iZombie: Love & Basketball

We waste no time this episode to come back to Liv and poor, broken Major in the middle of a makeout session. Dude's just as much a hot mess as ever, but he's good at pretending he's not and hopes that somehow Liv will fix him. Nice try buddy, but she's too concerned with transferring the zombie virus back to him (which raises a lot of questions actually. Assuming this is a virus that they cured shouldn't his immune system develop antibodies to stop it? Or is it more like a bacterial infection? Is there a zombie antibiotic on the horizon? And I've thought too hard about a zombie virus).

Liv makes Major sleep on her couch while she checks him for signs of undeath and lays out all her fears for transferring the zombie virus from sex to her transforming into a rom-com heroine, gaining super clumsy powers, and scratching Major.

"So far all our problems could be solved with condoms and rock salt."

But she runs off to our brain of the week, leaving Major with the "Let's just be friends" ultimatum that worked so great in season one. He doesn't need friends, he needs ten month stay with a psychologist in another country. Liv never could see much beyond her own problems so she's happy to entertain Major needing her, but not what would actually help him.

Our brain of the week starts off as random security guard, killed out of nowhere. Someone took the time to shut the cameras off so you couldn't see the murderer, but the only one who could do that was our security guy. Mystery! There is a fun scene of Clive swinging by the morgue with pictures of our who dunnit challenge before Liv eats any brains. She needs to watch more psych to get better at her bullshitting.

We cut to a quick scene of Rita watching a full zombie restrained by every bicycle chain Max Rager could find trying to take a swipe at some brains. It also introduces us to the craziest R&D lady I've ever met. Seems she really wants some blood from a zombie not in full on brain lust mode, and is happy to take it from anywhere possible. I will be very happy if it turns out she's some kind of evil vampire that just likes drinking zombie blood for the exotic flavor. Supposedly this all has to do with that mysterious Super Max Rager - so either the company wants to make better zombies or...nope, that's all I got from it, make bigger, faster, bionic zombies.


Back with Liv, now full of basketball trivia courtesy of her breakfast, we learn that our brain of the week was in fact Coach Mike who taught the local underprivileged kids basketball and how to point the finger at murderers. Seems the kids all got on a bus and swung by the police station that must have an open door policy to tell Clive they know who the murderer is.

Our first red herring is RJs Dad (if he had a name I missed it), who tried to choke Coach Mike during practice. Liv gets a couple quick succession visions of Abusive Dad choking our brain of the week, and then smacking the shit out of his son. All pretty pedestrian things that mean he's not the murderer (because in cop shows it's always the last one you'd expect), but the look in Clive's eyes changes when he learns the truth about Abusive Dad. Are we going to get some actual backstory for Clive?

Jesus Gabe has returned from his sabbatical in the desert and is willing to make a deal. He says he'll cut the utopium the same way as at the boat party as long as Blaine promises him the cure. Anyone else want an episode that just follows Blaine as he works in his mortuary? The panicked looks on grieving faces as zombies shuffle in and out, carrying coffins loaded down with drugs/dead bodies/undead bodies/all of the above. Blaine filling out paperwork or trying to hire a hearse and not having his zombie henchmen fill it with beer. Just me?

Major's still broken, always broken. This show should be called Breaking Major. He's also stuck training some guy in Max Rager's gym because Seattle is now owned by Von the way Luthor owned all of Metropolis. Rita's sniffing around him, pissed at his missing her booty call, but Major uses it to demand a stronger tranquilizer because the last guy he killed woke up in his trunk. Evil R&D lady, Dr. Irving to her accountants, is curious and asking about a dozen questions about lucid zombies. I'm not sure why she's so surprised that zombies could keep walking and talking and begging to not be killed. Sure, you studied a feral one, but obviously there are others out there. If you ask nicely, Rita and her cages of flying monkeys could provide video footage of a living zombie before Major offs one. I think Ravi, who tested drugs on himself for science, has a more vigorous grasp of the scientific method than R&D lady.

I still hope she's a vampire though.

Now to the possible Clive backstory. *rubs hands* After checking a few sources, Clive returns to Abusive Dad and threatens him that if he ever lays a finger on his kid again, he's coming for him. Of course Abusive Dad tries for Clive, but he gets soundly beaten. So, did that seem really personal to anyone else? Not in a cops see bad shit kind of way either. Well, I suppose we'll just have to keep waiting for crumbs of Clive's history because he's busy getting called into the office for not letting the Meat Cute investigation go. His boss, who got the job after Suzuki played with matches, is pissed that Clive is asking Suzuki's widow questions and won't let it just be chill.

For reasons I cannot fathom beyond her being 12, the new Blonde FBI agent is doing an old mime routine out the window to get Clive into even more trouble. Did she hit her head really hard, or is she also a zombie under the control of bro brains? After putting everyone's staplers in Jell-O and saran wrapping the toilets, BlondFBI reveals that she's interested in Meat Cute because they discovered a single strand of the missing astronauts hair down a drain there. They must have been scrutinizing every inch of that place given that it was also coated in blood from Lenny, Mrs. Lovett, Random Zombie #3, Blaine, and Major as well as all the corpses that had been hanging in the freezer. Really? The cops just covered that part up as well? No one bothered to point out pieces of frozen corpse shrapnel? Or how the bandsaws were coated in human blood and DNA? Just that one hair. Okay, FBI, you just keep doing you.

