A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge

Score Technician: Sean McConnell

The Internet has long argued that A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge is the gayest horror movie ever made, which is why Nightmare 2 has been on our bucket list for quite some time. But, rather than letting the Internet tell us what to think, we decided to run Jack Sholder's cult classic through the nanobots to get their thoughts. So, without further ado, we're just going to plop the movie into the machine like this and see what happens...

(click-ity, clacking)

(Some science-y sounds from the machines. A flashing yellow light.)

Whoops! This is interesting...

Apparently the nanobots have issued a Denotation Paradox Trigger Warning for this movie. Look it's all very technical and, quite honestly, buried so deep in the user manual that we still haven't processed what exactly all those settings mean, but the gist of it is that Nightmare 2 has inverted the subtext paradigm present in most films, which is a fancy way of saying that basically this film is so loaded with subtext that the subtext collapses in on itself--think "subtext event horizon"--until interpretative meaning is reformed within the machine into a Denotation Paradox Trigger, which is a complicated computer engineering way of saying that all subtext in a film is so abundant and close to the surface that it's become the actual text itself. So, for the purposes of scoring, none of the scores can be calculated based on the era of the film in comparison to the current progressive era. There is only the score. In short, this film's era is now. Again, it's all very technical.

Let's just get to the scores, shall we?

• Our calculations show that the Denotation Paradox Trigger was first triggered by the tagline in the movie poster. = +5pts (Man of our dreams, indeed...)
• Showing up to school in a yellow school bus that looks more like a decommissioned prison transport vehicle with a fresh coat of paint. = +3pts
• Robert England pulling an Alfred Hitchcock in the opening scene as the unassuming bus driver. = +5pts
• Nothing said high school in the '80s quite like a group of late 20-somethings with bad hair talking about "parties" and "gym class." = +2pts
• Living at the last stop on the school bus line, the eternal sign of high school loserdom. = -3pts
• You know your protagonist is dealing with a lot of internal shit, when the idea of being alone on a bus with two blonde girls causes him to clutch his stomach in nausea and reach for the window for some fresh air. = +5pts
• We don’t want to say that Mad Max: Fury Road was inspired by the opening sequence of this movie, but we can say that it made the nanobots think about it. = +3pts
• Imperator Freddieosa.= +6pts
• Teens, no doubt having been raised on Richard Donner’s Superman, appropriately panic when presented with fault lines opening in the earth. = +2pts
• Freddy scrapping his nails on anything. = +4pts
• Nothing says, “I’m still figuring out myself as a man,” quite like using two blonde girls as body shields. = -2pts
• Having this reaction to your son's morning bloodcurdling scream. = -2pts

"To think, back in my day we just bit down on a wooden spoon while finishing into a sock. Kids today."

• Push button ignition?! In 1985?! = +3pts (And people thought Back to the Future II was the 80s movie that most accurately depicted the future.)
• Using a dirty white t-shirt to replace your shitty car upholstery. = +1pt
• Jessie's voyage of self-discovery hits its first roadblock as his beard's best friend rolls her eyes at the fact that her friend still can’t seem to “get any” from our male lead. = -2pts
• Getting hit in the head with a softball because you’re too focused on the the batter’s short red shorts...piercing blue eyes…and sweaty (but gorgeously maintained) mullet moving ever so slightly in the breeze. = +3pts (Wooden spoons for everybody!)
• A friendly rundown devolves into a pantsing and a wrestling scene so epic, Sons and Lovers scholars can only fan themselves in awe. = +5pts

 "I'm telling you, dude, this is how you play softball..."

 "They wanted genuine intimacy, but they could not get even normally near to anyone, because they scorned to take the first steps, they scorned the triviality which forms common human intercourse." - D.H. Lawrence

• You know your emerging sexuality is hitting a few snags when your crush object calls your coach a sadistic asshole because he likes to hang-out at the “queer S&M joints downtown.” That or he takes his life lessons from The Police Academy. = -8pts (Because both are terrible ideas.)
• Nothing screams, “I like vagina,” quite like getting defensive at the question of whether or not you are putting your peen into a willing one.= -2pts
• Sleeping in pajamas that look like nursing scrubs. = -1pts
• Going into the basement to check on the mysterious man who seems to be fishing garbage/evidence out of your incinerator.= -2pts
• When you're this closeted in the '80s, this is how you might have found yourself reacting to a touchy-feely stranger you found in your basement. = +5pts

"I know this is wrong. But, why does it feel so...right."

• Trading in your looks of longing for a scream only after the stranger in your basement compliments your body, talks about how much he wants it, right before peeling back his scalp to expose his rotting brain, thus encapsulating how tough it is to be single on Elm St. in 1985. = -3pts
• Making fart sounds when your science teacher says the word colon. = +5pts
• Taking a real python out of the class zoo (you had one of those too, right?) and wrapping it around a sleeping student's neck, all without interrupting the teacher's lecture or being seen by classmates. = +4pts (What are you, bullies? Spawns of Copperfield?)
• Nano-notation: You will never convince us that Meryl Streep was not in this movie.

"Hello. Creative Arts, receptionist? It's Meryl. Tell them I've gone deep method again. Send a car. Quickly."

• Jessie calling his beard to hang out and then giving in way too easily to his father’s insistence on returning to his room to unpack. But unpack what exactly? His life? The complicated and dimly lit corridors of his budding sexual awakening? His favorite John Cafferty cassette single? Aren’t these the questions of life itself? = +10pts (Because the nanobots are not convinced that "Werner Herzog" isn't German for "Jack Sholder.")
• Is there anything more straight than a guy listening to a soul diva sing some disco infused dance jams while organizing his clothes, trying on different sunglasses (like these...)
  
  "I've found me!"
   ...or using your rump to perform basic household chores?
  
  "Hands are for lames!"
  We didn't think so. = +50pts

• Is there anything more embarrassing as a teenager than your mother and beard walking into your room while in the middle trying out gay? = +5pts (Absolutely, he could have been masturbating.)

"This could have been my dick, mom! Knock next time!" 

• More general points for the gift that is this entire sequence. = +10pts
• Your beard ironically tossing you a can of jock itch. = +8pts
• Plucking a pair of murder gloves/evidence out of the furnace you’ve been having nightmares about and not calling the police first thing. = -4pts
• “I got your invitation to the party this weekend.” A popular phrase in film that has never had a bad thing associated with it ever. = +2pts
• Scoffing at your beard’s sad peck on the cheek in front of her best friend. = -3pts (Because your soul searching is hard enough on her already.)
• Filming a sequence in a movie in which your audience is supposed to be afraid of a homicidal parakeet...  = -4pts
• …and then exploding it. = +8pts
• Blaming your son's "attitude" for the family’s parakeet going homicidal and not doing well in gym class. = -4pts
• Deciding that the best way to clear your mind after a horrible nightmare is to walk into a gay club after midnight with no shirt on and covered in sweat. = +7pts (Freddy's clearly sucks at this whole “scared straight” thing.)
• Making a student run laps after midnight because he found you at the local gay club. = -10pts
• Agreeing to run after midnight laps for any authority figure who is not a military superior officer. = -5pts
• Filming a scene in which the first attempt at killing an openly gay character is via "balls to the face." = +4pts (Because balls to the face is always the best way to go. Gay or straight.)
• Becoming aroused at the sight of your gay gym teacher being spanked to death with a wet towel. = 0pts (Score under review until consulting with our therapist.)
• Dad handling his son’s “problems” about as well as he handles his own. = -3pts
• Not moving your family out of the house after your toaster, which isn’t plugged in, catches on fire. = -3pts
• Waking up your sister in the middle of the night shirtless and dripping with sweat. = -10pts
• Wait, why does literally every other scene take place around the family table at breakfast? Is this a horror movie or a sitcom? DON'T ANSWER THAT QUESTION! = No score. Just an existential musing.
• Hey ladies! Afraid your relationship with your physically reticent boyfriend might be dying? Just do what Lisa Webber does and wait till he’s at his most vulnerable (I.E., contemplating the murder of his younger sister), and then trap him in a pool cabana so that you can finally get some of that sweet, sweet D you've been dying for. = -2pts
• Waiting for your parents to fall asleep so that you can finally throw that Budweiser commercial you’ve always wanted to throw. = +2pts
• Like most closeted gay men, Jessie is strictly a boob man... = +2pts
• ...And asking him to go any further south results in a serious case of Freddy tongue. = +4pts
• Running away from a shot at oral sex with a woman and into the bedroom of the guy who took off your pants in front of the entire school and seems to kind of hate you for some reason neither of you can talk about. = -3pts (Oh, poor, sweet, clueless, Lisa. We feel for you. We really do...)

