Noiseless Chatter

Fake Plastic Teeth

I’m mainly writing this because I didn’t want my last post to stand for too long on its own, lest someone assume I…y’know.

I didn’t.

And, honestly, I’ve been doing pretty well this year so far. I write about depression because it helps me to voice things, and to get them out…and because every single time I do, somebody writes in and thanks me for saying what they haven’t been able to articulate themselves. If anyone, ever, feels just a little less alone when I open my mouth and talk about it, that makes the discomfort and difficulty of doing so worth it.

But things have been quiet for a couple of reasons, neither of which is depressive! One, the writing of a new novel project, which I’ve already talked about. Two, SEVERE DISCOMFORT.

See the photo above? That was taken two days ago. It might be the only time you get to see my mouth full of teeth that aren’t actually teeth.

I had dental surgery on my birthday (five hours of dental surgery…), and for the next two weeks or so, I’ve got a fake set in there. They’re over my real teeth, so, don’t worry, I didn’t pull a Pnin or anything, but they’re there until I can go back to the dentist and have my work completed.

It’s…odd so far. They feel much different in my mouth, and it’s often painful to bring my teeth together. The rest of the time, there’s just a feeling of vague discomfort. And eating under these conditions is, to borrow a phrase, exquisite torture.

I’m more or less on an all-soup diet, which might be good for my weight but bad for my sodium intake. Who cares. Life is just a long balancing act involving the thousands of things that are trying to kill you, anyway.

Much more excitingly, I bought some of that liquid astronaut food Facebook is always trying to sell me, and I look forward to eating something that doesn’t have CAMPBELL’S written on the label. I’ll report back if anyone’s interested to know which color sock it tastes like.

So, dentistry. Needless to say I’m bedridden and miserable. Right?

No! Look at the fucking picture! I met birds!

Things are fine. I feel, on the whole, great. But, oddly, writing is more difficult.

I can’t really explain why that is. I don’t know. But when I sit down to write (articles for this site, pages of the novel, even emails and texts to friends) I end up making loads of easily avoided mistakes and typos. The pain doesn’t bother me, really…I’ve felt far worse…but I guess it’s just enough that it distracts my mind. It’s strange that a pain so relatively mild can still interfere with your ability to do good work. Or, at least, work you can be proud of.

So I’m here. I’m still working on this. I’m not violently depressed or in oral agony. I’m just full of soup and typos. And appreciation for readers who allow me to make fun of a sex-crazed puppet one day, and open up about depression and mental health issues the next. I don’t know of any other site that could get away with that, and I really do appreciate all of you.

It means the world, and I’m always glad to see folks sharing posts like that and discussing it on their own. I’ll say what I say. It may not apply to you, or help you. But I truly, genuinely hope that discussing it does.

Anyway, one final footnote for now: yesterday I attended The Balki Bowl, which was a live-streamed event in which eight episodes of Perfect Strangers, along with vintage commercials, music videos, and other curios, were screened with live chat.

Sound familiar? It’s a total coincidence, I’m sure, but that was pretty Xmas Bash!!!-like, and I think I might have found my technical solution for the Bash!!! moving forward.

…at least, potentially. We’ll try out this new platform for the Project: ALF live stream, and I’ll definitely ask for your opinions then, but, for now…it looks promising. So get excited! I’m already putting together next year’s torturous playlist.

Here’s hoping you enjoyed your Super, Puppy, or Balki Bowl of choice. Thanks for being beautiful.

Every God-Damned Day.

I made a new friend recently. She struggles with depression. It’s part of why we get along, I’m sure. It’s part of why I get along with most of the people I get along with. She asked me if I struggle with it, too. I told her the truth: every single day.

It’s unfair. I know that. I’m down on myself and rarely see beyond my own, many flaws, but even I know that it’s unfair the way my mind treats me.

Does it have to be every day? Is that really necessary? Do I deserve to have to fight every single day I’m alive just to be okay? Does anyone deserve that?

I don’t think anyone does. And yet, I know I’m not alone. I know it isn’t just me. If it’s unfair that I need to struggle, to fight, to work hard just to keep going every single god-damned day of my life, how much less fair is it that so many others do, too?

I don’t mean to oversell it. Some days aren’t as bad, but it’s always there. And I win plenty of battles against myself, but the victories are small, and fleeting. The losses are devastating.

With depression, you don’t fight to win. You fight to survive. At some point, for many people, you lose enough times in a row, or hard enough, or unfairly enough, and you stop fighting. I don’t blame anyone who stops fighting. I know it’s hard. I know how it feels. I know lying down and giving up seems like a very tempting prospect at times. To be honest, I wonder if I’ll ever do that. To be more honest, I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if I did.

It’s hard. It doesn’t end. You never win. You just fight it until you lose for good.

Another friend of mine asked me a few weeks ago if I’d be dead if it weren’t for my writing. The answer I gave him was more conversational. The actual answer is yes. Yes, I would.

Writing is my weapon, I could say on certain days. On other days, I’d say it’s my defense. Whatever the perspective, I need it. Whatever the perspective, it’s all, sometimes, that I have.

Birthdays are difficult for me. Holidays are difficult for me. Compliments and kind words and presents and people who wish me well are all extremely difficult for me. I’ve worked very hard for everything I have and every inch I’ve gained, and still my mind is unsatisfied both because I could have more, and because I might not deserve what I do have.

There’s no progress. There’s no advancement. There’s change, but no way forward. The struggle is inside. I can change the outside as much as I want, and it means nothing. The inside is where the battle plays out, endlessly, continuously, starting over every day.

Every god-damned day.

I take a few days every year for personal reflection. It’s around this time, which is convenient, because I tend to isolate around my birthday anyway. It’s rough for me. It’s rougher for many others.

I have friends. I have friends who care and who understand. I have the funniest, sharpest set of readers and commenters on the internet, as far as I’m concerned. I have an audience. I write some piece of crap, and people read it. People read it! That’s miraculous. I’ve known writers, and know writers, who would kill for that.

I have a passion. I have a weapon or a defense or whatever you want to call it that keeps me steady. Something I can turn to when I’m feeling at my lowest that helps me to get back to a healthier place. I have people I can talk to. I have a steady writing job. (A writer with a steady job! That‘s miraculous.)

I have so fucking much, and other people don’t. They don’t have that. They face what I face — and worse — every god-damned day…and they don’t have what I have. They fight harder than I or you could ever know, just to make it through a day. And then the next day comes…and they have to do it again. Depression is a Sisyphean punishment. The boulder always rolls back down. Every god-damned day.