In trying to prove she's not really selfish, Liv's set Major up with coaching the kids who lost their coach. Except she's doing it so she can indulge her basketball craving brains. It's sweet, but there's always this navel gazing that comes with every choice Liv makes. I wonder if we'll ever see her do a truly selfless act.

Back at the lab, in one of the few scenes he gets, Ravi watches as Don E drops off a massive bottle of tainted utopium to make the zombie cure. But Ravi's gonna do it right this time, by repeating his results and having more controls, eh Ravi? Or just an excuse to have more cute rats. That works too. Liv wants to name them after the '86 Celtics, but Ravi's having none of that. "We'll just be standing here trying to remember why we called a rat 'Bird.' Isn't that right, Boba Rat?"

Rita suddenly remembers she's supposed to be Liv's roommate and stops by while Liv's hosting a tapas party. Seriously, lady, for being a zombie that can't taste shit you sure devote a lot of your life to fancy food prep. Shish kabobs? Unaware that her roommate is evil, Liv drops the bomb that she's been making out with Major so Rita stabs Liv in the hand with a kabob. While Liv runs off to clean it up, there's a single drop of blood on the cutting board which Rita dabs off, proving once again that you don't send an evil MBA to do a scientist's job. What the hell is anyone going to do with a dried drop of blood smeared across a napkin and contaminated from whatever was on the cutting board? Think Rita, or we're sending you back to nemesis school.

Back to Breaking Major, while coaching the kids who never go to school, another fight breaks out and Major speaks to the kid, getting close to him and learning about his dad leaving. Later, when he's out stalking zombies, he comes across one but then the obligatory adorable child runs into his zombie dad's arms. This is what's made Major so interesting, out of all the characters he's the one constantly thrown in a dark pit and never allowed to escape. At the beginning of this series the man's a freaking saint to the point of Mary Suedom. Oh look, a college athlete who also works with disadvantaged youth so he can give back to the community and looks like a Ken Doll. So the show piles more and more dirt on that golden heart to see just how far one can taint something until it won't snap back.

He plays the pretend happy boyfriend around Liv, but then they draw the bags under his eyes and redden them up the moment he's by himself, forced to live only inside his shattered brain. Perhaps it's already gone too far and he can never come back from being a zombie assassin killing people with happy families to protect his zombie girlfriend. Or he'll go crazy at the end of the season and blow up the entire Max Rager building. He does know how to get a bazooka.

We had a brain of the week didn't we? I suppose we should get to solving that. Seems that Coach Mike had a Thunder (Finders?) Keeper which is a fundraising site that had nothing whatsoever to do with Kickstarter. He wanted to send his kids to camp. On the day he died it suddenly got a huge boost and was fully funded. Clive tries to trace the bid, but in the meantime one of the three possible murderers winds up dead in Tacoma.

Ravi gets some great scenes arguing with the doc in charge there about quotas and fancy british accents. Of course, he also gets to show up that he's 10X the dead body guy by noticing Telly died from blunt force trauma. Racist Mortician blames it on a hammer, but that seemed to be Telly's weapon of choice as he worked in the "You don't ask what I do" business.

What was a bookie doing on the 14th floor of the building Coach Mike was killed in? Why, visiting one of the lawyers, of course. First they stop by a guy named Thrunk(?) He's just there quick to establish his existing so you might remember him later. Don't worry, there will be a test. Clive does some real police work again by checking the copier codes to see who else was working late that night.


While interviewing our last random white guy lawyer (RWGL), Clive smells bleach on an autographed bat. Liv has a useless zombie vision just to prove that RWGL once got upset about a team losing, which means he must have been 10 large in with Telly or something. Really, this is all Clive's show now as he tests out the reach of the bat and finds blood coating the blinds from the weapon smashing into Telly's skull.

But now, this is the scene we were all waiting for. While Ravi's getting the rats set up for dosing, Blaine swings by asking where the cure is. As Ravi's trying to explain that this shit takes time, Jesus-Gabe sneaks up and snatches up the syringe filled with Max Rager + utopium = super zombie curse. He injects the stuff straight into her sternum, which had to hurt like shit. Rather than get cured, he turns into a double zombie and...no, that would have been cool. Instead, he flops over dead.
"Needs work, Doc," Blaine jokes. Ravi screams that the tainted utopium wasn't right and they're back to square one. Blaine says that Ravi discovered the anti-cure, an instant zombie killer. Suddenly both realize the potential and, honest to god, roll across the morgue floor trying to get their hands on the bottle.

This isn't some quick one minute fight either, they're climbing over top each other, throwing elbows, and chasing after the thing while "Friday I'm In Love" plays over top. This was almost as good as zombie knife fight from season one. Ravi smashes the zombie anti-cure with another bottle. Blaine accepts his defeat gracefully by rising and says, "Well, that's my cardio for the day."