 "Hi! I need your help! My dreams are trying to kill me! Also, is it weird that I grabbed your junk to wake you? It just felt right, so I went with it..."

• Ultimate '80s douchebag bedroom checklist: Stray Cat poster, Mondrian patterned sheets and wallpaper, fire engine red metal bed frame, telescope, tighty-whitey's. = +4pts (Because you can't argue with the classics.)
• “Something is trying to get inside my body.” The most profound utterance of pathology in film since Norma Desmond powdered her face one last time. = +12pts
• A blinking eyeball at the end of somebody's throat.= +3pts
• Not killing your rival after watching him slice Freddy Krueger out of his stomach. = +10pts (Thus preserving one of the best Freddy entrances of all time.)
• Freddy killing someone with nary a quip in sight. = +8pts
• Not calling the cops when your boyfriend shows up at your doorstep covered in his lover's—we mean, friend's!—blood. = -2pts (Doing so doesn't make you homophobic. Just sane.)
• Taking a man covered in blood to your couch so that you can read him the diary of a high school girl. = -3pts
• Watching Freddy Kruger get taken down by a lampshade. = -3pts (For ruining a part of our childhood forever.)
• Nothing says eternal nightmare demon with an insatiable bloodlust quite like smashing one of those collectable plates you can order from late night a infomercials for just $19.99. = -3pts (Is Freddy a murderer, or just the most intense interior decorator of all-time?)
• Freddy is looking particularly oily this movie. = +7pts (And it's appropriately gross and creepy.)
• Freddy Krueger: Professional Party Crasher. = +5pts
• Dogs wearing baby faces. = -2pts
• Watching a rat get eaten by an even bigger rat. = +3pts
• Burning Freddy alive once, shame on you. Burning him alive for the unmpeeth time? Well, that’s just how you do it. = +2pts
• Waking up in the crispy desiccated skin of a child murder… = -4pts
• …only to be confronted with the traumatized tears of your beard and the stark realization that you’re still you. = -5pts

Total Score +124pts

First, let's talk about what worked as a Freddy movie:

• Freddy is not in this movie as much as you may have thought he was. This is a good thing.
• This film has two feet firmly planted in the "Freddy doesn't joke around" version of the character, which, with his particularly oily facial burns, is still scary as hell. More movies featuring Freddy should limit the jokes.
• That pool scene massacre is all kinds of right for a classic horror movie, even if it doesn't make sense. Which brings us to...

What doesn't work as a Freddy movie:

• The movie logic of this world is all out of whack. Freddy can only haunt one guy's dreams, while at the same time, he's able to walk around in the waking world for everybody to see? It's almost like reading those old Superman comics where they seemed to invent a new weirdly specific power every month just to keep things interesting.
• No truly terrifying dream sequences. This movie is all about the body horror. Which brings us to...

Everything else about this movie:

Huzzah!, The Internet got something right for once! Confirmed by the nanobots and everything!

Look, sometimes a film becomes something nobody making it ever intended. We're sure the filmmakers never planned to make one of the better 80s films about being in the closet, but hey, some of the greatest inventions of all-time happened by accident. But what happened that makes this movie more interesting than it ever intended to be? Let's look at (just some of) the evidence behind how this happened:

• That bedroom scene. It alone will be parsed and discussed in film classes for years.
• An openly gay gym teacher? In 1985?! Come on. Sure, the portrayal of a gay bar as S&M club is a damaging (but popular) '80s trope that deserves to be criticized and then buried. But the actual club itself features a wider mix of gay culture that most people were used to seeing at the time. Not everyone is wearing S&M gear, not to mention that there appears to be several regularly dressed lesbians present as well, so yay feminism!
• Not only is this movie one of the better movies about being closeted in the 80s, it's also a pretty great movie about a young high school girl who just wants to love/bang the attractive, well-dressed, and sensitive guy in her class who isn't into her vag. Kim Meyer's struggle as Jessie's beard is nearly as epic as Jessie's struggle with his own sexuality. Kim goes through a lot to help Jessie figure his shit out and Lisa Webber's performance isn't naive and clueless, but empathetic and nurturing, which works really well. We've known too many women who's experiences loving closeted men played out almost exactly like this movie. Only, you know, without all the murder...
• No women died or were mutilated on-camera during this movie. Let me repeat that: NO WOMEN DIED OR WERE MUTILATED ON-CAMERA DURING THIS MOVIE. (Slight Disclaimer: A bunch of kids get cooked in the pool, but that's more about who's still dumb enough to swim in the fucking pool after it's started to boil.) All of the characters who are killed in the showpiece execution scenes are men. In particular, men who make Jessie uncomfortable about himself. Who make him squirm in his own skin. Jessie wants to be about what the other (straight) kids are about, but he can't seem to shake his obsession with the attractive guy who wants to "give him a hard time" (We all remember what our mothers told us about these boys on the playground, don't we?), and his coach who seems to be living in open defiance of acceptable social norms of the time and who is routinely demonized by Jessie's peers for doing so. 
• While the gym teacher isn't exactly a nice guy, he's not really a sadist. Making kids hold the sweat position because they're fighting, or calling other teachers names, is a pretty tame punishment given how big a tool these kids are. While his death is traumatic for Jessie, the eroticism that informs his execution is a chilling expression of our main character's struggles against his urges. Which brings us to...

How to fix Freddy movies:

• Ditch the quips. Unlike Jason/Michael Myers, Freddy can talk. Use this, but use it better. One or two puns a movie can go a long way, but stay away from the pun spewing vomit bag of later Elm St. movies. Rather than having a guy who's supposed to be cracking himself up while killing people, have him use his words to crack his victims open. The guy has access to your subconscious. He should use that way more than he does. Stop making it about Freddy. It may have worked for the kids and turned him into a merchandising giant, but it also resulted in movies that were less and less scary, which is a sad thing for such a great creation.
• Ditch the whole Elm St. setting. Okay, we get it, the parents killed him. Next. He's a nightmare demon. His scope should be bigger.
• Have more characters like Nancy or Jessie in future Nightmare movies. Make them the stars, not Freddy. Give them some issues to deal with. Some deep trauma cultural/personal/family issue that is slowly eating away at them, so that the appearance of a nightmare demon who can see into the deepest recesses of their mind hits a lot harder. Freddy is at his best when he's slowly flaying his victims' minds as much as their bodies. Do more of that in these movies.

In conclusion, A Nightmare on Elm St. 2: Freddy's Revenge might not be the scariest one of the bunch (1 or 3? We'll, let the Internet fight it out.), but it has every opportunity to be one of the most important ones, which is weird thing to say about a movie that exploded a parakeet.

Accidental Exorcist

Score Technician: Sean McConnell

You'd be forgiven if, when watching a movie titled the Accidental Exorcist, you were expecting an intense scene featuring William Hurt slipping on pea soup while watching some poor possessed sap masturbate with a religious implement and him saying something along the lines of, "But I'm not even an expert in exorcisms! I'm just a (insert something here that William Hurt would be believable doing)!" You would also be really old, because nobody under 30 knows who the hell William Hurt is. Which is why we've turned over Sector 5's latest to the nanobots because they don't give a damn about William Hurt, or whatever emojis millennials have invented to further eradicate the written word. Nanobots don't have feelings, they are just a highly complex algorithm uniquely calibrated for withering progressive judgment. Which means it's time to sit back and let the sweet science of specialized robot intelligence do their thing.

