The Defining Moments Of Breaking Bad

We the fans of Breaking Bad have been waiting for about a year for a new season. Normally debuting around March, it's taken a bit of a longer break (perhaps to let some other shows get an Emmy, since the later start date puts it out of the running for the next round of awards). On Sunday, AMC will debut the fourth season of its hit show. Though we'll have to wait until it finishes its run, rumor has it that they might be wrapping it up at the end of this one in the reasonable strategy of closing out a show before it gets stale. Whether or not that's the case, this has been an incredibly well-done series and deserves a look back at some of its best scenes.

Walt Roughs Up Some Douchebag Kid

We learn quite a bit about Walt just in the first episode. He contributed to research that resulted in the awarding of a Nobel Prize in Chemistry, but is now working in a clearly unsatisfying job as a high school teacher. There's additional stress in that he's about to be father to a second child at the age of 50, while his teenage son is suffering from cerebral palsy. Perhaps worst of all is the fact that the kids he teaches are a bunch of uninspired snarky little bastards, who openly mock him both in class and at Walt's second job at a car wash with impunity.

After Walt is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, he resolves to keep it a secret from his family but aside from the promoted premise of starting a meth operation we're not sure how he'll react. In this scene, Walt and his wife Skyler are shopping for new clothes for their son, Walter Jr., while a couple of asshole jocks make fun of Walt Jr.'s disability. When Walt prevents Skyler from confronting the kids and simply walks away, it seems to fit his milquetoast personality to a T. Except for the way it ends:



This is the first time we see Walt really breaking out of his shell, and he couldn't have laid down the hammer on a more deserving group.

Jesse Botches a Body Dump

The stakes go through the roof almost immediately as Walt and Jesse are confronted early in their meth operation by a couple of toughs, one of whom Jesse ratted out to the DEA and another who later turns out to be a confidential informant. In his first instance of using science as a weapon, Walt manages to surprise them with a burst of poisonous phosphine gas and trap them in the drug lab RV. This kills one of the men and leaves the other severely injured, and Walt and Jesse resolve that they need to get rid of the body and kill the survivor. They flip a coin to choose who gets what unpleasant task, and Walt instructs Jesse to put the body in a plastic container and dissolve it with hydrofluoric acid. Jesse gets frustrated after he's unable to find a sufficiently large container and simply does the deed in his bathtub. After awhile, it becomes clear why he should have paid more attention in chemistry class.



The scene is both horrifying and hilarious, and just one of many screw-ups Jesse and Walt have to overcome as they start to get things moving. It's one of the most memorable shots of the entire series, and one of the best ways the writers have been able to weave science into the story.

Walter's Kills

One of the ever-developing threads of the show is Walt's alarming ability to go from an upstanding if unremarkable citizen to an out-and-out murderer with a frighteningly high body count. This takes a number of different routes. Early on, Walt kills one drug dealer with phosphine gas in self-defense. He strangles a drug dealer who tried to strong-arm Walt and Jesse but it's his first face-to-face kill; he's reluctant, since he gets to know the man, and it's only when he feels that the dealer will kill him with a plate shard he's managed to pilfer that he does the deed. He has a similar rationale for his plot to kill Tuco, something that ultimately doesn't happen by his own hand.

After that it starts to slip into darker territory. He pushes down his basic human reaction to help when Jane is choking on her own vomit, a decision that is devastating to him but one he makes because he thinks it is in the best interests of himself and Jesse. The unintended result is that it indirectly leads to the deaths of 167 people in a mid-air collision between two airplanes.



By the end of the third season, Walt is still a bit conflicted about his life and this is reflected, oddly enough, with a couple of homicides. He kills two thugs not so much because of their status as competitors in the meth field but because he knows they're likely to kill Jesse, who has essentially become another son by this point. The murders (one done in cold blood with an execution-style gunshot) are also an explicit violation of a truce set up by the overseer of his meth network, the affable legitimate businessman Gus. Finally, Walt orders Jesse to kill a meth lab associate to save his own skin. It's possibly the most charged decision yet: Walt has known and befriended the man, he doesn't personally commit the crime, yet in a weird way it all boils down to self-defense. This last one is going to weigh much more heavily on Jesse than Walt, but it's pretty much the defining murder in Walt's whole career as well.