I’m sharing this here because you know at least one of those people that’s worse off than I am. I have a voice, and some small platform. They don’t. I have the strength, for whatever reason, to talk about the difficulties I have. They don’t.

It’s my birthday today. I’m thirty-five. If I live another thirty-five years, I’ll have struggled with depression and actively fought it for 70 years. 25,550 god-damned days.

So, do me a favor today. Okay?

Reach out to someone.

Someone you care about.

Maybe you know they have problems of their own. Maybe you have no idea.

But reach out.

Okay?

Just let them know you care about them, and leave it at that. If you want to be really great, let them know you’re there if they ever need somebody to talk to.

It’s a small gesture. I’m not asking for much. They aren’t, either. And you’re not going to change a life.

But I can promise you one thing: you’ll make their day a little easier. And when you struggle for 365 days out of the year, you feel every day that’s “a little easier.”

Thanks in advance, on behalf of someone who needs you right now. You can make a difference, and be a hero, just by reminding somebody that they aren’t alone.

The Venture Bros. Review: “Hostile Makeover” (season 6, episode 1)

Season six of The Venture Bros. is guaranteed to be an interesting one. Successful? That remains to be seen, especially as “Hostile Makeover” on its own doesn’t provide much of an indication of what to expect. But interesting for sure, if only due to its (clearly deliberate) audacity.

It opens with a few seconds on the old Venture Compound, and then immediately shifts us into an entirely new life for the family, a new context, full of new characters, new adventures, new outfits, new roles, new expectations…new everything, really.

A major shakeup like this isn’t unprecedented. The Venture Bros., after all, has been a show that’s used permanent change to great effect.

We can all argue about which season (two) or episode (“Everybody Comes to Hank’s”) is best, but it’s impossible to deny that change is the engine that keeps the show fresh. With every shakeup, revamp, retcon, introduction, and evolution we must move away from at least some of the things that made the show great to begin with, but, ideally, we’re moving toward other things that will keep the show great in their own ways.

In fact, major shakeups are built into the space between seasons. Season one, remember, ended with the on-screen murders of the title characters…and the unexpectedly affecting breakup of The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend. The former shakeup was addressed by the very first episode of season two, but the latter gave the second season its entire emotional throughline, culminating in the two of them reconnecting, and marrying…another shakeup in itself, especially as the nuptials intertwined with the neutralization of Phantom Limb, The Venture Bros.‘ lone example of villainous competence (and therefore danger).

Season three ended with Henchman 21 dying, Brock quitting, Sgt. Hatred joining the family, and the cloning lab being destroyed, so…yeah, shakeups left and right, there. This fed, I believe, into the scattershot nature of season four. Instead of one central theme to explore, it had a lot of loose ends to tie up. Some of them revealed themselves to be deeply effective, and others were kind of dead-ends. As much as there was to enjoy about season four (and there was, indeed, much to enjoy), the show felt a bit like it was rounding the bases rather than sowing new seeds. And its finale — the incredible “Operation: P.R.O.M.” — was less a shakeup than a grand collection of the show’s many themes. To a good number of viewers, it felt like it could have worked as a final episode…and that’s something that couldn’t possibly have been said about any season finale before.

Season five didn’t get a proper finale until “All This and Gargantua-2,” which deposited us right where we are today: with Dr. Venture heading up a successful, thriving, important iteration of Venture Industries.

The fact that he’s doomed to fail, to destroy the company, to squander his fortune without learning anything, does nothing to detract from the importance of the shakeup. In fact, it just means there’s another inevitable shakeup at the end of this story; his old compound is a pile of ashes. When this new — ahem — venture fails…where can he possibly go next?

“Hostile Makeover” doesn’t even pretend Dr. Venture is going to succeed. His very first order of business, it seems, is to fire absolutely everybody. Who are these people? He doesn’t care. What did they do for Venture Industries? He’s not interested; he just doesn’t want any of his money going to them. The new phase of his life has only just begun, and he’s taken active steps to ensure it won’t go anywhere.

Which, if I didn’t laugh so much at the episode, I’d be tempted to turn into a criticism about “Hostile Makeover” in general; it really doesn’t go anywhere.

That’s fine, however, because — moreso than any season before it, including the first — it’s laying one hell of a lot of groundwork. There’s the new setting (though we’ve spent a bit of time here before, notably in “Twenty Years to Midnight” and “Bright Lights, Dean City”), of course, and Dr. Venture’s obviously fleeting clout, but that’s by no means all of it.

There’s the return of Brock…and the unhappy discharge of Sgt. Hatred. There’s the Council of 13 scraping itself back together, and — perhaps — returning the Guild to an earlier, more democratic incarnation. There’s Dr. Venture and the boys blowing through money, there’s Dean giving college another try, there’s Hank meeting an according-to-Hoyle mermaid, there’s The Ambassador and Steve McQueen, there’s a wealth of new character introductions, there’s a new arch enemy for Dr. Venture, there’s The Monarch and Gary infiltrating the Ivory Tower, there’s the sea captain relapsing…and plenty that I’m already forgetting.

It’s a lot of work for very little payoff, but I’d be surprised if they intended it to be a stand-alone story at all. It’s the first chapter in a new book, and we can’t complain too much if most of that time is spent on buildup…especially with season five ending in a very literal and very deliberate scorching of the Earth behind it.

No, “Hostile Makeover” can’t really be evaluated until we’ve seen what it builds to. What that is, specifically, is anybody’s guess, but the episode spends a lot of time convincing us that there’s a great deal of mileage in the show’s new configuration. I agree, but I wish there was a little more evidence on display.

In fact, here’s an exercise.

Here are all of the post-shakeup season openers. They each have a lot of cleanup to do and a lot of dominoes to arrange, but can we still find an identifiable plot amongst the logistical maneuvering?

Powerless in the Face of Death: A distraught Dr. Orpheus searches for the souls of the deceased Venture boys while The Monarch plots an escape from prison.

Shadowman 9: In the Cradle of Destiny: The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend must answer for their behavior to The Guild, while we learn through flashbacks what brought them together.

Blood of the Father, Heart of Steel: Sgt. Hatred attempts to assert himself as a suitable bodyguard for the Venture clan while a group of Nazis force Dr. Venture to clone Hitler.

What Color is Your Cleansuit?: Dr. Venture is contracted by his more successful brother to build a ray shield for Gargantua-2, and his interns pay the price for his cut corners and incompetent management.

Hostile Makeover: …Dr. Venture picks up some clothes?

