With them, perhaps more opportunities will open for freelancers trying to break into the reality TV gig.

What do you think? Are reality TV’s better days behind us? Is that a good thing, or do you hope it continues? Share your thoughts in a comment below!

The post The Death of Reality TV: With Ratings Plummeting, What This Means for the Future of Unscripted Television appeared first on TV Fanatic.

For those familiar with The Expanse, a new Prime series from the same authors (James S.A. Corey is a pen name for writers Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) and showrunners is welcome news.

Even better, The Captive’s War series is an entirely new universe, separate and distinct from The Expanse. With all the sequels, prequels, spin-offs, and wannabes out there, something unique is an exciting prospect.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t bode well for a potential continuation of The Expanse, a series that ended with three books’ worth of storytelling remaining.

On the bright side, this upcoming release is a good sign for the continued growth of the Science Fiction genre, especially in a more creative and intelligent direction.

The Creation of a New Content Company: Expanded Universe

What does that mean? Suggesting that the Science Fiction genre is possibly heading in a more intelligent and creative direction implies that the industry lacks both.

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That’s entirely the point, at least when it comes to multifaceted shows. For instance, the MCU has absolutely worn out its audience in most respects. Movie/TV sequels, prequels, and spinoffs are harder to sell to the audience with each new iteration.

Science Fiction is already expansive, with everything from the epic opera-level Dune to the tight-packed vibe of Silo.

The Expanse is a primary example of complex scientific ideas and theories made coherent on a huge stage, with fantastic acting and sweeping visuals.

“On The Expanse we built a deep, immersive universe filled with great characters and intense, emotional stories — on a budget that wasn’t insane. And now we’re bringing that expertise to new storytelling universes and platforms.”

-Naren Shankar, Showrunner The Expanse

The kind of minds behind this feat of imaginative entertainment are exactly the minds you want leading the way.

Expanded Universe is more substantial than the status quo production company. It’s a written media publisher, gaming producer, and film/TV producer rolled into one.

It’s as much a result of The Captive’s War as the new series is a consequence of Expanded Universe.

What Will The Captive’s War Be About?

Again, this is a distinct and separate story, not related to The Expanse in any way. Also, unlike The Expanse, The Captive’s War is a series that is not finished. The name of the first book is The Mercy of the Gods, with the second book a work in progress.

Ever since HBO’s showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss chucked Game of Thrones into the wood-chipper feet first, prospective fans have been understandably cautious about kicking off a show based on a book series that isn’t complete.

Fortunately, the showrunners for The Captive’s War are not the same people. While I read the entire Expanse series, I haven’t had a go at The Mercy of the Gods yet (though it’s waiting patiently in my Audible library), so I’ll stick with a truncated synopsis:

“The Captive’s War follows a group of prisoners who rise from the ashes of catastrophe to destroy their conqueror’s society from within.”

It’s also based on the Book of Daniel, which explains the “captives to heroes” bit. This opens the door for some intriguing plot possibilities not explicitly addressed in the first book.

Daniel is a prophet who interprets dreams, some of which are apocalyptic, similar in scope to the Book of Revelations.

Who Will Star in The Captive’s War?

The Captive’s War has the go-ahead from Amazon, but casting is still a ways off. However, we can speculate based on past experience and patterns within the entertainment industry.

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Naren Shankar, the showrunner on The Expanse series, is back for The Captive’s War and will probably try to pull in some of the same actresses and actors he’s already familiar with.

• Steven Strait – James Holden
• Dominique Tipper – Naomi Nagata
• Wes Chatham – Amos Burton
• Cas Anvar – Alex Kamal
• Frankie Adams – Bobbie Draper
• Shohreh Aghdashloo – Chrisjen Avasarala
• Chad L. Coleman – Fred Johnson
• Cara Gee – Camina Drummer
• Keon Alexander – Marco Inaros

These actors played key, recurring roles throughout The Expanse, and it’s hard to imagine Naren Shankar not trying to tap some of them for roles in the new series.

