Shades of blue - season 1

in progress


1-2-3
Pilot - Original sin - False face, false heart
Harlee helps a rookie get away with a bad shooting. Her daughter is doing well at school, doing a concert solo and Harlee also takes money like her squad and her lt Wozniak.
An FBI agent gets her for bribery, and gives her a choice: go to jail abandoning her daughter, or help him nailing her Lt.
He saves his number on her phone under the name Jason Bourne *rollingeyes no-you're-not...
Harlee hates wearing a hidden camera, they've worked together for ten years. They are friend, the Lt and his wife also love her daughter Cristina.
Wozniak knows there's a Fbi informant and wants to find whoever that is.
Harlee breaks the camera as soon as she can, scared to get caught and killed. Still, she has no choice but continuing working for the Fbi.
After the poligraph the Lt tells her that he trusts her, but then he looks at her old interview and sees that she lied.
He confronts her with a gun but she successfully lies her way through it.
The rookie gets too familiar with the dead guy's family, Jamarr.
Harlee goes on a date with the new ADA, and sleeps with him while the Fbi guy hears everything via the wire in her bag.

4-5-6-
Who can tell me who am I? - Equal & opposite - Fall of man
Wozniak has a car accident, looking at a dog and not at the road.
The rookie Loman attends the funeral of the guy he killed, but when he starts talking the cops take him away.
Tess has to apologise to the girl she assaulted, and is sorry to realise her marriage might be over.
Harlee and Loman catch a bad guy breaking into his house.
The Fbi guy finds stuff in a store unit in Wozniak's daughter's name - she died of suicide.
Wozniak brings food to that stray dog and takes him home.
Loman keeps seeing the dead guy's cousin.
Fbi Stahl goes to IA Donnie to tell him to stop his surveillance on the Lt's team because he's surveilling them too, and right after that he tells Wozniak everything.
Tess starts a relationship with her partner.
Harlee is furious when they arrest a kid who turns out to be Cristina's boyfriend.
Wozniak walks in busting Tess and Carlos in bed, and puts a stop to it.
Wozniak finds out that his white cop lied - actually he likes a Brazilian girl and pays a prostitute to teach him portuguese, and then Wozniak sees him with a man - he pays him to teach him to cook Portuguese dishes - Wozniak is so paranoid now that every lie seems to hide a betrayal.
Miguel sees Harlee in prison and he asks for her help.
Saap - I think, I'm going crazy with those names, anyway he's his white cop - is in trouble because Wozniak is sure he's the traitor. Worried for Saap, Harlee calls the Fbi and has him arrested.
Cristina finds a letter from Miguel and wants to go see him.
Saap attacks Stahl and runs away. He tries to reach Wozniak, but Harlee calls him telling him not to. Saap goes anyway and helps Wozniak out of a bad situation.
Wozniak kills Sap and the suspect and tells them that 'they fell'...
The last image is of Tufo yelling that he's still breathing...

7-8-9-
Undiscovered country - Good cop, bad cop - Live wire act
Wozniak tells Harlee that he tried to save Sap after she goes on the ambulance to the hospital. Harlee tells the Fbi that it wasn't Wozniak. At the hospital Wozniak tells Saap, "give in, let go so I don't have to kill you twice".
Saap's mom tells Wozniak of the 'men' that wanted to take him away.
Harlee tells the DA, "I'm not a good person, you should stay away from me"
Later Wozniak confesses to Harlee that "he can never wake up" and "I did what I had to do".
He wants her help to kill him for good but she refuses. She says, "I forgive you, I understand, but please promise me you won't hurt him again" and Wozniak says "ok"
Harlee goes to jail to see Miguel - Fbi went too.
Tufo finds an immunity agreement at Sap's home and tells Wozniak that Sap sold them out. Wozniak places a bomb in the hospital, a nurse sees it and calls security and Harlee understands it was him trying to kill Saap, but she's too late, he's dead when she gets there.
Wozniak go tell his mother.
Cristina brings home a Manny with his face all bloody.
Harlee is angry because Wozniak promised her, and he tells her that this way he's the only responsible.
Cristina calls Wozniak to tell him that two cops beat Manny up.
Harlee yells at Wozniak that there's a witness that knows Miguel is innocent and that Wozniak never wanted to help her, only own her and use her. He gives her the name of the witness saying that he's been paying her silence for ten years with his own money.1000 every two months, and that now it's her problem.
Harlee tells Loman to get transferred, get out while he can.
Wozniak and Tess talk to the cops and doubt that Manny told the truth, but Cristina was there and made a video. Wozniak and Tess show it to Harlee and she's mad that Cristina didn't go to her directly and wants to handle it herself.
Tess tells her that if it was her son she'd rather have him talk to Harlee than no-one.
Harlee is also upset because in the video Cristina was smoking pot, but Cristina is very disappointed and talks about justice..
Fbi goes to Nava on false pretence to tell him his conduct is questionable because of Miguel and Harlee and Nava goes to Harlee with angry words, wondering if she would have slept with anybody else working Miguel's case :-/
Harlee tells Fbi how Miguel beated her for two years and how she was afraid for Cristina's life.
Wozniak sends Loman to the two cops to tell them there's a video and to bring them outside to beat them up - not much, actually, I guess the gesture was enough.
Harlee tells Manny that she's angry they were smoking but he deserves a second chance because he protected Cristina.
Harlee goes to Fbi to tell him that Wozniak told her that he killed Sap and asks to be wired.
After Sap, she now wants to destroy Wozniak.
Chen seems to be bothered by an 'innocent man' in prison :-/ yeah, really innocent Miguel..
Harlee joins Wozniak in his secret operation but he gets mad when they find a guy in the car's trunk.
Wozniak gives Harlee Donnie's name, but Fbi are away, I guess they didn't hear that, but she tells him. Chen doesn't let it go and talk about Miguel to DA. She thinks Fbi is getting 'too close' to Harlee.
Harlee leaves the wire in Wozniak's office to record his conversation with Donnie.
Miguel is set free.
Harlee learns about Wozniak's relationship with Donnie.

10-11-12-
What devil do - The breach - For I have sinned
Harlee ducks Nava's calls, then she sees Miguel on the street and talks to him, and also warns Cristina. Harlee thinks Nava has something to do with him getting out, but he recused himself.
Stall tells Donnie to tail Wozniak again because he lost his only informant...
Wozniak takes an interest on an ex-Marine accused of murder, because he was a Marine too.
Stall is angry at Molly Chen because of Miguel but doesn't tell Harlee it was her.
Harlee goes with Wozniak to the meeting with the mysterious man for the big case. The guy's part of some agency too, and might get them three millions.
Miguel shows up at Cristina's door, and she tells him that Harlee told her he's not her dad.
Harlee doesn't tell Stall the guy's name, but tells the rest. She asks immunity for her team.
Miguel calls Harlee and puts her on speakerphone to convince Cristina she lied to her and he's her father.
Cristina goes out to talk to Miguel. Harlee sleeps with Stall? and then Wozniak sees her getting out of the apartment.
Miguel tells Cristina that Harlee "tripped down the stairs" - does she doubts the beatings now?
She tells him that Harlee works with Wozniak.
Stall tells her he needs the name to get her team immunity, and she gives it, but he doesn't. He says to his own time that only one is an asset and gets immunity - so not all of them.
Miguel pokes around to prove that she framed him. Harlee goes to offer Miguel money to have him go away. Wozniak tells Harlee he "thought" he saw her at Stall's house, but then he shows her a picture of a prostitute that looks a lot like her and she said that he calls her Harlee - basically he found a substitute.
From her cameras Harlee finds out Stall never asked for her crew's immunity. She confronts me, "you used me", he replies "I handled you".
Knowing nothing about the big case, Loman follows the Marine case stepping on it with nobody knowing. When Chen tries to retrieve the kidnapped guy she finds him dead. Loman stumbles on their robbery and calls for backup. Harlee tries to help half of her crew by keeping them away but she fails. Loman tries to stop them, the murderer Joaquim starts shooting. Tess is injured, Joaquin too, a guy is dead. The squad takes Tess to get help, Wozniak and Harlee drive away with the money.
Their car is hit somehow and the money taken. Wozniak thinks it was Donnie.
The Fbi is not happy with Harlee's story. The guy who said he was a DIA agent or something gave a false name.
Linda saw a car circling her house so Wozniak tells her to go to a hotel with Cristina.
When Harlee goes there, Cristina wants the truth but Harlee can't give her the whole story of course.
Loman keeps his mouth shut with the Fbi. Harlee told him that Donnie is blackmailing them because he found out about Loman's shooting, that they're protecting him so he protects them. "We're doing this for you" she said.
Joaquin dies while they're taking him to a hospital, so they bury him themselves.
Cristina keeps in touch with Miguel, calls him dad and secretly phones him.
Harlee makes a video for Cristina and Wozniak talks to a priest about his daughter's suicide and all he's done.
He tells him that he made deals with bad people to keep drugs away from schools, that if someone had done it before his daughter might still be alive now. The priest asks "you're asking God's forgiveness? you're searching for absolution?"
Wozniak walks out, "I can't make a confession yet father" - "because you can't accept God's mercy?" - "no, because I got a couple more people that I need to hurt"
At the end we that Harlee's friend is the one that took the money, he has it and tells her, "so, what now?" - "now we start calling the shots"

