Good morning my Glibs and Gliberinas! And what a glorious morning it is for everyone except for those living in Jefferson City Missouri who were wiped out by a tornado.
“Sergeant Brown, since it’s going to be a while may I go inside and use the bathroom,” asked Ramesh.
“Sure,” said Brown. “Just stay on the First Floor.”
“I’ll keep an eye on him,” said Murphy.
They walked through the glass doors and into the building lobby. Behind the empty security desk a grimy Panasonic CRT monitor slowly cycled through different security camera feeds. They reached the elevators and Murphy paused.
“You going to be long,” asked Murphy.
“No,” said Ramesh feeling as if he was eight years old on a roadtrip with his parents.
Murphy stopped to read the Vandersnatch Building directory signboard. Ramesh hurried past Murphy, grateful that his surveillance didn’t extend to pee breaks.
Ramesh returned to the lobby with his badge better mounted so as to flash out from behind his jacket as he walked. He found Murphy smoking a cigarette in defiance of the “No Smoking” sign posted in the lobby just above a well-used ashtray.
“Damn, this place has gone downhill. Cryptid Quarterly, Tinfoil Times, ReptilianWatch, Orgone Research Foundation – whatever the fuck that is. I remember when Thought! was the most crackpot thing here. Back when your fashion and lifestyle magazines were still here, before the wacko crowd started moving in.”
Ramesh’s curiosity was piqued. What the fuck was an Orgone? He pulled out his phone to look it up on the internet.
“Hey kid, I’m gonna go drop a deuce. You going to stay here or go back outside?”
“I’ll go back outside,” mumbled Ramesh without looking up from his phone.
“Okay.”
While Ramesh was lost in his research he became vaguely aware of someone else in the lobby. His eyes flicked up and he saw a man pushing a housekeeping cart towards the back of the lobby. Ramesh returned to his phone. Reich was a badass. Kicked out of the Communist party, books banned and burned by the Nazis, kicked out of the psychiatric association, then the whole Orgone thing. The FDA enforcement action against Reich sounded like the type of crusading work his boss did, but they’d never get a ruling that sweeping today.
“Yep, they sure puthimthrough the spice grinder,” said a voice in Gujarati.
Ramesh started then looked around. The man pushing the maintenance cart was now facing him as he towed the cart through a door at the rear of the lobby; it was the shaman from the bad production number which had started this whole thing, now dressed in khaki slacks and mustard uniform polo embroidered with a sun logo. The shaman disappeared through the doorway, followed by the cart, and the door swung quickly shut and clanked.
Ramesh sprinted to the door. He worked the bar and charged the door only to have it open a few inches then stop, jammed by something. Ramesh looked through the opening and saw the landing of a stairway. The cleaning cart had been placed so as to impede his progress. He stuck his hand through the door and rotated the cart so it would allow the door open wider. He pushed the door open as far as it would go and slid sideways through the doorway to find himself at the top of a stairwell with cinderblock walls, concrete floors and stairs, and metal railings and trim. The stairwell was lit with dim yellow lights in metal cages. Ramesh headed down.
He reached a landing where the walls changed from cinderblock to dark gray stone blocks, black stone stair treads with noticeable wear at the centers replaced steel-edged concrete, and the railings became more ornamental and antique looking. On the landing floor was a camel scrotum leather pouch with a flap closure – a purse. His instincts, honed by countless hours of dungeon crawling games, kicked in and he scooped up the purse.
A powder flask made from a camel scrotum.
He trotted down the next flight of steps to a landing with a door. Ramesh grabbed the handle and gave it a turn – it was locked. Maybe the key was in the purse. He opened the flap and looked inside, he didn’t see anything. He shook, then palpated the scrotum but felt nothing inside. Finally he turned the purse upside down and tapped it out. A small cascade of sand, dust and fluff tumbled to the floor, but no key.
The only thing he could do was continue downwards. He descended to the next landing and turned the corner to see a tall, thin table made of carved rosewood atop which lay a silvery plastic tray containing a small lavender colored packet – a Twinings Darjeeling teabag. He opened the purse and dropped the packet inside.
After the next flight down he reached a large metal door without a handle or keyhole. The center of the door was dimpled outward. The area where one would expect the handle to be had been reinforced with plates to deny access to the slit between the door and its frame and to cover the area where the lock mechanism presumably was. There was a yellowed sign on the door – “Absolutely NO Thought! Magazine Interns Past This Point. -R Kestrel, ed.” The sign had been adorned with a penis graffito.
The purse and the teabag had obviously been left for him to find, and were somehow related to his getting through the door. The logical thing was to put the packet inside the purse, which he had already done. He opened the flap and peered inside. Nothing discernible had happened. He had no water and no heat source, hence no means of making tea. He removed the packet and tore it open and found that it contained the expected teabag. He dropped the teabag back into the purse and closed it and squeezed it. Again, nothing.
And then it dawned on him that he was being trolled to no lesser a degree than his boss had been. The teabag was a clue, not an artifact. He rubbed the purse on his forehead, first shyly, then more enthusiastically. He had, after all, gone to Woodberry Forest, and wasn’t one of the athletic or popular boys; he was no stranger to the feel of a scrotum on his forehead.
Suddenly he heard the vocalizations of a langur monkey and felt something stiff and bony moving around inside the purse. Ramesh shrieked and reflexively dropped the purse and stepped back. The purse hit the floor, lay still for a moment and began pulsating. The flap opened slowly, and a small furry hand emerged crawling on its fingers and pulling the stump of its lower arm behind. The monkey paw was mostly mummified, yet some fleshy parts remained and those were in a liminal state between putridity and mummification; two small jagged bones poked out of the stump. The paw picked up steam and swarmed up Ramesh’s leg and onto his shoulder finally hopping up onto his head where it started grooming his scalp with its nails.
Unbidden, a childhood memory rose up from the depths of his mind, and he blurted out a nursery rhyme he had been taught by Bhagavaandaas, the old man who lived in a lean-to built against the outside wall of his family’s compound in Gujarat. The old man had no discernable job, yet was respected by all. He sat outside his house all day and received visitors with whom he had long, quiet conversations and served tea. Once young Ramesh had learned that it was only okay to approach the old man between visitors he found that Bhagavaandaas was an endless source of tales.