"This...is Not Meth"

Jessie is selling Walt's meth at a pretty good rate, but it's not netting the profits that Walt hopes to have in place to support his family after he dies. He decides that the best way to remedy this is to start dealing with a supplier, since they can offload a large quantity of product for a significant payoff. The only problem: the local warlord, Tuco, is more than a little psychotic. When Jesse makes an overture to him, he has the sample of meth stolen and is beaten up for his troubles. Walt decides to address the issue himself.



This awesome scene is beautifully framed. The episode itself includes a scene at the beginning where a now bald Walt walks away from a building in a run-down neighborhood as smoke wafts about and car alarms go off. A little later than that, Walt gives a somewhat inconsequential lesson about mercury fulminate; he doesn't even demonstrate it, just notes that it's a volatile compound. Yet when he makes the above statement while holding a whitish crystal in Tuco's lair, we know something amazing is about to happen.

This is the first time Walt enters the lion's den, and he proves that he can hold his own against Albuquerque's criminal bosses. The fact that this is the first time he uses the nickname "Heisenberg," a disguise that got a chuckle out of anyone who knows about the uncertainty of the position of electrons, is just the icing on the cake.

Walt, Jesse, and Hank Kill Tuco

This scene culminates a tense episode in which Jessie and Walt resolve to kill Tuco due to his psychotic nature and instability. Their plan - poisoning his food - goes awry when they find that Tuco cares for his aging, mute uncle. Although his tio can only talk by a bell on his wheelchair, he eventually manages to signal Tuco to their intent. Their first reaction is pure terror that they may be killed, but Walt steps up to give a cold, piercing explanation of just why they're trying to off him...which provides a nice distraction for Jessie to get an attack in. Jesse and Walt have been cooperating, but this is an early example of the two of them collaborating to save their own skins.

No video that I could find. Sorry.

This is capped off by the first real badass scene featuring Hank as well. Until this point, he's been a quite likable guy but also a bit of a swaggering ass at times. In one scene, they set up a long story arc dealing with the dangers he faces on the job, his half-step-behind tailing of Walt's drug operation, and his post-traumatic stress in taking a life.

"Fuck. You."

As the season moves on, Walt has started to settle into his life as a drug lord and all that entails. Early on, however, he is clearly entering this life with reservations; it's the best way he can think of to make a lot of money and go out in a blaze of high earnings glory. So in the early seasons, he has a fair deal of resentment against his former scientific partners, whom he accuses of pilfering his research and cutting him out when they form a multi-million dollar company.

Behind all this is Walt's abhorrence to anything resembling charity. If he's going to get the money for his treatments and to support his family, he's going to do it his own way, even if that means putting himself and others at risk. When some of his former comrades genially offer to support him in his time of need, Walt simply cannot get over his resentment. When one of these people expresses pity over Walt's bitterness, it only enrages him more:



Again, Bryan Cranston was best known before this part as the doofus dad on Malcolm in the Middle. Apparently this line was censored when it was first aired by AMC, but in full it's downright chilling.

"You Have a Good Rest of Your Life, Kid"

After Tuco's death, Walt decides that the best way to remain profitable is to go into business for himself and become a drug kingpin. There's something of an underlying theme of the effect of drugs on children in the second season, from a child shooting Jesse's friend and fellow dealer Combo as part of a territory skirmish to Walt missing the birth of his daughter to drop off a shipment of meth to the death of children aboard Wayfarer Flight 515. In the episode "Peekaboo," Walt orders Jessie to be an enforcer against a drugged out couple who ripped off one of their dealers. He arrives at their house a little early and finds a young boy, unattended amid the squalor. The whole thing ultimately ends up angering Jesse more than the drug theft, and Aaron Paul does a terrific job as the episode goes from his awkward interaction with the kid to his concern with getting him to safety after one parent murders another, and the whole thing is a rather stark portrayal of the degradation caused by meth.

Badger Gets Arrested

Well, this just proves once again that Breaking Bad can be pretty damn hilarious when it wants to be:



Badger is a minor character who often comes off as something of a dumbass. This just shows that for all of that, Badger knows how to keep clear of the heat; he just doesn't listen to himself all the time. It's a well-written, richly layered scene and it helps add to the show by introducing us to Saul Goodman, corrupt lawyer extraordinaire.