13
One Last Lie
Wozniak tells Stall to stay away from his crew. Cristina sneaks out to meet Miguel. Loman confronts Donnie at Wozniak's house. Donnie's words are half-truths half-lies: keeping himself clean and blaming it all on Wozniak, but then he takes a gun, they fight and Loman kills him.
He tells Wozniak it was self-defence. Wozniak thanks him, "he was setting me up" and they take care of it together.
Molly Chen makes a move on Stall and they kiss - is she drunk or for real??
Harlee went to Nava to spend the night. She apologises for blaming him for Miguel's release. He's comforting, they hug, he tells her she can stay like that as long as she wants.
Linda calls Harlee to tell her Cristina's gone. Harlee thinks Miguel took her and goes to his place. Miguel tells Harlee the truth, that Cristina called him, they had dinner.. she doesn't believe him.
He says Cristina is with his mom.
Wozniak burns Donnie's body. Harlee goes to pick Cristina up but Cristina admits that she called him and refuses to get in the car and says Miguel has done nothing wrong, and keeps saying that Harlee lied to her (which is true).
Harlee wants to use part of the stolen money to pay Miguel to disappear but she left it at Nava's place.
Harlee confesses to Wozniak that the Fbi forced her to work for him using Cristina as leverage, but when he asks "when, how long ago?" she says "last night".
She says she's been given the heist money by the Fbi to put it in Wozniak's boat, but instead she put it in an abandoned building. She tells him she won't give him (him being Wozniak) to the Fbi, but she can give them Donnie and Linklater and they'll have to take it, and Wozniak now tells her that Donnie is dead and Linklater left the country, "which means the only person you've got left to sell out is me".
She tells him to get Linda and some money and go away.
Harlee delivers a bag of money to Miguel's mom. She wants to get to know her granddaughter but Harlee can't forget that she let her son repeatedly break her face and did nothing.
Now Harlee has no men to give to the Fbi but she has the money and wants her crew's freedom.
Stall has Chen removed from the operation.
Harlee tells Cristina that Miguel's nice side hides a manipulative monster that beat her up for two years and almost killed her, then she sends her away in a tearful goodbye.
Harlee wants to exchange the money for the freedom of her crew but finds that Wozniak took all the money, leaving a bag for her to pay for Cristina's college. She calls him, he says he's taking the bullet for the team, sitting there on the money waiting for Stall. She says she cut a deal, he says he did it too (after he told him to leave his team alone).
Harlee cries, tells him that she lied and it's been her all along, she was the mole and he says he knows.
He didn't before but he understood when they talked because she made a mistake in one of those lies, Stall could not have given her the money because Stall didn't have it.
Wozniak says that he would do for her everything she would do to protect Cristina.
He says "I don't want to lose another daughter, I forgive you"
The Fbi cars are already there, Harlee tries desperately to find another way, he says "unless you've got something on this fed I don't know about, I think we've reached the end of the rope"
She thinks, yells "Wait" and we hear no more but we see his face and I think she told him something interesting...
Despite the 200.000 she gave him Miguel doesn't go away, he shows up in front of her saying he'll take the money but he doesn't want a new life, he wants his old one, then he hurts her, and when he tries to have sex with her manipulating and scaring her like he probably used to do once, she snaps and she breaks his neck. (good)
And just like that, on this little note, the episode and the season end , leaving quite a cliffhanger.

What will happen to Wozniak? He did many bad things, I won't forget he killed his crewmember, and yet the one I dislike the most in the whole show is Stall, I really can't stand him, I don't want him to win.


I found the names below on IMDB:

Harlee - Jennifer Lopez
Wozniak - Ray Liotta
Tess - Drea De Matteo
Loman - Dayo Okeniyi
Espada - Vincent Laresca
Cristina - Sarah Jeffery
Stahl - Warren Kole
Nava - Gino Anthony Pesi

Star Trek The Next Generation - season 1

This is the season with people showering wearing clothes and Data being fully functional, the season we learn the Picard Maneuver and all of Luaxana Troi’s titles. The year we meet Lore and the Romulans.

I admit that I loved Q when I was a teenager, but now I find the character rather boring, and talking too much.

Intro: Space, the final frontier, these are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission, to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no on has gone before.

Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Jonathan Frakes as Commander William Riker

LeVar Burton as Lt. Geordi La Forge

Denise Crosby as Lt Tasha Yar

Michael Dorn as Lt Worf

Gates McFadden as Doctor Beverly Crusher

Marina Sirtis as Counselor Deanna Troi

Brent Spiner as Lt Commander Data

Wil Wheaton as Wesley Crusher

1 - Encounter at Fairpoint
41153.7 The new Galaxy-class UssEnterprise. Captain Picard is going to Fairpoint to meet his new first officer and solve the place's mystery. While on route they meet Q. They try to run, but unable to do so Picard orders the separation of the ship. Worf remains to command the saucer section while higher officers go to battle bridge.
They separate at warp 9.5 or something similar. They stay behind and Picard: "we surrender" to avoid a battle with such a powerful being.
Mid 21st century, post atomic horrors: in such a 2079 court, Q plays the judge. They're on trial accused of being a savage race. Tasha defends them saying that Starfleet saved her, so she gets frozen. After Picard's protests, Q cures her.
Can we spare a second to consider that of the four people on trial, only one is human? Why are the others there? Data has no race at all, and to call Betazoids savage?? Anyway.
We see that Data can repeat what he heard in the same voice he heard it in. Forced to plead guilty, Picard desperately resorts to "test us!" and Q allows it. The Fairpoint Station will be their test.
At Fairpoint we meet Ryker and we start seeing that there's a mystery concerning the station. What's it made of, what's its power source, and how come people immediately get what they asked for?
Ryker talks about it to Doctor Crusher and her son Wesley. She's known Picard for many years; well, not just because he brought back her husband's body as Wesley says, I know that they already knew each other before.
Ryker also meets Lt LaForge. Ryker is beamed on board and watches on tv what has happened :lol I know, a record of it.
Then Ryker must "conduct a manual docking" to unite the two parts of the ship.
Basically we are introduced to everyone. Picard's not comfortable with having children around, LaForge has been blind since birth and needs a visor to see, Tasha is chief of security, Admiral McCoy doesn't like transporters :lol: we know that :-)
Actually Bones has no part in the story at all, but they put him in to make a connection to TOS and it was nice.
We understand there's a romantic history between Troi and  Ryker. I always liked the word Imzadi.
I love the holosuites, always loved them. Here Ryker meets Data and they talk. Lt Cmdr Data is trying to whistle and Ryker does it better: "how easily humans can do that" well, not all humans Data, I can't....
"prejudice is very human" unfortunately you're right, Data..
"do you consider yourself superior to us?"
"I am superior sir, in many ways, but I would gladly give it up to be human" ..don't...
"Nice to meet you Pinocchio" :-)
(Can I also comment on that Lt girl helping Ryker find Data? After he goes on his way she checks out Ryker's b-side... :lol
They start investigating this strange construction. Wesley wants to see the bridge, and usually Picard wouldn't allow children in, but he's Beverly's son so he lets him in. Wesley already knows a lot about the ship - we know he's a little genius - A strange ship approaches, very big. It scans the Enterprise then leaves them be and fires on the planet but carefully avoiding the station, because the big mystery here was that the ship and the Fairpoint Station were both living creatures, one enslaved and the other angry.
Q very stupidly tries to sabotage their mission - very very stupidly, basically all Picard had to do was to do the opposite of what Q told him...
They feed the 'station' energy so it can free itself and fly away.
They were beautiful, weren't they? when I was little I loved them very much :-)

2- The naked now

ITA Contaminazione
41209.2 The Enterprise goes to help a ship in trouble, but opening a channel you can hear them partying, until there’s like an explosion. Data: “I believe that last sound was an emergency hatch being blown”. Picard: “Are you certain? Yes, of course you are”. On that ship, that had 80 people, everyone’s dead now, either blown out into space or frozen… Geordi touches a body when it falls on him after opening a door, and he starts acting weird despite being decontaminated. He should stay in sickbay but he wanders around.  To visit Wesley, whose science project is a tractor beam. Tasha finds him.

Riker remembers another case of someone showering with their clothes on, and realise they all feel like intoxicated, drunk. Tasha touches Deanna. Wesley takes control of the engine room, where they’re all drunk now. Worf shares Data’s confusion about human behaviour. When Data visits Tasha se tells him her story: abandoned when she was five, learned to survive, and at 15 she escaped. So now she wants love, and Data is “fully functional”, “programmed in multiple techniques, a broad variety of pleasuring”… she’s quite happy about that. For now. At the end, she’ll be upset and tell him : “it never happened!”

The old cure doesn’t work now, it’s changed. Beverly knows she’s been contaminated and is trying to work quickly. Even Riker and Picard get it, and Data too; a star is collapsing, Data needs time to put all the isolinear chips back where they should be, and Wesley saves the day. Chief engineer: “it would take week of laying out new circuits” and Wesley: “why not just see it in your head?” He gains the Enterprise that minute Data needed by reversing the ship’s tractor beam.

Beverly is quite smug that Wesley saved the day. 

3- Code of honor

ITA Codice d’onore

41235.25 On Ligon II. Negotiations to get some medicine. Lutan seems to be their leader. He acts all friendly and then ‘kidnaps’ Tasha. It’s a bold act, and they can only “ask” that he returns her. Picard and Troi go down to their planet to do so, but Lutan has secret plans: he’s all “I cannot part with her” and calls it an act of love, he even says that he wants her “to become my first one”; this causes his first one Yareena to “challenge your right to supersedence”, whatever that is. It hasn’t been done in 200 years but it is her right, and it’s a challenge to the death; they need the vaccine, and Yar was rather flattered, and also sure she can win. She’d be less flattered if she heard him saying that women “are highly pleasant things but after all unimportant except for the land they own”. Now Picard sees his game, because on this planet, women own the lands, and men are to govern and protect. When Tasha wins, Lutan thinks he’s a very rich man indeed. So Picard takes the vaccine first, and then brings Lutan and his second Hagon on his ship. Lutan is quite upset to see Yareena alive: she did die, but Beverly brought her back, and since death dissolves every “mating agreement”, she takes the necklace from his neck, ‘leaving him’. She told Tasha that every woman loves Lutan and how can you not love him, but now she thinks differently because during the battle she heard Hagon’s worried cry for her, so now she chooses him to rule over what’s hers. Now Lutan’s lost everything and Yareena asks Tasha: “do you want him?” - “No, there would be complications” and because she does like him, she regrets this a little bit but is also sure of her life path. So Yareena keepshim as her number two. Hagon tells Picard that “you may excel in technology but not in civilized behaviour” because of how they acted, but I’ve always loved how he caressed her hair after saying that, because deep down he’s very happy they did it, and very happy with the outcome because not only he’s a very important man now, but he does care for Yareena.