Monkey Paw, Monkey Paw,
Be now my servant.
Monkey Paw Monkey Paw,
And me defend.
At that, the Paw did a little dance across Ramesh’s shoulder, then ran down his leg and over to the door. The Paw then turned around and ran back to lie down beside Ramesh’s foot. Its small hand formed into a fist and the Paw twitched then went limp.
The Paw was telling him he needed to knock on the door. Kind of obvious, but whatever. He picked up the Paw and the purse from the floor and dropped the Paw into into the purse. He heard the sound of a monkey shriek and the teabag and its wrapping came flying out of the purse and fluttered down to the floor. Apparently the Paw was particular about its lodgings. He looked down at the teabag and wrapper and tried to decide what, if anything, to do with them. The decision was made for him as they became first translucent, then transparent, then disappeared altogether. He approached the door and heard muffled voices coming from inside. Ramesh raised his hand and rapped twice with his knuckles. He waited, but nothing happened. He balled his hand into a fist and beat on the door four times, producing a loud booming which echoed through the stairwell. Still nothing.
Ah, he needed to use the Paw to knock on the door. Ramesh retrieved the Paw from the scrotum, and held it so as to knock on the door. The Paw was not cooperating – the wrist was limp and the hand was no longer formed into a fist. He waved the Paw at the door causing the nails to scritch on the door to the accompaniment of an angry series of monkey barks.
The Paw was totally being a bitch, but that was the nature of tulpas; they were not mere automatons like golems, but had agency. Ramesh had first heard the word “tulpa” during a Cultural Anthropology course at William and Mary, long after Bhagavaandaas was dead. The old man had given him a thorough education about tulpas and Ramesh had thought it was merely a bunch of rhymes and stories. He decided to wheedle the Paw.
Monkey Paw, Monkey Paw,
Open the Door,
Monkey Paw, Monkey Paw,
Give me good luck.
The Paw formed into a fist and thrashed five times, miming a fist knocking on a door, then paused, then thrashed twice more. Each thrash of the wee fist was followed by the sound of a hearty rap on the door. “Tap, tappa, tap-tap… tap-tap.”
The door opened and Ramesh found himself face to face with a Troll, a Troll like in The Hobbit. The Troll was doing a dope deal with a chunky young Korean dude.
“Oh shit, the cops,” shrieked the dude.
And at that moment Ramesh remembered that he was wearing a badge.
The more Americans talk about socialism, the more the word becomes drained of any functional meaning. Some blame for that belongs to Republicans, who have spent decades hurling socialist as an epithet at anything to the left of a Kiwanis Club meeting. But some also lies with Bernie Sanders, who brought the term roaring back to life with his presidential campaign in 2016. The trouble was that while the senator called himself a “democratic socialist,” his platform mostly consisted of expanding the welfare state and more strictly regulating big banks. Those goals were completely compatible with, well, capitalism.
That’s why, despite being a mushy, center-left type myself, I was excited to read The Socialist Manifesto. The book’s author, Bhaskar Sunkara, is the founding editor of Jacobin, a quarterly political magazine that has become the house organ of America’s far-left boomlet over the past decade. And the book’s tagline promises “the case for radical politics in an era of extreme inequality.” Here, I figured, was a work that would plant a flag on the irksome question of what socialism actually is, and mount an argument for why we need it.
What I got instead was a book that mostly dwells on how socialist movements have failed throughout history, either falling short of their goals or descending into nightmarish authoritarianism. Even Sweden, famous for its generous welfare state, is treated as a cautionary tale. “The best we can say about socialism in the twentieth century is that it was a false start,” Sunkara writes. Out of this dismal track record, Sunkara tries to draw lessons about how today’s radical leftists can do better, but the result is not always inspiring. A more fitting title might have been The Socialist Manifesto: Let’s Try to Get It Right This Time.
An article splitting the finest of hairs to show the supposed yawning difference between two stupid ideas.
Lawyers hired to investigate racist content in Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbooks could not definitively say whether Gov. Ralph Northam appeared in the infamous blackface and KKK picture in the 1984 edition.
But a report released Wednesday says two EVMS presidents, including current president Richard Homan, were told about the racist photo while Northam was running for political offices and decided not to make it public.
“We understand President Homan’s reasoning was EVMS should not become involved, or be seen to become involved, in an election as it is a public body and a public institution, and that EVMS did not not want there to be any suggestion that it had tried to influence Governor Northam in any respect by calling the photograph to his attention,” the document says.
The Norfolk medical school released the findings from Richmond law firm McGuire Woods in the form of a 36-page report.
In one case, the school’s alumni affairs director noticed the photo while preparing for a reunion and was “shocked” by it, the report says. EVMS officials decided not to put the 1984 yearbook on a table with other years’ editions. The McGuire Woods lawyers say they do not know when that occurred.
“The EVMS personnel who became aware of the photograph expressed surprise and disappointment in the photograph,” the report says.
Virginia is having a “Bitch set me up!” moment. Maybe Congress can have an investigation. Really grill the governor about every line in the yearbook on TV. After all, the past is nothing but a catalog of your crimes.
Nearly 500 search warrants. Think of that, a search warrant. Did you ever see a search warrant before? Neither did I. This was over 500 search warrants.
Really? Donald Trump has never seen a search warrant before?
And of the 19 people that were heading up this investigation — or whatever you want to call it — with Bob Mueller, they were contributors to the Democrat Party, most of them, and to Hillary Clinton. They hated President Trump. They hated him with a passion. They went to her big party after the election that turned out to be a wake, not a party. It was a wake. And they were very angry.
Talking about himself in the third person past tense. And he’s just all over the place.
They would have loved to have said we colluded. They would have loved it. These people were out to get us, the Republican Party and President Trump. They were out to get us. This was a one-sided, horrible thing.
Talks about himself in the third person again. And is possibly employing the royal we.