• Starting your Exorcist movie with a quote from Einstein that we can only assume is tangentially connected to Exorcisms of the oopsie kind. = +5pts
• Nothing says I’m ready to fight Satan quite like walking down a shadowy hallway the way Rocky did to fight Apollo. = +2pts
• Not sure whether this “witch doctor” is fighting demons or a heroin addiction. = +2pts (Because fighting both are total bummers, man.)
• Is there anything better than a brassy older broad who doesn’t have time for anyone and wears low-cut tops, smokes swisher sweets, and pounds scotch when hosting random heroin dealers—sorry, witch doctors—while bitching about how her daughter (who’s sitting right by her like a broken crab) “babbles” perverted shit? = -10pts (The short answer? Likely.)
• Moving your mouth as if you’re avoiding kissing someone with Herpes Simplex-2 as a way to communicate deep and conflicted thought. = -3pts
• Playing footsie with your witch doctor before he’s even begun to diagnose your daughter’s weirdly expressive stomach noises. = +2pts
• Crying on the other side of the door after the witch doctor asks you to leave, thus leaving us unsure if you're crying about what’s about to happen to your daughter or that you failed to seduce the local heroin dealer—sorry, witch doctor—dammit! = -1pt
• Mom didn’t say shit about the bruises on the face. Kind of makes you question whether or not this guy is an exorcist or a social worker. = +2pts (The bags under his eyes only confuse us more…)
• Demon vomit in an exorcism movie. = -3pts
• Commenting on how it smells like a kind of Campbell's soup. = -6pts
• Tapping the forehead of the possessed. The Catholic equivalent of the demon bitch slap. = +4pts
• I cleansed this girl’s soul and all I got was this lousy stigmata. = +2pts
• Having a shitty landlord who happens to stop by and complain about how late the rent is, as well as every other group/ethnicity/sexual orientation, just to let us know where we stand on the plot and within society as a whole. = -2pts
• Not counting your money before you do a job. = -3pts
• Making sure you stop under a street lamp before your next client’s house so that everyone gets the Exorcist reference. = -3pts
• Nothing says "go investigate this scene alone" quite like a cowering black child holding a bloody knife under a table who can’t speak. = +2pts
• Giving mouth to mouth to a woman who appears to have drowned in the bloody bathtub her husband is sitting in. = +4pts (Because witch doctors don’t give a fuck!)
• Remember kids, just say no…to the handsy (but thankfully only just possessed) reverend. -2pts
• Shooting a scene in which a bunch of Trump supporters (we assume) say asshole things to the lone woman sitting at the bar. This will pay off eventually, right? These motherfuckers are gonna die bloody, right? Right?! TRUMP CAN'T POSSIBLY WIN, RIGHT!? RIGHT!? = -5pts
• Having your lead pile on just because the lady doesn’t get your shitty Jaws reference. = -10pts
• Possessing a body so that you can gnash your teeth only to shut them when you poor mom tries to feed you your favorite cake. = +5pts
• At this point we’re pretty sure that the only qualification to be an exorcist is watching a lot of Steven Spielberg movies and having an incredibly deep knowledge of pop culture. = +25pts (Because…HOLY SHIT OUR TECHNICIANS ARE NOW QUALIFIED EXORCISTS!! Sweet, where’s the heroin! Seriously... Heroin. Now.)
• Tossing a spoonful of mashed potatoes into the face of a possessed person who’s channeling your mother. = +10pts
• Then sharing a meal with them. = +5pts
• Shasta product placement. = +3pts
• Arizona Tea product placement. = -3pts
• Tossing a cream pie into the face of a demon and not even getting a wisp of icing/pie-filling on them. = -7pts
• It’s like that old saying, “At some point we’re going to have to talk about the shadowy gimp in the room…” = +3pts
• Sending a client out for a grocery run before you exorcise his brother. = +2pts
• Now you see me, now you… see me slowly rolling—I mean, floating—out of the way of your demon tap. = +5pts
• You know that other saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it?” Well, our witch doctor doesn’t. We assume this is why improv exorcists are not a real thing. = -2pts
• James Wan may not have directed this movie, but he definitely gets a shout-out on many occasions. = +5pts (As he should.)
• Possessed brother comes out of the fog and acts up a storm. = +3pts (Get this guy an agent, stat.)
• Letting your corporate overlords have a piece of your mind after they’ve tricked you into a two-for-one deal. = +6pts
• Speaking into a mirror as a way of building pathos. = -5pts
• Insulting a Burger King bathroom. = -2pts (I mean, have you even been to an Arby’s?)
• Movies have plots, right? = No score, just a legitimate question at this point.
• Trading your exorcism movie in for your version of Office Space. = +5pts
• Coming back to your original movie in the next scene. = -5pts (Being a temp is lame.)
• The puppet-room. = +10pts
• The best way to make puppets less scary is to talk about how unscary they are, thus reminding us that being scared of puppets is, like, super lame. = -5pts
• Starting every exorcism with a personal anecdote as a way to deliver small chunks of exposition. = +3pts (For the first time…)
• Starting every exorcism with a personal anecdote as a way to deliver small chunks of exposition. = -6pts (…for every time after.)
• Realizing too late that much of that exposition wasn't actually exposition, because exposition supports plots. And, at this point, a plot is kind of beside the point. = -10pts (Because that should never be the case in a genre movie. Otherwise why make a genre movie?)
• Saving your liquor bottles after you’ve finished drinking from them. = -3pts  (During college +5pts; Post college -10pts)
• Explaining what’s painfully obvious to the Goth girl who wandered into your redneck bar. = -2pts
• Beating the shit out of a hipster who gives you crap for the beer you’re ordering. = +10pts
• Non-conning a drunken Exorcist. = -10pts
• Vomiting up black bile on a goth chick mid-bang… = -3pts
• …while also blurkeling out your Johnson… = -3pts
• …during a massive smash-up of your room… =+3pts
• ...that culminates with your burning up all your demon selfies. = +3pts (Or as we like to call it: Florida.)

Total Score: +22pts

First things first, the production crew of this movie should get a lot of credit for what they brought to this movie. There's a really great low-budget horror movie waiting to emerge from the people who provided the make-up, sets pieces, and generally creepy cinematography. Those moments when our saggy lead walks into the rooms of the possessed are generally unsettling. The one in the bathroom is particularly chilling, as it provides a solid jump scare that slowly unpacks as your eyes adjust to what you are seeing. Those moments are top notch. But sadly, by the end of the movie you feel like you've just visited the furniture store of horror movies. A film full of Pottery Barn themed rooms removed from whatever imaginary house of horrors you've built in your mind. The results is a film that's more about the set pieces than the engine of plot, which is great in a Terrence Malick movie, but can be excruciating in a genre movie, especially a horror one.

The lead actor/director (by choice or by budget) is forced to carry too much of the movie. While there are things he does well, the utter lack real secondary characters proves to be a bit too much weight to put on one man's shoulders. He could have used some help. A real person to talk to would have been great.

All of this is somewhat tragic because, with such a great title, you're first thought rushes to, "How?" (Because the use of "accidental" is very intriguing when paired with exorcisms and surely must be important and not a pop culture pun in a movie that seems to make one too many references to pop culture, both in word and in visuals.) How is a great question. An important one. It leads us to the "Why?" question, which is the engine of most plot and character development. If you expect more how's and why's from your horror movies, then perhaps this movie isn't your cup of tea. But if you're interested in what low-budget horror means in the age of digital filmmaking, then there are a few lessons to be learned by watching this one, both good and bad.

Bio-Cop: Thank You Card

The PCS has been on a bit of a hiatus of late, but leave it to the creative savants behind Bio-Cop to be the ones to drag us out of our winter sabbatical. In case you are unfamiliar with the aforementioned cop made of bio, take a moment to watch the video. It's cool. We'll wait...

Now, that you've educated yourself, the only thing left to do is let the nanobots have a go at it so that they can see exactly where this thank you falls on the progressive film spectrum.

• Mentioning The PCS in any context, even as a thank you for contributing to an Indiegogo. = +25pts
• Opening credit sequence montage of your main character that features both an attempted suicide AND double finger-guns. = +10pts
• Casting Nobu for your bio terror horror movie. = +4pts
• Bio-Cop realizing he wants nothing to do with that ninja action. = +2pts (He's nothing if not practical.)
• The nanobots hearing their name in lights. = 0pts (They are nanobots not people, and are unmoved by bribery and thanks.)
• Letting a ninja cut off your head. = -3pts
• The realization that you can grow back your head with a fresh set of astonished eyes, weighted with the sadness of knowing that you are still Bio-Cop and not dead. = +6pts
• Playing hide the regurgitating head with a ninja. = +10pts
• Shrugging apologetically after surviving multiple ninja stars to the face. = +6pts (It's good to know there is at least one cop out there with a sense of shame.)
• Committing Seppuku for being unable to kill a Bio-Cop. = -5pts
• Giving Bio-Cop the idea of attempting Seppuku in his ongoing effort to kill himself... = +5pts
• ...only to realize that doing so results in another mini-Bio-Cop head that we're sure also seeks the sweet release of death. = +3pts
• Giving your kid a gun for his birthday... = -10pts
• ...possibly in an effort to try out some secret bloodright, thus granting you the eternal slumber you so desire. = +5pts
• Finding out that patricide for Christmas is like new underwear for Bio-Cop. = -2pts (Hey, we have feelings.)
• Taking the gun you gave your son for Christmas and trying to use it on yourself because he's too much a of brat. = +3pts
• Bio-Cop's lament. = +5pts (Don't say that the nanobots don't appreciate hilarious irony.)

Total Score: +64pts

Not a bad score for three-minutes of B-Movie tribute. Quite possibly the greatest scene from a fake movie (n)ever made. He may be part cop, part nightmare, but he's 100% a gentleman. You're welcome, Bio-Cop. You're welcome.