Back in the interrogation room, RWGL admits that he killed Telly after he pulled out a hammer to threaten him, but that he had nothing to do with Mike's death. Seems lawyers have a guy they call "The Fixer" because all lawyers are shady as shit, I guess. He claims that it was the fixer who shot Mike and is willing to cut a plea deal in exchange for the name, but Clive already knows who he is because Clive is the real psychic - he just keeps that fact hidden and relies on Liv's weirdness as a smokescreen. Of course it's that guy we saw for blink and you miss it, also the last guy in the pictures who couldn't be identified. He's already hopping the same private jet that Max Rager PR lady vanished on. I wonder if he took his shower curtain with him.

Major swings by Max Rager to drop off a list of zombies he'd checked off as being human. He also tries to dump Rita but she's not having any of that. Being at least fathered if not raised by Von the adult toddler, it's no surprise she doesn't know the meaning of the word no. She also insinuates that Major best get to killing people because he can't get his punch card filled until there are more bodies clogging up Dead Zombie River.

Poor Major's still grasping as straws, trying to find some balance to his life and tells Liv, again, that he doesn't want to just be friends. He needs something stable in his life. Anything. Maybe a pet rock would help. It's not like that could turn into a golem and try to break his legs in the middle of the night. Okay, yeah it would.


We end with Suzuki's widow dropping by Clive's desk (He lives there, right? Probably because Liv's roommates keep scooping up all the available real estate in Seattle). She says that while going through her husband's beer fridge she found this - and drops a tupperware onto the desk which we all know is full of brains.

Dun dun DUNN!!!

So, the cure is back to square one, less than square one now that Jesus Gabe is dust to dust, Major's just as in deep with Von and Rita as before, and Clive might finally be on the hunt for zombies. I have absolutely no idea where this season is going. But I'm still holding out hope for vampire R&D lady.

iZombie: Even Cowgirls Get the Black and Blues

Welcome back to a week with a forgettable Brain of the Week - I think the writers themselves forgot about it until the last 5 minutes - some more jamming Peyton pathos in to spackle over the cracks, and Blaine! Blaine makes everything better.

This episode opens with a bunch of pervy, idiotic high school boys (all high school boys) finding a gun in the bushes. Despite all the leading imagery with the convenience store robbery, I really kept hoping that gun was Majors. I don't think he'd be that stupid, but man's been cracking like a cadbury egg lately. His brains are starting to ooze out like a disgusting fondant creme people only eat because it's tradition is what I'm saying.

Because we're still going to get you to care about Peyton, we open on her doing some weird hiphop dance yoga PSL white lady thing. Liv swings by to thank her for the birthday cake, and to inject in a friendship that would have made more sense in the last season. I'm glad that not everyone is all "Ah! Liv zombie! Kill with fire!" and Peyton, after taking a beach vacation for six months because she's a secret Trump or something, is surprisingly cool with it all. But there was just almost nothing there before beyond the occasional exposition, and I'm not sure if Peyton's been interesting enough beyond she's a lawyer and hot, and a lawyer and hot! Hopefully they'll do something beyond her getting frisky with Blaine and a dumb love triangle.

Who wouldn't want to see Peyton go all Rambo the way Major did? That'd be something new.

Speaking of the zombie assassin, he's in deep waking up at Rita/Gilda's place (Liv doesn't seem fazed at all that her roommates keep having second and third homes) and regretting every moment he's in his skin. There's a lot of man pain on display but in this case, I think the guy's earned it. He never really mourned Liv dumping him, never mourned losing all those kids from his job to Blaine, never came to terms with the whole zombie apocalypse and is just snorting/licking/rubbing in his hair utopium to smooth out the pain.


Ravi's apparently done something to his car, which we've never seen, but it was really an excuse to have Liv bump into Major again as she swings by to pick him up for another murder. We also get to learn that Ravi named the dog Minor because of course he did. You're just lucky, you're cute Punman!

To our brain of the week - it's a waitress at a country music joint in the Little Redneck district of Seattle. Lacy was strangled by someone waiting in her closet. Liv finds piles of unopened letters our dead waitress sent to someone in prison. Of course the guy was released a month ago from the joint and she cheated on him, and he was in jail for beating a guy with a pool cue.

The country song backstory was worth it to have Ravi sidle up next to Clive and whisper "Thank you for doing sex with me." Go and try this, preferably with your significant other. It's 0-100% guaranteed to work. I am totally with Liv, "Make Love" needs to die in a glittery fire of moltav cocktails.

Out of the brain of the week to what seems a distraction about the convenience store shooter. We learn that Clive's working for Amanda Waller now (run, Clive!) and the FBI sent in a blonde lady named after the mayor of some city. Seems the FBI is really concerned about all these rich white guys disappearing. It's only been a few days, a week at the most for some, but damn it! This shall not stand! What's that? Blaine killed over a hundred people for party trays at his zombie soireés? Were they rich? Who cares!