4- 

ITA L’ultimo avamposto

41386.4  They’re “in pursuit of a starship of Ferengi design” because they stole an energy converter. Data says Ferengi are like the worst kind of Yankee traders, and Picard explains how the Us and France had the same three colours, but the French used them “more properly” inthe order blu white and red. Both ships are immobilized near a planet, and both Tasha and Worf suggest attacking first *rollingeyes*

Daimon Tarr thinks humans are overpowering them, but it’s the planet. It’s the last outpost of a long gone race. The Ferengi’s weapons are like whips that throw electric charges. Worf calls them “pigmy cretins” and the Ferengi are sickened by the sight of Tasha, a woman working, armed and ‘forced to wear clothing’. Riker wins over the planet’s defence portal, a man who likes his Sun Tsu references. The ships are released not a moment too soon, they were all dying because there was no power at all.

5-Where no one has gone before

ITA Dove nessuno è mai giunto prima

41263.1 A “Starfleet propulsion expert” comes aboard with his assistant from Tau Alpha C for some tests on the ship’s warp drive engines. Riker and Data think Kosinski’s datas are nonsense. During these tests, the Enterprise’s speed goes accidentally off scale. Picard: “reverse engines” - Data: “Captain, no one has ever reversed engines at this velocity” - “that’s because no one has gone this fast. Reverse engines” :-)

They’ve left their galaxy, and also passed two others and now they are “on the far side of Triangulum, the galaxy known as M-33”, 300 years at maximum speed to get home. Wesley is the only one who noticed the assistant fading out, he’s exhausted. Kosinski is incredibly arrogant, but it’s the assistant who does the real stuff. Still, Kosinski “has sensed some small part of it”. Wesley: “that space and time and thought aren’t the separate things they appear to be?” because Wesley understood what he was doing. Kosinski is sure of himself, he truly believes he did it all. Wesley tries to explain to Riker but of course nobody listens to him because he’s just a boy, so when they try to go back, they fail because the assistant is too tired. They simply stop “where none have gone before” : very pretty blu surroundings with balls of white lights floating around. They’re a billion light years away. People start seeing things, like Worf’s pet as a child - a small boar - or ancient musicians, or Picard’s maman, or Tasha’s red cat… because what they think here can become real. At least Riker is honest enough to admit that Wesley is the only one who noticed and did try to explain. Now the assistant is unconscious. Maybe dying. He’s so different from us that Beverly doesn’t know what to do. The assistant is a traveler, he travels out of curiosity, he has “a knowledge of propulsion” that he’s been trading for passage. “Thought” brought them here. He can also travel through time, others like him do it too, and Riker wonders why there is’t any trace of them in our history: simply because they never came here, nothing interesting to see. 

In private, the assistant tells Picard that it’s for the few people like Wesley that he travels because Wesley is a genius like Mozart, only not in music but in propulsion, time and energy, and he must be encouraged. 

To keep the crew’s thought away from anything that might materialize, and also away from fear, Picar orders that they focus no their duty “or on the welfare of the one called the Traveler: think of giving him some of your strength”, he adds to think of his well-being as if someone you care about. So now he becomes stronger, enough to bring them back. The traveler disappears and Picard calls Wesley on the bridge, and makes him “active Ensign” so he has rank enough to be on the bridge.

6- Lonely among us

ITA Solo in mezzo a noi

41249.3 They “have orbited the two major planets of the Beta Renner system, taking aboard delegates from those two worlds”. The Anticans and the Selay are enemies but both want to join the Federation. The Selay look a lot like Snakes on two feet, their heads are like cobra heads. They encounter something like a cloud of energy moving at warp speed. An electric charge enters Worf, then moves to Beverly, then to the ship and to Mr Singh, only he dies. It makes me go mad seeing things like: Beverly finds herself on the bridge with no idea on how she got there and doesn’t say a word about it to anyone… I mean, after all they’ve seen and done, weird things like this do not merit any mention to anyone?

Picard names Sherlock Holmes to Data regarding mystery solving, so he starts smoking a pipe and talking like him. 

This ‘being’ now enters Picard, and it can finally do what it wants, go back home. It didn’t come aboard voluntarily, it was taken accidentally, trying and failing to ask for help, and then it found Picard. Now it says they’ll both live as energy together, and they do try but they can’t stay fused once in the cloud so Picard comes back and is ‘transported’ back as he was. Of course he’s confused now, so he uses it as a great excuse to leave Riker to deal with the Anticans trying to eat the Selays.

7- Justice

ITA Il giudizio

41255.6 They find a new, beautiful planet and Beverly wants a shore leave for everyone. The place is beautiful and the Edo are too, all fit and with barely any clothes on, both males and females. They greet people with a warm hug and they run instead of walk. They excercise, dance, make love, all the time. Wesley is sent to play with three other youngsters.

A sort of space-station only half-here appears, and a voice warns them not to leave people on this planet. Worf doesn’t have fun like Riker because he says that human females are too fragile for him…

Long long go there were things like crime, but not anymore, and the reason shocks them: there’s only one punishment, whatever the crime: death. But nobody has thought of warning visitors about this. Wesley was playing ball and running, and he falls over some new plants, and because he broke the law two men want his death. Riker and the others stop it, of course. When they beam Rivan aboard the ship, that thing that the Edo call God gets very angry and they hurry to give her back. As one of its children. That “God” is actually many advanced beings, watching over the Edos. They live in many dimensions at once. Picard takes his people and Wesley away, and promises ‘God’ to take the colonists back from the planet near this, that they just went to.

8- The battle

ITA La battaglia

41723.9  The Ferengi asked for a meeting so they’re to meet Daimon Bok. Picard keeps having terrible headaches, and Beverly can’t help much. Daimon Bok says he wishes to “honor the hero of Maxia” and wants to gift Picard with an old Starfleet ship. Picard doesn’t even remember it, at first, and then explains: his ship met a vessel, they refused to identify themselves and attacked instead so Picard destroyed the ship in self-defence. The Stargazer is Picard’s old ship. He explains to his officers what happened, it was his ideaand it got names the Picard maneuver, “what any good helmsman would have done”. Moving at maximun warp speed, stopping abruptly and firing, and for a moment the ship appeared to be in two places at once. And the Ferengi “fired on the wrong one”. The ship was on fire, a wreck, and they had to abandon it using shuttlecrafts and it was weeks before they “were picked up”. Nobody worders how is it possible that the Stargazer is perfectly ok and still in working order? With nothing more than a bit of dust? They had to abandon it! And now it’s here, as good as new after a good cleaning…

On the Stargazer Data finds Picard’s log “confessing” that there was no justifiable attack by the Ferengi, and he destroyed that ship without good cause. Picard can’t sleep or res, his head aches so much there’s nothing more the doctor can do, he spends nights hearing in his head what happened in that battle. It’s all because of a thing used by Bok, a pink sphere with a metallin line across, and it’s once again Wesley to give crucial information, finding that there’s a transmission influencing Picard’s brain. Picard beams aboard the Stargazer, and Bok explains that 9 years ago his son was at his first command when Picard killed him, and Bok has used the profits of his entire life to buy two “thought makers”, to make him relive what happened and die. Riker asks the Ferengi first officer, who calls it “a forbidden device”. Picard relives it all, hears his old crew, smells the fire. The Ferengi first officer confines his Daimon with the excuse that this whole “adventure” is totally “unprofitable” so now the Enterprise stops the Picard maneuver with the tractor beam, and then Riker tells Picard to find and destroy a silver sphere, and Picard sese it and destroys it. 

9- Hide and Q

ITA Il ritorno di Q

41590.5 Without Troi in this episode. Hurrying towards a colony where lots of people got hurt, they’re stopped by Q, who says he wants to talk about the future of humans and transports Picard, Geordi,Data, Worf and Tasha on a planet with two moons to play at Napoleon’s army - apparently an army marshal “outranks even an Admiral”, I didn’t know that. Last time Q was interested in Picard, now he is interested in Riker, and Picard is totally sure that Riker will defeat him too, while Q is sure of the contrary because he’ll give Riker something impossible to refuse. He gives Riker the powers of a Q, so Riker sends the others back on the ship, and then he brings more people here, and this time unarmed. This time there’s also Picard and Wesley, and when Worf and Wesley get killed, Riker uses his powers to get everyone back on the ship, safe and sound. Then Riker gives Picard his word that he won’t use his powers again. When they reach the colony, most people are dead, and even a little girl, but Riker does not use his powers because he promised. But then he acts strange, calls Picard by his first name and speaks as Q does, but then Q comes with his weird speeches and Riker gives everyone gifts: Wesley is 10 years older - I wish this world would stop with the age-shaming, where everyone is either too young or too old, unless they’re between 20 and 35, and let children be happy to be children (although Wesley is not exactly a child, still, a minor) - Data stops him before he can make him human, because it would not be the true him. He gives Geordi real eyes, so now he can see how beautiful Tasha is, but Geordi wants his visor back because he doesn’t want to have to thank Q. Riker then tries giving Worf a Klingon mate, that has no place in his life now, and Wesley says that he’s not ready yet, and doesn’t want it this way (of course, you stole ten years of his life, give them back!). Just as Picard predicted. Riker says: “I feel like such an idiot” and Picard: “Quite right. So you should”. I love him.