They want to interview — Jerry Nadler, who’s been an enemy of mine for many years. He fought me in New York unsuccessfully, by the way. I’ve had great success against Jerry. But he was representing Manhattan, and he would fight me all the time on the West Side railroad yards many times, very unsuccessfully. He failed.
I know this isn’t what he means, but the idea of Donald and Nadler bare-knuckle fighting in a shadowy railyard is very pleasing to me. The scene is lit only by trash fires in barrels. A small group of classic hobos is passing a bottle back and forth. The combatants are both crying, snot running down their faces. Donald and Nadler and the hobos all take off running when the police drive up. So pleasing.
“It’s always got to be abortion with the fucking rednecks,” the hat said, scrolling through Donald’s Twitter feed.
“They feel that abortion is a form of murder,” the hair said calmly.
“Donald?” the hat called. “Are you done in there?”
“Oh, leave him alone,” the hair said. “You know going to Pennsylvania always binds him up.”
“We’ve got a meeting with Mr. Mustache in twenty minutes.”
“He knows.”
“Maybe instead of invading Iran, Bolton can get his rocks off by carpet bombing Alabama.”
“Since when did you get all pro-choice?” the hair asked.
“I’m not pro-choice, I’m pro-everyone shutting the fuck up. Religious idiots spouting piety over babies they don’t really give a shit about and ugly shouting dykes that no one would ever fuck in the first place fighting for a right they’ll never need. It’s tedious. And, worse, it’s boring. I’m anti-boredom.”
“But what about…” the hair started.
“It’s a distraction, nothing else!” the hat said, slapping his bill forcefully on the Resolute desk.
Donald emerged from the Presidential Shitter sweating and grimacing, in only his undershirt and boxer, shoes on, dress socks held erect by tiny calf-garters.
“No one go in there,” he said, his voice raspy.
“We weren’t planning to,” the hair said dryly.
“Why aren’t you dressed? We have a security council meeting in 18 minutes,” the hair said.
“Hadda take it off,” Donald said. “Needed the traction.”
“Traction?” the hair asked.
“What do you want to tweet about abortion?” the hat asked.
“Why?” Donald asked, narrowing his eyes. “Who’s pregnant? I never touched her.”
“The Alabama bill, Donald,” the hat said. “What is your official reaction?”
“Abortions are too expensive. We need to lower the costs,” Donald said. “I could have bought a nice car on what I spent on Ivanka alone.” He walked back into the bathroom.
“Uh, Donald, I don’t think…” the hair started.
“Bring abortion jobs back to America!” Donald said, reappearing in the door. He leaned against the jamb and tried to get his pants on.
“Donald,” the hair said gently, “Alabama has banned abortion.”
“Who said they could do that?” Donald asked suspiciously. With one leg in, he tried to balance himself to lift the other in to put on his pants. He wobbled a bit and farted and grunted and mumbled a curse.
“The Alabama legislature voted,” the hat said.
“Idiots,” Donald said. “Abortion is the backbone of our economy. We should slap a tariff on foreign abortions.”
“I, yeah, don’t, uh, think,” the hair stuttered.
“35% tariff!’ Donald said, buttoning his shirt. “Let the ABORTION WARS BEGIN!”
“Donald, lower your voice,” the hair admonished.
“Every abortion should be an American abortion!” Donald declared.
The hat groaned.
Donald tucked his shirt into his pants, straightened his tie, pulled on his suit jacket and held his arms out to the side. “How do I look?”
“Fine, Donald,” the hair said. You look fine.”
“Make Abortion Great Again!” Donald declared as he marched out of the Oval Office.
Nevada gives a middle finger to its own voters. It’s going to be hilarious when this backfires and Nevada and Colorado and all the other blue states who are voting in similar bills are forced to give up their electoral votes to someone they detest like say, I don’t know, Trump.
We begin with Mel drinking alone in her bed. Her sisters come in and tell her she can’t keep hiding out and sulking, she needs to go face the world. I would like to remind them that due to her fucking with the fabric of time and space, Mel now no longer has a job, so what reason is there, really, for her to get out and face the world? Perhaps hunting for a new job, but lol, of course they don’t suggest that. They just want her to be social, because I guess the house they inherited from their hippie mother was mortgage-free, and no one’s taken capital gains tax or property tax or utilities or groceries or anything like that into consideration.
Mel drunkenly slurs that she hasn’t just been self-medicating and wallowing in self-pity; she’s been doing research, goddammit. She’s found a lead on the marks that were found on their mother’s and the other dead Elders’ bodies. They’re called Lichtenberg figures. Macy, being a Scientist, has heard of these. They’re associated with high-voltage electricity and are found on people or places that have been struck by lightning.
The cops saw these marks on Dead Hippie Mom’s body and didn’t think anything of it…?
Mel found 893 demons in the Book of Shadows associated with electricity and/or lightning, which makes it difficult to narrow down Whodunit. Is that what we’re doing now? Is this some sort of magical crime procedural, and we’re looking for demonic suspects? I don’t understand how the logic on this show works.
Anyway, we don’t have time to worry about stuff like that. What we need is a good old-fashioned girls’ night out. Because Mel hasn’t been doing enough drinking. So Macy and Maggie drag her out of bed and haul her off to the thematically-named Haunt, a Halloween-themed bar that they’ve apparently been going to all this time but this is the first time we’ve heard of it. Maggie toasts her sisters, calling them bitches. Mel finds this offensive from a feminist perspective, but Maggie is like, “No, it’s code! Since I can’t say the W-word.”
Wamen?
Harry (who’s suddenly there—wasn’t this supposed to be a girls’ night?) comments that he will miss their inane chatter once the Elders deem that it’s time for him to move out of their house. Mel asks if this will be soon, since they have the Book of Shadows back now. Why…?
Why am I even asking why?
Maggie takes the opportunity to pout about how it’s Initiation Week, and if she hadn’t gotten kicked out of Kappa, she’d have been a full-fledged sister soon. Mel takes the opportunity to remind her that Greek life is toxic. I take the opportunity to remind you all that Maggie’s supposed to be a freshman and here she is in yet another bar drinking alcoholic beverages with her sisters (and Harry). Macy takes the opportunity to remind the viewers that also, Friendzone was marked by a demon and she can’t find the mark in the Book of Shadows. Harry takes the opportunity to warn her that there have been several recent instances of humans being marked by demons as “part of a seemingly larger plan.”