Liv and Clive swing by a pawn shop, giving the writers the chance to use "Pawn of the Dead" for their scene card. We got another glitter moltav cocktail for that pun? Matt Sudek, Lacy's jailbird boyfriend, works there - but mostly it gives Liv a chance to start speaking in Apple Jack level of countryisms. I'm surprised they didn't make the actress adopt a yee-haw texas accent as well. They did force Liv to get big into singing and, after running into a wall with the investigation, she buys a guitar.

After some teasing for a few weeks, we finally meet Stephanie and she's freaking adorable. Ravi talks about how he's wearing a cologne with pheromones so he can be a walking sex experiment, and Steph's joking back, wondering where they got the pheromones from. That, that's a good start of a relationship. Not long glares, silent stares, or watching people while they sleep. People bantering and building off one another.

Of course, because we've got to throw another wrench into the mix, Peyton shows up unannounced and it seems, despite her being richer than Croesus - she's going to move in with Major and Ravi. Not that Major felt the need to tell Ravi or anything. I went full team Steph when, after the awkwardness, she asked if that was Ravi's ex and then went for a high five.


Doing some more investigation into the brain of the week, our crime prodding duo stop by Lacy's place of work - a dive bar shipped plank by plank from the side of an interstate in Oklahoma into Seattle's hipster paradise. The crimsoniest of red necks tells them that the night of Lacy's death he saw her arguing with the owner and then dump hot coffee into his lap. This gives Liv her only zombie vision of the episode where Lacy asks for a loan advance from her boss Rick and, of course, the guy gets handsy. What do we have behind door number 1? I do believe it's a red-herring!

But who cares about that, we've got Blaine! Seems he's noticed a few of his zombie customers have gone missing and isn't happy about that. He's also gotten himself a new zombie thug who's either mute or, knowing Blaine, had his tongue ripped out. He speaks through his phone which leads to some great one-liners. As Blaine's about to send Lenny 2 out to figure out what's going on, Don E pops up to announce he's found the guy who made the tainted utopium, but there's a problem - he's found Jesus.


Blaine tries to torture Gabe into giving up his formula while Lenny beats him with a bible, but there's no budging Gabe's faith. He's in it hardcore.

Back to our brain of the week, Rick voluntarily turns himself in along with his pregnant wife now spinning the story that Lacy was hopelessly in love with him so, when he told her he was married, she went crazy and pelted his crotch with coffee. Of course, Liv calls him on it  "You offered her cash for sex, that's what those blisters are about."And his wife loses it, whacking Rick about the head and says he was going to use her to lie as an alibi.

Sadly, the hope of solving this early and spending the rest of the episode with Blaine's marry band of misfits is dashed as Clive does his awesome detective stuff without having to be an insufferable ass in a scarf by talking the wife into a trap. He asks if there was any blood on Rick's clothes, which she says of course she saw it, then he tells her that Lacy was strangled. There was no blood.

I'm not sure if we got the scene of Liv singing in the dive bar so the actress could show off her pipes (which were nice) or just to see Ravi in full on cowboy hat and fancy shirt. If it was the latter, totally worth it. That man must have a wardrobe that could rival Cher from Clueless, or maybe he's got an in with a costume shop.

While Liv's singing her little zombie heart out, Clive's trying to call her about the false-false alibi from Rick's wife. While there, a woman finally realizes her dumb ass son found the gun and drops it off at the police station. But Clive's so distracted he passes it off to the scented candle cop (I have no idea where that candle guy setup is going, just run with it).

Somehow, Liv's song about Matt and Lacy stirs up all these feelings and she has to run out of there to find Major. Ravi shouts to her: "You're gonna miss me trying to convince one of these lovelies to play cowgirl and Indian."

At the car, Matt pops up looking super creepy. Because he missed the "how not to be a creep" lessons, he leans close to this barely known woman in a dark parking lot, huffing through his words, and saying love a lot. I'm surprised Liv didn't slip right into zombie mode there. But Matt's scene was just to prove he's not the killer because he really loved Lacy, and murderers never kill people they love. Liv rushes off to Major to finally cut him free. She pours her little heart out (not in song) and Major's response is "Okay, cool" as he shuts the door.

Liv's not having this and runs back in because somehow everything is always abut Liv. She even blames Major for her going to the party because he wanted her to have some fun. "How could I become your wife? I was a monster." There's an interesting selfishness that bobs up often in Liv. Whenever she lets people down, it's often played as the brains at work but I wonder how true that is. Liv often does questionable things just so she won't be alone. But that doesn't make her a bad person, just human. It's refreshing as female characters tend to either be devils or saints - there's almost never any nuance. Which isn't all the fault of writers, the public in general has trouble accepting grey in a woman. If she isn't a perfect singing nun at all times, then she's a shrieking harpy ala Skyler from Breaking Bad. Why couldn't she just let Walt run his own meth making ring and been happy for it? It's not like she was saddled to this monster through her children or anything.

Anyway, back at Blaine's where I'm really glad they brought back Scott E in the form of his twin Don E. The actor hits it out of the park explaining to our mute zombie about religion and the eucharist, "Jesus rose from the dead, but that doesn't make him a zombie if he doesn't eat brains. I don't know what you qualify as when you require other people to eat you."