Obviously more happens than that, but it’s telling that that scene might actually be the closest thing we get to a plot.

Am I disappointed? Nah.

Or…maybe a little, if only because The Venture Bros. has so successfully balanced shorter stories with longer arcs from the beginning. It’s rare that we get an episode like this, in which we really are meant to see it as nothing more than a small part of a longer journey. In fact, I can’t think of any episodes previously in which that was the case. (Disagreement is welcome; examples are even more welcome.)

There may not be much plot, but there is, however, one strong central theme to “Hostile Makeover”: conflict.

Just about everybody is at somebody else’s throat…or nearly so. There’s such tension in the air between characters that the biggest laugh of the episode — HELPeR pushing J-Bot off the roof — is the one time it comes to a head.

Dr. Girlfriend puts tension on her relationship with The Monarch by bargaining their arching rights over Dr. Venture away. Dr. Venture puts tension on his relationship with the Pirate Captain (possibly the sole remaining employee of Venture Industries) by firing the rest of the staff. Colonel Gathers puts tension on the already-rocky relationship between Brock and Sgt. Hatred. And all of this is on top of the normal levels of tension that exist in the show already, being as it’s packed with misanthropes and monsters.

When HELPeR finally snaps, it’s not just well-deserved; it feels necessary. It’s the smallest, lowest-stakes example of the tension breaking, which means we have one hell of a lot to deal with in the coming weeks, but it’s a start.

I don’t know what the coming weeks will bring, which is both the best and the worst thing about “Hostile Makeover.” It leaves all of its doors open, but doesn’t provide much in the way of direction. It has so many options, which is great, but it doesn’t suggest a way forward. By this point I trust the show, which is the important thing. But it’d be nice to have a sense of what comes next, rather than a tangle of things that may or may not build to anything interesting.

My biggest concern, to be frank, is the introduction of Wide Wale, Dr. Venture’s new arch enemy. While there’s every chance he’ll turn out to be a great addition to the huge roster of villains in this show, it’s worrying that he’s immediately being given a spotlight role, and I’m not sure I saw anything this week that indicates he deserves one.

Perhaps I’m a bit worried because of characters like Torrid, Dr. Quymn, or Augustus St. Cloud, who became important characters because the show forced them to be important characters…and then realized that it can’t think of anything to do with them. Even Sgt. Hatred, whom I love, had a confusing, fitful ascent to “important character” status.

So, Wide Wale, prove me wrong. Please.

Overall, I’m excited by season six, but I think that’s in spite of rather than because of “Hostile Makeover.” It’s only fair that I treat this season of The Venture Bros. like I treated season four of Arrested Development: if I tuned in to this show by chance, and it had nothing to do with The Venture Bros., would I still like it?

It’s hard to say. I think I’d be interested in it. I don’t know if I’d be impressed. But I’m about 99% sure I’d tune in the next week to give it another chance.

And ultimately that’s what matters…whether or not people can get invested in what they’re seeing, even if it doesn’t make much immediate sense to them. If “Hostile Makeover” is disappointing, it’s only disappointing because The Venture Bros. set the bar so high to begin with.

In conclusion, Dr. Venture picked up some clothes.

ALF Reviews: “Love on the Rocks” (season 4, episode 15)

We’re in the final ten episodes! Part of me knew I’d make it this far. The rest of me attempted suicide several times to keep from making it this far. But here we are…wrapping up the series for good.

Eagle-eyed readers might have spotted some new entries on the ALF archive page. It’s not everything I have planned for the wrap-up, but it will keep me from forgetting to do the things I’ve promised.

I’m also considering a live stream / riff of Project: ALF ahead of the official review, so please let me know if there’s interest in that. It won’t be anywhere near as elaborate as the Xmas Bash!!!, but that’s okay. Maybe I’ll screen it along with two episodes of the show…a pick of mine, and a readers’ choice selection. We’ll see. Let me know if you have any ideas, as it’ll be the closest thing we have to a big finale celebration, and I want to make sure it’s something everyone can enjoy.

Speaking of things everyone can enjoy: this is Jim J. Bullock’s final episode! kermityay.gif

That’s if IMDB is correct, of course, and I’ve never prayed for anything harder in my life. (When you guys tell me it’s somebody’s final episode, I believe you. When IMDB tells me, I’m reminded of the false listing that claimed the midget was in season three, and I spit blood at my monitor. ANGRY BLOOD.)

If nothing else, this review will provide us with a good opportunity to look back on what ALF did with Neal Tanner during the character’s oddly abbreviated life. (Spoiler: it was fuck-all.) If Neal does turn up in another episode I just won’t take any screengrabs of him and pretend he’s not there.

“Love on the Rocks” opens well enough, though, with Willie’s horny little brother introducing the family to the woman he’s porking. Nothing says “family sitcom” quite like that, and it’s the least troublesome example of sexual charge in the episode.

Her name is Maxine, which is a pretty great name that doesn’t get much mileage in fiction, for some reason. Also, it reminds me of this Traveling Wilburys song, and that’s great, because I’ll take any excuse to listen to that again.

That’s an unreleased song, by the way. It didn’t make either Wilburys album and wasn’t a single…and it’s fucking great. If a castoff that went nowhere sounds that good, that gives you some idea of how strong their output was.

Hey, speaking of which…do you know who The Traveling Wilburys were? They were a supergroup consisting of George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, and Jeff Lynne. Five music legends got together to fuck around in George’s garage and ended up releasing two full albums of their collaborations. (Orbison died before the second album, it’s worth mentioning, and it suffers for his loss.) Both albums were great — with a lineup like that, they’d have to be great — and a hell of a lot of fun to listen to, and they’re both available in a nice little package with bonus tracks and music videos to enjoy.

So, yeah, we live in a world in which stuff like that is available at the push of a button, and we’re spending our time talking about ALF. Every so often, I feel it’s necessary to put that into perspective.

Anyway, Maxine (Mah-ahh-aahx-ine…) is telling Willie and Kate about how she met Neal. It involves a terrible car accident which she believes she survived because a Mayan Warrior God named Vlad materialized and took the wheel. Pretty nutty, right? That’s why it’s so odd that Willie — who gets less defensible as a good social worker by the week — openly makes fun of her near-death experience before she even gets to the supernatural part.

After we learn about Vlad, though, Anne Schedeen gives us a pretty great line reading. “Maxine, this is fascinating, but where would a 6,000 year old Mayan warrior learn to downshift a Toyota?”

I actually laughed. It’s…a decently funny line on its own, but the delivery — with Kate struggling to sound friendly and supportive throughout — is what makes it work so well. I think that’s the first time I’ve laughed since “Lies,” but her reading really did deserve it.