Given the controversy surrounding Cas Anvar late in The Expanse’s run, we can safely cross him off the list. Wes Chatham was a fan favorite, however, as Amos Burton, while Dominique Tipper and Steven Strait both did well in their respective roles as primary characters.

Frankie Adams probably isn’t the best actress in the world, but Shohreh Aghdashloo was phenomenal as Chrisjen Avasarala. For now, as exciting as the prospect of a new Sci-Fi series is, we can only speculate on the characters.

Who Are the Showrunners?

Obviously, Naren Shankar is the top dog, having handled The Expanse and given his familiarity with Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. The latter two, as the authors, will probably receive an “executive producer” credit.

It’s also hard to imagine them not doing most of the screenplay, along with Shankar himself, who wrote much of the scripts throughout The Expanse. Expanding Universe is off to a very fresh start, so there are still plenty of roles to fill within the “chain of command,” so to speak.

Director Brock Eisner is also on board. During the six seasons of The Expanse, he directed more episodes than any other director, so his experience and capability are invaluable.

Naren Shankar and the authors were able to pull off something special with The Expanse. With so many production companies struggling to create even small, tightly constrained worlds with a minimal budget, The Expanse was surprisingly moderate expense-wise.

That’s the kind of thing that will make Amazon happy, especially if they pull in the same viewership numbers The Expanse was blessed with.

How Many Episodes Will There Be?

For now, everything surrounding The Captive’s War, outside of the new production studio and the showrunners, is speculation.

However, Naren Shankar has proven that he can do a lot with a little. For that reason, The Expanse was more episode-rich than many other big-name franchises on television right now.

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The Expanse Seasons 1 through 5 featured between ten and 13 episodes, with only Season 6 being a budget aberration with six episodes.

It’s safe to say that The Captive’s War will probably feature between eight and ten episodes per season, assuming it gets more than a single season.

Of course, inflation is a thing, and The Expanse ended three years ago on a short season. It seems like everything is getting more expensive, and if costs are up, it could mean shorter seasons.

Where Can We Watch The Captive’s War When it Releases?

The Captive’s War will be a Prime Video exclusive, unlike The Expanse, which started out on the SyFy channel (the first three seasons) and ended on Prime.

Like most shows, you’ll probably be able to purchase seasons through other vendors, like Vudu, Apple TV+, etc, but watching each show’s release will require a Prime subscription.

On the bright side, you can get a feel for the overall world of The Captive’s War by watching The Expanse! With the same showrunners and authors working on both, the vibe will doubtlessly be familiar. At least, I sure hope so!

Watch The Expanse Online

The post The Captive’s War: The Expanse Creator’s New Amazon TV Series and What We Know So Far appeared first on TV Fanatic.

Rebecca Ferguson plays the flustered, confused, processing mind to a T. It’s difficult to sit down and contemplate what life would be like to know so little.

Everything is a staggering revelation, and watching Juliette struggle to understand simple concepts, like the number of Silos and the notion of a Sun. Judge Meadows sums it up the best, only a few scenes later:

“I’m not saying it’ll be easy. It might be like trying to think of a color that you’ve never seen.”

In fact, that sums up nearly everyone in the Silo, even Bernard Holland, to a degree and, by extension, the audience. Shows like this make it difficult for consumers of Hugh Howey’s work, like myself, to bite their tongues.

At the same time, Steve Zahn (Solo) turns in a respectable performance as a man who has spent decades entirely alone. It’s not Tom Hanks Cast Away level, but it’s convincing nonetheless.

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We’re only 3 episodes into a 9-episode season, and Silo is becoming an interesting perspective on politics. Episode 3 kicks things off with the massive “Lies” appellation smeared across the cafeteria viewport.

Everything that follows is a revelation of sorts, from Rebecca Ferguson’s fantastic portrayal of information overload to Judge Meadows learning the truth about the claims that Juliette asked to go outside.

Stepping outside the vault is an assault on Solo’s senses, while the death of an entire Silo timeline is news to Judge Meadows.

Lies build upon lies. Silo cuts to the heart of consequence. Can a government placate an angry citizenry with handouts? What happens when careful checks and balances fail or are never there to begin with?