Okay.
Now that we’re done reminding everybody about what happened last episode, the waitress comes by with the check and Mel, whose shirt is inside out because so great is her depression, asks someone to pay for her because being jobless also means she’s money-less, the first acknowledgment of money this show has made. Harry tells her that he learned about an opening in the administrative department at the university and that he pulled some strings and got her an interview. Mel groans about this being a glorified secretarial job and it’s so sexist that she as a waman is expected to fill such a stereotypically “traditionally female” job. Everyone tells her she needs a job/to get out of the house and to shut the fuck up.
While she grumbles that she’ll go to the interview but that doesn’t mean she’ll deign to take the job, Regina George and the other Plastics strut in and give Maggie the bitch stare. Maggie decides to bring them a pitcher of skinny mojitos as a peace offering. Regina George dumps it out over Maggie’s head. Mel freezes time before the liquid makes contact with Maggie, though. Maggie tells her to let her take her punishment like a good little bitch. Macy intervenes by moving the pitcher slightly so that when time unfreezes, it looks like Regina just missed, and the booze dumps out all over Maggie’s boots instead of her head. Regina says “I meant to do that” and does this really weird thing where she makes the OK gesture, but with both hands in front of her face like a Junior Birdman or something.
Is this white supremacy?
After the sisters leave, Gretchen admonishes Regina that she is forgetting the Kappa motto: WWGPD? Regina responds that even Gwyneth Paltrow has her limits.
Real Dialogue Alert: That was the real dialogue.
Karen tells Regina that her vibe has seemed way off recently, and that she needs to find her zen, stat (Real Dialogue Alert). Regina takes this advice to heart, returning to the house and searching through a storage closet through the 80,000 ritual candles for something scented and calming. She needs some damn serenity. (RDA) Near the back of the shelf, she encounters an ornate blue ceramic candlestick, which she takes to… the Buddhist temple in the basement of the Kappa house? What the fuck is this? There’s like a mosaic tile fountain in the background and palm trees and dildo candelabras and shit.
Anyway, she lights the weird candle, sits down in the lotus position, and then the greatest scene of the entire series ensues, as the peaceful flute music playing in the background is interrupted by her taking out her AirPods, looking up at the ceiling from which loud voices and thrumming bass can be heard, and screeching, “KEEP IT DOWN, BETCHES, I’M GETTING MY ZEN ON IN HERE!”
Seriously, all of you saying that Regina George is the true hero of this series? I think you’re right.
She settles back in for a good, peaceful omm, and the lights flicker. A ghostly specter emerges from the candle, flying around Regina in circles before soaring out of the room and flying all over the house, knocking over knickknacks and causing general mayhem before settling into the TV. Ah, so now the Kappa house is possessed, excellent.
Over at the Generic Science Lab, a crew of Walmart employees is moving in a bunch of boxes as Macy comes in the door. She’s approached by an aging bald white man named Dr. Kevorkian or Dr. Gregorian or something like that, who hands her a clipboard with a waiver for a blood test mandated by the new sponsors of the lab, the Walton Family of Epigenetic Demon Guys. Purportedly this is a drug test, but since Epigenetic Demon Guy said last episode he wanted Charmed One DNA samples, we know better than that.
Across the lab, Friendzone is speaking to one of the Walmart employees. As they talk, he lifts up his shirt to scratch his side. Macy sees that the not-succubus mark on him is glowing and getting brighter. She texts Harry, who tells her that she needs to stick close to Friendzone and watch out for demonic activity. Thus, she invites herself to his birthday party. Friendzone tries to explain to Macy the concept of “you’re not invited, though.” She tells him she’ll bake something for the occasion.
Over at the Kappa house, the doorbell rings. Regina George answers it to find Maggie standing there wearing whatever the fuck this is:
I think what pisses me off the most about this is the choker
Regina tries to explain to Maggie the concept of “I don’t ever want to see you again.” Maggie, like a true stalkery ex-girlfriend, tells Regina that she’s never going to give up. Through the television screen, I try to explain to Regina the concept of a Persona Non Grata form, and how campus police can be summoned if she tries to break it. Before I can finish my sentence, Go-Go’s-era Belinda Carlisle appears behind Regina’s shoulder tells Maggie she needs to leave. Instead of acknowledging that she’s not wanted here, Maggie drags Belinda’s 80s Chic fashion sense, almost as if she hasn’t seen herself in the mirror today, and demands to know who she is. Regina reminds Maggie that Belinda is a Kappa sister—a very important one. Well, obviously. If she’s ever been in a grocery store, she’s heard Belinda’s dulcet tones over the loudspeaker. Does she or does she not remember that heaven is a place on Earth?
But Maggie has never seen Belinda before! Dun dun dunnnnn
With Maggie neatly disposed of, Belinda leads Regina into the TV room, asking her if she’s psyched for Hell Week. You know, all this stuff that the sorority on this show does is fraternity stuff, by the way. Good fucking luck hazing your pledges with National Panhellenic Conference looming over your shoulders. But regardless, HELL WEEK PUNS! Regina is like, “YASSS KWEEN!” (Real Dialogue Alert.) She goes to high-five Belinda, who fritzes out like a bad VHS recording, but Regina doesn’t notice.
Wait, you guys don’t think Belinda Carlisle is a demon, do you?
Back at the sisters’ house, Maggie is laptop surfing instead of helping Mel pick out an outfit for her secretary (ugh) interview. When Mel calls her out on it, Maggie tells her that she thinks something is up at Kappa.
Mel: “Agreed. They’re internalizing the patriarchy, for starters.” (Real Dialogue Alert)
Maggie explains that Belinda can’t be a real Kappa sister, because during her first week as a pledge she had to memorize the names of all the active sisters (+ their majors + favorite order at Starbucks) and she wasn’t one. But no worries, after 30 seconds of searching with only a first name to go on, she finds a newspaper scan revealing that Belinda was a freshman who died after drinking too many wine coolers and falling off the roof of the Kappa house back in 1989.