Maxine believes she and Neal are reincarnated lovers from the past, and…it’s definitely batty, don’t get me wrong. It leads to a genuinely nice moment when Willie and Kate go into the kitchen to get tea, and ALF asks, “If she marries into the family, do I have to hide from Vlad?”

The three of them then engage in some fairly rude mockery of Maxine’s beliefs…but, at the same time, it’s totally believable. They’re acting — oh rarest of rarities — like a family.

That’s all that I ask of this show’s dickishness…that it functions in some way that isn’t entirely reliant on these people being irredeemable shitheads. Yeah, it’s a bit rude for them to make fun of this woman they just met, especially if Neal likes her, but they’re doing it together. It’s what families do to cope with awkward, bizarre circumstances. Also, it’s relatively gentle — more ribbing than bullying — and they’re all laughing at the same thing.

That latter point is especially important. After all, when was the last time Willie, Kate, and ALF were all on the same page?

It may have been never. And it’s nice to see the three of them bonding now.

Sorry, Maxine. You’re the chewtoy in this scene, but at least the dogs are behaving.

So the first scene got me on the episode’s side, which means it’s the second scene’s job to kick me in the skull.

Lynn rehearses her lines for Saint Joan, and ALF suggests that she “show a little leg.” He then suggests “a couple of well-placed tassels.”

Lovely stuff.

The first scene showed me that this show’s inherent nastiness can actually be used to nice effect. If this scene is attempting to show me that ALF’s continuous sexual predation of Lynn can be used to nice effect as well, it’s fallen at the first hurdle.

Anyway, Willie comes in as Lynn storms out. She’s clearly frustrated at ALF’s suggestions. Like the great dad and social worker that he is, he listens to her concerns and then tells her he doesn’t give a shit. He then reveals the big punchline: that ALF got Brian to do this stuff at some point.

What the actual fucking dicklicking crap is this show?

ALF had Brian dance around with two “well-placed tassels” for his amusement?

Willie knows this?

Willie also knows that ALF just tried to get his daughter to do it?

Willie also sees that his daughter is upset by the suggestion and still doesn’t care?

I’m…

AGH.

FUCK THIS SHOW

(And, yes, fuck this show, definitely, but I do have to say that while editing this review, I keep scrolling past the screengrab above and tricking myself: the way Lynn’s cross is positioned makes me think for a split second that she’s wearing Chie Satonaka’s jacket. And, ever so briefly, I fall in love.)

(Still though: fuck this show.)

Neal comes over, and there are two (count ’em!) funny things that happen here. “Love on the Rocks” isn’t great. In fact, it’s pretty fucking terrible. But there are enough faint glimmers of a better episode that, once again, suggest that we probably could have gotten something watchable if the writers cared enough to produce second drafts.

The first thing I like is a genuinely funny line from ALF, wherein he refers to Neal as “God’s gag-gift to women.” That may be the only time I’ve been jealous of this show’s writing. It’s such a simple bit of wordplay, but it’s very effective. It’s a great, efficient, character-specific little punch, and it’s a line I’d probably be satisfied with if I’d written it myself.

Then there’s — oh rarest of rarities — a spotlight for Benji Gregory. Brian keeps guessing the right answers to Neal’s “you’ll never guess” questions…namely that Neal’s ex-wife is coming to see him, and that she wants him back. Kate asks Neal when all of this happened, and Neal silently defers to Brian. It’s a good visual punchline. Not great, but it gave Brian something to do, and it was one of those neatly observed family moments that we get so infrequently on this show.

Anyway, Willie tries to remind Neal of how terrible Margaret was to him, and Kate actually tries to steer the conversation away from that, for the sake of Neal’s feelings. The show doesn’t do anything with it, but I like the fact that Willie and Kate take opposing views of the situation, and neither of them are, strictly speaking, right or wrong.

Willie is reminding him of some important stuff: Margaret manipulated Neal, upset him, and threw him out with nowhere to go. Willie’s point is that Neal should think about all of that before he goes blindly back to her. Kate, on the other hand, knows that it’s not productive to take away the hope that Neal can repair things with Margaret and make the relationship work, especially since they both invested 10 years in it. Turning blindly away from a potential future may not be any smarter than lunging blindly toward it.

They both have a point. I like that.

Again, “Love on the Rocks” doesn’t do anything with this, but so rarely does anything on this show have a point that two points in the same scene nearly knocked me out of my chair.

Another good moment comes after that scene, so even though we cut abruptly away from the discussion with Neal, at least we cut to something fun.

ALF and Willie are watching TV, and they have an argument that gets gradually more heated…about the relative merits of My Mother the Car and Mr. Ed.

It’s…kind of awesome. ALF argues that both shows are equally realistic, while Willie takes the position that My Mother the Car is significantly less realistic, since it involves reincarnation, and requires viewers to overlook the fact that there’s no physical way for a car to talk.

It’s…really not bad. It even puts me in mind of the great “Do Smurfs lay eggs?” debate from The Venture Bros., and I can easily hear this same conversation — word for word — in the voices of Henchmen 21 and 24. If you’ve read this site for long, you know that that is by no means faint praise. (The performances would have been way better in that show, though.)

Even more Henchmen-like is the reveal that ALF and Willie have had this argument multiple times. And Kate, like The Monarch, needs to yell at them both to shut the hell up about this disagreement nobody cares about to begin with.

I like a lot of this episode. I really do! At about this point I even started to wonder if season four would give us a second good episode…one with heavy amounts of Jim J. Bullock, no less.

It wasn’t to be…but, damn, we got tantalizingly close at times.

Then Lynn comes home to say she got a shitty part in Saint Joan, but Neal arrives soon after to remind her that this episode isn’t about her.

Margaret is coming, he says, and he told her to take a cab here, to the Tanner house. He explains, “I didn’t want Willie to reject her on the phone…it’s so impersonal.”

And that’s actually a pretty good line reading, and it hints at a personality for Neal that we’ve never actually seen developed. This passive-to-a-fault approach to life is not at odds with anything we already knew about him, but in a single line he just cemented an entire psychological framework for himself. And it works.

Of course, I wonder how he lived his life during the past few years, when Willie didn’t even remember he existed…but even that can be explained by what we already know: Margaret was calling the shots for him. He only needed Willie once Margaret was gone.

Neal doesn’t function well as an individual; he’s a born follower, and becomes immediately uncomfortable the moment there’s nobody around to follow. Even here, when he knows he doesn’t want to be with Margaret anymore, he can’t bring himself to say it out loud. He needs it to come from someone more confident.