So Q’s people take him away because after all, he promised.

10- Haven

41294.5 The Miller family was friends with Deanna’s father, and there’s an arranged marriage between her and their son Wyatt. Her mother Luaxana Troi is here too. Deanna calls her “eccentric”. Luaxana has Picard carry her heavy bag until Deanna puts her foot down and insists her valet do his work, good!

Wyatt has seen a woman’s face in his mind since he was young, and he thought it was Deanna, but it’s nnot. He’s a doctor, a fine young man. Deanna doesn’t like the situation, but she’s a Betazoid and she’ll honor it. 

A ship is slowly following them, Tarellians. They were believed to be all dead after a war with bio-weapons, but some of them escaped to other worlds, only to die together with the people they infected. The Millers want an Earth wedding but Luaxana insists on her traditions because she’s Luaxana Troi, Daughter of the Fifth House, Holder of the Sacred Chalice of Rixx, Heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed”. The ‘engagement party’ is of the upmost interest to Data who listens to Lwaxana and the Millers with rapt attention, while Riker oes away because he can’t bear the whole engagement, and Deanna storms out finally fed up with their ‘petty bickering’. Wyatt admires her for it, and they laugh together and share a kiss: they could make it work if they had to, but Deanna should leave the Enterprise. When the Tarellians finally show their faces, we see that this Ariana is the woman of Wyatt’s portraits, and she calls him by name. She also has made many portraits of him during the years, and now Wyatt takes his medicine and beams himself on her ship. He will find a cure for them, so now the Millers and Lwaxana go back down to Haven, and Mr Homm speaks (!!!) to thank Picard for all the drinks (he had a lot!) 

11- The big goodbye

ITA Il grande addio

41997.7 Picardd is nervous because he’ll have to make contact with the “Jarada, a reclusive, insect-like race” and speak the greeting with perfect pronunciation. Picard has studied it a lot with Deanna’s help and now she insists he takes a rest from it, so he goes to the holodeck. The program is about Dixon Hill, San Francisco 1941, a private investigator. He’s loved this character since he was a child, and he’s very thrilled of how great the holodeck is. When he asks Beverly to join him, for a second she might have thought of a sort-of date, but then he wants to invite Mr Whalen too, as a “20th century historian”; Data is curious, so he reads all about it and joins Picard on the holodeck. They’re all dressed appropriately. 

The Jarada arrive early, and their scan of the Enterprise damages something, and the holodeck is now isolated. Wesley and Geordi have a look at it.

Picard and co. only learn of the problem when Whalen is shot and he’s hurt for real, bleeding. It shouldn’t be possible, so Picard and the others want the exit, and learn of the malfunction. A weird thing is that one second Picard warns Data of not talking about planets -  so he reverts to saying he’s from South America - and then the next second he starts talking about not being Dixon Hill…

Anyway, of course they don’t believe it…but then Wesley manages to open the door. Data carries Whalen to sickbay while Picard says goodbye to hos cop friend and then he hurries to the bridge, still in his Earth suit and coat, and greets the Jarada in their language. He does it well and they’re satisfied. 

12 - Datalore

41242.4 They’re in “the remote Omicron Theta Star System, home of our android crew member Lieutenant Commander Data”. The planet is now without any sort of life of any kind. Data was found 26 years before and the colonists put all their memort logs into him. They go down to look at the lab and when they see some drawings, Riker says “posted by proud parents?” … now, I don’t know why the colonists decided to display such drawings, but I sure think Riker should look at them since he’s right in front of them, and realize they’re not drawings of families and dogs, but of people dying and runnig away terrified… and he will, later.

Data remembers which one is “Dr Soong’s work area”, Dr Noonien Soong, “Earth’s foremost robotics scientist”, “until he tried to make Asimov’s dream of a positronic brain come true” and then he failed and disappeared, came to this planet.

They find a storage room full of fog-smoke-whatever-the-effect-is-the-same and without hesitation they open it and they find all the parts of another ‘Data’, and he wants to assemble him.
Now Riker does show Picard the drawings: he does not sound convinced but he probably thinks he has to since they are all of the same thing scaring the hell out of people. 

Data tells ony Beverly where his off-switch is, and after studying him they succeed in putting the other one together, who wants to be called Lore. His speech and attitude is more human-like, more sly; thanks to him they learn of the “great crystalline entiry which feeds on life”, capable of destroying entire worlds. Riker seems to believe Lore, since he erpeats it later, when he says that he was made too human, so the colonists got jealous and asked Soong to make another, less perfect android.

Lore gives Data a glass of champagne with some powder inside that blocks him totally. Lore also has human “needs and ambitions”, and he learned to communicate with the “crystal entity” and told it where the colonists were, and now Lore plans to “give it the life on this vessel”. Of course he exchanges clothes with Data and takes his place. Once again, Wesley is the only one who shows some sense, to have noticeds something, but nobody pays him any mind. At least his mom finally believes him and reactivates the real Data; together, Data and Wesley beam Lore outside and he goes away with the crystal entity.

13- Angel One

ITA Missione di soccorso

41636.9 They’re on Angel One, where women are in command. The Enterprise is looking for survivors of a dead ship. They are on this planet: four males, but they’re considered fugitives and dangerous. Wesley and some other kids got sick after a ski lesson on the holodeck, and Picard too. Soon lots of people gett sick and Geordi is in command. Beverly will find a cure of course, how lucky that only she didn’t get infected and could keep working on it…

The survivors do not think they need to be ‘rescued’ because they’ve been here seven years and have lives here, wives and families. They don’t want to leave. Still, following a member of her council, the Elected Beata found them and wants them all dead, because they go against the system, where men can’t vote or anything, just like women here once. Riker makes a speech about change and evolution, and the death pealty is changed into exile.

14 - 11001001

41365.9 At a starbase for a “routine maintenance check of all systems”. A “unified pair” of Bynars comes aboard to do the work, they are ‘One Zero’ and ‘Zero One’. The ship is empty now, with only Picard and Riker. Another pair joins them. Riker spends time on the holodeck with holo-Minuet, playing the trombone and dancing. When Picard comes in, she speaks French to him and entertains both of them. There were still people on the ship, but when there’s a sudden antimatter release problem Data orders to abandon the ship and it’s automatic departure from the station. After that the problem corrects itself…

Minuet tries her best to keep both Picard and Riker with her, and finally they notice and go out. 

They find out they’re heading towards the Bynars world: Bynaus. Picard is determined, he sets the autodestruction unless he and Riker stop it, they only have 5 minutes, they stop it in 3. So, their wordl was in trouble, their main computer at risk, so they stored it all on the Enterprise, filling every bite available, and then Picard and Riker transfer it back because they’re out dying. After that, they get up safe and smiling, saying they’re ready to face punishment but didn’t ask before because “you might have said no”. 

They go back to Starbase 74 and all is well. Only, Minuet doesn’t exist anymore.

15- Too short a season

ITA Guerra privata

41309.5 Orbiting Persephone V to meet Admiral Mark Jameson because Karnas, governor of Mordan IV, sent a message that a Federation ambassador and his staff have been taken hostage and he asked for Jameson’s help. The place has been at peace for a few years now. James comes on board with his wife Anne, taking full control of the mission. Jameson is 85 and suffering from Iverson’s disease which affects his body, but it turns out that Jameson went to Cerberus II where they say there’s a process that can give one his youth back. It’s dangerous and painful, and he tried it first, intending to give Anne the second dose if it worked, but when he heard of this mission he couldn’t wait for the slow process and took not only the full dose, but both of them. Too much for his body. He gets young again, sure, but won’t have long to live. 

Now, Karnas took those people hostage to lure him there, for revenge, because many years ago when Mordan was at war and Karnas took some prisoners, Jameson went to negotiate, but he got the people freed only because he gave Karnas the weapons he wanted, and as his own interpretation of the Prime Directive, he gave the same weapons to his rivals. It lead to 40 years of civil war. Jameson feels guilty and tells Picard everything. Jameson dies in front of Karnas after explaining everything, and the hostages are released. 

16- When the bough breaks

ITA Il pianeta sterile

They come in contact with Aldea, a myth like Antartide, a planet that can cloak itself… and indeed it appears out of nowhere in front of them.

41509.1 There haven’t been newborns in more than 20 years since Rashella waas the last one, so now they’re ready to give the Federation valuable informations, lots and lots of it, because they “need some of your children”…

When they receive the obvious no, they just take the children. Wesley and other six children, all much smaller than him. They were chosen because they’re considered ‘special’, because they have special talents in something: music, art, sculpting… The old man Radue sees no problem since humans can make other children…

Wesley leads the children to go on strike. Beverly discovers that on Aldea they’re all dying because the shields are hurting them, because of radiations, so they take down the shields, and the children go home.

17- Home soil

ITA Progetto terraforming

41463.9 A group of scientists was carrying on a terraforming project but then one of them dies and Data and the others discover a form of life: not organic, but an intelligent life form nonetheless. They can reproduce and now succeed in communicating. Both parties understand the situation now - the men were killing them with their work - so the life forms are left in their own environment and the scientists are taken away.

18- Coming of age

ITA L’età della ragione

41416.2 Wesley goes down on Relva 7 to be tested for entrance into Starfleet academy. Picard’s old friend Admiral Queen and LtCmdr Dexter Remmick come up instead. 

There are three other candidates other than Wesley, and only one place at the Academy. Wesley’s psych test is to make a choice between two people to save, because someone - captain Picard, I think - had to make that choice and Wesley’s father died.