They're in charge of watching over poor Gabe who Blaine's got in a coffin. Gabe still refuses to give up his formula, so Blaine has Lenny 2 slice him up with his fingernail. They throw Gabe back into the coffin and screw it down. "Gonna be a fresh angry zombie soon. Might want to use more screws."

Peyton's continuing her two-face transition by trying to find someone, anything willing to take down Stacy Boss (Voss?), but of course everyone's far too scared to take the deal - until a white haired angel comes through her door. Yup, Blaine's plans to take down this Boss involve him working closely with Peyton. There's some mafia-babble about the utopium coming out of Singapore and Hong Kong which you'd think would get the DEA or someone other than a lone Seattle lawyer on the case but, eh, the FBI's busy looking out for missing rich guys.

We also see the start of Blaine flirting with Peyton because that girl has got the widest tastes imaginable. Back when Ravi first wanted Liv to set them up, she talked about all the random dudes Peyton kept on speed dial. Now she's piqued by the white haired major drug criminal that waltzed into her door to take down some Boss Boss? Girl, buy a few standards.

Just to remind the viewers at home how evil (and awesome) Blaine is, he's taunting our new zombie Gabe with some brains. He promises him all he can eat and even to cure the zombie out of him if he'll just share his formula. I'm not sure why they didn't go to the come-to-Jesus guy with the promise that if he helps in the investigation he could save hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives from a looming zombie apocalypse. You'd think Gabe would jump at that chance far before all the bible beating and coffin screwing.

Gabe believes that Blaine is testing his faith, so Blaine does what he does best by throwing Gabe out into the wilderness for "40 days" to get him good and hungry and send him running back with the formula. An interesting idea but Blaine better hope he comes back to the dark side before going full feral. Gabe seems to be the only hope for a cure. Though they're also relying a lot on a strung out junkie/drug dealer remembering a formula he mixed up a year and a half ago. I don't foresee that type keeping stringent lab notes.

Major, in his 'doesn't give a shit about anything' state, managed to lose the dog. Ravi's the one to find Minor sniffing around the park where Major first abducted him and his old owner. Of course this breaks our little Ken Doll and he goes chasing after more utopium. Is this...I do believe we've finally hit rock bottom when he realizes he's buying it off one of the kids he knew from his old days in the shelter.

As he's about to leave, guilty pills in hand, Rita/Gilda hits him up for some Netflix and Chill. Major's life is not in a good place.

Oh right, that brain of the week. We should probably solve that. I mean Clive, he always solves it. Turns out the convenience store killer, after ditching the gun, ran into Lacy's closet for reasons that only make sense to someone losing blood flow to the brain due to the spanx over their face. He jumped out and killed Lacy just because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Life's cruel like that. Anyway, moving on...

Our final stinger is Major, red eyed and barely able to stand, begging for Liv to help him. She does this by jamming her tongue down his throat. I'd have suggested a glass of water and a nap first, but you do you, Liv.

So we've got Peyton playing with two kinds of fire, Major trying to rebuild himself with probably the worst option available (Ravi seems like the more considerate one - tongue jamming optional), and Blaine working to take down the Boss, probably learn Major's the zombie assassin, and trace the cure for his own means.

Can't wait to see what happens next.

Halloween 2015

I don't know if it was because of the rain, the cool down, or the fact our town has gone full blown "Trunk or Treat" but this year was the least amount of kids yet.

Not that it didn't stop us from putting up as much as we could. You can't stop me rain! Here are some pictures of the haunt from this year and finally a video.

Happy Halloween!

Lego Dimensions

When people ask me what's the best game they can play with their significant other/friend who's sitting next to them I always drop whatever I'm holding, run over, and shout THE LEGO GAMES!

There's little fear of competition as they're all designed as true co-op, you have to work together to get things done. And if you're not as big of a gamer as your fellow couch sharer, it's no big deal. All you lose is a bit of coin as your character explodes into lego pieces, then you pop back in, ready to chuck Legolas off another cliff. What? Just me.

After seeing how much tasty tasty money Disney raked in with their Infinity series, Lego decided to finally get into the toy/game hybrid with Dimensions.

What makes Lego different from Infinity and Skylanders is that rather than a little collectible figure you get actual Lego pieces. Lego pieces you can pop off the stands to play with. I am going to do so many things with my little Lego Chell! (If we get the Doctor Who Lego kit, she's gonna be his companion instead of Clara because duh). There are points with the vehicles where you can upgrade not only what they can do but how they look, the game giving you step by step instructions to rebuild the legos. But I'm getting ahead of myself, let's pop that disc in first.

While your system is downloading and installing the massive patch all games come with now, you can tear through the box, dumping lego pieces over the floor to put together the Dimensional portal that looks like a Stargate Dentata.

It was at this point I realized one of the most important things about these games/toy - get an end table or something to put not only the base but all your side pieces onto. This is actually a tv tray table reserved for our Halloween display, but it's got an out-of-season job now.