It’s interesting, so of course we drop that so ALF can tell a bunch of “yo ex-wife’s so fat…” jokes.

When that’s done, Willie refuses to reject Margaret for Neal. Neal replies, “Fine. I’ll do it myself. But this is the last favor I do for you.”

Which is funny! Legitimately kinda funny!

So much of this episode is good! Why can’t this episode stay good?!

While they wait for Margaret to arrive, ALF reminds the audience over and over again that the woman is really, really fat. He might as well add, “Everybody got that? Because Neal is going to open the door in a moment and it’s very important that you expect to see a truly, massively fat woman standing there. Forgive me for belaboring the point, but this joke isn’t going to work otherwise.”

She arrives, and she’s not fat (WHO SAW THAT COMING), so Neal gets a boner and his whole decision to reject her is thrown to the wind.

Man, it must be so easy being a woman. If anything goes wrong, get weight-loss surgery and it’s like pushing a cosmic reset button.

Margaret is played by Allyce Beasley, whom I didn’t recognize by sight, though her voice is sure familiar. It’s pretty high pitched, and she’s done a lot of cartoon work as a result. In terms of live action she’s been in some great stuff, with guest spots on Taxi and Cheers, and a recurring role on Moonlighting. She was also in Legally Blonde, which I’ve never seen but which certainly has a following. More recently she’s appeared in Bored to Death, Gotham, and Marry Me, all of which seem to be held in pretty decent regard, so I doubt “bitch craving Jim J. Bullock’s cock” scratches her list of favorite roles.

ALF is watching this shit through the plot window, screaming and loudly jerking off, and it’s positively absurd that they wouldn’t hear him. But it’s ALF, and if we didn’t cut back to him every 15 seconds Paul Fusco would wither and die.

He makes a comparison to Margaret working on Neal like a boxer, which leads our alien fuckbuddy to make the second Robin Givens joke in as many weeks.

Then he watches them make out for a while until he finishes getting his Love-on-the-Rocks off.

After the commercial, the Tanners get ready to go to the movies. Willie complains with venom and sarcasm about Margaret, which is nothing new. But Kate calls him on it, which is new.

He replies, “I’m sorry, Kate. I don’t like her. I didn’t like her then, and I don’t trust her now.”

And that.

That’s it.

That’s all I need to believe that Willie’s not an irredeemable fuckbag.

I’ve complained a lot about Willie’s shitty attitude and shitty behavior on this show, but that’s because the show never seemed to realize it was shitty. Having Kate confront him about it, and then having him explain — in just one line, just a couple of seconds of screentime — that he has someone else’s best interests at heart…it makes all the difference.

We all complain. Every one of us. And we know that. But I think we also understand the difference between complaining because we’re genuinely worried that something bad will happen to someone we care about, and complaining because we’re dick whiskers who can never let anyone be happy.

Most of the time Willie seems to be the latter, simply because his complaints and petty bitchings are all that we hear. There’s no context for him…he’s just some dweeby guy who periodically turns into an asshole.

Finally Willie provides context for himself. And, what do you know, it shifts him right into the other category.

I don’t ask for much from this show. “Stop raping,” yes. But besides that? All I want is a little self-awareness. Proof that ALF understands what it’s doing. I don’t see that often, but — oh rarest of rarities — I’m seeing it now.

While they’re out Neal calls, and he’s wearing a bathrobe that just barely prevents us from seeing Jim J.’s bullock.

He tells ALF that he and Margaret are driving to Las Vegas to get remarried. In the background we hear her rinsing all the cum out of her hair.

This is a really great show.

Anyway, ALF decides to hide in Neal’s car — some…how… — and joins them on their trip to Vegas.

You know, I fucking hate ALF and I fucking love Vegas, but, no joke, I admired this show’s restraint in not doing a Vegas episode.

Honestly, I’m not kidding. Ace commenter Casey (and the guy you should start paying attention to as the whole review-a-week thing comes to an end here) recently wrote up the Vegas episode of Perfect Strangers, and I was shocked that that show resorted to doing one so early in its run.*

I quietly appreciated ALF for not sending its characters to Lazy Vegas. After all, this show was ending. It was as good as over, and never once did it succumb to…

…fuck.

One last kick in the sack for giving ALF credit.

Yeah, here we are, pulling up to the cocksuckin’ Chapel of the Bells, one of only two things in Vegas everyone knows. (The other one is the big neon cowboy, which Margaret also alludes to, in case you thought they were going to Las Vegas, Ohio or something.)

Margaret goes into the Chapel of the Bells first, for no reason aside from the fact that ALF needs to materialize and talk to Neal. Neal tries to describe to ALF how wildly he and Margaret were just fucking each other’s brains out, but — oh rarest of rarities — ALF isn’t interested in hearing about it.

ALF tells Neal to pull his head out of his ass. In fact, because ALF was hiding in the car, he noticed that Neal kept unconsciously steering the vehicle into oncoming traffic. (Something we witness as well; it’s not a joke on ALF’s part.)

That’s a damned fucking dark thing for a family sitcom, and I admire it for that reason. It’s mildly insightful, and does a good job of revealing the kind of relationship Neal and Margaret have. Specifically the fact that it’s self-destructive, and unhealthy. And, yeah, we knew that already…but I like that the show went far enough to illustrate it that way.

Of course, if this were a better show, it would have tied this scene into Maxine’s speech at the beginning of the episode: two bad matches for Neal, both involving careless driving, both involving a fantastic creature (Mayan Warrior God or extra-terrestrial). A novelist would have used those parallels to great effect. An ALF writer would rather leave the office early and beat traffic.

Neal agrees that he shouldn’t re-marry Margaret. On the other hand there’s still six minutes left in the episode, so he’s going to do it anyway.

They have their number called and approach the…officator? I have no clue what this guy is called. I don’t even care. It’s just a chance to cram in a bunch of jokes about Vegas (a buffet, a free pull on the slots, an Elvis witness), and it feels half-assed. It seems a lot like the Vegas idea was penciled in much later on, because they’re certainly blowing through all of the mandatory references in a really compressed timeframe.

Oddly, to me, we hear “Ave Maria” piped in during the ceremony. Is that a common wedding song? Especially in a context like this, in which the ceremony (one would imagine) should be non-denominational? It’s a pretty expressly Catholic thing, isn’t it? I don’t think I’ve heard it at any weddings I’ve been to, but I’m usually pretty drunk and trying to get somebody’s cousin to sit on my lap.

