Mayor of Kingstown and The Madison

Another pair of Taylor Sheridan shows!

Mayor of Kingstown

Kingstown must be a crappy place to live, especially if its only feature are the number of prisons nearby. The titular "Mayor" is not actually the real mayor of the city, but a fixer (played by Jeremy Renner) who tries to find creative solutions to keep the peace between the cops and the various warring gangs. He's definitely well connected, isn't afraid of getting his hands dirty, and usually doesn't have things go his way which makes for an interesting show, even if he spends at least 40% of each episode talking on the phone while driving ins his car. I'm just curious why everyone seems to listen to him? Still I've very much enjoyed the four seasons of this so far and am looking forward to seeing how it concludes in the fifth.

The Madison

This so far one season "slice of life" show follows a woman played by Michelle Pfieffer and her city based family deal with the sudden loss of her very outdoorsy husband, and finally going to his favorite spot on Earth (the Madison River) to visit his now empty cabins. While the main theme of this show so far seems to be dealing (or not dealing) with grief, there are some funny moments and some introspective ones too which make it interesting. I did not like the extended time in the opening episode on fishing though, but hey, that's just me. It's funny how easy it is to hate some of the characters though. That's something Mr. Sheridan writes really well. :P Not sure yet if this is recommendation worthy, but I'll be watching season two when it arrives.  

Kill Lupercal and Space King

Warhammer 40K, and 40K adjacent?

Kill Lupercal

This short three episode series focuses on a titan crew as they deploy to defend Terra against the forces of chaos led by Horus Lupercal, once the most favored son of the Emperor of Mankind. While the "extras" don't have the best CGI the main characters and titans are well done, with nice action bits to accentuate the all too short story oozing in dark 40K goodness. Recommended especially for those who like Warhammer related stuff!

Space King

This animated youtube series follows a bunch of -space- psycho marines on their quest to find their missing god, the titular Space King, and is a hilarious take on the "totally not warhammer 40k" universe. Definitely for a more mature audience, and again if you like Warhammer 40K you might get a laugh from this. Go check it out, it's free on youtube!

Tron: Ares and Wake up, Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

Sequels that continue a franchise.

Tron: Ares

In a world where arcade game machines have enough power to create a fully immersive and digital world that you can enter by "digitizing" yourself, this latest movie of Tron actually goes the other way around where a created program (played by Jared Leto) wants to export itself to the real world. While the effects are much better than the older Tron movies (except the part that intentionally goes old school), there are some major plot holes that you'll need to jump over. Like, if Jared Leto is your best program why wouldn't you just make multiples of him instead of making different, inferior versions? Even non-techy audiences will need to leave common sense at the door.

Wake up, Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

Benoit Blanc (played by Daniel Craig) is back, this time solving an impossible crime in a small parish with a crazy priest and a small congregation of psycho almost-cultists. Like the previous movies this one has good cinematography and a pretty interesting puzzle to solve. While there's a bit of "god bashing" in it mostly done for laughs, I do like that it's tempered with the "good priest". Also, it's definitely better than the second movie (Glass Onion). Recommended! 

More than Nothing: The Axolotl

[Part of the Party Time journal]

Barricading the way behind them in case the blue gnomes heard the fighting (they did), the team hurriedly descends to the lowest level where they come across a large cavern crawling with blind miners going back and forth. They have to navigate this as quietly as possible and do very well until Ugh rushes the last bit attracting attention at the very end. A cave in saves them from the blind miners, but now they're trapped in another chamber with the thing that caused the cave in, a great Axolotl type lizard with many legs munching on a blind miner! It turns with great interest to the new snacks that just arrived (queue boss music)!