How long will people tolerate restrictions on speech, movement, and what they see and hear? The true political and governing power in the Silo rests with IT. In many ways, this represents a technocracy.

Surprising, considering Silo is a product of Apple. In the meantime, the Lower Levels are reaching a boiling point, with Shirley leading the way. Shirley is the one sore spot in Silo’s second season.

On the one hand, she’s understandably had enough of IT’s oppressive tactics. On the other, she’s the most unlikable character in the field, with a perpetual scowl that precedes her in every scene.

A raging, headstrong, highly emotional character is one thing. But Shirley never deviates from this persona, regardless of the scenario. It ultimately reduces the impact of several scenes throughout the episode.

It’s difficult to feel sympathy, empathize, celebrate a minor accomplishment, or mourn the dead when that enduring sneer is front and center.

The opposite is Judge Meadows, one of the highlights of this episode. She’s quirky, serious, and funny all at once — a difficult concoction to brew, but one that she pulls off with an inner glee that’s fascinating to watch.

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She conveys an almost telepathic thinking process. You can almost see the gears moving upstairs as she transmits them across the screen, impacting whomever she’s interacting with.

The way she dominates Bernard Holland conjures a sense of restrained happiness — happy to see Bernard getting his due but restrained because of the entirety of the situation.

“You got all the measurements that you need? Well, then you can leave now. Don’t come back without my suit.”

It’s quite obvious that a more than an amiable relationship existed between these two at some point in the Silo’s history.

At the same time, Judge Meadows just wants to go outside, and scenes where she is alone are some of the most dramatic and impactful in the series.

As always, the cinematography is fantastic, even if there’s not much to look at inside the Silo. Every scene is laced with a feeling of oppressive dread, from the grungy, dirty levels below to the cleaner but overwhelmingly encased upper levels.

In Silo 17, add to that a haunting feeling of abysmal loneliness that goes on and on, echoing across an empty, yawning cavern of darkness and distant, dripping water.

My initial reservations about Silo Season 2 remain. Though quite a lot happened in this episode, the plot doesn’t feel like it’s advancing.

All of the characters remain right where they began. Juliette spends the entirety of the episode in various dialogue scenes with Solo, coaxing him to come out.

Shirley is raging around the bottom of the Silo while Knox is preaching restraint. Judge Meadows still doesn’t have her suit, and Bernard is no closer to or further from ignorantly fomenting a rebellion.

Three episodes in, and not a single character is any closer to their goal. This could be due to having read Hugh Howey’s series.

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We’re approaching the middle of the second season, and Juliette is roughly 60% of the way through the first book. And, I might add, the first book is a very, very thin read.

The series includes three books: Wool, Shift, and Dust. The second book, Shift, is almost entirely separate from Juliette’s timeframe. That leaves two books to tell a relatively short story.

It’s easy to see why Apple wants to stretch things out a bit. Unfortunately, that also means a lot of filler material. It’s a fine line to walk. Too much filler material becomes redundant and boring.

Going off on new tangents that don’t exist in the original story risks alienating some of the fan base. There’s still plenty of time for Season 2 to get rolling, and I’m hopeful that Apple will find a happy medium.

For those who haven’t read the books, there are some exciting and very unexpected characters waiting in the wings. On its own, in a world without the preceding books, Episode 3 is a solid chapter in the Silo saga.

It offers some interesting examinations of government on a smaller scale, fascinating character interactions, and effectively deepens the mystery of the Silo while revealing the existence of as many as 49 more.

Silo continues to push sci-fi in new directions. It’s not always about outer space and time, you know? Despite the slow crawl to a distant finish line, I’m still on board.

Watch Silo Online

The post Silo Season 2 Episode 3 Perfectly Captures Juliette’s Struggle Understanding the Outside World appeared first on TV Fanatic.

Well, maybe they are for some. But where is the fun in that? If you’re anything like me, you have a relatively dysfunctional family that hurls as many insults as compliments.

In that situation, it pays to be on your toes and keep your wits about you.