Anyway, Neal gets cold feet and makes the excuse that he needs to run to the men’s room to jerk off.

Really, he does. Only he calls it “throwing himself a bachelor party.”

Later, when he returns to Margaret, she asks how the party was and he says that “nobody came.”

You know.

In case you didn’t get / weren’t disgusted enough by the joke the first time.

FUCK THIS SHOW

Neal heads out to the car, where ALF suggests they get some hookers to fuck. To the show’s unexpected credit, it avoids making a joke in which ALF misunderstands an ad for all-you-can-eat pussy.

Jim J. Bullock shoots for some ill-advised emotion, pretending to cry in a show about a hooker-crazed puppet monster. ALF briefly attempts to comfort him, and then suggests to Neal that he buy a gun and kill himself.

Do you remember when I thought this episode might be pretty good? I sure don’t.

Neal heads back into the chapel, which he and Margaret have to themselves now for some reason. They have a humorless little chat about how they shouldn’t get married, and then Margaret asks if they can still be friends. He says yes, in spite of the fact that they’re fatally toxic to each other and never seemed to get along in the first place and just sharing a car with her was enough to make him subconsciously want to kill them both.

The episode has the ghost of an arc for Neal — he goes from needing someone to speak for him to finally speaking for himself — but it’s not fleshed out at all. There’s a point A and a point B, which counts as progress for ALF, but no coherent journey between one and the other.

And while I appreciate the impulse to end the episode on an emotional note, it fails to resonate, because we don’t care about Neal and care even less about Margaret.

Does it matter if they get together? Not really.

Is anyone interested in their next steps? No, and even if they were, we’ll never see these people again. There are no next steps.

“Love on the Rocks” brought to an emotional conclusion a story we were never told. Watching it is kind of like tuning into the last few minutes of a show you’ve never seen; you get the feeling things are being wrapped up, even though you weren’t there to see them. But I watched this whole fucking thing, and it’s barely a story at all.

It gets an oddly sincere ending, with a welcome tinge of cynicism, but that’s it. The rest of the episode is just sort of…there, even if it does have some nicely observed family moments sprinkled throughout. As always, it was a couple of drafts away from anything worth filming.

As if realizing the episode doesn’t know what it’s about, Neal scampers off because he hears ALF playing the slots. Viva Lou Bega!!

In the short scene before the credits we learn that Neal took ALF to see Nudes on Ice, and they spanked each other off under Margaret’s forgotten parka.

Also, Kate says to Neal, “I still say you did the right thing,” about his decision not to re-marry Margaret. Willie sticks his nose in and tells his wife, “I just expressed that, honey.”

And, hey, what do you know? We get to end the episode with Willie being a giant dickbag after all.

Anyway, that’s it. A measly five episodes for this new character who got a two-parter introduction and two spotlight episodes.

Jim J. Bullock, as we’ve discussed, was a fairly big name at the time, and on the surface it looks like they treated his stature accordingly; after all, of the five episodes in which he appeared, he was relegated to supporting player status in only one of them. Watch the episodes, though, and tell me what you learn about Neal. Because if you learn anything at all, it’s more than I’ve learned about him.

The first episode was the one with Ridley‘s favorite title. “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s Willie’s Brother” spent all of its time introducing us to Neal, filling us in on his background, and…well, nothing else, really. It was an introduction to the character that told us nothing except that his fat pig of a wife left him, and also he shits a lot.

Then we had “The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face,” which was twenty minutes of foreplay before Neal met ALF. I remember nothing else about it. It was a pile of crap. Yet another two-parter in which the second part could have been condensed into the pre-credits tag at the end of part one.

He next made a token appearance in “Break Up to Make Up,” which was about somebody else’s failing marriage, and I think he was only there as part of some aborted effort to weave him into the show’s universe as a whole…you know, so that he could show up whenever, instead of just in episodes that were about him. It was a good impulse, so obviously the show didn’t follow through on that at all.

“Happy Together” had ALF moving in with him, which would have been a great way to finally develop his character in some way…but that never happened. It just raised more questions, with Neal vanishing without explanation all day, even though we’re told he works in his own building.

And now “Love on the Rocks,” which was garbage, but not without merit. None of those merits, however, involve turning Neal into a character anyone in his or her right mind would give a rat’s ass about. The little joke about him needing Willie to reject Margaret for him was nice…but as much as I’d like to read genuine character development into that, I can’t. It’s just another one-off detail that may or may not have anything to do with who the guy actually is.

He’s horny, he’s nerdy, he’s funny, he’s an idiot, he’s Willie’s brother with an age difference of 65 years, he’s a flaming homosexual we’re also meant to believe is a womanizer.

Who the fuck is he?

When he arrived on the show I asked myself one question, and I’m asking it again now: is he Cool Willie, or Mega Willie? Or is he just…Second Willie?

Part of the confusion comes from the fact that I also don’t know who in shit’s name Actual Willie is supposed to be…but, as you might have guessed, we’ll deal with that question at length soon enough.

Neal could have been anything, but in spite of driving four episodes of his own and wrapping his junk in a toga for a fifth, he’s still nothing. I picked out the “passive to a fault” detail and ran with it. Someone else might pick out the sex maniac detail and run with that. A third viewer will forever see him as the guy who hilariously burns through toilet paper. None of the things we’re told mean any more than the rest of the stuff we’re told, and it’s all just there. At no point does it add up to a character, and at no point can it. In order to assign an identity to Neal Tanner, we need to fixate on something and disregard the rest. In short, every viewer is already doing more work than the writers ever did.

I can’t blame Jim J. Bullock. God knows I’ve given the guy guff in his short time here, but…what else could he have done? A few actors have managed to elevate ALF‘s material, and I give them credit for that, but it’s not an expectation. The writers aren’t meeting anyone halfway, so if Jim J. Bullock flounders, that makes him no worse than most folks who got mired in this shitty show. He was hired for the same reason everyone else was hired: to stand quietly on a soundstage while a puppet calls him names.

He did as well as anyone would have done. You try playing a guy who’s supposed to look like a loser next to Max Wright and let me know how you fare.

Anyway, he’s gone now.

Out, out, brief candle! Bullock was but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his five weeks upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It was a tale told by an idiot with his hand inside of another idiot, full of sound and cat meat, signifying nothing.

If there’s one silver lining for Bullock, it’s that his final episode is by far his best one…and that was absolutely not the case for Jodie, Jake, Dr. Dykstra, or Mr. Ochmonek. I’m not going to miss Jim J. Bullock — or, well, anything — but at least his swansong hints at a hypothetically better integration of the character.

