Wait, are we gonna play Fallout New Vegas? Just curious. That game is pretty good, although I prefer 3. To catch you up, Boulder now has electricity, Teddy has been shot and killed by Nadine, Dayna Jurgens, Judge Harris, and Tom Cullen are on their way to New Vegas to be spies, and Harold is working on killing everybody. Great, we’re all caught up.
Are we ever gonna get Trashcan Man (yes, I know we will but why did they take so damn long)? Also, shouldn’t we have established the main antagonist better this deep into the story? I feel like they could have given us glimpses of how Vegas is evolving. It never has to be much, but 2-3 minute snippets in each episode showing the new law and order, how well things are running, just little things to build momentum. I really wish I could have been in charge of remaking this series. I guarantee that it would have been better. I’m not a confident man, but I am confident that I would have given this story the proper treatment.
Start Episode 5 Fear and Loathing in New Vegas
This preview indicates that Abigail told Nick to be patient after they decided on spies. Also, the preview is giving away something else or at least implying something that happens probably in episode 7 or 8.
We are in New Vegas and the substation foreman is having difficulties with meeting quotas. He is talking to Julie Lawry and she said those orders are directly from Lloyd. She looks really good here. Oh, Dayna is working here in the substation and has to follow Julie. Apparently, Dayna has been asking too many questions about Flagg. In order to see Flagg, Dayna has to see Lloyd, who is with Julie. What the fuck did they do to Lloyd? He’s like this little white dude dressing all flashy that is most likely from the south and has never had money before. Flagg is intrigued by Dayna. Lloyd asked Dayna why she is just showing up now. She said that she saw what was out there and it wasn’t for her. They are at the Hoover Dam, I think. It’s interesting that they paired Julie with Lloyd, but it makes a lot of sense. We are treated to “That Old Black Magic” by Harry Belafonte and Peggy Lee per the subtitles but IMDB lists Louis Prima and Keely Smith as the singers.
Tom is getting asked basic questions by a lady to presumably check him in or get him a job. Here comes the Tom spiel. She says to toss him in the slave cages. What slave cages? This guy says no because Flagg’s rule is that anybody who comes there voluntarily is a citizen no matter what. She sends him to Gladiators Hall.
Ohhh, Tom Jones’ “It’s Not Unusual” is playing. Nice. Lloyd and Julie have brought Dayna to the highest floor that she can go since Flagg is in the Penthouse. Remember those magazines and the incredibly poorly written letters? Oh dear lord, why is Lloyd this way? Okay, inside a pool is a man with a chainsaw and some bloody bodies. Lots of people barely clothed hanging out watching that or just generally partying. Some stripper poles. Uhmmm, okay. They should be playing “The Zoo” by The Scorpions, or at least Welcome to the Jungle.
Stu is on the radio trying to contact Teddy. Nadine tells Harold to lose his clothes because of the blood. Harold is worried that nobody will believe him and Nadine is adamant that they are fine. All watchmen are asked to come to the amphitheater. Norris suggested to Stu and Larry that Teddy shot himself in the chest. They sat him in one of the nice seats. Larry is skeptical after Heck’s appearance, and now Teddy is dead. Larry is smart.
Stu tells Harold about Teddy’s death. Harold plays it really well. Harold calls Teddy a coward and then wants to be in charge of showing a movie to the community.
Abigail is giving Nick the business. She asks Nick if they are trying to start a war? She is trying to make Nick understand that Flagg can see what he’s done. Flagg can see a lot. Mother Abigail’s power pales in comparison. Some have speculated that she has the Shine. It’s actually a theory that I really like. She is so disappointed in him. She references the Israelites sending spies into Canaan and how that bought them 40 years in the desert.
Vegas does look beautiful. As a viewer, do you feel that they made it look too nice? I think that they did. I am nitpicking here. But is this 3 months after the plague? Yes, it is possible to get it looking nice given the quotas and Flagg’s powers. They could have made it look a little less shiny and it may have felt more realistic. You can argue either way and not be wrong. Really, we don’t know the extent of Flagg’s powers, so he may just be manipulative and can float. I don’t really know.
Jesus, Julie is stacked. So is Dayna. She has a pair of scissors that she is gonna have a difficult time concealing with what she’s wearing. They really amped the sex appeal in this one. Although, I always had a thing for the original Dayna. Dayna is Julie’s bitch and Dayna and Julie kiss. Julie needs to get Lloyd relaxed before he meets Flagg after the big fight. Lloyd doesn’t like talking about Flagg right before he fucks, haha. Julie keeps talking about it. And Lloyd has gone limp and Julie finds it funny. Julie does some blow. Julie would prefer to go shopping.