While this list is all about defending oneself from familial onslaughts, it’s not about making enemies of your own blood. Well, maybe the in-laws, but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles all too often.

Try to avoid creating a massive rift in the family by slinging an ill-timed Family Guy joke in front of grandma.

Of course, some of the best insults come from the raunchiest shows and characters.

And if you’ve watched any TV in the last 20 years or so, you know what’s coming!

Succession — Roman Roy

“What I think he meant to say was that he wished mom gave birth to a can opener, because at least it would have been useful.”

There’s always that useless family member. You know, the one who hasn’t called, messaged, or otherwise spoken to anyone in the family all year but always shows up for the free food?

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They’re the ones that get into the liquor cabinet, snatch your bottle of 18-year Glenlivet, and start taking shots like they’re at the local hole-in-the-wall. Succession provides the blueprint for dealing with such beings.

The best part about this insult is that you don’t have to wait for a specific time and place, especially for a lazy person. What’s the worst that could happen? They won’t show up next year? Yeah, right.

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Married with Children — Al Bundy

“Yes, and it cost more than the condom I should have used the night you were coceived.”

Kids are an absolute pain. If you don’t believe that, watch five minutes of TikTok, and you’ll discover that half the planet agrees.

Parenting is the only scenario in which communism is very workable, but the payback comes in having to deal with these highly inefficient, hungry buckets of overindulgence.

They get a free roof, free TV, free warmth in the winter and A/C in the summer, free food, and a free room, just to name a few. How do they earn it? By eating you out of house and home and complaining while they do it.

Not much changes when the holidays roll around, and they show up to consume even more. Hopefully, they’ll bring grandchildren you can endlessly spoil and send back home with them. Bah humbug.

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Veep — Selina Meyer

“Wow. Don’t give me that Quaker in a titty bar look.”

There’s always a new face at family gatherings, whether it’s that distant cousin who brought his exes along with his current girlfriend, or a friend of a friend who has nowhere better to be.

At some point, they’ll get a heavy dose of the typical family gathering, usually from somewhere in the black sheep’s corner. That’s when this little nugget of wisdom is appropriate.

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There’s nothing like a double whammy to really throw the poor new person off even more. Recovery is simple: That bottle of 18-year Scotch in the liquor cabinet.

Veep’s Selina Meyer might be the epitome of mediocrity at times, but he has a few fantastic one-liners in store.

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Arrested Development — Lucille

“Take it back! If I wanted something your thumb touched I’d eat the inside of your ear!”

There is nothing on the planet more disgusting than a person’s unwashed hands, especially right before digging into Thanksgiving dinner.

Uncle Joe is getting a little long in the tooth and probably accidentally indulged in a little digital disimpaction while wiping.

There’s no telling where the kid’s hands have been, but nose-picking and butt-scratching are all but certainties.

Kindly remind them to go wash their hands before ignoring the cutlery and picking up the ham slices with fingers covered in billions of writhing bacteria and viruses

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Downton Abbey — Violet Crawley and Sir Richard Carlisle

“I’m leaving in the morning, Lady Grantham. I doubt we will meet again.”

“Do you promise?”

For the Dowager Countess of Grantham, giving a damn is a concept that went away a long time ago. Most people recognize Maggie Smith from the Harry Potter series, but her turn as the penultimate matriarch of an aristocratic family is far more entertaining.

She’s the great-grandmother who adults wish they had questioned more when they were little — a veritable font of information and history hidden beneath layers of snappy comebacks and devious insults.

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Speaking of TV insults, Violet isn’t exactly the vulgar type. She doesn’t need to be. Her calculated derision is more subtle and cutting, a master showing off her craft.

Something tells me that the late Dame Maggie had much in common with the Dowager Countess of Grantham in wit and the fantastic equanimity with which Violet always delivered her rebukes.

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House — House

“Don’t worry, its treatable. Being a bitch though…nothing we can do about that.”

House is the epitome of TV insults and savage comebacks. The guy just doesn’t know how to act any other way. Of course, that’s a huge part of the reason why House became such a popular series.