Jerghon the Great leads it one way (its basically playing snake - moves fast but can only turn 3 times during its move) to let the others run through the tunnel it came through, then dodges it to follow. They reach another section of blind miners but with the "well" down to the underground river in sight and the lizard hot in pursuit they decide to sprint through them, losing Doxxer before jumping into the fast flowing river below - which proves to be very long and just as deadly. None of their remaining NPC allies survive it (alas poor Ungala, Winnie and the nameless folk), but the four of them eventually wake in some sort of tent with other mine survivors who had jumped the well before them and are now guarded by foreign looking guys.

An official named Quintus soon arrives and says that his men pulled them from the water, and that they're now all a long way from Goat Getterville. Quintus admits he is not a generous soul but offers a deal: that they all work for him to finish his half-built city of Partopia and in exchange they can become citizens if they so wish. But its an all or nothing offer. Either all of them leave and chance the wilderness or accept the deal. 

Since the other survivors are leaning towards staying, the four leaders agree to the deal as its more than nothing and help finish the city over the next five years - after which they all depart back to Goat Getterville... leaving their kids behind.

Plot armor was used this time!

-Master Builder Ugh used to be a farmer who walked away from a juvenile snake on his farm.

-Master Warden Jerghon the Great didn't care that the community previously thought he was a good for nothing layabout for working on a game involving rolling stones.

-Master Miner Mama had a lazy neighbor called Chitty Chatty who asked help to plant her field. Mama agreed because the neighbor helped her previously with something, and while doing so Mama found a blood ruby gem in the neighbors field which she secretly kept for herself.

-Overseer Sith was previously a hunter with a side kick called "Big Man". After tracking a dangerous ostrich by smell one hunt, Big Man then wanted to earn the bounty of an ostrich feather by reporting that he slew the beast and made her look incompetent. Sith then killed Big Man and took the feather for herself.

More than Nothing: The Great Mine

[Part of the Party Time journal]

Empress Palisa, the daughter of "Rou the beheader" and leader of the Goat Getterville nation could see the value in the precious metals hidden in the ground and commissioned a great mine constructed - overseen by our new heroes: Master Miner Mama (Mom) the daughter of Ma, Master Warden Jerghon the Great (DL) who is the grandson of Jerg, Master Builder Ugh (Juris) the third cousin of Ugh, and Overseer Sith (Rose) the neighbor of Rou.

[We had a bit of a mad-libs session prior to this where they basically designed the mine and its problems by taking turns with my prompts with hilarious results, so most of this bit of the adventure is of their own making :P]

Over the years the mine slowly became more and more dangerous and we pick up as the leaders attempt to evacuate everyone out. Alas, an earthquake sends them plummeting down one level into an underground lake which in unusable due to all the possum pee in it. Determined to escape and to be more than nothing, they and three other nameless survivors head back upstairs only to find the exit collapsed, but they manage to scare a bunch of angry possums away from a barricaded door to the barracks. 

Inside is the now elderly Winnie who can sense there's a way out through a deep underground river at the lowest level which he knows about due to his fisher people heritage. After Mama helps the team avoid a minor cave in, the team descends to the prison level (which the leaders agreed to build down here) and release Dodo, a saboteur descended from the Ostrich Riders; Doxxer, a spy who knows Jerghon's secret (that he still carries Mmmbop's ponytail); and Ungala - a deep scout who reports the rest of his unit was bitten by rabid possums. 

The result of the bite is clearly seen in his buddy Bunga, locked in a separate cell. The now blind man paces back and forth predictably but when he hears a noise he charges aggressively and attacks in that direction. 

With that knowledge they continue down, sneaking past strange blue gnomes now looting diamonds from a doorway broken open by Dodo and reach the illegal Ostrich rider hideout below. They send Dodo in first to calm his compatriots down but he gets torn apart by giant rabid possums that then rush the party, slaying one of the "spare" nameless guys before the team manages to defeat the beasties with their pickaxes.