“Lick It Up” by Kiss is playing. Wait, did I just see titties? Yes, yes I did. Okay. A couple is fucking in a glass elevator. We see two guys fighting in an empty pool. Okay, Fiona Dourif, Brad’s daughter and best known as Nica in Curse of Chucky and Cult of Chucky and her role in the first season of The Purge, is playing the role of Rat Woman. Oh no. Why? Okay, I love this girl. I think that she has a bright future. I really like her. But here we go with changing yet another character’s race or sex, in this case, both. I liked Rat Man in the 94 Stand. Oh wow, the original Rat Man was played by Rick Aviles who died in 95 at the age of 42. That’s sad. Anyway, this role feels very different in this series. Once again though, this film seems like it’s trying to be more diverse at times, but this role could have gone to any race. So if you’re going to switch it drastically, why not go and give it to a Latin actress, for example? It feels like a missed opportunity.
Anyway, they are making bets for this main event. Last night, a guy won a new pleasure girl. That sounds pleasant. What the fuck is Lloyd wearing? Julie notices Tom working on cleanup duty. Rat Woman gives a shot out to Lloyd to appreciate what he’s done for the community. It’s fight time, but first, a message from their sponsor, Mr. Randall Flagg. I can’t complain about all the titties that I’m seeing. They play a video of Flagg talking of the past world telling them it was wrong to love violence, sex, and to want more. Dayna sees the video stare at her. That video looked cheesy as fuck. I hate to say this, but I don’t like Rat Girl. Just how the character acted and seemed really out of place and awkward.
Nadine is having a dream about making out with Larry and then Flagg tells her that she belongs to him and the old witch’s power is fading. Nadine acts pissy that Randall gave her to Harold, but he suggests that she is simply serving her purpose. He said that she was living in a state home. Did he make out with her in her younger years? I have questions that I probably shouldn’t ask, but that is the danger with this type of story. It’s only fiction, so I don’t feel so grubby asking the questions.
I have to say this now. As of this point, I am not feeling this new guy as Flagg. He’s all wrong. His appearance, his intonations. He’s not happy or charming. He’s too serious. Why would anybody join him, aside from a small pool of survivors? He needs to be affable and charming. This is why McConaughey was a perfect choice.
Harold talks to Nadine and Harold seems annoyed that Nadine killed Teddy. He says it was unnecessary. But isn’t the whole thing supposed to be to kill the community? Or was Teddy going to be spared? That’s a legitimate question because Harold genuinely liked Teddy. Harold gets aggressive and wraps his hand around Nadine’s lower jaw. Then she gives him a handy J. He walks out and there’s Fran. She offers her condolences. Fran invites him to dinner with her and Stu. Tomorrow they will have their big dinner date. Wow, Fran is going to do something kind and genuine for Harold. Did Hell freeze over? Harold’s demeanor keeps getting darker and more aggressive. Reminds me a bit of Jack in The Shining. The slow turn.
Fran meets with Larry. Larry is chopping wood. She has a favor to ask. She is asking Larry to search Harold’s house and search it. She thinks that Harold is planning something bad. Stu doesn’t know about this. She is gonna call Larry on the walkie’s private channel to give him his cues. Oh, so Fran didn’t do a selfless or kind act for Harold. There’s the cold-hearted bitch that I loathe!
In this version, it’s weird that Nadine is taking care of Joe, so she isn’t as independent as she was in 94. She’s made lunch for Joe, but he’s not responding. She panics a bit and can’t find him. She asks a neighbor and she directs Nadine to Mother Abigail’s house.
Joe is inside playing the piano. Mother Abigail takes responsibility and says that she and Joe were having such a good time talking. Nadine is curious about Joe talking. Abigail doesn’t know his real name though. Abigail says that she keeps the top of the piano open so the little ones can see what it looks like when they press a key and Nadine takes special interest in that. Abigail talks to Nadine about how she takes care of Joe and how she chose to take care of him and provide for him. “We all have choice until we don’t.” says Mother Abigail. They both know that both know something.
Dinner night and Harold arrives. Now Fran is suddenly nice to Harold after all this time. Stu and Harold look for a wine opener conveniently and this gives Fran an opportunity to contact Larry. Larry isn’t happy doing this. He goes to leave but Nadine is right outside his door. She needs to talk. Hahaha, the perfect distraction. She needs a favor and says that Larry is the only person that she trusts and she starts to kiss him. She wants to be fucked by Larry. Larry is taken aback by this. She takes it like Larry doesn’t want her. She is trying so hard to get out of her bond with Flagg but she isn’t articulate about it. Larry doesn’t want to take advantage of her. He offers to walk her home but she looks stunned and so sad and accepting of her fate. Here’s a hypothetical question for you. What does Nadine have to lose if she tells Larry that she is promised to Flagg but he won’t want her if she’s not a virgin? She can come clean about the stuff with Harold and tell them exactly where the explosives are and either imprison Harold or exile him. Also, why hasn’t MA spoken about her lack of dream connection to Harold or Nadine?