Mordock is the first Benzite to enter the Academy, Wesley came second. he tells Picard that he failed, but Picard is not disappointed and confesses that he too failed the first time, but not the second! :-p

Remmick is tasked to inspect everything on the ship, without a real explanation. Once he starts questioning the officers, it’s clear that all the questions are about Picard. Jake,  a kid who didn’t get his chance at the Academy, suddenly takes a shuttlecraft to go away and when it has trouble, Picard helps him get control again and come back. So, Remmick finds nothing wrong, and finally the Admiral tells Picard that he needs people he can trust, and wants to promote him to Admiral, and wants him to become the new Commandant of Starfleet Academy.

Of course Picard refuses the new position, so he can stay on the Enterprise.

18- Heart of glory

ITA Cuore di Klingon

41503.7 They enter the Neutral zone to rescue a Talarian freighter, and they see through Geordi’s visor. They find three Klingons, one is badly injured; when he dies, the other two and Worf give a sort of animalistic cry, head back and raaaaaaar. Worf tells the he’s the only Klingon in Starfleet, when the Khitomer outpost was attacked by Romulans, he survived, and a human Starfleet officer found him and raised him like a son. He was young, before “the age of inclusion”. His foster brother hated the Academy and left, Worf stayed. These two Klingons now tell him that they can’t bear this ‘peace’ and took the ship they were in and battled other Klingons. Of course other Klingons came to arrest them.

The two Klingons try to escape: one dies along with an officer. Worf stops the other one and does the Klingon Death Ritual alone. The Klingon captain that came for them offers Worf a job in their fleet and he politely replies that it’s an honor, but he has no desire of leaving the Enterprise :-)

20- The arsenal of freedom

ITA L’arsenale della libertà

41798.2 The planet “Minos, the arsenal of freedom” has no more life, only a recorded message. Riker, Yar and Data go down and have to deal with a weapon that learns and adapts; Picard finds the main computer and Beverly is badly injured. Another part of that weapon attacks the Enterprise: Geordi is in command and separates the ship. Beverly suggests shutting it off, and to do that Picard tells the automatic salesma that he’s seen enough and wants to buy it, so the “demonstration” ends. The Enterprise destroys its attacker and beams everyone up. The ship they were looking for, the Drake, was probably a victim of this ultimate weapon, as were everyone on the planet. Riker had been offered the Drake, as captain, but refused choosing to go on the Enterprise.

I loved it that after so many deaths, and after they struggle so much against it, it is the doctor that finds a solution :-) the obvious one, since the weapon is controlled by a computer, but still, they only tried to destroy it.

21 - Symbiosis

ITA Simbiosi

The Enterprise rescues a ship. The only way is to beam them on the Enterprise and those people give priority to their cargo. Tasha manages to save four people out of six after that. Two from Brekka and two from Ornara. These two planets are in total symbiosis because on Brekka there are no other industries, they perfected the productin of what they call ‘medicine’, the Felicium. Everyone on Ornara thinks they’er ill and will die without the medicine, and a dose only lasts 72 hours tops. Beverly realises that it’s not a medicine but a narcotic, the Ornarans are all addict. They don’t know, but the people from Brekka do. Picard can’t tell the Ornarans, can’t cure them, because of the Prime Directive. But now Picard refuses to repair their only ships left, because it’s the only thing he can do. Then the Enterprise goes away, it doesn’t matter where as long as it’s away from here, and Geordi chooses to head to the Opperline System, because “we’ve never been there”. Good.

22 - Skin of evil

ITA La pelle del male

41601.3 Deanna was at a conference and is coming back, but their shuttle has trouble. It’s captured by a planet, so a team beams down to help. Some kind of black ‘slick’ blocks their paths, it can move, grow and talk, it’s called Armus apparently. It attacks Tasha, one shot and she’s dead, there’s nothing they can do. This thing talks to Deanna, tells her that some creatures, now dazzingly beautiful, brought to the surface all that was evil and negative in them, it became like a second skin that they discarded and left here.

Riker is enveloped in the black goo and given back later. This will come up many times in future episodes.

Since talking about what happened in the past seems to weaken it, Picard comes down and talks to it, waiting for his crew to bring them all up. The thing remains there while they go away.  Worf is now the new Chief of security, so he remained on the ship to lead the rescue.

Picard of course didn’t mean it when he told that thing that he’d take it away from that planet, and he says as much when he knows he’s about to be beamed up “I’m not taking you anywhere”, and then they destroy the shuttlecraft that crashed there to “prevent any possibility of Armus leaving the planet. Vagra II will be declared off-limits but the damage has been done”. They go to the holodeck for Tasha’s funeral. Riker has his arm around Deanna’s shoulder, Wesley is with Beverly, there’s also Geordi, Data and Worf. Tasha left a holographic recorded message for them: Riker is the best because he trusted her, encouraged her and made her laugh. Deanna is “capable of so much love, you taught me without ever having to say a word, I realized I could be feminine without losing anything”; Worf “we are so much alike, you and I, both warriors, orphans who found ourselves this family”; Beverly “from you I have learned to strive for excellence no matter what the personal cost”; Wesley “I’m sorry I won’t be able to see you grow into the exceptional man you’ll become, but your kindness and innocence are ageless”; Geordi “in those moments I felt the most despair you took my hand and helped me to see things differently, you taught me to look beyond the moment” and then “my friend Data, you see things with the wonder fo a child and that makes you more human than any of us”. “Captain Jean-Luc Picard, I wish I could say you’ve been like a father to me but I’ve never had one so I don’t know what it feels like. But if there were someone in this universe I could choose to be like, someone I would want to make proud of me, it’s you. You who have the heart of an explorer and the soul of a poet. So, you’ll understand when I say ‘death is that state in which one exists only in the memory of others, which is why it is not an end’. No goodbyes. Just good memories. Hailing frequencies closed, sir” - “Au revoir, Natasha”

Data is confused: “my thoughts are not for Tasha but for myself, I keep thinking how empty it will be without her presence. Did I miss the point?” And a moved Picard replies “No you didn’t Data, you got it”

23 - We’ll always have Paris

ITA Ricordare Parigi

41697.9 To Sarona VIII for some rest. Picard practices fencing with some lieutenant, when there is “some kind of loop where everything repeats itself”. Then they get a message from a Dr Manheim asking for help. Picard says that 15 years ago h left to “work on experiments relating to non-linear time”.

22 years ago Picard had to meet a girl at a café in Paris but it was him who didn’t show. That girl is now mrs Manheim, Jenice. He didn’t show up for fear of staying there for her and losing himself, so he “shipped out” instead.

Beverly thinks she “can’t compete with a ghost from his past, no one could” because “she may be in the here and now but it’s the ghost he sees”

Paul Manheim and his team opened a “window into another dimension”. They see themselves into the turbolift and understand that the Manheim’s effectt may be dangerous, also because Paul is trapped through dimensions or something, so Data goes down to the lab and closes it, even though when the time came to add the antimatter into something, there were suddenly three Data in a line, and the second said he was the right one, but its seems to me like all three went forward with it, but it worked, Paul is now alright and he will go back to his lab with Jenice.

This time Jenice and Picard have a proper goodbye, on the holodeck where he recreated the café des artistes, she thanks him for Paris and exits, and they resume their previous course to Sarona for their shore-leave.

24 - Conspiracy

ITA Cospirazione

41775.5 Worf doesn’t lilke swimming because it’s too similar to bathing. A code 47 is a Starfleet message reserved for the captain, a protected channel, and yet this other captain won’t tell Picard what it’s all about, simply gives him an appointment on Dytallix B, saying “don’t trust anyone”. It’sa deserted mine, and there are now four Starfleet ships around it. Picard’s, Tryla Scott’s ‘frigate’ Renegade, Captain Rixx’s frigate Thomas Paine, and this Walker Keel’s ambassador-class heavy cruiser Uss Horatio.

The four captains meet alone, Tryla Scott made captain faster than anyone in Starfleet history, all of them included. These three tell Picard to be careful and watch his back because there’s something wrong in Starfleet, strange orders, weird accidental deaths… and shortly after that they find so many debris that it could only be the Horatio. Even if there’s no proof, Picard remembers that Admiral Quinn also warned him of some subversion within the Federation. Data is quite happy when he finds himself talking to himself, he found the “abnormal patterns in Starfleet Directives” that suggests an attempt to control the Federation, maybe to facilitate an invasion. So they go to Starfleet headquarters, to Earth. On the Enterprise, not-really-admiral-Quinn-anymore knocks out Riker, Geordi and Worf before Beverly can finally come and shoot him unconscious. This bug-things, rather scorpion-like, nasty purple buggers, had taken control of all three admirals at Headquarters, and also captain Scott, and when shot they now exit those bodies and they all go inside Remmick, entering his mouth, so Picard and Riker shoot him to destroy him because inside him there’s the usual mother-bug that once destroyed causes all the little scorpion things to disappear. We’re simply told that there’s no more trace of the parasite in Admiral Quinn. So I guess all the others will be ok too. Well, not Remmick, no, but all the others, that is. Data finds out that Remmick was sending a message, towards “an unexplored sector of our galaxy”, and it was a homing beacon. Sent from Earth. Quite ominous indeed, but nothing will come of it that I know of…

25 - The Neutral Zone

ITA La zona neutrale

41986 While waiting for Picard to come back from a conference, they see an ancient little ship and Data wants to inspect it out of curiosity. With Worf, they find three frozen bodies. Clare is 35, Ralph is 55 and was/is a financier, and the third is Sonny; Picard orders Riker to take care of them and to ‘keep them out of his way’. 