As it stands, he was a total writeoff, but “Love on the Rocks,” flawed though it certainly is, shows that he didn’t have to be. And that’s good to know. In a parallel universe, the ALF ‘n’ Neal: Murder Detectives spinoff is entering its 26th season.

I’m…really glad I don’t live there, actually.

Countdown to ALF being put down in front of the Tanners: 9 episodes

—–
* Casey, if you’re curious: it’s ALF who suggests a trip to the Liberace Museum…not Neal. Let this inform your readings of Larry and Balki as you see fit.

Fallout 4, and the Problem of Assholes

I wrote recently about one of the few true ethical dilemmas I found myself having to navigate in Fallout 4. It was a satisfying moment, if only because I couldn’t be satisfied. For the first time (at least, the first time that I noticed) I was not able to do things my way. And that was a good thing. The decided lack of satisfaction was more satisfying than the go-anywhere/do-anything open world had yet been. There was a beauty in the fact that this situation wasn’t as simple as I’d like it to be.

And, as I mentioned briefly in that earlier piece, it was accidental. This wasn’t an ethical conflict by design, like my Necropolis example from the original Fallout. No, this was a conflict born of circumstance. A few speech checks failed, against all odds. I’d sided with a certain faction that made the situation less straight forward. And I’d invested time (in-game) and empathy (personally) with The Minutemen, the group of interlopers that became my eventual sacrifice to the greater good.

Had any of those things been different, there wouldn’t have been an issue. I could have gotten, in theory at least, what I wanted, as I wanted to get it. I said all that before. But here’s the one additional complication I want to spotlight here, where I can give it a larger discussion: I was playing the game as a good guy.

Fallout 4 ditches the karma system from previous games, and that’s good, because it was never totally compatible with Bethesda’s approach to the franchise anyway. It was also an oddly cosmic concept for games that are otherwise fairly down to earth. Sure, killing an unarmed stranger in a remote corner of the map is a bad thing to do, but if nobody saw you do it, why do people you meet later treat you like a monster? The game knows you did something bad, but the other characters shouldn’t. (And don’t even get me started on the needless complications of New Vegas and its various faction reputations. A great idea in theory. A distracting and irrelevant mess on execution.)

People have given Fallout 4 guff for scrapping karma, but that was unquestionably a simplification in the right direction. It wasn’t an act of creative laziness…it was a recognition of the fact that the system never did was it was supposed to do anyway, and so instead of spinning out scripts and quests for various karmic branches, the designers streamlined the game and let players play in their own ways. Whatever one may think of this game’s particular execution of that simplification, that’s up for discussion. But the fact that it was simplified is a good thing.

Here’s the main reason that simplification was needed: in spite of the lip service paid to choice, you’re supposed to play these games as a good guy. That’s how the games are written, that’s how the games are designed, and that’s the only way they actually work.

This is especially apparent in Fallout 3‘s narrative arc. Spoilers, yes.

In Fallout 3, you are a character who sees for the first time — along with the player — the lengths to which people will go in order to survive in the Wasteland. It starts from the very beginning, in Vault 101, where a small community survives by shutting itself off from the dangers of the outside world. Importantly, the same metal door that keeps its residents safe inside strands others in danger, outside. When you enter the Wasteland early in the game, you see the skeletons of those who sought the safety of Vault 101, only to be turned away. Some of their signs remain, which they presumably held up to the security camera to convey the urgency of their plight. One says, “Help us.” Another reads, “We’re dying, assholes!”

They died there, inches from salvation because a conscious choice was made not to give it to them. Arguments could be made either way as far as “the right decision” goes, but there’s one central fact: Vault 101 was safe, and in order to remain safe it refused that safety to all others. They may have done the right thing…but they’re still assholes. It’s your earliest example of survival at all costs, and it’s one of the least cruel.

Throughout the game you meet murderers. Slavers. Cannibals. Raiders. Madmen. And every so often you encounter a little town…and steel yourself for the inevitable disappointment, the (often literal) skeletons in the closet. Some folks might be closer than others to living an ethical life, but they’re never more than one stolen item or threatening gesture away from pulling out a gun and killing somebody.

In the Wasteland, it’s kill or be killed. I understand that. The game is designed to convince us of that at every point, with every settlement we encounter, with every disemboweled corpse we stumble over, with every ironic reminder of just how far and how quickly civilization fell. You need to be the biggest and most dangerous fish in the (glowing) sea if you want to survive…and even then, an angry enough smaller fish can take you down. Nobody is safe. Nobody is secure. Everybody is on edge, and nobody is more than one wrong move away from having their life taken away.

Then you meet your father, James.

The search for your father is the main driving force of the first part of the game. He escaped Vault 101 shortly before you did. He never said goodbye. You don’t know where he is. You’re thrust into the Wasteland less experienced and less prepared than he is, but you need to find him. And as you scrounge for clues in and around post-war D.C., you learn something important:

He’s not an asshole.

James fled the vault and put himself in danger — two significant opposites to the behavior of almost everybody else you meet in the game — in order to assist with Project Purity, an ambitious experiment to provide clean drinking water to the residents of the Capital Wasteland.

All of them.

Every one of them.

The murderers, the slavers, the cannibals, the raiders, the madmen. The enemy.

Why?

Because among those, there are children. There are good-hearted people mired through no fault of their own in a life of violence and mistrust. There’s potential. There’s humanity out there, somewhere, even if neither you nor James ever really finds it, or at least there’s a chance that it exists…and James puts himself in mortal danger for the chance to keep it alive.

And he doesn’t just speak about idealism; he lives by it, and eventually dies by it.

If the first part of the game revolves around finding James, the second part revolves around helping him. Together you work to get Project Purity online. There are a series of small tasks that need doing…nothing at all compared to the Super Mutants and Death Claws you’ve fought to make it this far. If anything, this is easy. It’s a reward for having overcome so much. All you need to do is turn a few valves here, flip some switches there…

…until the project is interrupted by The Enclave.

The Enclave are Fallout 3‘s clear bad guys. They’re the very well armed and fairly well organized remnants of the U.S. Government, pumping propaganda through one of the few surviving radio stations while they gun down anyone they view as a threat to their authority…which is just about everybody.

They demand control of Project Purity. James doesn’t give it to them. They threaten to kill him. James beats them to the punch; he releases a flood of radiation into the room to kill the Enclave’s commanding officer…and, because there was no avoiding it, himself.

It was the only way to save the project.