Belinda is a ghost?! What?! Wouldn’t have guessed that! Dun dun dunnnnnnn
Harry warns them that ghosts can be more dangerous than demons. (Which reminds me, Harry, what about you??) Mel and Maggie head off to go consult Magical Siri about the ghost, which should take about 30 seconds considering this show’s track record. While they handle that, Harry offers to escort Macy to Friendzone’s party in an attempt to make it less awkward. Yeah, that will work.
As predicted, Mel and Maggie find the spell they need instantly. In order to exorcise the ghost, they have to find the moment from her life that’s keeping her tied to this world. They perform the spell, which sends them back in time to the Hilltowne University of 1989, which looks a little something like this:
But it’s not all bad, there’s also this:
Mel is extremely triggered by this display, by the way. It’s an “Aerobics for Alzheimer’s” charity. Maggie comments that the campus now holds a “Pilates for Poverty” charity that’s the same idea. Mel rages that it’s a farce of a fundraiser designed specifically for the male gaze, so creepy frat guys can ogle them. Maggie says it’s not like that now. Mel gives her a “Bitch, please” face. I guess Mel has forgotten that she’s a lesbian and thus this display is also for her benefit.
Across the quad, Maggie spots Belinda and hurries over to find her in the midst of an argument with 1989’s Regina George. 1989!Regina tells Belinda that she’s no longer a pledge of Kappa, something she thought she made very clear on her answering machine, okay? (RDA) Kappas combine the class of Princess Di with the sass of Duchess Fergie, and Belinda SO does not. (RDA) Belinda says she thought that was a pledge prank. 1989!Regina tells her she’d never be so cruel to a pledge, but Belinda’s not one anymore, so it’s okay. When Belinda blinks at her, 1989!Regina explains, “Brenda, you’re bugging, and it’s skeeving the whole chapter out.” (RDA) I think that clears everything right up.
This interesting excursion into the darkest corners of 80s slang is interrupted when Maggie and Mel spot Dead Hippie Mom, now currently not dead and, in fact, just about to pop with Macy, sitting on a bench across the quad beside the living Portrait of Señora de Urcola in a Black Mantilla. Dead Hippie Mom is telling the Señora about a recent checkup she had, in which the obstetrician assured her that everything was fine, but the obstetrician doesn’t know, you know? The Señora assures her that it doesn’t matter that she’s a witch (so I guess the Señora is also one), she just has first-time mom jitters. No, Dead Hippie Mom responds; remember, she’s not just a witch, but a witch who can see the future. And she has an unshakable feeling that there’s something wrong—really wrong—with the baby.
Dun dun duuuuu—
Are they in front of a green screen? Is a green screen really necessary for a bench in a park?
As Maggie and Mel stare slack-jawed at their mother, Belinda runs away from 1989!Regina George, passing through them with that same VCR-glitch effect, and the sisters are sent back to the future. Whoopsie! By getting distracted by their mom, they missed out on the rest of the conversation that was supposed to tell them what was keeping Belinda trapped here on Earth. Unless, you know, it really was the whole “bugging and skeeving” thing.
But it’s okay, because Maggie turns the page in the Book of Shadows, and since on the next page it talks about banshees, she decides that this means Belinda is a banshee. I’m sorry, what is your evidence for this? Have you heard her screaming and wailing to wake the dead? Has her appearance heralded the death of someone else? Has her screaming and wailing caused someone to die? Has she, with one crook of her bony finger, summoned the Cóiste Bodhar? The only thing we possibly have to go on is that the real Belinda Carlisle is a singer, and guess what, that’s just my code name for her! This bitch is actually named Brenda Mancini, so so much for that.
Mel thinks it would be just desserts if they didn’t banish the Belinda Banshee, because, being a feminist who supports other wamen, she thinks the Kappas deserve to be punished for not conforming to her ideals of wamenhood. Maggie ignores her, snapping a picture of the banishing spell on her phone like the uncanny millennial that she is, and they head off to save the day.
Meanwhile, Macy and Harry have arrived at Friendzone’s party. Harry is literally dressed like Harry Potter. Since Macy burned her pie earlier, Harry has come bearing Welsh rarebit. This elicits all sorts of jokes of the high caliber you’ve come to expect from this show. But never fear! Friendzone’s Practically Perfect in Every Way new girlfriend, Summer, runs over squealing, “Welsh rarebit? I practically lived on the stuff during my semester abroad at Cambridge!”
Jesus CHRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIST
RAREBIT WITH AN ENGLISH ACCENT SOUNDS LIKE RABBIT DO U GET IT
Summer gushes to Macy that Harry is a keeper. Harry and Macy awkwardly stammer that they’re friends! Just friends! Just friends, I swear. Just friends. As Summer backs slowly away from them, Macy asks Harry if he thinks that went well. Harry responds, “I wouldn’t know. I’m British, awkward is kind of our thing.”
Real Dialogue Alert: That was—
Across the room, Friendzone is changing a lightbulb (?), conveniently making his shirt go up. Macy points out the demon mark, but Harry can’t see it, just like Maggie couldn’t last episode. Before he can comment further on this, Summer darts into the frame, glaring at Macy for staring at Her Man. Are we still sure she’s not a succubus?
Later, Macy is admiring all the photos of Friendzone that Summer assembled for the party. In one of them, he’s hugging his grandma, who is wearing a cowrie shell necklace. Macy realizes that the mark she’s seeing on Friendzone looks like a stylized cowrie shell. Friendzone comes over, sees her looking at the picture, and takes the opportunity to brag about his marginalized backgrounds: Haitian, Dominican, Puerto Rican, you name an island in the Caribbean Sea and he’s got a relative from there. And also pirates. Arrrrr—
Summer interrupts this fascinating discussion, sending Friendzone off to deal with yet another maintenance issue (what kind of dump did he rent for this party, anyway?) and telling Macy to Back the Fuck Off Her Man. Macy starts whimpering and tells Harry she wants to leave. Harry protests that they’re about to start karaoke, but one death glare from Macy puts the wayward Whitelighter back in his place. No joy for you, Harry.