"Hola, DEA"

After killing Tuco, Hank gets assigned to some more hardball duty, much to the annoyance of the agents in that unit who think he's just being rewarded for a bit of cowboy behavior. Hank, meanwhile, isn't too thrilled to be in what may be a more dangerous situation since he's already suffering from some PTSD as a result of the gunfight. It's just his bad luck that on his first stakeout, he picks up his binoculars and spots an informant's head slowly trundling along the ground. And then this happens:



Perhaps the thing that threw the fans the most was the fact that Danny Trejo seemed like a name guaranteed for a lasting role. If they'd wanted someone who could speak a few episodes and then model for a special effects head, they could have picked any number of actors looking for a minor role. That only adds to the double shock that occurs when the informant is not only killed, but has his noggin rigged like an IED.

"Stay Out of My Territory"

By this point in the series, Walt has essentially become a meth boss first and a teacher second. That's not to say that he's entirely divorced from his old life, though. In a couple of scenes, we see that even though Walt hasn't had as much success in life as a few of his colleagues, he still expects his students to dedicate themselves and make an effort to succeed in his class. So, in this clip, we get a bit of Walt's first quality. He sees that a shopping cart is ineptly filled with everything on every supply store's Meth Watchlist, and then sees a guy who by facial expression alone is more knuckleheaded than Jesse ever was at his worst. Walt chews him out not just for the obvious red flag, but for not doing things as efficiently as possible.

About a minute later, we get the other side of Walt:



It's an aging teacher suffering from lung cancer versus a fairly bulked up guy and his companion. As has happened more than a few times, the guy who sizes him up could easily take him on. But the sheer force of the statement alone is enough to make one second guess such a scenario. Bit by bit, Walt is becoming Heisenberg. And scene by scene, Bryan Cranston locks up the Emmy for Best Actor.

Wayfarer Flight 515

The second season opened with a mysterious shot of a scorched teddy bear, missing an eye and submerged in Walt's pool. A few episodes later, the pool was removed by a guy in a HazMat suit and placed in a bag labeled "Evidence" alongside several other items, including what appear to be Walt's glasses. A few episodes later, some HazMat guys are photographing Walt's car, which has a splintered windshield, while a couple of sheet-covered bodies lie on the ground nearby.

This led to a lot of speculation as to what exactly was going to happen before the season closed. Was a meth lab finally going to explode? Did the teddy bear signify that something awful was going to happen to Walt's daughter? Maybe the new water heater Walt insisted on installing was going to go Mythbusters on them? Who was going to be killed? And then in the final episode of the season, the evidence was loaded into an NTSB van, and a pan-out revealed two plumes of smoke in the distance. At which point, I thought (along with most of the audience I'm sure), "Oh, a plane crash! Wait...how?"



The ending didn't satisfy everyone, given that it was a rather convoluted outcome of Jessie and Walt's actions, but it was the culmination of a hugely successful misdirection. While the audience was contemplating what may have happened to affect the White household, no one realized that the episode titles for the first three episodes involving these strange opening shots sequentially spelled "Seven-Forty-Seven Down Over," with the finale episode entitled "ABQ," the three-letter abbreviation for the Albuquerque airport.

The story leading up to this incident is basically that in allowing the death of Jesse's girlfriend, a rebound heroin addict and a bit of extortionist, he indirectly puts a huge amount of pain and distress on the girl's father: an air traffic controller. In going back to work too early, he dwells on his loss and allows two planes to fly into each other. The horrifying disaster has largely been shoved into the background, with Walt apparently happy to comfort himself with the knowledge that aging equipment may have contributed to the mishap and the fact that there have been worse plane crashes in history. Still, coupled with the decision of his wife to leave the house over Walt's dishonesty in the same episode, the crash of Wayfarer Flight 515 was a clear example of just how badly Walt had lost control of his original plan to provide for his family.