If you ever have to descend to the level of House-vernacular, it’s probably not a Happy Thanksgiving or Merry Christmas.

However, if you watch closely, you’ll find a few colloquies here and there that aren’t so brutal they’ll get you banished from family gatherings.

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Archer — Malory Archer

“If I cared about what you do on the weekend, I’d stick a shotgun in my mouth and pull the trigger with my toes”

Malory is the personification of vanity and hilarious comebacks, even if many of them cut the bone marrow.

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She’s also the last person on earth anyone would invite to Thanksgiving dinner. But, if you’re used to large family gatherings, there is probably a Malory in there somewhere.

As far as TV insults go, Archer’s Malory is capable of getting downright repugnant. However, her perverted, retrograde aphorisms are excellent for fending off the most brutal roasts.

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Family Guy — Stewie

“May every person that laughs at your sophomoric effort be a reminder of your eternal mediocrity and pierce your heart like a knife.”

There is no greater reference for TV insults than Family Guy. If you need to reach deep into the bag of witty tricks to find the most abominable slanders possible, Stewie Griffin is the repository of all that is vile.

Stewie combines Peter’s callous disregard for social mores with a vastly superior mental acumen. Go for Family Guy when all bets are off, and general insults descend into chaos.

In fact, Family Guy is so laden with insults of every kind that you may not ever have to look elsewhere to find your inner wit and appropriately deal with unsympathetic family members. Happy Holidays!!

Do me a favor and let me know what your favorite TV insults and comebacks are in the comments!

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The post The Ultimate Holiday Burn Book: TV Insults and Comebacks to Use at Family Gatherings appeared first on TV Fanatic.

Episode 2 covers what she left behind and the reaction to her disappearance over the hill, an event that never happens in series lore.

It’s also an entertaining study of a reactionary, bureaucratic autocracy cloaked in controlled democracy. There are reasons to empathize with Bernard Holland, the head of IT and provisional mayor.

For one, he knows things the audience does not, some of which struggle out from behind the veil of secrecy, telling us that not everything Juliette is doing will lead to paradise and neverending bliss.

Whatever those things are, Bernard is frightened of them enough to pay Judge Meadows a visit, asking for her help to quell the unrest and rising anxiety within the Silo. There’s clearly a history between Bernard and Meadows (romantic in nature?).

For two, absolute control is slipping through his fingers. So long as there is an element (Juliette Nichols) that he cannot reach out and touch — whose puppet strings are just beyond his fingertips — Bernard will never truly be a settled man.

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It’s a simple thing to despise him, but that means neglecting history and the human condition. Malicious despots often think of themselves or their cause as righteous.

Bernard is no different. There is a method beneath the madness, and it’s worked for at least a century and a half.

We’ve also learned a few things, some of which carry over from the previous season. For example, we know that Bernard can see everything Juliette sees, at least until the connection loses signal or when she shatters the glass of her visor.

We know that Bernard is aware of the existence of other Silos, but he was not aware of Silo 17’s demise, at least not from his projected surface.

We know that Solo is inside Silo 17’s version of the same room in which Bernard watches through Juliette’s visor.

Now we know that Juliette’s perspective sparks Bernard into panic mode, driving him to see Judge Meadows for fear of a revolt.

Book readers know there is much more going on in Bernard’s world than meets the eye. On top of that, Robert Sims is every bit the political instrument, subtly orchestrating his own cost-benefit balance and endeavoring to rise within the ranks.

While Bernard and Meadows seek rapprochement through cavalier speeches and subsidies, Sims works with his equally ambitious but more quietly analytical wife.

Sims is resourceful but also jealous and confounded by the fact that he is not Bernard’s shadow — the why and the how driving him to plot his own course.

If Bernard loses Sims, his list of allies grows thin, especially considering Judge Meadow’s demand in exchange for her help.

In many ways, the Silo is a microcosm of nationwide politics, whether they be democratic in nature, despotic, or everything in between.

The ideological viewpoint under which the society in Silo 18 functions is irrelevant to the fascination of watching it unfold on a much smaller, more constrained scale.