Meanwhile, Maggie and Mel are breaking into the Kappa house. Once inside, they find the house dark and all active sisters locked in a closet, bound and gagged. Maggie frees Gretchen, who informs her that that “that crazy bitch” Belinda did this to them and then kidnapped Regina George. The other Kappas affirm that they’d never seen Belinda before, meaning that Regina George is the only one Belinda had somehow mind-controlled into believing she was a Kappa. Gretchen and Karen explain that they heard Belinda saying she was going to use Regina to get revenge on someone for their treachery. Mel and Maggie deduce that Belinda is planning to possess Regina and use her body to enact revenge on 1989!Regina.
You fools! Don’t you recognize a hazing ritual when you see one?
Mel and Maggie call Harry to wipe the Kappas’ memories. Maggie tracks down the sorority composite from 1989 and discovers that 1989!Regina’s name was Jenna Gordonson. Harry, still sulking about missing out on karaoke, reluctantly uses his professorial credentials to get into the alumni database and track down Jenna’s address. Of course she still lives locally, because it turns out that Hilltowne, Michigan is actually the Hotel California—you can graduate anytime you like, but you can never leave.
Once Maggie and Mel head off in search of Jenna, Harry apparates back to the sisters’ attic, where Macy is reading about cowrie shells in the Book of Shadows. The Book states that cowrie shells are used as emblems of protection against demons and other magical dangers. She explains to Harry that she thinks that Friendzone’s mark is a cowrie shell, and Harry speculates that maybe Macy, the Spicy Afro-Caribbean Witch that she is, may have unconsciously placed the mark on Friendzone herself when she kissed him (apparently there was no deflowering), and that her own protective spell is what caused Friendzone to separate from her after that night.
Macy says she thinks her own standoffishness is what really drove Friendzone away from her. She and Harry have a moment. I ship it?
And then Macy friendzones him. AHAHAHAHAHA THE LOOK ON HIS FACE WHEN SHE FRIENDZONES HIM AFTER BEMOANING FRIENDZONING FRIENDZONE
bitch you will die alone
Macy then has an epiphany, remembering that Friendzone’s grandma, who in the photo was wearing the cowrie shell that made Macy think the symbol was a cowrie shell to begin with, was from Haiti, and that the cowrie shell being used for protection was a Haitian thing. Wow, so you’re saying that maybe the Haitian is Haitian and the cowrie shell is a cowrie shell? Amazing. She and Harry look up a practitioner of Haitian witchcraft on Yelp, and they decide to go check her out.
Meanwhile, over at Jenna Gordonson’s apartment, Jenna is not dead yet—which Mel points out aloud, to Jenna’s face, which doesn’t make Jenna suspicious in any way. Maggie assures Jenna that she and Mel are reporters from Buzzfeed, and that they’re there to do an article about the Ten Spookiest Deaths in the Greek System. They, of course, are referring to Belinda, but Jenna reveals that she wasn’t the only girl who’s died that way. Apparently it’s relatively common for Kappa sisters to climb up on the roof while drunk and fall, but the alumnae board covers up the sorority connection so that it doesn’t make Kappa look dangerous. However, Mel and Maggie make the connection that Belinda was the first death, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to deduce that it’s been her ghost responsible for all these deaths over all these years.
Mel asks Jenna for more information about Belinda—she says she knows she was bullied and kicked out of her pledge class, but Jenna cuts her off here. She says Belinda wasn’t bullied, she was the bully. She’d gained a reputation during her pledge period for being manipulative and cruel, but the final straw had been when she began sleeping with a string of other sisters’ boyfriends. Jenna had cut her from the pledge process because, you know, she was a hosebeast, and in retaliation, Belinda had broken into the house and climbed up on the roof to hang a banner calling the Kappas a bunch of cunts. She had also stolen the candle that had been meant to be her initiation candle, which is the candle that Regina George lit at the beginning of the episode, thus summoning her spirit. Unfortunately, Belinda had been drunk while trying to hang the banner, which caused her to lose her balance and fall to her death.
Mel freezes time and tells Maggie that if Belinda died in anger rather than sorrow, she would have become a revenant, not a banshee. They realize she’s been killing Kappa sisters for years, making them die the same way she died. And they realize she’s not planning to use Regina’s body to kill Jenna—she’s going to kill Regina for having slighted Maggie the same way Belinda feels she was slighted.
Back at Kappa, Regina is on the roof complaining that wine coolers taste like cough drops. Belinda tells her to shut up and chug, loser.
Regina is over these wine coolers and she’s over this roof and she’s over Belinda’s pink-and-purple eyeshadow
Mel and Maggie call Harry, who is on a date with Macy in the Haitian witch priestess’ nail salon (after all, we all have day jobs). Harry asks Macy if she can handle the witch priestess solo. Macy agrees, and as soon as Harry disappears, the witch priestess, who is named Mama Roz because of course she is, comes sauntering out from the back room. It’s $20 for ten minutes, and she has bills to pay, so fork it over, bitch.
Macy shows Mama Roz the mark she saw on Friendzone. Mama Roz tells her it’s a sign to stay away. Macy asks if it’s because she could be leading Friendzone into danger, but Mama Roz tells her that the mark appeared on Friendzone as a warning to Macy, a sign to protect her rather than him, and that Friendzone could be endangering her. Mama Roz also says that Macy has the Ibi in her. When Macy asks what this means, Mama Roz is reluctant to tell her, but when Macy waves more dollas under her nose, she acquiesces: Macy has darkness in her. It’s been there since she was born. She’s different from her sisters, but she’ll have to search within herself to find it. Macy runs out the door as Mama Roz yells, “The pillar of your past holds the key to your darkness!”