The original set only comes with Batman, Wyldstyle (at least it's not Wyldstyleaden), Gandalf, and the Batmobile. We got the Portal one on the first day as well - which I'll be reviewing at the end...and then picked up a few more a few days later. This quickly becomes a reason why heading into this dimension may not be something you'd want to take. They are designed to be money sinks, though not as bad as micro-transactions in free to play games.

To the main game. You start out meeting Batman (of course you do) who's voiced by, say it with me now, Troy Baker. Actually, Lego pulled out quite a few coups for this game. Normally their voice work is meh, but they got in not only Elizabeth Banks for Wyldstyle and Will Arnett's few scenes as the Lego Movie Batman, but Elijah Wood and Sean Astin return as Frodo and Sam along with Christopher Lloyd's Great Scotting it up as Doc Brown and all the Ghostbusters. They got around the fact Harold Ramis is gone from us for the Ghostbusters level which I'll explain later.

Robin (voiced by the same one who's Robin on Teen Titans Go) gets sucked into some new portal dimension and Batman goes running after him. The Meddling Crusader finds himself in the middle of Gandalf's fight with the Balrog. The dimension hole sucks up Frodo and the one ring, leaving poor Sam bereft and kinda bored.

Finally, the multi-world tour drops Batman and Gandalf off at Lego Movie Land (full confession, I've never seen the Lego Movie, which can be a bit of a problem for these games) where we get our one female character of the group.

*record scratch* Rant Ahead: Lego is usually pretty bad at gender parity but for this game it is just freaking awful. Out of 44 possible characters you can purchase and run around as there are 6 female ones. That's not even one in seven. At that ratio, just kiss the species goodbye. Jurassic World is the best example that they don't give a shit. There are two movie characters they chose you can be for the game. Guess who they are. Owen - Chris Pratt's man child character of course. Who do you think the second would be? A random nameless guard, of course! What do you mean Claire? That's just silly. Girls can't do things!

The only black character is Cyborg, who's also DCs go to "black friend" because they forget about Vixen. Maybe the Ninja master is supposed to be Asian but the rest of the ninjas are all white guys because of course they are.

The second Batman meets Wyldstyle he demands her scanner, which he's never seen before, to do his awesome, manly Batman shit. She at least gets to use it the rest of the game, but that's just to find things for Batman to tow and/or whack with his battarangs.

I am so fucking tired of Batman. About his only fun moment is upon meeting Will Arnett's Batman and getting into a slap fight with him, otherwise he's every god damn Troy Baker protagonist that broods and is super serious and dark. THIS IS SO BORING, YOU'RE NOT EVEN PARODYING IT! Gandalf's played like he's a bumbling old guy, sweet but kind of absent minded.

All I got out of Wyldstyle's personality is that she has wacky hair and is not a DJ - which she said about 30,000 times. She seemed kinda entertained with what was going on, but also detached and sorry, I built more of an attachment to beleaguered mute Chell than her. This was, after all, Batman's show...again.

Okay, enough bad stuff. Let's get to the fun stuff. Whether you purchase the various packs of characters or not, the main storyline itself is composed of you visiting each world (save Jurassic Park and whatever that Chima thing is). I figured I'd list every world and give my pluses and minuses on it while avoiding any real story spoilers.

The first stop over is in Wizard of Oz, which - despite me never having seen the movie (I'm really bad at this) - I rather enjoyed. The witch is entertaining as hell. We got her not only because she can fly and blow up silver bricks, but I wanted an awesome witch character to play as. And for some reason she is super into everything we're doing when you take her through the story. Just 100% optimistic, loves life, and -- for some reason -- really wants to go into business with everyone. Was that a major plot point in the Wizard of Oz? Did she have a shoe business with Glinda that went belly up?

Anyway, Wizard of Oz is fun, it's very reminiscent of older Lego games the way it's built. There's a few secret areas to explore and tons of plants to run over for studs, thereby destroying the Munckin's harvest and dooming them to starvation. MWHAHAHAHAHAHA!


After that we hit the Simpsons and it is not good. It fits in well with later seasons of the Simpsons in terms of its banality and forgettableness. For the love of god Traveler's Tales, you had so much to pick from, nearly my life spans worth! It starts rather promising with a couch gag, and then you get to smash up some of the Simpson's house before running around in the backyard. Good. Then we're sucked into the Nuclear Power Plant for a level that looks more like one off the cutting room floor of a Lego Batman game. The only voice is Homer's and they couldn't even be bothered to bring in Dan Castellaneta. Instead, all the dialogue is swiped from two Simpsons episodes -- the one when Homer saves the plant by playing Eenie, meenie, minie, moe, and the other when he gains weight to get on disability. There are a few extra "D'ohs" and "My thingies!" but that's it. Nothing new, and the seams really show from the plot threads slapped together using tape and pinking shears.


After leaving Springfield, you get transported to the Lego world of Ninjago, which -- I'm sorry to admit -- I have seen the show. (Lloyd is a stupid name for a Ninja!) It was decent. There was a fun maze portion and, due to the dimensions all folding in on themselves, random villains like Lex Luthor and Saruman pop up. In some ways, that's the real selling point of Dimensions.