2015 VMAs

If you've lived as long as we have, you've probably spent many years being brainwashed by the hype-machine that is the VMAs. And, regardless of how old you are, chances are you stopped watching the show unironically after your second year in college.

But, unless you've thrown in the towel on life and your only point of reference for trends/art/cultural movement is the albums you discovered late in high school and college, then it's worthwhile to occasionally check-in with the Dear Old Lady of Pop Culture to see what the kids are up to. Even if you have serious doubts the kids are even paying attention at all to what you're being told they are.

The fact that the Taylor Swift and Nicki Minaj seemed to be beefing, coupled with the fact that MTV was going to willingly give Kanye a chance to speak during the acceptance of his Video Vanguard award, presented to him by former beef-e Taylor Swift, now seemed as good a time as any to let the nanobots visit the kaleidescopic seizure that is the VMAs.

• The entire pre-show. = -25pts
• Nicki Minaj emerges from a tribal tesseract carried by dance warriors and proceeds to plant her flag. And by flag we mean her butt. = +4pts
• Kanye Approval Meter: Entertained = +8pts 
• During Minaj performance, Taylor Swift appears from a trapdoor in the tesseract and looks out of place amid the tribal imagery. Call us crazy, but the last time a white person found themselves so confused among a group of tribal dance warriors, bad things happened for an entire group of people. = -10pts
• Taylor Swift avoids being cannibalized on stage with Minaj, Bad Blood kicks in, the lip syncing begins, and once again money proves that no beef is too large to be squashed when enough of it is on the table. = -3pts
• Macklemore shows up to dance badly with group of black dudes and rap about mopeds. = -2pts
• Macklemore inexplicably seeing himself at the center of hip-hop history. = -8pts
• Freddy Mercury's zombie pops up during Macklemore's set and wonders what the hell is going on. +3pts

"Sing...brains..."

• Macklemore's best decision during this set: Not having a black guy carry him on his shoulders during the big finish. Thankfully a roadie was nearby.  = +2pts
• Watching said roadie be mercilessly ushered off stage once he was done hoisting Macklemore. = +4pts
• You haven't seen hell till you've seen Zombie Mercury try to dance like Live Mercury. = -5pts
• Proportionality of black people on stage to black people in audience during Macklemore set: 10:0. -10pts
• Getting Pinhead to do your voice work. = +2pts
• Miley Cyrus emerging from the Pansexual Anus of Morgoth. = +5pts

"This one smells like candy!"

• Despite being scheduled to perform, The Weeknd is apparently not having any of this. = +3pts
• Holy shit! Miley Cyrus also follows Miley Cyrus on Instagram?! = -1pt
• In a hilariously unfunny cut-away scene, a svelte Ike Barinholtz and Andy Samburg give Instagram advice to Miley Cyrus while she wears what we can only assume is the tie-dyed crying face of Cecil the Lion. = -5pts
• Miley starts the show off by taking an Ellen inspired selfie and shouting marijuana. = +2pts (For going with what you know.)
• Britney Spears shows up to remind people that the VMAs used to be about the suggestion of being nude, not actual nudity. = +0pts (A wash.)
• Uptown Funk, like HPV, shows up to remind you that it's still here and not going anywhere. = +7pts
• Mark Ronson is so shy, guys! Like...so shy. = -2pts
• In case you were wondering what happened to Flock of Seagulls, apparently pieces of them are floating around in Justin Bieber's dungeon. = +2pts

"First to three albums gets to keep the scalp!"

• Jared Leto shows up because Joe Hemmerling wouldn't watch this shit if he didn't. = +3pts
• The Weeknd shows up to perform with a Canadian entourage...which is a Canadian way of saying "by himself". = +4pts
• It wouldn't be the VMAs if celebrities weren't competing at who grooves the most in their seat/standing in front of the person behind them. Taylor's got this y'all! = +2pts
• MTV unsuccessfully attempts to start pre-speech beef with Kanye by attempting to light The Weeknd on fire.= +5pts

 "That the best you got?! Fire is the best back-up dancer!"

• Kanye sees Taylor's dancing and deigns to stand and provide full body groove during The Weeknd's performance. Clearly, this is a test of wills... = +5pts
• Kanye Approval Meter: Highest Groove. = +10pts
• We love Rebel Wilson. But making a joke about people (code: Black People) who hate the police and how you hate police (STRIPPERS), before the hip-hop award is in such bad taste that the nanobots swear off watching Pitch Perfect until after Pitch Perfect 2 comes out on Blu Ray next week. = -20pts
• Watching Nicki Minaj struggle to ascend the stairs due to the entanglement of her dress and shoes, then asking a Rebel Wilson and her "FUCK THA STRIPPER POLICE" shirt for help, finally proves that time is indeed a smashed beercan. = +9pts
• Minaj, unhappy with the amount of money she was paid to squash her beef with Taylor Swift during the opening performance, decides to start a bonus beef with Miley Cyrus for an extra few bucks. = -20pts
• Rappers are the new gay BFFs, which isn't new to anyone who's heard of Flava Flav. = +6pts
• Who would have thought a pre-recorded joke about who killed Biggie Smalls would be the sharpest joke of the night? Not these nanobots. = +10pts
• Taylor Swift wins an award...and does not get bum rushed. Cuts to Kanye in proportion to words Taylor says during her acceptance speech: 1:2. = +2pts
• Kanye Approval Meter: Content. = +3pts
• Demi Lavato pops a cherry during her performance, although given the ambiguous sexual nature of the performance, we're not sure who's cherry is being popped by whom or in what capacity. = (Still calculating...)
• Iggy Azalea shows up to remind us that Australian rappers still have a long way to go when it comes to rapping. = -5pts
• Justin Bieber not embarrassing himself during dance routine. = +3pts
• Justin Bieber flying through the air with the greatest of ease..and then breaking down crying. Um, we're going to, um, go get a drink or something... = 0pts (Because we have a heart, people!)
• Not showing any clips from the videos that are supposedly about social justice... = -5pts
• ...and not nominating Kendrick Lamar's, Alright in this category. = -10pts
• Remember when openly talking about doing drugs on live TV was against the law? Maybe we would if we hadn't taken so many drugs. HEY-YO! = +3pts
• Ladies playing base guitars and singing live. = +4pts
• Anybody know the total trust fund value of the fan-pit at a VMAs? = (No score. Just an honest question.)
• Sam Jackson doing the voiceover for your career spanning montage. = +3pts
• Going from Sam Jackson to Taylor Swift. = -6pts
• Winning an award and not saying anything for what feels like 30-minutes. = +30pts
• Taylor Swift holding Kim Kardashian hostage during Kanye's acceptance speech. = -10pts

"Now remember, K. Just stick to the plan and everything'll be fine."

• #listentothekidsbro = +5pts
• "If I had a daughter at that time, would I have went on stage and grabbed the mic from someone else’s?" - Kanye. = +5pts
• Kanye calling out MTV for their several years of old West/Swift footage and then hyping Swift's presentation of Vanguard award. = +25pts 
• "I STILL DON'T UNDERSTAND AWARDS SHOWS." - Kanye. = +5pts 
• Kanye does his version of the Lincoln/Douglas debate as Lincoln AND Douglas, declares his run for president 2020, and drops mic. = +100pts
• Watching Miley struggle to read the room/respond to that epic Kanye speech. = -15pts
• Pharell shows up to do that song of his that sounds like all of his other songs. = -5pts
•  FKA twigs mentioned on VMAs... = +3pts
• ..and losing to a soon to be nobody. = -6pts
• Miguel shows up and doesn't attempt to kill a fan with his boot heel. = +2pts
• Can we get a mic check on A$AP Rocky! Hey yo, we need a mic check! No seriously, we can't hear what he's saying. = -3pts
• Taylor Swift and a bunch of models win video of the year. = +1pt
• Not one, but two quick shots of Miley's boobs. And the only people who care at this point are the people in the production trailer about to lose their jobs. = +2pts
• MTV throws out a bunch of kids across America to introduce Miley Cyrus and the Divine Players. = -2pts
• Joe Hemmerling gets his dying wish and finally sees The Flaming Lips perform at a VMA. = +10pts

Total Score: +124pts

Watching the show this year and thinking back to the show 10 years ago, it's insane to claim that this country hasn't changed. And, whether old people want to ever admit it (and they never do), culture is always changing and it will always, on some level, be designed and shaped by the kids. In the past, MTV used to work hard to present a show that could at least be somewhat palatable to the few centrist conservatives watching with their kids at home. Today, that conservatism, in a pop culturally political relevant way, appears to be all but dead and buried. Anyone seriously looking back at the past as some idyllic place of moral family values, would probably blow their brains out after what happened last night. This isn't to say the show isn't full of troubling racial undertones and seems to operate in the method of promoting gross cultural ignorance at how this level of consumerism is exacerbating the climate of scarcity in which most conservative ideologues reside and feast upon.