SJWs everywhere: REEEEEEEEEE SO YOU’RE SAYING THE BLACK SISTER HAS DARKNESS IN HER REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Me: Oh please may Dead Hippie Mom have slept with a demon
Back at the Kappa house, Regina is still lucid enough to register that she is in a scary place and Belinda is starting to freak her out, but Belinda starts chanting at her to DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DON’T BE A COWARD
Regina takes a step forward but is saved in the nick of time by Harry, Mel and Maggie apparating in. Apparently apparating other people drains Harry’s energy and he mentions that he feels sick now, but these sisters don’t give a flying fuck. Well, to be fair, it is an emergency, because Regina is right on the edge of a tile roof and it would be giving me vertigo if the effects weren’t so terrible.
Maggie yells for Mel to start the revenant banishing spell while she tries to get through to Regina and break Belinda’s hold on her before she jumps. However, the banishing spell doesn’t work, because Belinda’s strength is too tied to Regina’s own feelings of betrayal. At the sight of Maggie, Regina starts sobbing and begs for Maggie to leave her alone, because every time she sees her she’s reminded of how they were friends and she trusted her and Maggie stabbed her in the back.
Belinda figures it out and starts yelling reminders to Regina of all the ways Maggie hurt her, and how the best way to get revenge on Maggie would be to kill herself. JUMP, HO! Regina jumps.
Mel freezes time, catching Regina in midair, which makes Belinda lose her damn mind and turn back into the smoky ghost form from the beginning of the episode. She swirls around Mel, screaming, trying to get her to break her concentration so Regina will fall. Harry says that he thinks Regina’s pain is the source of Belinda’s power, and Maggie realizes that instead of healing the source of Belinda’s pain, they needed to be focusing on healing Regina all this time.
Harry apparates up into midair, grabs Regina before falling himself, and apparates her down to the ground. Somehow this seems to be less taxing on him than when he brought Mel and Maggie in, but maybe it’s the adrenaline, or perhaps bad writing. Maggie tries to apologize to her, but Belinda is back like DON’T ACCEPT APOLOGIES! KILL! KILL! FINISH HER
Regina lunges to strangle Maggie, but Maggie starts saying the right things—that she never should have tried to play the victim the way Belinda had, that she was just as bad as her, that she deserved to get kicked out of Kappa, that she shouldn’t have kept trying to get in Regina’s face when Regina was begging her for space, that she doesn’t deserve Regina’s friendship. Regina accepts her apology, and Belinda screams and disappears in an effect that looks like an old TV switching off. How clever! The effects on this show are so great and high-budget.
As soon as Belinda is banished, Regina passes out. She wakes up later in the house, not remembering what happened but irrationally feeling less angry at Maggie (and also hungover). Maggie explains that she had drunk a lot of wine coolers (Regina acknowledges this as a new low) and that they’d had a talk while she was drunk, apologizes again, tells her she’s going to give her space but that she’d love to be friends again someday.
When Maggie leaves the house, Mel has this really UNBELIEVABLY out-of-character moment where she admits that she was wrong about the sorority and between what she learned from Jenna and Regina tonight that she sees now why Maggie wants to be in Kappa. WHAT. WHAT. WHAT. She says that they all need to have lives outside of being witches, and that she’s sorry Maggie can’t have her sorority, and also she misses Niko. Sadface.
Maggie and Mel go to the Halloween bar to meet Macy. Maggie says that they need to tell Macy aboot seeing their mom in the 80s. I remember that Maggie’s actress is Canadian and snicker to myself. Before they can tell Macy aboot what they saw, Macy tells them aboot what the Haitian witch priestess said re: the darkness. Maggie and Mel suddenly realize what they overheard might be tacky and change the subject. Macy asks how things went with the Kappas, and Maggie says they’re fine now and should be wrapping up the initiation ceremony soon. Mel and Macy decide to head back to the house and set up a faux sorority initiation for Maggie into their sisterhood to make her feel better. THEY DO THE THING WITH DRINKING THE WATER AND DECLARING THAT THEIR BLOOD IS COVENANT. Someone did remedial internet research, I see!
As the initiation wraps up, Harry strolls past wearing a trench coat and fedora and carrying a suitcase. It seems that the Elders have deemed that now that the girls have the Book of Shadows back, they don’t need extra protection, so he’s moving back to the condo that he, a dead ghost man person, had been renting. What was the point of this subplot again?
Before he leaves, though, Maggie decrees that she wants to give Harry the initiation ceremony, too. He can be an honorary sister. What was it he said in the first episode to Mel? He felt as if his penis had been torn from his body? I imagine he felt something similar here. They crown him with a shower pouf, calling him “Poof.”
RIP Harry’s last shred of masculinity
I believe Harry is supposed to be straight. That was the implication I got from his supposed past with Charity, and also the moment with Macy in this episode. I guess this is what feminists imagine straight guys are cool with.
Um, anyway… We haven’t forgotten the Walton Family of Epigenetic Demon Guys! Remember Macy’s mandated blood test? They do, too. Walton the Younger, a.k.a. the FBI Agent Demon Guy from the last episode, is rummaging through the vials of blood at the Generic Science Lab. If his father’s company is the one who mandated the drug test, shouldn’t they have access to it anyway? Or couldn’t he have taken the form of someone who does have access to it? No matter. Dr. Kevorkian catches him in the act of stealing the blood, and gets stabbed in the neck for his trouble. Goodbye, Dr. Kevorkian, or whoever you were.
Back at the house, Macy is in her room and she notices the Photoshopped picture of Dead Hippie Mom holding Baby Macy sitting framed on her dresser. As she looks at the photo, Mama Roz’s warning echoes through her head: “The pillar of your past holds the key to your darkness.” Macy notices a pillar on the porch behind her in the photo. She goes out to the front porch and investigates the support pillars. There’s a barometer mounted on one of them that she can’t get off with her fingers. She uses her powers to cast it aside, and behind the barometer is a hole with a small box inside.
Inside the box is a skeleton key with a pentagram on top. Macy stares at it and the episode ends.
I realized after doing the screenshots for this episode that Dead Hippie Mom is wearing this key around her neck when she’s talking to Señora de Urcola in 1989
Okay. I’m sorry, you guys. This episode was barely woke at all. It was actually… kind of good. I actually enjoyed it. Yes, the writing was stupid, but I’m pretty sure that the writers of this show may have just moved up from writing Nickelodeon shows, so what do you expect? I really like how they’ve been handling Regina George in the last few episodes. I like that she really got the spotlight in this one. I’m interested in the subplot about Macy and the ~mysterious darkness~. I can’t believe Mel wasn’t even that big of a cunt in this episode.