This feels like the video game version of dumping all your Legos together and making your own stories. Plus, you can do crazy shit like have Chell about to take Denethor's leap of faith (though with her longfall boots, she stands a better chance).

This was a much shorter level in general and wasn't super flushed out, but I can understand why. Basing it upon their one season of a show that Lego had on the Cartoon Network, it's unlikely that many people are going to know it or have any attachment to it.


But, hold onto your bowties and celery, because our next stop over is with The Doctor. Somehow Capaldi's Doctor seems less like a dick when not written by Moffat, or perhaps it's because he's only being a major ass to Batman who deserves it.

This level, if you are in any way a Who fan, is amazingballs. There are Cybermen, Daleks, and -- most terrifying of all -- Weeping Angels. Yes, Lego made Weeping Angels scary again. It was watching a video of the Weeping Angel scene that pushed us to get the game so I don't want to give anything away, but it's worth letting the Angels kill you at least once. And even the Daleks have some adorable moments.

You can tell the developers relished the opportunity to run around in the world of Doctor Who. Sadly, those sets don't drop until November so we won't know what the Who open world looks like, or how the campaign goes. But this level gets all the jelly babies.


Because we can't have a game without bringing up DC, there's a level in Metropolis. Don't worry, Superman's there for all of two seconds before getting sucked into the hole letting Batman continue to be his lone, brooding self. It's a fine level - nowhere near as disappointing as Springfield. We've already seen Metropolis a couple times over, so they don't really pull out any of the stops as they did with Doctor Who - which is where another problem arises. More than a few of these franchises Traveler's Tales has already done, leaving them with only crispy bits to pick over and nothing interesting or new to add. Luckily, it's pretty short.


Back to the Future - I wish I could say this one rocked it out of the park. Hearing the music was wonderful again, and Christopher Lloyd voicing Doc Brown hit all the nostalgia pangs. But, god was this one phoned in. It's only set in the Wild West, the most boring setting for the Back to the Future series, and aside from a brief Doc Brown cameo, has next to nothing to do with the movie. It felt more like they wanted to do an Old West level and threw on a few BttF set dressings to fancy it up. But don't worry, we're coming up on something great.

GLaDOS is back and just as spiteful as ever. She's particularly pissed that Batman and Company are somehow getting through the testing chambers despite not having an Aperture Portal Device. But it's okay, Wheatley's there to help you...sort of. I don't want to say too much, but if you love anything about Aperture Science this will make you bounce up and down in your seat giggling like a moron. Out of all the levels this most made me want to run back to the source materials, pick back up the old Portal games and run around as Chell. Luckily, I can do that later in the Portal campaign (which is at the end, I swear).


Middle Earth is again fine. They already did Lego LOTR (and Lego Hobbit which I didn't play because Lord of the Rings is freaking enough Jackson! Let it go!). The great parts come from the bleed over. As the game goes on, dimensions become more and more corrupted, so we get Orcs running around wearing cores from Aperture Science as helmets.

Core helmets on Orcs really would have spiced up the Hobbit better than elf surfing, Jackson. I'm just saying.


Like the Simpsons, they got all the dialogue for the Ghostbusters level from the movies but I'm happy to say they tried much harder. There are little touches here and there - like the dancing toaster - that show the developers actually enjoyed this franchise unlike some others (like say Back to the Future that got the fuzzy end of the dev lolly). But perhaps the best part is the music. I would often stop and have Chell dance along to Ghostbusters Are Back in Town while ghosts poured through the streets of Lego New York. It's a punch to all those nostalgia muscles the jaded Millennials aren't supposed to have.


There's an old 8-bit arcade level in here but all I remember is the massive headache I got. Taking 3D games and turning them 2 is always a bit hokey. It's cute, but if it goes on for more than a couple minutes I want to smash the controller through the tv. Add in a bunch of manic music and flashing lights and I was with brooding Batman there. Break everything and run!

Despite Lego being a couch co-op there are things in this game that do not work together, and this level is the worst of it. There's a racing challenge because you thought you could get away from it, eh? Except the starter pack only comes with the batmobile. You can't have your second player do anything but stand on the track watching the car run three laps of three races. And don't go thinking fun things like the Portal Turret or flying monkey are options. It has to be a car. Even one of the most friendly co-op games on the market still doesn't give that much of a shit, or thinks people are really playing it together in the same room


I am not a Scooby Doo fan. All of the Hanna Barbera cartoons felt like a punishment until Looney Tunes came on. But I liked this level. Their decision to posterize and increase the lines was adorable (and far better than the freaky 3D rounding effect in the Simpsons world)

It's classic Scooby Doo: the gang splits up, there's ghosts, a mummy's curse, and an awesome haunted house. It made me lust for Lego to make a Universal Monster set because I'd totally run around as the Creature from the Black Lagoon. He could hang out with Aquaman talking shit about the surfacers.

After that it's a few levels mashing up all the characters, worlds, and bad guys we saw before. Some of it provides for great moments - especially with GLaDOS - but others are infuriatingly insipid. Sadly, that sums up the Dimension game.