Picard has a sensible mission, two Federation outposts have been destroyed, maybe by Romulans, after 50 years of silence. Picard’s mission is actually to establish peaceful relations with them.

Now it’s 2364, but they were all dead when they were frozen. The woman thinks of her children, and all the people she’s lost. Sonny only thinks of music, women and having a good time. The other man of course is different,full of himself because he had lots of money, treating the Enterprise like a cruise ship, even going unwanted on the bridge - and two men can’t get him out simply because he doesn’t want to… really?come on… 

Worf has a grudge against Romulans because they destroyed the Khitomer outpost, but they didn’t do it here, their outposts were attacked too. They agree to share information on this, but then the Romulans say that they’ve been away too long and this is the result, and “we’re back!”, they say. 

The Enterprise will transfer the three humans onto another ship, or maybe directly to a Starbase, until they can be taken to Earth. And once again Picard remarks how on Earth people have defeated greed and don’t live to gain money anymore… all nice and good, but they could never explain how do they live, then. There’s no rent to pay for anyone? I know food replicators are a thing on ships, but everyone has them at home? For free? Maintenance is also free? Mah.

End of season 1.

Q - John DeLancie

A Ferengi - Armin Shimerman

Lwaxana - Majel Barrett

Ariana - Danitza Kingsley

Karnas - Michael Pataki

Goldeneye - 1995

One of those films that make everything else seem probable... there are scenes so absurd that they aren’t even entertaining anymore, they are just plain: oh-come-on-what-is-this ...

The best part of the whole movie is the very small scene with M, where she tells him that she knows he doesn’t like her, and then she tells him why she doesn’t like him: “I think you’re a sexist , misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the cold war whose boyish charms, though wasted on me, obviously appealed to that young woman I sent out to evaluate you” - so they DO know that he’s a sexist misogynist dinosaur!!! It’s nice to know. 

The most memorable part of the movie is the Q scene, you know, when Q presents Bond with a new series of gadgets, usually the only ones that he will use during that specific movie *rollingeyes

and in the background there are scenes of his people trying out other inventions, things going wrong, it’s quite funny actually :-p

Now, am I mistaken or Bond drove an Aston Martin only at the beginning, and later replaced it with a BMW? 

Details:

There are two 00 agents working together (one is Pierce Brosnan and the other is Sean Bean, which is something that needs to be pointed out). At first they call each other by their number, to let us understand that they are both secret agents, then they call each other by name to let us know that they are friends... I understand this, but it makes no sense, if there is no secrecy reason, why use the numbers at all....

They are on some mission in Russia, Alec is captured and shot... Bond escapes because in Bond movies he’s always lucky af, no other reason really.

At the beginning of the movie there is a bungee-jumping scene that is quite cool, actually, when our bond needs to go down a lot and fast.. but later scenes are just excessive.

To escape the Russians, he follows a plain on a motorbike (obviously no soldier knows how to shoot) and then... prepare yourself.. the plain jumps without him, so he launches himself off the cliff and what do you know, he reaches the plain, grabs it, enters, and goes away... one of those things that even Murdock would call crazy...

Anyway.

We see our Bond again on his favourite Aston Martin (if I’m not mistaken) with a blonde with him that should be evaluating him but since he’s the protagonist no female can resist him *rolling eyes..

He starts a stupid crazy race with a woman on a red car, avoiding accident after accident because of the usual luck.

We see that there is a group of people working with computers somewhere (a Russian base or something?) but as we see a pretty Russian blonde it’s pretty obvious what will happen, she will be the bond girl for sure.

When her friend Boris is out for a smoke and she’s gone for a few minutes, the place gets attacked, everybody killed and the place blown up. She’s safe somehow, she comes out of there and... let’s spare a comment on the make-up guys who did their best to give her a post-tragedy look while keeping her pretty at the same time. thumbs up.

She manages to get out and find the sledge dogs so she can save herself, good girl! Proud of you!

No surprise she ends up working with Bond to stop the bad guys that killed all her colleagues. 

She finds out that Boris is alive and betrayed her, while James finds out that Alec is alive and betrayed him. It’s good to have things in common right?

Of course since he’s called Bond nobody would dare kill him right away, noooo, they are both put into an helicopter where they will die in due time if they stay there and politely wait for their death, but the girl wakes him up... they quickly realise that if they stay there they’ll die, no kidding, so they try to free themselves but they are tied up, but James manages to hit the Eject button with his head... I’m serious, they put him right next to the eject button... these old movies... *sigh

They are questioned by the Russian minister of defence, but then Uronov comes him and kills him. He takes the girl away and Bond goes after him, with a tank, destroying half the city I guess, lots of building are crashed everywhere he goes (all empty I hope, but nobody cares enough to check...

sure, only the ground floors are destroyed, but still that’s not a good thing...

and during all this, the girl looks back at him all proud that he’s unstoppable in his mission to save her...

Bond even carries a monument statue over his tank at one point, and then he crashes it, of course. If there’s one thing Bond is good at , it’s destroying things.

Alec then asks him, what do you choose, the girl or the mission? He says that he can kill her, that she means nothing to him, but then he shoots Uronov first to save her and Alec escapes.

Obviously what follows is the two lovebirds kissing and having sex... 

One thing I’d like to ask these authors: Bond is supposed to be the hero, but you’re implying that he saved her because he likes her? So if they had taken hostage a man or a woman he wasn’t interested in sleeping with, he would have let him kill them? 

The funny CIA guy helps them a bit, but I expected more from the CIA. He didn’t know about the secret Goldeneye, a huge antenna that can destroy planes.

Bond and the girl find their way into the launch base where she changes their codes. Boris is working there for Alec, who is doing this for money after all.

Boris tries to find the new password but he needs time, and he keeps playing with the bomb-pen he took from Bond.. 

There’s a big Alec-vs-James fight where Alec wins, but doesn’t kill him giving him the chance to save himself once more, then Alec is killed, thrown down from up high.

Boris dies when he was about to celebrating his victory in finding the password, totally covered in liquid nitrogen.

Bond is saved by the girl.

When it’s all over, the Marines arrive. The missile was launched but it fails its target so the bank of England and all England’s computers are safe.

Bond and the girl are taken away by the Marines in a helicopter. The end.

This is what action movies were in the 90s.

James Bond - Pierce Brosnan

Alec - Sean Bean

Natalia - Izabella Scorupco

M - Judy Dench

Boris - Alan Cumming

Q - Desmond Llewelyn

Moneypenny - Samantha Bond

The girl on the train - 2016

A good movie. I don't know why it only has 6,5 stars on imdb, I think it was a very good movie. Not an easy one, very dramatic, really a lot of drama, but also a nice mystery that unravels bit by bit.
I'm not going to watch it again because it's really very dramatic, but I'm glad I watched it.
It was well done in all aspects, I think, any one I can think of: acting, directing, lights, makeup, clothes... nothing 'really' wrong that I can point out. Of course I'm very annoyed at the nude scenes, not many but still there, specially one of the most dramatic scenes of a young woman, basically a girl since she was seventeen in the story, walking out naked because her daughter had died. It's dramatic, but the nude scene takes part of the drama out of it, it makes it less dramatic and more voyeuristic.
This was a good movie, it didn't need that.

There is only one thing that I don't understand. What day was it when she wakes up? It should be saturday right? She still bloody, and everything happened Friday night, so... ok, then we see her going out and at night the police is there... Well yes, maybe 24 hours have passed, but they are really quick in this movie uh?

Mostly the story is in the present, but there are bits from the past, to make you see different sides of the story.

Details:
Rachel, an alcoholic woman, travels by train every day, and watches the house of her ex-husband where he lives with his new family, and also the neighbours, a couple that she imagines like the perfect couple, what they never were.
Until she sees her with another man. She thinks she's cheating and she hates it.

She wakes up covered in blood, not remembering anything she did the night before. She's shocked, she has no idea why she has all those bruises and why she has blood on her face and clothes.
She cleans up. She goes to a AA meeting because of what happened.
She sees Martha on the train and hides. She remembers the night she made a big embarrassing scene at her barbecue, breaking a plate, swearing and being aggressive, shouting at her husband totally out of control.
When she gets back home, to her friend Cathy's home where she lives, there are a couple of detectives, asking about Megan, Tom's nanny.
Tom is her ex-husband, his wife is Anna and their baby is Ivy.
Detective Riley says that Megan has disappeared, and Rachel was seen in that area that Friday night. Rachel doesn't remember though.
Rachel was fired a year ago for her alcohol problem, but never told her friend. Every day she takes the train to New York anyway.
Rachel told Riley she doesn't know Megan, but then remembers the woman she saw from the train, and tells Riley that she had a lover.

4 months before
We see Megan talking to her therapist. She looks like a very troubled girl, making advances but he doesn't let her go on with that. He tells her that she's in an abusive relationship, with her husband Scott, but she denies, saying that it's not abuse if you don't care.
A very troubled woman.

Rachel goes to see Scott, she tells him lies about being Megan's friend, so that he will believe her when she tells him that she had a lover, and she confirms his suspicions that her doctor was her lover.
He's out of his mind. Trying to calm down he reasons that it might be a good thing, maybe Megan is alright and only ran away with her lover..
Scott tells the police about Abdik, and in return the doctor tells them that he was violent with her.
Tom sees Rachel around and thinks that she came there for him.
Rachel thinks she remembers something and shouts that Anna hit her.
Rachel goes to see Abdik as a patient, trying to find out more about him because he was released by the police because there are no proof that he might be involved in Megan's disappearance.
She tells him that she has memory loss, that she can't feel guilty about what she did because it doesn't feel like herself at all.
Anna is scared by Rachel, thinking she's stalking them and even tried to abduct her baby daughter, so she goes to the police, and when she speaks of all Rachel's phone calls, Riley questions if Tom is telling the truth, if maybe he's seeing her again.
A bit suspicious, Anna tries to spy on his computer, but can't find his password.
Scott tells Rachel that Megan was pregnant. She told her doctor but not her husband.