If this show can’t produce wokeness, am I going to lose my job? Am I going to end up on the streets? I work with the material I’ve been given, people!
And it’s a lovely day today in our neighborhood, just lovely. The javelinas are rooting, the coyotes are basking, the Mormons are toasting with Hi C, and Joe Arpaio is plotting his comeback. This is my comeback, which will not pay as well.
I am one of those libertarians not quite on board with UBI. Why? I believe anyone who thinks UBI will replace other government programs and bureaucracy is somewhat delusional. If you look at the left, they clearly see UBI as an add-on. If you look at all the programs and agencies and bureaucrats involved in welfare, do you think they will simply be made redundant and thus save money? Come on. Let’s not fool ourselves. But I dislike the UBI beyond that. I generally dislike entitlement mentality in everything, not just government and money. Unless you have clear way to show you deserve something, don’t claim it. I fail to see how a welfare state – UBI even more so – does not encourage this. Furthermore, ethically, I do not think one deserves a permanent living just for surviving birth. I really don’t. I do not see why someone else should be forced to support you. Entitlement breeds entitlement.
Now the question some would pose is: doesn’t everyone deserve a decent life? Honestly, not really. Some people clearly do not. Unless you somehow think there are no scumbags in the world… In my personal, anecdotal, ehm… lived experience if you will, some people deserve little more than to starve in a ditch. These particular ditches should be shown to children everywhere, probably on prime-time TV, as the consequence of certain actions, with the message watch what you do or you to will end up starving in a ditch. I think that is sadly necessary for a society. Most people strongly disagree with me, so I do not say these things at parties.
I will not say, and I don’t think most others would either, that everyone who has a hard life did something to deserve it. It is silly. It is equally silly to say that no one hard up has a responsibility in their situation. I would say that, for at least a majority of people, there is at least a component of their actions which contribute to their issues. For the left, saying this is literally fascism. Everyone deserves the chance to have a decent life, and if the left cared about that, they would look to regulatory reform, licensing reform and other things. Now that we are done having a good laugh… I will engage in a bit of the old delusion myself and will present a form of UBI that I might find more palatable, on the entitlement front. Of course, my preference is no welfare at all. But considering that is not an option and people yearn for a safety net, I will think of one. I do not fool myself, and realize this would inevitably grow way beyond the limits I set, everything does. But… for the sake of argument, in a world where a UBI would be implemented once this way and stay the same…
I would do away with all the various programs and bureaucrats and whatnot and implement a partial UBI. Whoever applies for UBI gets it the next month, no means testing, no questions asked. But the kicker is, you get 120 months of this over working lifetime, say 18 to 68. It is up to you how you use your months. If you are done by 30, I have a nice ditch for you. I assume, in such a scenario, to be palatable to the majority, there will inevitably be an exception for severe disability. Outside that, this should satisfy all those who claim they want an actual safety net. 20% of your lifetime is plenty for a safety net, any more and it becomes a hammock.
I do wonder how many on the left would find this agreeable… I mean it removes a lot of the “humiliation” people go through the classic process. It can be made online and remove the stigma associated with being temporarily on welfare – although I am not sure of the wisdom of removing the stigma entirely. It can remove redundant bureaucracy and situations when people need welfare and are denied. You may be employed, but one month may need some extra cash, this is a way to get it. But it also a way to introduce personal responsibility and clear limits on welfare. I would say very few of our leftist brethren would agree…
Twitter takes down a video that provided an English translation of an Al Jazeera video that implied Jews benefited from the Holocaust. FYI, the other way to get taken down from Twitter is to mock middle-aged pussy hat-wearing cat ladies.
We live in a motel right next to I-10 in Ontario Cali; not a bad place and it seems they built a park. Why? We’ll get to that. Bella has insisted we go behind the building next door when walking, so we did, and found this.
Then we noticed a larger park on the other side of the street and went there, and found this.
Founders Garden: A tribute to the Chaffey Brothers and Segundo Guasti, who basically made Ontario bloom into the city it became. Let’s continue…
This is a walking park. No facilities, recreation or even trash cans. It is however, spotless, and we saw very few people walking.
In the retaining pond for the water tower we found a few ducks hanging out; not an easy picture to take with Bella on the leash.
There are nice benches scattered throughout amongst the olive trees; suitable for quiet contemplation or just chillin’ with my little villain, Bella.
Considering where its located, there is a serenity, maybe a zen kinda feel to the place. If your ever stuck in the IE, I recommend a visit.
Oh yeah, there are no signs prohibiting alcohol. Just to be safe I brought a Dogfish Head Sea Quench session sour ale; really good beer. Even though its 4.9% abv.
Note from glibertarians.com legal team: Drunk in public is a misdemeanor in California. If convicted, you may face up to six (6) months in county jail and/or a fine of up to one thousand dollars ($1,000).
Now the question some would pose is: doesn’t everyone deserve a decent life? Honestly, not really. Some people clearly do not. Unless you somehow think there are no scumbags in the world… In my personal, anecdotal, ehm… lived experience if you will, some people deserve little more than to starve in a ditch. These particular ditches should be shown to children everywhere, probably on prime-time TV, as the consequence of certain actions, with the message watch what you do or you to will end up starving in a ditch. I think that is sadly necessary for a society. Most people strongly disagree with me, so I do not say these things at parties.
I would do away with all the various programs and bureaucrats and whatnot and implement a partial UBI. Whoever applies for UBI gets it the next month, no means testing, no questions asked. But the kicker is, you get 120 months of this over working lifetime, say 18 to 68. It is up to you how you use your months. If you are done by 30, I have a nice ditch for you. I assume, in such a scenario, to be palatable to the majority, there will inevitably be an exception for severe disability. Outside that, this should satisfy all those who claim they want an actual safety net. 20% of your lifetime is plenty for a safety net, any more and it becomes a hammock.