Gameplay-wise there's a lot reminiscent of Traveler's Tales other Lego games. You break things to collect studs, there are red bricks to find, mini-kits to collect, and people to rescue. Dimensions adds on a new, well, dimension with the board. Often to complete puzzles, you'll have to move your piece from one glowing side to another. This will shrink your character, give them awesome fire powers, or save you from a weeping angel. While not the most annoying aspect, it can be a pain, especially if you don't have the perfect set up in front of your system.

Along with the main game, there are also open worlds (one of my least favorite things about the Lego Games - I tend to do a few things then leave it to my husband to stress over). Middle Earth is Middle Earth, they combined Gotham and Metropolis into one mess because I have no idea, and the Lego Movie had its world that I'm sure would mean something to people who'd seen it.

Every character you buy also unlocks their own open world. After getting the Wicked Witch, we were able to run around in Oz that included Munchkin Land, the Witch's Castle (while my flying monkeys tried to beat me up - we're going to have some serious HR discussions later), Oz's place, and Kansas that is in hues of burnt sienna and tan. For not caring about the movie, it was fun to run around in there.

Okay, I tortured you long enough. To the full Portal level!

It's probably not giving away much to say that as Chell, you pop back into Aperture Science much to GLaDOS' displeasure. Without having a clue what to do with you, she puts you back to testing. And holy cow, it is a Portal game - one of the early levels with easy puzzles but there's the companion cube, turrets, lasers, and repulsion gel! Your little Lego figure will bounce on the blue and run on the orange goo you had to portal into the room after pushing buttons.

On top of Wheatley tagging along, Cave Johnson is there, piping in testing options for astronauts from beyond the grave! It's a bit weird to see Chell in third person, but also fun as it gives her a chance to have some personality like when she shows her annoyance with this whole thing and especially Wheatley. It was a return to the golden days of pantomine in the Lego games.

Once you finish the campaign in 20-30 minutes if you're a Portal pro, you pop out in their open world and it is perfect! It's all the levels of Aperture Science from the glass cube you wake up in in the first game, to the room full of singing turrets at the end of two!

And don't go thinking the basement is left out. The map's harder to navigate than the other worlds because it's all built on top of each other. But you've got Chell and her longfall boots, just jump up to the side and fall. Way down at the bottom you get to fight, yup, Mantis Men!

There's even an area if you climb the ladder out of your first room that puts you outside - all the times Chell thought she was finally free only to get yanked back in.

This is the absolute bestest thing ever for Portal fans. There's a lot of love and attention given here that - if it had been shown to all the other levels - would have made Lego Dimensions wonderful. Sadly, while the developers clearly adored making Portal and Doctor Who quite a few others fell short. Simpsons is a complete waste - to the point I don't want to bother with their open world. Back to the Future could have been so much more, and - while I adored listening to the Ghostbusters music again - I worry how limiting relying only on patchwork dialogue from the movies will be.

Should you get the Lego Dimensions game? That's a hard one to answer. Do you love Lego Games despite their waning writing that once sparkled back in the heyday of pantomime? Do you really really want another Portal game right this second? Do you want to battle Cybermen, Daleks, and Weeping Angels? Do you still love to curl up on the floor putting together tiny pieces of plastic? Then the answer's an easy yes.

If you were hoping for an awesome Simpson's level, aren't prepared to pay money for the extra characters that can sniff out vines to unlock a minikit, or want to play a game without Batman for once - then no. There's certainly some potential, and we're waiting on our hands for the Doctor Who packs to drop in November, but some levels fall really flat and are a slog to go back through.

Those are my impressions of Lego Dimensions. Good, bad, it's hard to say. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to send Chell to beat up on some orcs.

Tokyo Pot Roast Recipe

I am not a fan of pot roast. It's okay, I guess, but given the other options in fall dishes I'd rather have another big bowl of chili and leave the pot roast leftovers for my husband. But not anymore! I've found a recipe for one that I really love. Why is it called Tokyo Pot Roast? I have no idea. It mostly just uses fish sauce and soy sauce, not anything specifically Japanese, but I didn't choose the name.

Not my picture, but come on, pot roast is pot roast.

I did alter the recipe from where I found it.

• 1 2-lb beef chuck roast (or pork, pork works great)
• you can add potatoes here but I never do because potatoes are gross after 8 hours in a crockpot.
• 1 onion
• 2-3 bulbs garlic
• 1 ounce shiitake mushrooms (I used button because that's what I had)
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup sake or white wine
• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon grated ginger
• salt to taste

 Dice up the onion and garlic. In a pan, brown up the onion. I do it in a bit of butter for about five minutes - then add in the garlic.

To that dump in the water, wine, soy sauce, sugar, fish sauce, and ginger. Bring it to a boil and then simmer for a few minutes to get the sugar all dissolved.

All good?

Okay, dump that over top the meat in a crock pot. Set it to low for 7-8 hours or high for 3-4. You can toss in the potatoes or carrots if you want. I won't judge. Too harshly. Weirdo.

That's it. Now go out and enjoy this awesome pot roast with some delectable asian flavors.