But thank God for Kanye, at least. While not always the best at articulating what's going on, he seems to get it (#listentothekidsbro). But who could say the perfect thing in front of thousands of people in the middle of an awards show? At his core HE'S A GUY WHO DOESN'T UNDERSTAND AWARDS SHOWS. To quote him, " I don’t understand how they get five people who worked their entire life, one, sold records, sold tickets, to come, stand on the carpet and for the first time in their lives be judged on a chopping block and have the opportunity to be considered a loser." Whether he knows this or not, what Kanye doesn't understand is the culture of scarcity that corporations (like MTV) use in their ever evolving Hunger Games.

If there is one thing we've liked about Kanye since the beginning it's his sense of self-reflection, even if we didn't see in him the image he wanted us to see. Other rappers may tell better stories, but no other rapper so often bends art and the reality around them to reflect on what they are, or are not as a person more than Kanye. If Kanye can't see past himself, it's because he's smart enough to see that no matter what he does, he's just a New Slave, part of a game of exploitation and forced docility that has been playing out for several centuries now. If we like him, it's because we get to see him work through these issues, while at the same time reinventing himself and shaping music and art with each subsequent album. If there is an artist who has done more than Kanye the last 10 years to shape this dialog and make impactful contributions (not all of them good) to the conversation, we're not sure who that would be.

So, yeah, fuck it. Kanye for president 2020.

True Detective Season 2, Episode 8

Score Technician: Sean McConnell

 

I believe it was the nanobots that said, "All things that start end. And all things that disappoint end slower."

Yea, so endeth the second season of HBO's True Detective. How would things end for Velcro, Buzzkill, Riggins, and Angry Trent? Looks like that our cue to fire up the nanobots and wake T. Bone Burnett from whatever drunken stupor he's in, which is a fancy way of saying that it's time to bring the science.

•  Nothing better than a post-coital cig... = +3pts
• ...to go with that recollection of that time you were kidnapped, held in a cave, and sexually molested... = -6pts
• ...along with that other hilarious story about how you killed your wife's rapist... = +6pts
• ...who actually turned out to not be her rapist at all. = -12pts
• DAMN YOU SEX AND YOUR ABILITY TO MAKE US SHARE INAPPROPRIATE INFORMATION AT AWKWARD MOMENTS. = No score, just a scientific admonition of sex's power over our word boxes.
• Call us crazy, but this little sharefest has us seeing an adorable family trip to the Magic Kingdom in a few years. = +2pts (Me llamo, Chavez.)
• I'll see your Cracker-Jack-wedding-band and raise you a diamond of several carrots. Enjoy our dramatic declarations of fidelity, homeless panhandler! = +4pts
• All of this talk of "two-weeks" makes us think they stole this dramatic framing device from this movie. Which then made us feel this way about the entire second season of this show. =  +10pts (Because laughter is important.)
• Velcro and Buzzkill give it their best shot explaining the relevance of dead-Riggins. = -2pts
• Chessani's last drink. = +1pt (GET IT?!)
• Leaving your murder stuffs out for everyone to see. = -3pts (Did we learn nothing from this example?)
• "When the lights go out, that's me." Nope. That's us turning off our television. = -5pts
• Colin Farrell should be given a lot of credit for his work on this show. He should not, however, be given any credit for the cowboy hat he wears to the meet. As far as the scorecard is concerned, there's only one Stetson wearing lawman in this country and you can find him in Harlan (or Miami). = -2pts (Here's another link in case you think we're joking.)
• Colin Farrell's befuddled and wordless reaction to the line, "I am the blade and the bullet." = +5pts (If only there were a GIF of this out there...)
• Giving us the closest we'll ever get to S.W.A.T. II. = +5pts
• Detective Velcro, for the sake of a tragic ending, makes the wise decision to visit a son he's already promised to stay away from. = -5pts
• Losing your grandpa's prize police badge in a game of Magic. = -2pts
• Random giant puddle of water in a city suffering through a catastrophic drought. Cthulhu cares not for the rules of your pathetic world! = -2pts
• Trying to send a giant emotional mega-dump of an audio file on your cellphone while retreating into a mountainous forest that, call us crazy, probably has terrible cell connection. = -3pts

Episode Score: -6pts
Season Score: +131pts

Look, it wasn't great. Was it as bad as everyone says it was. Probably not. We watch a lot of bad TV--most of which doesn't have the decency to limit itself to only eight episodes. As it stands, most of the leads were fine (Vaughn), some were very good even (Farrell and McAdams), they were just forced to swim in very muddy waters.

We could argue that the fault of this season was that it wanted to tell a different story. That following a serial killer who offers up newer and more twisted tableauxs/signposts is guaranteed to make things a bit more focused and linear (see this season of Hannibal). And, while we would like to applaud the show for taking a different rout, there are too many great films out there (Chinatown, LA Confidential) that serve as amazing templates for these types of stories. That TD had more time to tell it, yet somehow produced something so muddled and boring, is disappointing. And, while the last two episodes offered a bit more of "stuff actually happening," the last few minutes of Deus Ex Machina storytelling made us question our entire faith in plot driven stories.

Oh well, I guess we'll all just have to sit back and wait until next year when Game of Thrones can (hopefully) restore our faith in plot. Fingers crossed!

True Detective Season 2, Episodes 5 and 6

Score Technicians: Joe Hemmerling and Sean McConnell

The nanobots haven't been overly generous to this current season of True Detective, but Nick Pizzolatto and co. went a long way towards winning them over with the monumental bloodbath that ended last week's episodes (side note: Should we at the PCS be concerned by the sheer level of delight the nanobots took in watching so many people die? Because--and maybe you had to be there--it was a little alarming...). Now let's see if HBO can keep that momentum going for back-to-back weeks.

Episode 5

• Using the same "our suspects are dead, so case-closed" plot device from last season. = -10pts 
• Officer Buzzkill "opening up" during her sexual harassment training provides some much-needed intentional comedy. = +4pts 
• Vince Vaughn sends a representative from a Mexican drug cartel packing by quipping, "Door's in the same place, Amigo." +6pts for a great kiss-off line, -6pts for questionably racist use of Spanish. = +0pts (a wash) 
• What exactly are "pimpish results," and how does one go about obtaining them? = +2pts 
• Vince Vaughn describing the feeling of indeterminacy that comes with not knowing who made off with his $5 million as "blue balls for your heart." = +11pts 
• Leaving twenty thousand dollars in stolen Afghani money with your molesty, alcoholic mom, then being surprised when it isn't there waiting for you. = -8pts 
• And by the way, Taylor Kitsch was part of some Three Kings-esque caper while he was deployed? As if a reverse-Oedipus complex, repressed homosexuality, and PTSD weren't enough? This ratio of complexity of back-story to essentialness to the show's central plotline is maybe the most lopsided we've seen in the history of television. = -10pts 
• Everyone knows the word "gangster" is offensive. They prefer the term "Law Abidingly Challenged." = -3pts
• Finding out that creep you tortured to death all those years ago had nothing to do with your wife's rape. = +20pts 
• Using Rick Springfield's face as a punching bag in order to exorcise some of your rage RE: the above. = +7pts 
• Pimping your sister out in order to obtain an invitation to a VIP sex party. = -2pts 
• Dude dressed as Jesus, walking down the street carrying a cross not even worthy of a double-take in sunny California. = +12pts

Episode Score: +23pts

Episode 6

• Drinking hot coffee with one hand while your other hand holds your penis--GUN! Whoops! What we meant to say was penis--No, wait, gun! G.U.N. Wow, how embarrassing. We don't usually make the same mistake twice in one score. I mean, in a stand-off (Mexican or otherwise) it's not like we don't know how to use a penis--DAMMIT!! = -6pts
• Having a soul cleansing conversation with your wife's rapist. = +3pts
• The concept of cheese grating another man's dick seems too lived in to be completely made up. Imagine that on your pasta.... = -2pts (Hey-yo!)
• Listening to an old cop complain about how mad everybody got when they learned how racist LA cops were in the '90s. = -4pts (Exponentially increase score by +10pts for every subsequent decade people act surprised.)
• Practicing your stabby skills while your sister gives you pointers on being a high class prostitute. = +5pts (Finally, some practical career advice for once!)
• Watching Friends with you dad... = +3pts
• ...and some strange court appointed lady who can't stop giving him the stink-eye for five seconds. = -3pts
• Bonding with the son of a heretofore insignificant character that nobody on the Internet knows anything about. = -2pts
• In an effort to lighten the mood, Detective Velcro entertains the crew by doing his best Colin Farrell impersonation. = +5pts (ZING!)
• But hey! If you're going to binge, best to do it alone in your apartment where you don't make the mistake of killing the wrong rapist...again! = +3pts
• Nothing says LA quite like Escort Tour 2015. = -2pts
• Another episode in which key plot information is communicated by cops essentially tailgaiting suspects to a "dangerous super secret location". = -3pts 
• Nothing like a bit of pure Molly to help you unearth a childhood trauma in the middle of an orgy. = -3pts
• Knives come out. Unfortunately Chekhov was sleeping and totally missed it. Would you mind doing it again so that he can see it? He's a really great guy, Chekhov. = +4pts

Episode Score = +4pts
Season Score = +115pts

We are fully ready to stop discovering new things about Taylor Kitsch's character. Like, seriously, are we going to find out next episode that he was part of some top secret government-sponsored experiment as a kid, and as a result he can move objects with his mind? Other than that, these were relatively okay episodes. A definite cool-down from the previous week's big shoot-out, (even with the over-hyped orgy) but at least the plot is moving forward, and the main characters were mostly distracted by actual casework to spend too much time being angry at the people who raised them/whom they are supposed to be raising.