It’s also an encapsulated version of the ‘greater good.’ Are Bernard, Judge Meadows, and Robert Sims evil? Or are they guarding against something so devastating that, from a more agreeable point of view, necessitates their control?

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If that is the case, then who is evil? The one who mistrusts the power of knowledge in the hands of the commoner, or the person who cuts through the chain link fence at Area 51 and goes charging in?

In the meantime, rebellion is brewing in the belly of the beast, a cost Bernard is desperately averse to paying. The politics in the down-low are more emphatic and brute.

“It’s a challenging role in that it’s a character within a position of authority that has to take a tremendous burden on his shoulders in order for the silo to survive.“

-Tim Robbins in reference to his role as Bernard Holland

Knox plays a tepid voice of reason, while Shirley is the moody teenager, hopped up on hormones and unable to see the potential consequences of her feral, headlong charge ahead.

This diametrically opposed force is a poison within the lower levels. Rebellions in the Silo don’t have a great history, as Silo Season 2 Episode 1 revealed, and this one is not getting off to a coordinated start.

Knox and Shirley are so opposite that it’s hard to imagine this alliance rolling forward smoothly, especially with brains like Sims and Bernard working to thwart it.

Let us not forget that there are cameras, microphones, and spies everywhere within the Silo. Knox’s approach will seemingly hold everyone back while IT continues to dominate. Shirley’s will doom them all to an early grave.

Episode 1 was all about Juliette Nichols. Episode 2 is the exact opposite, with most of the denizens of Silo 18 believing her dead. This is especially true after Bernard’s big announcement.

Even her closest friends can only speculate, believing in their hearts that their greatest fears are indeed true.

Juliette’s departure over the hill has a resonating impact on everyone, for good or ill. Writer Cassie Pappas and Director Michael Dinner did a good job of conveying the resonating power of Juliette’s supposed demise on the denizens of Silo 18.

It didn’t require a ton of dialogue and numerous references to Juliette, either. The effect is in the actions of those she left behind, the melancholic undertones behind her father’s (Iain Glenn) motions and inflections.

The raw panic behind Bernard’s eyes, the rage behind Shirley’s, and the reverent but resolute measures Knox is willing to take all echo Juliette’s ephemeral presence and loss.

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But, Silo is nothing if not reflective of the human condition — to march forward in the face of overwhelming loss and the near hopelessness of facing something far bigger, more coordinated, and more knowledgeable.

At this point, Silo feels like it needs to ramp things up a bit. Juliette stepped outside for the first time at the end of Season 1 and has only made a modicum of progress since, with an entire episode diverting from her character.

Sure, there is plenty to build up in Season 2, but it just feels like this will go on for a while.

That’s two episodes to set up the stakes in two Silos. Hopefully, Episode 3 will open things up a bit more.

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It was a surreal moment that left those who had never read Hugh Howey’s novels facing a year or more of questions and uncertainty. Only the best series are capable of such feats, and Silo’s first outing was more than up to the task.

Silo Season 2 Episode 1 kicks things off, not with Julie, but with unfamiliar faces at an unfamiliar time. It was a bit disconcerting at first — as if we had just skipped a season and entered the triumvirate.

Clearly, things are not going well for these novel characters, who speak in conspiratorial whispers amidst the darkness of the down-deep. Their resolution is no more or less.

A few moments later, Julie is awash in the dead and decaying corpses of thousands, and Season 2 is off to an interesting start.

The confident, stone-faced former sheriff is clearly afraid. It was not a new turn for Julie, but an unfamiliar one at least.

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Throughout Season 1, the outside world was a place to fear but sealed away — an extrapolation, almost theoretical if not for the rare acts of “cleaning.”

The real danger lurks within. Now, there is no “within,” and the only thing lying between Julie and certain death is heat tape and a suit of questionable integrity. Julie’s fear and confusion are palpable and expectant.

This is how the vast majority of the episode plays out, with every frame dedicated to Julie’s plight. The characters and goings-on of her Silo remain silent and unseen.