Let me just say, that scene was fantastically performed. I love the idea that she tried to make the choice as Mother Abigail alluded to, only to have another blunder by one of Abigail’s select chosen fuck it up. It’s an interesting dynamic to consider. Now, Nadine is hopeless and knows what her destiny is. A lifetime of these dreams and committing to Flagg and then making the effort to save her soul. If Larry agreed, Harold probably tells on her for killing Teddy, but maybe not. It’s an interesting scenario. Does Harold still have the balls to go through with his plan? Does he go even crazier now that Fran and Nadine are both taken? Of course, those are just hypothetical questions.
At the dinner, Harold is telling stories, keeping Stu entertained. Fran looks on, too worried to let herself get invested. Larry is searching Harold’s house and not finding much of anything. Harold tells a story about going to an amusement park and going to an ice cream parlor and Fran walking in and getting them 3 free ice cream cones. Fran is playing along until Harold says that he wasn’t actually there. HA! Harold was home. Fran never took or invited poor Harold. Amy told Harold the story. Everybody just loved his sister, Amy. Hahaha, Harold says it’s a good thing neither of his parents were immune or else they’d have to go on living without Amy. I need Tom Cullen to walk in right now and say “M-O-O-N, that spells awkward.” Harold apologizes and blames the wine and loss of Teddy. Harold excuses himself to the bathroom.
Larry finds the Tom Cruise picture taped on Harold’s mirror. That’s pretty funny. Harold is snooping around upstairs in the bedroom. Harold spots something that he likes. I am not sure what is important that he sees. Two stuffed animals, a bottle, a lamp, knick-knacks are what my horrible eyes can make out. I am guessing one of the stuffed animals since they were most predominant. Harold creeps back down the stairs and scares Fran. He wants to leave and Fran says that the night is young. Harold looks at her weirdly and leaves.
This is not going as planned and Stu is hogging the walkie-talkie. Mother Abigail is praying for forgiveness and asking how to make things better. Larry finds Nadine’s shirt in Harold’s dresser. Fran cuts Stu off and contacts Larry. Larry tries to push the drawer in too strongly and this knocks over a book which knocks over pieces on the chessboard. Oh yeah, Harold will notice that. Larry is still upstairs and Larry is trying to put the pieces back. I notice that a lot of characters say “Shit. Fuck.” I am reminded of Otis in the Devil’s Rejects in the van. Harold has a gleam in his eye, and he thought that he heard something, so he goes up the stairs with a purpose. He immediately looks at the chessboard. Abigail is begging God for a message. She looks up and there is a snarling white wolf in her face. She basically pulls a Kobe and doesn’t blink. If you don’t get the reference, please go to Youtube and search “Kobe Bryant doesn’t flinch”. The first result is better sound quality but the second one is more to the point.
Back in Vegas, Dayna is arguing with security. She wants to find a lost item and she says that Lloyd would love to know about this. She has security get Tom. Tom starts to give his speech to the security guy and Dayna. Dayna introduces herself to Tom. Oh WOW! Dayna says “Hey, I’m Dayna, Dayna Jurgens. I, um…I lost something.” Tom’s response is “Okay. Do you know what it was?” Fucking brilliant! She says that it’s a silver bracelet that her mother gave to her. She keeps emphasizing mother. She gives Tom a note and Lloyd shows up and says that Flagg wants to meet her. Her note says to RUN. Poor Tom doesn’t know what it says.
Dayna goes up to the top floor, alone, and armed with scissors. Ohhhh, my favorite Elvis song is playing, “Suspicious Minds”. If that isn’t foreshadowing what’s about to happen, I really can’t help you. Randall has a sweet place. He offers Dayna a drink. She wants a beer, he tries to give her milk. He asks her about what brought her to New Vegas. He’s been watching her since she left Boulder. She makes the mistake of saying that she doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Seriously, did anybody inform her that this guy can fuckin enter your dreams and exist in the real world? He can see almost everything.
He gives her the stare, but it’s not as threatening as I think that they would like. She asks if he is going to kill her, and he says no. He says the world has experienced too much death lately. She alludes to the poor bastards nailed up on the power poles. It has become abundantly clear that Dayna has lost sight of her objective and clearly has a death wish, which makes her journey absolutely useless. Think about this objectively, just for a moment. If you weren’t gonna play this intelligently, don’t accept the mission. Geez, who’s the dumbass that nominated her? I just need to look over my notes…..oh yeah, Fran. See, I am telling you, Fran is completely useless. Dayna’s only use so far was wearing that skimpy attire, which I approve of, but not conducive to helping the group.