True Detective Season 2, Episode 3

Score Technician: Sean McConnell

Look it's a long season. Sometimes you just gotta let the nanobots do what they gotta do.

• Opening any show with a fake Elvis-h guy singing Bette Midler's "The Rose". = +5pts (Or was that Conway Twitty? Wait, did Conway Twitty have an Elvis phase?!)
• If your life flashes before your eyes before you die, then Detective Velcro had one shitty life. = +4pts (For getting out while he could.)
• Big death fake-outs. = -20pts (Nanobots will always retroactively retract all points associated with any attempt to reverse a good Janet Leigh.)
• Making up for it by having the human decency to piss yourself. = +1pts
• Blaming your erectile dysfunction on your incredibly fertile sperm. = -2pts
• Treating your eye problems with a plastic bag full of marijuana vapor. = +4pts (Cataracts are a national crisis, people!)
• Bragging about talking jive to a couple of LA cops. = +3pts (For boldly tempting fate.)
• Talking jive post Airplane. = -4pts
• It wouldn't be a season of True Detective if every person in a position of authority above the detectives wasn't a steaming pile of crapsauce. = +2pts
• Having Remo Williams as your dad. = +10pts
• Pulling an Exorcist-like head turn in an effort to avert the eyes of a gay person in order to demonstrate how gay you aren't. = -5pts
• "What kind of way is that to greet the world?" = +5pts

Episode Score: +3pts
Season Score: +64pts

Fine, we admit it: Having Colin Farrel is vitally important to the life on this show. Still, the nanobots were disappointed by the lack of ambition demonstrated by such a fake-out.

Not a lot happened this episode. So, rather than talk about that, we'd like to give a special shout-out to Kelly Reilly, who plays Vince Vaughn's wanna be baby mamma. Reilly has held her own, if not completely owned every scene she's been in. She's been so good that she can own a scene simply by sitting by herself across the room at an empty craps table. She's demonstrably feminine, incredibly sexy, and there's no question as to why Vince Vaughn's Frank Semyon remains captivated by her after all these years. In fact, to say that, after three episodes, she's the sexiest thing this season, is really saying something when you consider the show has also featured Tim Riggin's butt.

True Detective Season 2, Episode 2

Score Technician: Sean McConnell

Tom Cochrane's excruciating pop missive may have been the inspiration for this season of True Detective, but that doesn't mean the nanobots have fully committed to driving it all night long. However, with questions still surrounding who's actually the real true detective, what's up with Tim Riggins' penis, and why the rapist from Dancer in the Dark is hanging out with Don Draper off the Pacific Coast highway still to be answered, the nanobots remain intrigued, if not fully interested. And, sometimes with a sophisticated nanotechnology, you have to give them what they want.

"Jessie is a friend."

• Vince Vaughn's water stained ceiling/symbol of relationship with father throws down with the Kingpins' abstract expressionist painting and comes out on top. = +2pts
• Match-cut says eyes. Although, given the look and feel of the show, we would have thought natty testes. = No points, just a clarification.

"I played along with the charade."

• Giving an officer accused of soliciting a blowjob a promotion because he's bad at killing himself. = +4pts (We believe in second chances!)
• "I really do." = +2pts
• Attempting to appear masculine by lobbing a homophobic comment at the police equivalent of Fat Bastard, and falling embarrassingly flat. = +5pts

"You know I feel so dirty when they start talking cute/I wanna tell her that I love her but the point is probably moot."

• If you loved Internal Affairs. Imagine how much you'd like it if you multiplied it by three! Internal affairs have affairs! = +3pts
• Having a nice fried chicken dinner with your mom... = +2pts
• ...as she creepily semi-molests you while slagging on your high school girlfriends and comparing your houndog sexual magnetism with that of you father's. = -25pts

"Cause she's watching him with those eyes."

• It's not True Detective if there isn't car talk. = +2pts
• Answering police questions while half in the bag... = -5pts
• ..while at work, when your job is the mayor... = -10pts
• ...in a city of 94 people. = +94pts
• We're not sure which of the following makes the mayor of Vinci the worst in America: His love of daytime drinking, the way he shakes down local gangsters for his cut of their profits, or the obvious photo of him hanging out with George W. Bush that he likes to keep in camera frame behind him at all times. = No score, more of an existential pondering. 
• "I'm not tight with anybody." = +3pts

"Cause she's loving him with that bod--"

• --HOLY SHIT WHAT HAPPENED TO RICK SPRINGFIELD'S FACE?! = -10pts
• Look, at The PCS we've calculated thousands of hours of popular culture. If you think you're going to get some bonus points for an end of the episode twist where the best character is shot with a shotgun, only to find in the next episode that it was full of rock salt, you've got another thing--HOLY SHIT THAT SECOND SHOT LOOKED FOR REELZ. = +20pts
• I guess this means that Detective Velcro won't be sticking around. = Cannot compute (Technician has been removed due to bad punnery.)

Episode Score = +87pts
Season Score: +61pts

The nanobots calculations are showing that there are three things missing from this season of True Detective: Cary Fukunaga, Matthew McConaughey, and Woody Harrelson. If only those three were back, things might be a lot better. But, when you think about it, it could also be a lot worse. Despite how engaging the first season was, the central mystery of who was killing girls became the red herring to Rust Cole's spiritual salvation. The faux philosophizing and talk of the Yellow King never really amounted to much more than an extended therapy between the audience and McConaughey. But because it was so beautiful, we didn't really care that much about leaving all those old white guys to killing girls in cults and stuff. (Seriously, what happened to the guys behind that snuff film?)

So, it's pretty clear that this season is not last season.

But, to quote a particular show: "Sometimes your worst self, is your best self." What this season has given us is a little bit more LA Confidential and a bit less grad school confessional. Most of those long winded monologues about the universe have been distilled into more bite-sized nuggets. More importantly, they've been given to more than one character to say, so that, as an audience, we're not quite sure whom our favorite might be, as opposed to last season where the deck was so clearly stacked in favor of Rust Cohle.  Is that a good thing? Too early to tell. The fact that one of our favorites probably got taken off the board in the second episode is a good a reason as any to stick around to see where things are going.  (Side Note: The fact that the source for most of the humor in the show just took a serious blow to the bread basket leaves us a bit concerned that any levity to be found may have just died in West Hollywood. And that would be a big problem.)

Game of Thrones Season 5, Episode 9

 Score Technician: Sean McConnell

It's penultimate episode time on Game of Thrones. Generally, this is when HBO shows clear the board in an effort to set up a season finale that serves to set-up the next season. So, how penultimate-y is this episode? Only the nanobots can answer that question.

• Not protecting your foodstuffs during a war, in the middle of winter. = -2pts
• Keeping your word. = +20pts (No joke, this is a big deal in Westeros.)
• Sending your best friend/closest adviser away on the equivalent of a grocery run. = -1pt
• Vhagar the Dragon ain't no punk-ass like that gorgon Medusa. = +8pts (Because even our adorable Greek myths end poorly in Westeros.)
• Thanking someone for something and making a reference to a future state of being...in Westeros. = -5pts
• Pouring one out for your homies in a manner that would indicate that it is not, in fact, for said homie. = -2pts (The equivalent of dismissively wiping your privates on something in Dorne.)
• Playing the slap game with your sister. = +3pts
• Playing the bitch slap game with your sister. = +6pts
• Mycroft Holmes' handshake. = -2pts
• Writing a letter with your back to the door. = -3pts
• Offering to help your dad out of a pickle. = +10pts
• Burning your daughter alive. = -40pts
• Smiling while it happens. = -10pts
• Khalessi takes Drogon for a spin. = +50pts

Episode Socre: +33pts
Season Score: +177pts

It's hard to think of another episode in Game of Thrones that so completely taketh away and then giveth back. Shireen's death, while upsetting, was foreshadowed way back when we first met Mehreen and Stannis engaging in their public barbeques so many years ago. The fact that only Mehreen seemed to be enjoying herself is probably a bad sign for Stannis.