A month before.
Megan couldn't sleep and went to her doctor's house because she needed to tell him something, to say something out loud because it weighs on her. When she was 17 she had a daughter, and she held her to her body while taking a bath but she fell asleep and the baby fell and died.
Rachel tells the doctor of when she went to see her old house, and she saw Anna asleep so she took the baby, she only wanted to hold her but Anna freaked out when she saw her in the garden with her baby.

Megan's body is found, so it's now a murder investigation.
Anna sees Rachel outside Scott's house, watching the reporters, and fears for her baby but Rachel walks past her without a word.
Anna talks to Tom, remembering when she was 'the other woman', when Tom cheated on Rachel with her, and suggests Rachel might have killed Megan, but Tom shuts her up, saying Rachel is sad not violent.
Rachel comes back home to find Scott there. He's aggressive, says that the police questioned him, that they think the two of them are lovers, that now he knows that she didn't know his wife at all.
Luckily for her, he's scary and emotionally trying, but he doesn't hurt her.
She goes to the police to accuse Scott, but Riley says that he has a solid alibi.

Last Friday
Megan found out that she was pregnant and she called her doctor to come to her house. She needed help, consoling, and he hold her, when Rachel saw them from the train.
There was maybe one kiss, but they were never lovers, he was trying to help her, she was lost and troubled and needed help.

Rachel sees Marta on the train again but this time she doesn't hide, she confronts her and apologises many times for her behaviour, but then the big switch of the movie happened.
Marta tells her that she did nothing wrong, she didn't feel well after drinking too much so she went to lie down on a bed, but Tom insisted to take her home and shouted at her while she just apologised.
Rachel thought that Tom got fired because of what she did, but Martha says that he got fired because he slept around too much, she says that she did nothing wrong, and now Rachel remembers things the way they went, Tom shouting at her, breaking the mirror at home, insulting her and being aggressive.
Anna still can't find the password to Tom's computer, but she finds a phone in his bag, and she finds out that it's Megan's phone.
Rachel tries to remember by going to the same place where she got all bloody on the ground that night. Now she remembers Megan going away in Tom's car, and it was Tom who pushed her down and hit her face with his keys. A man living nearby tried to help her up but she cursed him making him go away.
Rachel goes to see Anna, tells her that Tom is a liar but Anna says she knows that Tom has cheated on her many times, but she doesn't want to leave him. Rachel says that he killed Megan but Anna doesn't want to believe that, says that they don't know what happened, but then Tom appears and Anna goes inside with the baby.
Rachel doesn't let it go and shouts that he saw him with Megan that night. Now Anna admits that she found Megan's phone.
Rachel says that she knows now that he always lied to her, making her believe that it was all her fault, that she did horrible things when it was not true.
He tries to make her drink but she refuses. He hits her.

We see now what happened that night, Megan went to the woods with Tom and he thought she wanted sex but she wanted to tell him that she was pregnant. He said she needed to abort, she says she never planned to force him if he doesn't want to get involved, he told her she'd be a horrible mom, that he kept her as a nanny because it was fun to have her in the house. He tries to make her leave but they fight, she pushes him, he pushes back and she falls and hits her head. Accident? Oh no, he kicks her head a couple of times, hides her body and since she's not dead yet he hits her with a big rock multiple times !

Tom still tries to pin it on Rachel, saying it was her fault, that nothing would have happened if she had left them in peace, which is obviously bullshit and Rachel doesn't fall for it anymore. She tries to leave but he stops her and almost strangles her, but she hits him and runs out. Tom runs after her and Rachel stabs his neck with a bottle opener.
Anna sees him on the ground all bloody and pushes the opener more.
Both women are taken away by the police and questioned. Rachel says that it was legitimate defence, that he would have killed her like he killed Megan, and luckily Anna says the same thing, that he would have killed her, and that Rachel was right.

Good.

The last scene shows Rachel on the train again. I think she's now moving on, but for real this time, not like she was 'moving on from her divorce' when she kept drinking and going to their house.
Maybe this time she won't start drinking again and things will get better.


Rachel - Emily Blunt
Megan - Haley Bennett
Anna - Rebecca Ferguson
Scott - Luke Evans
Tom - Justin Theroux
Dr Kamal Abdik - Edgar Ramirez
Cathy - Laura Prepon
Detective Riley - Allison Janney
Martha - Lisa Kudrow

ITA la ragazza del treno

Fire twister - 2015

One of the worst movies ever, really. Maybe not the worst, but I can't think of a worse one right now... I wonder who made it, maybe some school kids, I don't know. It wouldn't be a bad first attempt at filmography by a bunch of teen friends, I guess.
Unfortunately I think we can assume that it was made by grown-up people... in which case it's awful.
By the title I wasn't expecting a masterpiece, of course, but I was kind of hoping in a b-movie, you know, a bit of silly fun, but the problem is that nobody can be saved here. The acting was awful, the effects were ridiculous, the dialogues not to be spoken of, nothing made sense, not one thing was decent.
The plot it's sort of the usual one: a rich bad guy plans an explosion for his wicked plans, the hero and his gang get involved by mere chance and decide to save the world.
That's pretty much it.
The enemy is a fire twister, obviously. Four people were about to put a pacifist stunt when Scott saw a bomb with the usual nice timer (who needed a timer there? There was nobody around, there wasn't supposed to be anyone around, so why kindly out a timer there? Who knows, apparently all bombs must come with a timer in plain view..).
Scott sees that they have only 30 seconds and instead of jumping down screaming to everyone to follow him while he runs away he turns to the others saying that they got a problem, there's a bomb there... and then they run...
Lots and lots of stupid things like that. A bunch of mercenaries tries to kill them from the start (but only after the explosion, maybe because they saw the bomb, we can let this one go). They have automatic weapons, they are supposed to be good at their job, and yet they can't hit four people out in the open. Later they can't hit them after catching them by surprise, being pretty close to them, and shooting like crazy. They try a lot, then they think of a trap which works, and what do they do now? They take them prisoners to talk, to negotiate... what?? Nothing, absolutely nothing. They shot in front of houses before, now they must do it quietly... another nonsense.
The fire twister is supposed to destroy everything in its way... the heat can burn a leaf quite far away... and yet they don't have the slightest scratch, a young mother landed on a tree...
the twister is chasing them and they lie down covering their heads... and the twister kindly moves around them, I guess, because afterwards they look in front of them and the twister is behind some houses... this twister really doesn't want to hurt them...
It's all so fake, there's really nothing decent.
One thing that I thought at first was a mistake it was actually right. The mercenary woman had a picture of the four of them and she said 'the three environmentalist' or something, which wasn't because  she can't count, but because the annoying one was a traitor, paid to bring them to that location, of course not knowing that he was risking his life.
Let me just mention another stupid thing, the first half of the movie saw our heroes trying to 'find' the twister, as if a huge twister wasn't visible by itself, and this one was made of fire, bright red... and the world was constantly taken by surprised, people walking by without suspicions until the twister was right there... nobody had a smartphone (in 2015?) but still everyone had a phone, and yet the news didn't get around... apparently the news talk about it (let's not talk about how awful the scenes of the news coverage were...) but nobody watch tv here...
The twister kept burning a lot because it was supposed of being made with a new experimental kind of fuel, based on hydrogen, that is attracted to heat to sustain itself... and for some reason a big explosion can put it out.
I mean, the plot is absurd, but it could have still served an acceptable b-movie if anything, at least one single thing had been good. But no.
The acting and directing are the worst, really.
Nothing is acceptable here.
I really can't understand how things like this get around, really...


Scott - Casper Van Dien
Carla - Lisa Ciara

ITA uragano di fuoco

Premonition - 2007

Personally I thought the ending was real shit, but I suppose you can choose what you want this movie to mean: you can choose to think that it allowed her to re-discover what really matters, to find faith again, to find love again... but you must really  want to see it like that, because otherwise what you’re left with is what I saw: a sick trick. Not really well done when you think too much about it, but still basically a sick trick.

The plot is that a woman finds out that her husband died in an accident, but from the next day she starts living that week’s days in the wrong order. The first we see was a Thursday, then she wakes up: on Monday, then Saturday, then Tuesday, then Friday, then Sunday and at last Wednesday.

After that I guess they didn’t know where to go from there so they just skipped it all instead of trying to come up with any explanation and we see her waking up weeks later.

What happens day by day:

---Thursday, Linda takes her two daughters to school (Bridgette has a perfect face). She puts stickers on the glass door so the girls would see it. She hears her husband Jim’s recorded message. A sheriff comes to tell her that Jim died yesterday. Her mom comes to stay with her to help.

---Monday, she wakes up and Jim is alive. She thinks it was just a bad dream. Doing the laundry, she stumbles on a dead crow and throws it in the bin.

---Saturday, she sees that all the mirrors are covered and she doesn’t know why. It’s the day of the funeral and she freaks out saying that he’s alive and her mom thinks she’s gone crazy. She freaks out again seeing her Bridgette’s face full of scars and she has no idea what happened to her. The stickers are on the glass door. She finds some lithium pills in her bathroom prescribed by a Dr Roth. She searches the name in the phone book but the page has been torn and she finds it in the paper bin. 

At the funeral she makes a scene, she thinks he’s alive and wants them to open the casket, they refuse but then they let it fall and it opens and his head only rolls out. 

So we can assume that he was decapitated in the car accident.

She sees a blonde woman and walks to her asking who she is, the woman says that they talked ‘yesterday’ but Linda has no memory of that and the woman drives away quickly.