Flagg comes back with “Poor bastards, like Mr. Garvey?” Well, that was a mic drop moment. Dayna, you’ve lost. And Flagg asks what she did to that poor bastard as soon as she got a chance. That’s right, bash his head in. Flagg says that the people in New Vegas have gone there for protection against the Garvey’s of this world, and that requires reestablishing order. Is it just me, or is Randall making complete sense at this moment? He refers to Mother Abigail as a charlatan.
So what is Flagg gonna do to Dayna? Wait for it, wait for it…..he’s going to send her home. Geez, what a fucking prick, am I right? She suspects that there’s a catch. He asks who the third spy is. Once again, she plays dumb and asks how he knows that there are 3 when it could be just her or a dozen others. Well, she validates his claim in her own question. Poorly worded.
He tells Dayna about the Judge who’s been holed up on the edge of the desert the past few days. He says it was smart to stagger their arrival. She mocks him for not being able to see the third spy. She stabs Flagg in the neck. Hahaha, he overacts his death and plays possum, and then asks her if she digs that. He says that he learned that trick from his old lover, Konstantin Stanislavski. So they made Flagg bisexual, at the very least. How 2020 of them.
He makes fun of her plan. Was she gonna kill him and take down all of New Vegas with her 2 spies? He’s right. Did she think that she or anybody else would be allowed out of New Vegas if Flagg was murdered? Maybe in time if the leadership wasn’t strong enough. But not immediately. So who is the third? He says that she can still serve him. His eyes glow red. She breaks her beer bottle. She knows that she is fucked. She stabs herself in the throat with the broken bottle. And there’s Elvis.
Fran is trying to explain her bad vibes about Harold. Stu, being Stu, tries rationalizing Harold’s emotions. Well, she doesn’t want to talk about Harold anymore. She just wants to kiss and get her fuck on. We see the one stuffed animal again. Harold has put a hidden camera in the bear. That was fast. He’s gonna see so much of Stu’s ass in a few minutes. Harold also watches Larry break into his place.
Ray checks in on Mother Abigail only to find a letter. It tells them not to go looking for her and she will return if it is his will. Ray then does the smartest thing in this whole mini-series. She calls out Mother Abigail’s name to see if she was still there. Come the fuck on. She gets on the radio and asks if anybody has seen her. The man responds no, but maybe check with Ray. She responds telling him that she is Ray. Fantastic. No man ass for Harold tonight. Stu gets on the radio and Ray tells her that she is gone. Ohhh man, I just got a raging clue. They’re playing “Don’t Fear The Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult over the end credits. This was originally the opening song in the 94 version. It worked so much better in 94, but I still love the song. It just doesn’t work as well here.
End Episode 5 Fear and Loathing in New Vegas
First of all, this episode had a lot of great music and that needs to be recognized. Secondly, this was mostly in chronological order, and that helped a lot. But where was the fear? Where was the loathing?
I’m torn on this episode. Things happened to push things further, but what was really accomplished? This is like a wrestling feud that just reaches its unremarkable climax that makes sense but leaves you feeling underwhelmed.
Yes, we finally go to know New Vegas much better. But most of it was silly shit to help you get a vibe for it and that could have been established earlier.
Harold keeps getting pushed to his limits. Fran is naturally not helping the situation and everything she does is wrong. You could argue that the biggest plot point in this episode was Abigail’s conversation with Nadine which prompted Nadine to try to face and save her soul in some way. Larry fucked that up. Abigail realized that she may have chosen poorly and has bailed on her community, but we know that she returns.
We finally got a full scene with Flagg to finally establish his character a bit better. Honestly, it fell flat. Dayna didn’t help, but she gave him opportunities to be awesome. This guy wasn’t the right choice for Flagg. He’s a decent actor, but he’s just not right. PLUS, his hair game is awful. This is coming from a bald man. It looks like every guy’s haircut that tried to be trendy or in a beard commercial for the past 3-4 years. Flagg should be a classically good-looking guy, not trendy. I should note, I don’t care that Flagg was bisexual, but it seemed almost forced in there. Just my opinion. It makes sense for him to be, I just didn’t care for the execution of the reveal.
On a funny side note, prior to watching this episode, I was watching South Park season 18 episode 2, I think, the one about gluten. And Cartman gets dreams from Aunt Jemima and it is obviously a parody of The Stand.
Final Rating – 0.6 – I gave it an extra 0.1 for the music but this was perfectly mediocre. For Flagg’s first big scene, it should have scored higher. Lloyd’s character is fucking terrible. I hate the direction they took him in. Rat Woman’s role is fine, but the performance seems off. Julie did a great job, as did Tom. Tom is really one of the few highlights.
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