Speaking of Stannis, the nanobots have confirmed that he currently holds the record for highest drop from the list of likable GoT character rankings, falling from the top-5 and landing somewhere between Cersei Lannister and the black hole that is Ramsay Snow.

The fact that this scene happened this episode, as opposed to the one before, is evidence of how much thought the showrunners put into mitigating the trauma that Martin's books/ideas keep feeding them. The past two episodes have offered little hope for pretty much any character. Perhaps Shireen's sacrifice was the final scourge on a world that may be on the brink of redemption. Maybe... Probably?... Meh...

Game of Thrones Season 5, Episode 7

Score Technician: Sean McConnell

After last week's inevitable nightmare, Game of Thrones tried its best to hit the throttle on getting as far away from Ramsey Snow as possible. Unfortunately, Westeros being what it is, it was only a matter of time before the narrative circled back on itself and collided head-on with...more rape stuff. Is there a bright spot on the horizon? That depends on your perspective. Luckily, the nanobots remain forever impartial. Time to get our science on...

• Giving your best bud your super secret zombie killing weapon before he embarks on a suicide mission in the land of the bathless men. = +15pts
• Letting an old blind man pet your baby before he dies. = +10pts
• Asking Theon to do anything other than kill himself. = -3pts
• Outing your former ward-sister to her unbelievably psychotic and rapey bastard husband. =  -10pts
• Reminding a bastard that he'll always be a fucking bastard. = +4pts
• Trying to convince your lover to sacrifice his daughter for essentially what amounts to a warm breeze. = -3pts
• Not murdering your daughter for something as stupid as a warm breeze. = +6pts
• Pulling the ol' beat my face til you get tired trick. = +3pts (If it was good enough for Ali, it's good enough for Sam, the Ali of old libraries.)
• Bringing a Dire Wolf to a rape fight. = +10pts
• Breaking your stupid meaningless boys club vow in exchange for Hot Sex on a Platter. = +10pts
• Standing by and doing nothing but laugh as a dwarf beats the shit out of his slave captor with his own chains. = +6pts
• Crying in Westeros. = -2pts
• Being a king and crying in Westeros. = -4pts
• Making prison sexy. = +5pts (Just when we think we're out, Westeros. You pull us back in...)
• Telling the naked woman who poisoned you that she is the most beautiful woman you've ever seen just so she'll give you the antidote to the poison she infected you with. = +4pts (That's just good business sense, people.)
• Being surprised when the religious fanatics that you've empowered turn on you. = +5pts (Because the nanobots are starved for ironic justice.)
• Referring to your dwarven companion as a "gift." = -3pts
• Tyrion meeting Daenerys. = +15pts

Episode Score = +64pts
Season Score = +53pts

This episode seemed to function as a well-intentioned olive branch for anyone too upset by the last few weeks. Many of the more likable characters on the show had small and meaningful heroic moments, while the least likable all got taken down a peg or two. Now that two of the most popular figures in the show have met, we can cross our fingers and imagine that retributions and reckonings are just beyond the horizon.

Game of Thrones Season 5, Episode 3-6

Score Technician: Sean McConnell and TJ Geise

The nanobots have recovered from their Ultron induced revolt and they're ready to get back to HBO's Game of Thrones. What's been going on Westeros you ask? Sunshine and roses we imagine.

Episode 3

• Marrying above your weight class. = +3pts
• Not for nothing ladies, but King Tomnin, just so you know, is an "ery day, all day" kind of guy. = +16pts
• Complementing your mother-in-law on how much your husband/her son likes to fuck. = -8pts
• Agreeing to marry the sadistic bastard of the man who murdered your mother and brother, and who also happens to be so much worse than that. We couldn't come up with a better sitcom if we'd murdered an orphanage full of abandoned children and thrown some cats into a burlap sack and tossed it into a river. I mean, at this point, is the laugh track even necessary? = -10pts
• Bree gives regales Pod with your standard GoT backstory. It's a familiar story that can be charted on a graph that looks something like this:

                                                                                                    = -3pts

• Roose Bolton introduces Sansa to his son, Samwise Gamgee. = +5pts (Because who doesn't love a Sam.)
• Gingers have it great in Westeros. Latrine duty? Might as well call it live happily ever after duty! = +4pts
• Taking the pope on a shame walk. = +5pts

Episode Score: +7pts

Episode 4 

• Throwing coins on the body of the guy whose boat you stole and whose face you punched out. = +2pts
• Bronn being unable to hide his incredulousness at hearing that Jaime’s on a quest to return his “niece.” = +5pts
• Sending the jolliest member of the Small Council to his doom so you can settle the national debt. = -8pts
• Giving weapons and power to a group of religious fanatics knowing that their purification crusade would send your daughter-in-law’s gay brother to prison. = -15pts
• Tommen couldn’t make an order even if he was next in line at whatever is the Westerosi equivalent of Arby’s. = -2pts
• Sending your fire witch to rekindle Jon Snow’s lust for lily-white ginger flesh. = -4pts
• Melisandre’s smug little grin after saying, “You know nothing, Jon Snow.” = -3pts
• Stannis giving a fuck about his daughter’s feelings. = +6pts
• Getting a not-so-avuncular kiss from your uncle in the darkened basement of your childhood home. = -7pts
• Using your golden hand as a means of getting out of rowing a boat. = +2pts
• Using your golden hand as a means of getting out of being decapitated. = +4pts
• Using your golden hand as a means of getting out of burying a bunch of dead guys. = +2pts
• Oberyn’s daughters fill the femme fatale trope with such gusto that one of them even has a bullwhip. We won’t hold that against them, though. = +6pts
• Answering a “yes” or “no” question by throwing a spear through a guy’s head. = +5pts
• Forcing your captor to remove your gag by humming as obnoxiously as possible. = +7pts
• Disguising exposition as Tyrion’s Sherlock-esque deduction abilities. = +4pts
• Being able to afford outfitting your goon squad with intricate golden masks. = +3pts (Gotta look good when you’re trying to bring down the government!)
• The emotional rollercoaster ride leading up to the most likeable characters in Daenerys’ inner circle bleeding out amidst a pile of bodies. = +10pts for the fight, -20 pts for the outcome. Total = -10pts

Episode Score = -4pts

After the first three episodes set the direction for the season, leave it to the fourth episode to remind us that Game of Thrones loves nothing more than to kill a character just when their familiarity feels like a warm blanket. There will be no snuggling in warm blankets in George R. R. Martin’s winter!

It's all upside from here on out!

Episode 5

Right?! Upside...

• Feeding the fat one to your pet dragons. = +5pts
• Watching two dragons share a hot plate of BBQ. = +5pts
• Letting an old man change your bedpan when you have a perfectly good squire capable of doing so. = -2pts
• Making your own clothes. = +1pt
• Outing your psychopathic lover to his soon to be bride. = +4pts (Normally, any kind of outing is a bad thing. But in this case the nanobots are calculating a clear exception.)
• Making your stinky manservant wear a dress while serving wine during a family dinner. = -3pts
• Telling your son that he was a rape baby. = -10pts
• Proposing to your prisoner. = -2pts
• The Stone Men of Valriya, because that's what Westeros needs at this point, more local color. = +3pts

Episode Score: +3pts

Upside... Hmmm, maybe next episode...

Episode 6

Alas, what joy does this episode hold?