At night, dr Roth arrives called by her mom who questions how Bridgette hurt her face, implying that Linda needs help and might have hurt her daughter, so they take her away and commit her to a psychiatric hospital where she hears him saying that she told him about his death the day before it happened.

---Tuesday, she remembers everything but can’t understand what is going on. She searches for dr Roth’s name and in her hurry she rips the page. She goes to see him and tells him everything. He thinks she’s crazy and gives her pills (but she’ll never take them).

She visits Jim at his office where she meets his new colleague Claire and we all can see that there’s something between the two of them...

It starts raining heavily and Linda shouts to take the laundry back in, but Bridgette doesn’t see the glass door and runs right into it, hurting herself. She takes her to the hospital and Jim joins her.

She throws the phone book page in the waste bin and finally seems to put two and two together, these things are what she already saw, so she writes it all on paper, what happened each day to try and make some clarity. 

Linda covers all the mirrors so that Bridgette won’t see her scarred face.

---Friday, remembering what happened at the funeral, she now goes to talk to Claire. She learns that Jim was about to cheat on her when he died. 

She checks her insurance, where they tell her that Jim raised it right before leaving. 

She arranges everything for the funeral the next day. Her mom seems shocked that she’s so calm now.

---Sunday, Linda tells Jim to spend time with the girls and he agrees and spends time alone with them having lots of father-daughters fun. She goes to church, talking to a priest about premonitions. He tells her a story where the premonition became true and another where it didn’t. He says that people must find out what’s really important and find love again, or something like that.

Knowing about Claire, she acts weird, sending the girls to kiss their dad twice, asking him why doesn’t he tell them that he loves them. He says he loves them and then that he loves her, when the girls ask. Out in the garden she tells him that they’ve drifted apart and she doesn’t want that, then it rains and a lightning kills the crow that lands right there.

Back in the bedroom, they make love.

---Wednesday, finally Wednesday, the day Jim is supposed to die right? She wakes up to find that he didn’t wake her up like she asked him to. He took the girls to school and is now driving away.

On the phone with Claire he tells her that he can’t do it, she booked a room for them but he says that he made a mistake and can’t go throw with it.

Then he leaves the message we heard at the beginning of the movie.

Linda is right behind him, she calls him, they share words of love and both smile and she tells him to stop and wait for her, but then she notices that he stopped right where he was supposed to die so she tells him to come back. He has to stop in the road because he almost hits a car, but then the car won’t start again. Linda sees the big truck that will kill him and shouts for him to walk away, but there’s nothing she can do other than watch the accident happen in front of her eyes.

Not only his car is cut in two in the crash, but it goes on fire too.

---weeks later, we don’t know how long has it been but we see that they are moving out of that house, that Bridgette’s scars are almost gone and that she has a prominent belly, that Sunday she got pregnant.

The end.

Now, I said sick trick because if she hadn’t tried to save him making him stop and turn around, he wouldn’t have died.

Also:

-Tuesday she saw dr Roth. Why? I get it she was confused, but to call him after knowing that he committed her, that he questioned if she had anything to do with his death... doesn’t sound right.

-Thursday, the recorded message was the same he will make at the end. But why is Bridgette’s face not scarred???

-Ending: what we saw happening on Saturday was real or not? Why didn’t her mum know how Bridgette cut her face? They really locked her into an asylum? Then what happened to her after that?

They offer no answer, we find her at home ready to move out with her daughters. 

It seems all messed up to me.

Hannibal season 2

In progress

1
It starts with Hannibal and Jack fighting in Hannibal's kitchen, a big fight where they try to kill each other. Jack thinks he's winning, strangling him, but Hannibal stabs him in the neck with a piece of glass and we will have to wait to see how it ends.
12 weeks earlier:
Hannibal makes dinner for Jack. A dish so beautiful Jack says "I almost feel guilty about eating it" - Hannibal: "I never feel guilty eating anything" :-p
Will accuses Hannibal, so Hannibal tells Jack he must investigate him :-p
but Jack is very troubled and feeling guilty about Will.
Purnell, the character played by Cynthia Nyxon, asks Alana to withdraw her report on Jack for misconduct but Alana thinks that Jack destroyed Will's life so there will be an internal investigation.
Will is now in Chilton's hospital but refuses to talk to him, asking for doctor Lecter.
Beatrice, or whatever the cop's name is, tells Hannibal "you're not a suspect, you're the new Will Graham" and sure enough he goes to the crime scene.
Doctor Du Maurier (Gillian Anderson) is upset/annoyed, saying that he is making her lie for him "again". Hannibal: "it would seem Jack Crawford is less suspicious of me than you are" - "Jack Crawford doesn't know what you're capable of" - "neither do you".
Winston, one of Will's dogs, keeps going back home (awww)
Hannibal prepares a meatless meal for Chilton - since he 'lost' a kidney - and he tells Hannibal that Will had Alana hypnotise him, and tells him "you do realise you're his favourite topic of conversation. Hannibal Hannibal Hannibal. Not with me of course" and "he tells everyone that you are a monster". Hannibal: "well in that case you are dining with a psychopatic murderer Frederic" and they touch glasses :-p
Will now remembers Hannibal shoving that ear down his throat.
Alana believes Will did it but doesn't remember and is not responsible because sick.
Various bodies turn up in a river. Wills tells cop Beatrice that the killer is making a colour pallet because everyone had a different shade of skin. The body found are those he discarded.
2

Murder in three acts - 1986

A chuckling and yelling Poirot, an embarrassing Hastings and what can now be described as a very bizarre dress code. Moral: it wouldn’t be bad if the names Poirot and Hastings were taken off and if it presented itself like a comedy-mystery (not that it made me laugh at any point, but at least some things would be more acceptable in a movie marked comedy).

Problem is, this wasn’t Poirot at all. Mostly because of how it was written: joking, raising his voice, laughing, sleeping on the couch, chuckling all the time... 

and Hastings... ridicule is what it was, specially when he put that little foulard around his throat.

I don’t know why these characters were written this way, but they were totally different from the real ones (real as in : in the way Christie wrote them of course).

Plot:

Poirot joins Hastings in Acapulco because Hastings insists that he should attend a party at the famous actor Charles Cartwright’s villa. There are other guests of course, and after a toast reverend Babbington suddenly falls down, dead. It looks like a natural death, no poison is found in his glass and Poirot can see no reason for killing a man like him (although he knows very little of the man so how can he really tell and being so sure about it... :-/ )

He goes back to Los Angeles, saying that he will write his memoirs (while in reality he does nothing but sleeping on the couch without his shoes on). 

Some time later, two weeks I think, almost everyone present when the reverend died gather at the house of doctor Strange (Wally, not Stephen). There’s another death, this time is the doctor himself, and this time it was poison indeed.

Cartwright appears at Poirot’s hotel room in Los Angeles (it was a hotel right? or was it his place? not sure..) to tell him about the new death. 

Poirot investigates. He invites everyone to ask them to tell him whatever they might know about the two deaths, and at that gathering after a toast Cartwright clutches his throat very theatrically and falls down, startling everyone who think he’s dead, but not surprisingly to the viewer he’s not (I mean, it was such a fake-looking death...)

There’s a little thing that didn’t make sense I think, regarding one of the doctor’s patients, a woman in a sort of catatonic state: a telegram arrives to Poirot saying that she knows something about the murders and later on the woman is killed. I thought that Poirot orchestrated the fake telegram, but later on Poirot says that the murderer sent the telegram ( or rather payed a kid to send it) so why would he do that?? Mah.

Anyway: The ending: (so this is your warning: everything will be revealed in the next few lines.

All through the movie many characters show strange expression to make you suspect them, or exchange significant glances between them, I guess with the same purpose of making you suspect them, but nothing of that makes sense. 

Anyway, when Egg talks about a dress rehearsal, suddenly Poirot puts everything together and gather all the characters involved to solve the case.

Everybody suspected the butler to have killed the doctor because he disappeared right after, but he actually never existed. It was all a masquerade, the actor playing another role, Cartwright played the butler and that’s why the doctor joked with him that night, he knew about it of course, but what he didn’t know is that he wanted to kill him and he did. Why? Because being his doctor he had diagnosed him with some kind of psychosis that could make him become dangerous to others and to himself - it is revealed that he attempted suicide once and that’s why he has a showy scar on his wrist (that nobody knew about before the end despite him being a famous actor always around).

He killed him because he didn’t want the doc to put him away or something like that, but it is curious that the doctor thought those things of him and yet let him play that farse just for fun...

Anyway, now that all is revealed Cartwright shows his unstable nature playing his defence counsellor and stuff before being taken away by the police.

About the first murder, there was actually no motive at all, it was a random death, anyone could have died, it was just to rehearse the important murder, see that it could be done.

Hastings realise that it could have been him, and Poirot realises something much worse, that it could have been him. 

At the end, Poirot asks writer Ms Crisp to write his memoirs together and she accepts.

The girl playing Egg was very pretty, and she looked beautiful in the red dress. I didn’t understand Cartwright’s outfit, maybe designed for the warm weather?? I don’t know, white transparent shirt, white shorts and white socks just below the knee.. oh my.

There’s a scene at the market when there are really big strawberries and it looks like Poirot was about to take one (as in stealing one) before Egg came up to him startling him. :-/

At the beginning, Poirot even inquires if the writer that has a male name but is a woman is one of those people that changed sex, insisting on that point later when he will make the sign of scissors with his hand... Poirot! There can be no comment to this...

Poirot - Peter Ustinov

Hastings - Jonathan Cecil

Cartwright - Tony Curtis

Egg - Emma Samms

Angela Stafford - Diana Muldaur

Janet Crisp - Concetta Tomei

ITA Agatha Christie: delitto in tre atti