Party Pizza Toss

After a writer's strike-shortened first season and a second season packed so full of awesome scenes, the third season was a bit of a slowdown. It was more of a character study as it introduced a few new people and delved more into the minor players, expanding on the various meth networks and the dangers therein. Underlying a good portion of the season was the relationship between Walt and Skyler as it was first dashed on the rocks and then slowly stitched back together once Skyler decided that getting involved in money laundering might not be such a bad thing.

In one of the early episodes, Walt is living in a motel and tries to make a bit of a peace offering by bringing home a bag of cheesy bread and an enormous pizza. When this is rebuffed, Walt does this:



It's one of those scenes that's so completely unexpected that it never fails to get a laugh, and it's made all that much greater by the fact that Bryan Cranston managed to accomplish what must have been a fairly complicated maneuver in a single take. The pizza also made a few more cameo appearances, most notably when Skyler calls to complain about it and threaten a restraining order, leading Walt to grab at his crotch and shout at the answering machine, "Restrain these!" in another dark yet hilarious scene that is itself a subtle throwback to Walter telling off his car wash boss in the pilot episode.

Jesse Rips Into Walt

The lowest point in Jesse's life probably comes midway through the second season. His parents kick him out of his aunt's home, where he's been living, after discovering that he runs a meth lab there. Jesse winds up breaking into an impound lot to steal the RV he and Walt have been using for their cooking expeditions, falling into a port-a-potty along the way, and Walt is none too pleased when Jesse, at the end of his rope, comes pleading for help. Jesse gets back on his feet before too long, finding a place to live and striking up a romantic relationship with his landlord, a recovering heroin addict. But more misfortune arrives with the death of his girlfriend due to a drug overdose. Later, after setting up a phone call to Hank falsely telling him his wife's been seriously injured in a car accident to create a distraction and allow the RV to be disposed of, an enraged Hank delivers a pretty severe beatdown.

The episode that starts with this latter incident involves one of the strongest performances by Aaron Paul. He spends most of it recuperating in the hospital, getting a couple of rather effective monologues along the way. In the first, he vows to utterly destroy Hank's life.



The second, which I consider superior but which is unfortunately not available, comes after Walt asks him to rejoin the meth trade in a more professional setting. Jesse launches into a moving tirade about how his life has been completely ruined by Walt, and he wants nothing to do with him. And he doesn't even know about Walt's role in Jane's death at this point.

Jesse's options are kind of limited, however; one need only think back to the pilot and his inglorious escape from a DEA raid, or his even more inglorious entrance to the impound lot, to realize that he doesn't have much to fall back on. Despite the powerful rebuke, he nonetheless accepts the offer later in the day. The characters have been sketched out quite well by this point, and Aaron Paul's Emmy for the third season was well-earned.

Hank vs. The Cousins

Hank is one of the most likable characters on the show. He's brash and can be a little stubborn at times, but it's clear that he's very dedicated to his job and deeply loves his wife and the extended family on her side. Of course, this is television and people get killed off. The third season introduced Tuco's imposing and ruthless cousins, who have it in for Walt for his role in their uncle's death. Gus, the mild-mannered chicken restaurant chain owner and Albuquerque area drug kingpin, puts a halt on this intention but coldly offers a consolation prize until he no longer needs Walt: the name of the fellow who actually gunned Tuco down.

In the very next episode, Hank is on temporary suspension for assaulting Jesse and as a result he has no service weapon. For a good part of the episode, there's an underlying tension as we know Hank is unarmed and could be ambushed by the Cousins at any point. This is ramped up to overdrive in the final scene, which culminates in one of the most intense sequences the show has offered yet:



Hank's been in a few scrapes before, but none have compared to this one. The fact that he once again gets out alive (barely) using some quick thinking just adds that much more to how awesome his character is.

Jesse Kills Gale...Maybe

The third season finale brings together a few story threads, with the fate of Walt being the most important one among them. Walt, who at first had been content to retire from the drug trade after a banner sale to Gus, is instead enticed back into the more high-end, underground operation Gus runs. It's another sign, perhaps the one signaling the final change, of his inability to disassociate himself from what he thought would be a temporary gig cut off by his own death of natural causes. Walt is still highly intelligent, however, and has figured out that Gus plans to get rid of him once he's done training a protege, a rather kindly scientist-turned-crook who enjoys music and using his chemistry skills to brew the best cup of coffee. He's like another kind of Walt, really, but once Walt realizes what's up he has no choice but to treat Gale as a threat.