Everybody else in the Wasteland does anything it takes to stay alive. James — your father — realizes that there’s a goal much more important and much larger than the survival of one man. In a world of selfishness, James is willing to sacrifice.

It’s a powerful moment, and probably the single most important thing that happens in Fallout 3.

The third part of the game is you following in your father’s footsteps…and it ends with you, too, sacrificing yourself for the good of the Wasteland.*

That is the arc of the game. And though you can choose not to sacrifice yourself, and to play the game as an evil character, that doesn’t change the emotional journey of the game…it just renders it irrelevant. You’re supposed to play it this way, but you can choose to play it some other way. Should you do that, though, Fallout 3 loses its entire ethical framework. You’re left with a game in which you can kill people and fight monsters and scrounge for cool weapons, but that’s any game. Fallout 3 relies on its story as its identity, and it’s a good one…but that story only has meaning if you’re good, too.

You can’t blame Fallout 3 for being weighted toward good characters. Those, after all, are the only ones who can face ethical dilemma. Being called an asshole only matters if you aren’t actually an asshole. It only hurts if you’re trying not to be an asshole. “Asshole” only has meaning, that is to say, when you’re working really damned hard to be an asshole’s opposite.

And when Fallout 4** came out, the lack of a karma system made sense. Only by treating the character the same — regardless of what his or her past actions were — could it force all players into a single, coherent story, as opposed to one in which some stuff happened while you were out murdering innocents.

Only “good” characters can face ethical dilemmas because only “good” characters can feel conflicted.

Whether it’s a situation like the one I described recruiting a scientist for The Institute — which is a dilemma that must be faced in the moment — or a situation in which the ethical “right” answer had the logistical “wrong” result, only a “good” character would care.

A “bad” character lies, steals, and kills to get what he or she wants. Unintended consequences (or…erm…”fallout”) don’t mean anything. How could they? You were perfectly willing to spill blood. Spilling more blood, however unexpected that extra blood may have been, doesn’t challenge your ethics. You overrode those before you set the gory dominoes into motion. You chose to be an asshole; revealing yourself to be a bigger asshole does not add retroactive meaning to your actions.

Good characters face ethical crises when things go from bad to worse, or when good intentions result in terrible outcomes. Bad characters could, in theory, face an ethical crisis if their intended bad behavior led to a good outcome, but it’s hard to imagine what that might be, as it’d have to be something that both that player and “good” players recognize as a good outcome.

It’s difficult to think of examples. Perhaps by robbing a bank you’d unwittingly cause a customer to realize how short life is, and he’d run out and build an orphanage, but that’s a tortured example, and I’m pretty sure most of them would have to be.

I’m open to suggestions on how something like this might work, but it’s safe to say that Fallout 3 wasn’t interested in those possibilities. All of its crises are built around “good” behavior. “Bad” behavior leads to a few unique situations, quests, and items, but nothing at all by way of ethical crisis. Play as a “good” character, though, and you get them one right after another.

Here are a few of the ethical shitstorms I had to face in Fallout 3…two of which were scripted, and one of which was naturally occurring by virtue of the game’s strong ethical throughline:

– Upon arriving in Megaton, a large and fairly secure community, I’m approached by a man who offers to pay me handsomely to destroy the town by detonating a bomb at its center. I refuse the offer, and tell the sheriff — a good man named Lucas Simms who keeps the residents under his watch completely safe — and the sheriff confronts the man…who shoots him and kills him, and strolls off without consequence. Ethically the right decision, logistically the worst outcome.

– I discover Tenpenny Tower, a secure high-rise catering to the relative upper crust of the Wasteland. They don’t allow ghouls — highly irradiated humans with a zombie-like appearance — inside. One ghoul is fed up with it, and plans to attack Tenpenny Tower to give his people a secure place to live. I convince him to back down, and diplomatically convince Tenpenny Tower to voluntarily let them move in. Things are great…until I come back and find that the revolutionary ghoul who wanted in has murdered all of the non-ghoul residents over a perceived slight. Ethically the right decision, logistically the worst outcome.

– There’s a shanty village called Arefu. The residents don’t leave their homes because they’re afraid of a gang of humans who drink blood. I find the gang and convince them to stop terrorizing the residents of Arefu. Now those innocent townsfolk can wander outside their homes again. They thank me, because for the first time in a long time, they feel safe. I return a few days later to find that a radscorpion has made it into town, and it kills the residents one by one while I try to take it down. There are no survivors…but there would have been lots, if I hadn’t convinced them it was safe to go outdoors. Ethically the right decision, logistically the worst outcome.

But those are all from Fallout 3. I could throw in plenty more from the original Fallout. (I haven’t played Fallout 2 enough to say much about that one.) Fallout 4 had…almost nothing. It was a game of choice instead of one of dilemma. It was a game of physical conflict as opposed to psychological conflict.

And I wonder if that’s because it is so difficult to craft ethical dilemma in open world games. Fallout 3 did it if you ask me…but I played the game as a “good” character. I’ve had others tell me that the story was “barely there” in that game. Invariably, they also happened to play as “bad” characters.

Maybe in Fallout 4 the emphasis switched to gunfire over careful thinking, and ethical dilemma wasn’t a natural fit for that, so the developers discarded it. Or maybe the developers realized that well-thought-out ethical dilemmas would be completely missed by at least half of the people playing the game, and therefore emphasized gunfire over careful thinking.

Either is possible, and both are disappointing.

The problem in Fallout 3 — and to a far lesser extent New Vegas — was that playing as a bad character removed all ethical obstacles from the playing field. Fallout 4 made the decision to treat everyone, instead, like a neutral character. People could do bad things without consequence, and do good things without complication. They were neither proud nor disappointed at being called assholes, because the game featured no characters who would call them one.

A simplification was the right decision, but logistically it had the worst outcome.

—–
* I’m ignoring the Broken Steel DLC, which idiotically resurrects you and says, “Hey, go kill more things.” It’s a pretty substantial narrative fuck-you, brought about by one of the worst trends in modern gaming: asking players to pay several times for the same experience.

** New Vegas is barely being touched here because that game was handled by another developer, and was more tailored — by design — to the player’s ethical compass of choice. The theme of the game is less “living up to your father’s legacy” and more “shaping the world in your own image.” It’s a joyously selfish experience, so I’m leaving it out because it’s irrelevant, and not because I think it isn’t worthy of discussion. On the subject of ethics, though? I sure did kill folks for their Sunset Sarsaparilla Star bottlecaps. And when I finally had enough to redeem, I had my ethical shitstorm itch firmly and deeply scratched.