More than Nothing: Rou the Beheader

[Part of the Party Time journal]

Sometime later the Goat Getter village is flourishing, but Shania arrives with a request to help defend Twain against the expanding territories of Tan-ned - a large city to the North, forcing villages to join or die. They agree that this threat is more than nothing and arrive just in time to defend against the pony tailed forces of Akin-Ka, but are caught by surprise by their ponytail dagger throw which kills many of the defenders. Rou and Ug's use of "I am bright!" saves the day, blinding the enemy forces who are then massacred. Rou beheads Akin-Ka post mortem.

With Shania insisting on pressing the advantage, she rallies more fighters and they them march unopposed all the way to Tan-ned which is strangely undefended? Sensing a trap they divide their forces in two, Shania and half the warriors will hold outside while the Goat Getter heroes enter the "palace temple" (just a covered platform higher than the other buildings) with the other half. Sure enough, Tan-ned's leader Mmmbop is there waiting for them with his guards and uses the powers of his god "wormy" to explode people into wriggling masses worms (by wiggling his fingers and chanting "wormy wormy wormy").

The team rush forward through the defense, and the defenders fail their ponytail dagger through after Rou throws the head of Akin-Ka at them! Mmmbop also critically fails trying to worm-splode Jerg so instead his fingers all turn into worms and fall off. Rou then hits him with a knife to the leg before Jerg captures him and leads him out to the overlooking balcony, where Rou publicly beheads him. This routs the remaining enemies.

Alas, Shania died in the battle outside but everyone else - including the rest of Tan-ned's oppressed citizens now see the four as their saviors and rejoice at Mmmbop's defeat and years pass in relative peace as the Goat Getters inherit the amassed territories of their enemy!

[This is the end of the current characters as I force retire them, and not one of them used any plot armor :P] 

More than Nothing: The First Village

[Part of the Party Time journal]

At the edge of the misty forest the Goat Getters encounter a small group of apes who warn them of a war being waged by their kind and the forest floor dwellers of Shroomy, also noting all the goats would be "shroomed" by now. They accept the apes offer of climbing up above the shroom-mist and meet the apes god "QQ", a large rainbow serpent who asks for their assistance in winning the war but since they refuse, QQ just let's them cross the tree tops to the other side of the forest and warns them never to return.

On the other side of the forest the now somewhat hungry tribe find a ruined settlement where they engage with beasts they've never seen before (dinosaurs) and clear them out. Obelisks in the ruins are decorated with pictograms of farming and building which Mama Yapa understands. She declares the time of wandering is over, and the tribe will settle down here to try farm the land. They will be more than nothing.

The young heroes are sent to gather wood and not willing to return to the misty forest, follow a large river the opposite way, encountering a sheep herder looking for his missing dog and a naked fisher person named Testikles whose invitation to visit his nudist village is rejected.

They eventually reach another farming settlement of Twain and the super friendly leader Shania agrees to help the Goat Getters as much as she can. Providing seeds, timber and a cart to transport it as well as information on the area. On the way back the team encounter a naked fisher kid named Poo on the side of the road, crying because his people sacrificed his dad to their god, the Crocagatorman, in accordance to their practice of sacrificing those above a certain age.

Rou takes the kid under her care, renaming him to Winnie instead and returns him to the Goat Getter Village which has suffered an attack while they were away. Mama Yapa says the ostrich riding raiders took some of their people off with them to the West and so the party pursues, detouring slightly when they come across a trio of naked dog worshipers and a pack of various dogs they admit to "freeing from slavery". Ug does an amazing speech that involves letting the dogs decide if they are happier with their owners and the trio agree to return all the stolen dogs while giving directions to the raiders and suggesting they only respect strength. 

As such when they find the raider camp, Jerg approaches alone and challenges their wiry short leader to a duel - and kills him with the Ug's obsidian blade after dodging the thrown javelins and mounted ostrich. The rest of the raiders kneel before Jerg, muttering "you earn what you kill" (thanks Riddick) and so not only do they free the prisoners, the raiders are also assimilated into the Goat Getter tribe!