• What better way to showcase Arya’s corpse-washing skills than with a montage? Girl, we want a montage! = +2pts
• Just when you think you’re bonding with your assassin roomie over the time she killed her stepmom – psych! = +3pts
• Arya: “...wot?” = +2pts
• Jaqen confirms with his beatin’ stick what we knew all last season: Arya loved The Hound as much as he loved her. RIP, The Adventures of Lone Hound and Arya. = -5pts
• That “Oopsy-daisies!” moment after you accidentally reveal to your kidnapper that his dad is dead. = +4pts
• Tricking a little girl into drinking poison does sound like a test along the road to becoming an assassin, but that doesn’t mean we have to like it. = -4pts
• Arya can’t run away out of the Hall of Heads. = +5pts
• “The dwarf lives until we find a cock merchant.” = +15pts
• Some people are double-crossers. Others dare to triple cross. Littlefinger? The motherfucker is a straight up duodecuple-crosser. = -6pts
• The anticipation of seeing the big bald guy chop someone up with his big bald guy axe. = +4pts
• Jaime and Bronn looking like they’re recreating their favorite scenes from Ishtar. = -4pts
• The split-second when Biggy Baldy almost cut someone in half… = +5pts
• ...but that someone was Jaime Lannister. = -5pts
• The smile on Bronn’s face after getting one last jibe in before being detained. = +6pts (We’ll be sad when he’s inevitably chopped in half or gutted or drowned or whatever.)
• If Littlefinger is a duodecuple-crosser, then Cersei has to be a centuple-crosser. = -8pts
• Tommen’s doofy expression when they haul his wife off to the clink. = +2pts
• A snowy, nighttime wedding would almost be serene if it wasn’t between Sansa and Ramsey. = +2pts
• Reek referring to himself as Theon Greyjoy. = +3pts (There’s hope for him yet!)
• We’re just going to leave this here to sum the episode’s ending. = -100pts 

Episode Score = -79pts
Season Score = -21pts

For those of you who visit Progressive Cinema Scorecard’s website exclusively for your Game of Thrones recaps, you may not be aware that the final scene has caused quite a stir (though you can probably understand why). For those of you who are reading this after the shock has worn off, the following questions are peppering every article about this scene:

• In a culture that triggers at the R-word, did we really need to see the ever-victimized Sansa forcibly lose her virginity in front of her on-again, off-again brother?
• Did we really need another lesson in just how bootlicked Theon is to Ramsay?
• Was it necessary to further demonstrate that Ramsay, a man who takes pleasure in flaying people alive, murdering the boring, and smiling creepily, is so psychopathic that he force himself upon his bride?

The answer to these questions is no, probably not. We all knew that Ramsay would do something terrible the moment he got Sansa alone, but there was that glimmer of hope that Theon might stop it from happening. He didn’t, and no shower can wash off the squick.

This isn’t the first time that both Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire, or pop culture in general, have dealt with rape. But, (spoiler alert), Sansa isn’t raped in the books – the decision came solely from the showrunners. In a time where some of the Western Civilization’s elected officials haven’t quite made up their minds about whether not rape is 100% bad, watching Sansa go from a woman hardened by her experience to a woman dehumanized by her groom’s sadism seems in such poor taste that even the unfeeling nanobots know that this wasn’t necessary to the plot.

Telling the story of a rape victim is one thing, but rape should neither spice up a mostly (well, until this season) dull character like Sansa, or make all the sweeter Ramsay’s inevitable suffering at the hands of Sansa herself, Theon, Brienne, Littlefinger, Stannis, Jon Snow, the elderly chambermaid, Roose Bolton, Hodor, or whoever it is that guts the bastard.

Let’s get it straight, HBO. Rape is for the real world to deal with; Game of Thrones is for dragons and swordplay and laughing at cock jokes.

Game of Thrones Season 5, Episode 1

Score Technician: Sean McConnell

First, a quick recap: Last season on Game of Thrones...people died. Like, almost all of them.

As the show approaches the event horizon that is the production schedule of the most successful cable drama of all time and the absence of any existing source material from which to take it to its conclusion, we can only sit back and anticipate being crushed by the black hole that will be fans of the show supplanting readers of the book as the most obnoxious person in your office/improv group. Somebody call HR. It's about to get snarky.

Thankfully the nanobots aren't moved by "books." Or "TV shows." Or "schedules." They're just a sophisticated nanotechnology specifically geared towards providing real-time scientific data around HBO's (nay, America's!) fear of dong. If you've ever wondered what the cost of such fear is, simply keep reading.

• Seeing Charles Dance's name in the opening credits. = +10pts
• "Don't be afraid of my father." is the Westros equivalent of "I'll be right back." The moment someone says it, you know something bad is about to happen. = +3pts
• Apparently, in Westeros, many people spent their halcyon days traipsing through swamps hunting dirty swamp witches. = +2pts (For not flashing back to those other halcyon memories. You know, the ones with all of the raping. Because, hey, it's Westeros!)
• Cutting your thumb open so that you can feed a dirty swamp witch with your blood. = -1pt
• Putting eye coins on a dead Tywin Lannister in order to make him seem...more terryfying? = +5pts (It worked!)
• "Flushing the toilet:" A Westeros-ian term used to describe how one might dispose of their fecal matter through the use of any hole/gap in any box/window/door. = +3pts (For valuing sanitation over comfort.)
• Vomiting on the fancy carpet of the man who saved your life. = -4pts
• Chasing that with a goblet of wine. = +8pts
• Oddly enough, "Do Unsullied Dream of Electric Dong?" is one of George Martin's least successful deleted files. = No points just a fact.
• Training the kid who killed your girlfriend on how to kill more of your girlfriends better. = -2pts
• Nothing says romance on The Wall quite like a freezing trip on a rickety-ass gondola of death. = +4pts
• Goth Sansa. = +3pts
• After five seasons of brutality and misery, Game of Thrones finally takes a break from doom and gloom and offers up some comedy in the form of Robin Arryn learning swordplay. = +10pts (Never has a show done a better job foreshadowing a painful death in a more hilarious way.)
• Not wearing shoes to a funeral... = -2pts
• Or an undershirt... = -2pts
• And were assuming underwear as well. = -2pts
• Game of Thrones goes out of it's way to avoid dong by combining two things you never thought should go together: This scene from Armageddon, and this scene from Austin Powers. = -10pts
• Talking about the "war to come" five seasons into a show. = -5pts

Episode Score: +10pts
Season Score: +10pts

Look, almost every season opener of Game of Thrones feels like table setting. You remember the trauma of the last season and you're immediately filled with dread/excitement to jump right back in and be slapped in the face by some unforeseen twist or death. But this rarely happens in the season opener. And, after five seasons, we think it's safe to assume that Benioff and Weiss will, at some point, crush our face with their writerly hands so that they can laugh and bathe in our tears. So be patient and enjoy the amuse bouche that is any scene with Tyrion and Varys.

All that notwithstanding, there are two things that need to be said.

• Stop talking about the "war to come." We are five seasons in. War is already here. At least, we (the viewers) think we've seen a lot of war. Haven't we? If the show is to actually end in season seven (like the showrunners continue to assert, even if HBO seems to be hedging their bets), then this "war" better happen soon. For all we know, it may never happen. We at the SC feel that "war" may be to Game of Thrones, what "communism" was to Clue, a red herring dancing around the periphery, diverting our attention from the real crimes and motives of the characters. At the moment, we are on the fence as to whether or not this is a good thing. Who knows, perhaps we've all been duped by the greatest macguffin in the history or television (and books) because, let's be honest, thousands of pages into The Song of Fire and Ice and "winter is still....(snore) coming." This is the season the show officially lasts longer than America's involvement in WWII. While it's made for great TV, there's only so long we're going to be satisfied with "just the tip." Hey, speaking of! That brings us to...

HBO/America's problem with penis

• At this point, just the tip would be preferable. The elaborate ways in which HBO continues to showcase nude women, while staging laughably Austin Powers-like scenes of naked men, is bordering on the puritanical. In a show that seems to make victims of the virtuous, it feels more and more contrived in its portrayal of sex and the human body. Watching some guy artfully bend his knee while another man goes animal crackers on his privates only shows the audience how disingenuous you are about portraying men as sexual objects. Especially, when you have many (oh, so many) scenes featuring full frontal females. (You can call it a merkin all you want, but if it's a merkin that looks like a vagina. It's a vagina.) Ask any man who's ever rolled over in bed, and any woman/man who's been in bed with that man, and they'd probably tell you that it's called a dong for a reason, because a penis, on average, behaves more like a dong than a rod. It flops. And leans. And dangles. It's part of a body. I'm not sure we even want to get into the physiology of a scene involving men who are supposedly in an aroused (or post-arousal) state. But hey, we did it any way. Watching naked men roll around on each other like shadowed Ken-dolls is actually more disturbing, and sends a pretty clear message about who should be protected in our culture. But protect us from what? Sex? The human body? On a show featuring naked contortionists? Really? Call us obsessive, but it's actually becoming the most distracting thing about a show that attempts to market itself as a "gritty" portrayal of the cost of human impulses. At this point, it's pretty much a drinking game. Every time a naked male character stands to pour himself a drink in front of a strategically placed carafe of wine? Drink! Anytime a scene defies physics by shadowing out/Buffalo-Bill-ing a guys junk? DRINK!! We're not asking for porn here. Stop being weird about it HBO. I mean, we at the PSC hate to use this phrase, but have some balls already.