This was the best route to take, especially after last season’s cliffhanger. Sure, there is a lot going on in Julie’s Silo. Still, it’s appropriate to spend the entire first episode completing her hazardous journey across a desolate landscape and into something new and unexpected.

The cinematography, Julie, and the surrounding set pieces sustain a constant feeling of tension and near-death without ever abandoning the overwhelming curiosity of what has become of this world and why.

The camera stays close to the characters, drawing back during specific scenarios to reveal the massive structures surrounding them and conveying their smallness amongst these megalithic and mysterious structures we know so little about.

The ever-present darkness characterizes the feelings of despondency and desperation. It’s not so much Julie’s journey that darkens the heart, but the world where she lives and fights to survive.

As an avid book reader, I tackled the Wool, Shift, and Dust books long ago, but the series brought those feelings back as if I closed the cover on the first book yesterday.

Julie’s ordeal is harrowing, and her future prospects are bleak. It’s hard to imagine returning to her own Silo, where certain death at the hands of Bernie and crew awaits her.

It’s even harder to imagine how she’ll survive in a world where a single breath outside of her helmet is a giant question mark. Rebecca Ferguson tackles Julie’s impasse with zeal and the appropriate modicum of fear and anxiety bubbling just beneath the surface.

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The derelict silo Julie discovers is a character as well, telling the story of the silo she just left, or at least a possible version of it. Something clearly went wrong here, and the results are in piles outside, throughout the entryway, and jamming the entrance.

The darkness and disrepair set the stage for the solemnity of Julie’s situation and those she left behind. Even so, there are a few bewildering observations in this new yet ancient silo. There are lights. Julie hears music. There are strange sounds emanating from within.

This cold place of death and aged despair may yet hold life. The impact of such a discovery will reverberate throughout the remainder of the season.

It’s easy to get caught up in the mystery and awe of it all. However, this is Julie’s Cast Away, and most of the first episode is spent in silence, without the need for dialogue.

The lone exception is the flashback scenes, which take us back to Julie’s childhood and her first foray into the down deep. At first, it seems as if these scenes are a juxtaposition — contrasting the current state of Julie’s current silo location to her old one.

Unfortunately, it adds little value to her current situation and robs us of the ever-present feelings of awe, discovery, and danger. Flashback scenes are always dangerous to overutilize.

While they don’t ruin the episode, they feel misplaced and unnecessary, re-establishing relationships already established, while the terrors of the world and Julie’s passage through them are constantly interrupted.

It’s one thing to use flashbacks as a character-building device, but Silo had an entire season to create the Julie Nichols we know and fear for. It’s been over a year since Apple TV+ left us hanging, and Julie’s childhood is not what the audience was waiting for.

Regardless of the intrusion factor, the flashback scenes are otherwise well-done and well-acted. There’s little in the way of complaints where the acting on Silo is concerned, even when utilizing kids, a notoriously difficult group to work with for obvious reasons.

Back in the present, Julie’s exploration process is slow and methodical. It’s not until near the end of the episode that she constructs a sound-enough bridge to cross from one side of the silo to the other.

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Granted, in a massive, hollow tomb, I can’t blame her for taking things slow and cautious. There are some genuinely surprising moments, some of which are spooky and resonating, and enough action to keep things moving along at a more or less enjoyable pace.

It’s difficult not to compare Apple TV+’s Silo with the book version, known as Wool. However, the books were well beyond this point, which makes the show feel like more of a crawl: an entertaining crawl, but a crawl all the same.

While Silo Season 2 Episode 1 is a slow start, it does the job, relieving the sense of disquietude the Season 1 Finale left us with. For all of Julie’s effort, the final revelation of this episode seemed surprising but small.

For now, we’ll have to satisfy ourselves with Julie’s discovery and wait until the next episode to possibly get a glimpse of those back in the living silo.

The plot moves ever onward, and here’s to hoping it moves just a little faster in the future.

Did Silo Season 1 meet the enormous expectations set by Silo Season 1?

Share your thoughts in the comments, and be sure to grade the premiere below.

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