So this scene serves as yet another turning point for both Walt and Jesse. Walt has shown that he's willing to protect Jesse by committing the worst of crimes, and now he fully expects him to protect his own life when there is a need to do so. And Jesse realizes that he has to answer the call. It's an impossible situation presented to Jesse: kill a terrified near-stranger to protect a shady associate who has saved his own life. Underneath it all is the question of what sort of fallout this is going to bring. Walt knows Gus needs him to produce his drugs, but Gus won't be too pleased that his partner murdered his other meth cook.

Of course, there's that final check of the pistol before the gunshot, so the major speculation now is whether Jesse even killed Gale. In some interview, it was confirmed that Jesse did indeed kill Gale. But then again, these are the guys who made us think a plane crash might have been a ruptured water heater. We'll just have to wait until the premiere to see how it all went down.

Whatever Happened To: The Cast of The Mighty Ducks

Though I'm sure that sports movies aimed at kids are still making regular appearances, they don't seem as prevalent. When I was growing up, they seemed to be everywhere. It's probably a good thing that they petered out. Most of these movies were based on either stupid premises (a dog playing basketball!) or formulaic cliches about the ragtag misfits versus the evil haughty team.

The Mighty Ducks, from 1992, falls into the latter category. Gordon Bombay, a one-time youth hockey star, is a successful Twin Cities lawyer who takes up coaching a struggling peewee hockey team after his arrest for drunk driving. Though Bombay is at first eager to abandon the team as soon as his term of service is over, he and the young players grow to respect each other, improve their game, and take on the top seeded (and eeeeeevil) rival team.

Despite the rather formulaic story, it was still an entertaining movie. Two sequels were made. The first, in 1994, basically transformed the story of the first to a world competition, where the Ducks faced off against the evil...Iceland. Then in 1996 came the third movie...which ditched Bombay and saw the Ducks getting into a turf battle with a prep school's varsity team. Lame. And apparently there was also a direct-to-video movie and animated series, the latter of which I remember being about the mascots of the most lasting effect of the films: the fact that Anaheim started an actual hockey team based on them.

So whatever became of that lovable scrum of skaters? Well, there were a lot of them, and though I remember quite a few snippets about the movies I had to rely on a Wikipedia page on the film series quite heavily.

Emilio Estevez (Gordon Bombay)


Bombay was your standard jerkass redeemed by forced interaction with children. He's been haunted for decades by a championship-winning penalty shot he narrowly missed in his childhood, and goes from being a hotshot lawyer to a professional hockey coach and player. Basically, he comes to respect and care for the kids and craft them into a feared force in the rink.


Emilio Estevez, now 49, is the oldest child of Martin Sheen. He's one of those actors who is recognizable but not really a huge star. Prior to The Mighty Ducks, he was probably best known for his roles in The Breakfast Club, Repo Man, and Maximum Overdrive. He has since appeared in a number of lesser known movies, including Men at Work and National Lampoon Loaded Weapon 1. He's also directed a few TV episodes of Numb3rs, Cold Case, CSI: NY, and Criminal Minds and played a young version of his father's character on The West Wing. In 2006, he wrote, directed, and starred in Bobby, a movie about Robert Kennedy, which didn't make a lot of money but was nominated for a handful of awards, including a Golden Globe for best drama. Estevez last appeared in the 2010 film The Way, and doesn't appear to have any upcoming projects at this time.

Joshua Jackson (Charlie Conway)


Charlie was pretty much the leader among the team members. He came to regard Bombay as a father figure, and part of the reason for Bombay's departure in the third movie was to allow Charlie to step up as more of a strong figure.


Joshua Jackson is one of the few cast members who have become well-known in the acting world. Turning 33 in three days, Jackson got his big break when he played Pacey Witter in the TV series Dawson's Creek from 1998 to 2003. Though he faded into the background for awhile, he once again found a successful TV show and has been playing Peter Bishop in the sci-fi series Fringe since 2005.

Greg Goldberg (Shaun Weiss)


Goldberg was a goalie and memorable character in an odd way; I remember he was one of the key players and got a lot of screen time (and even a full face shot on some movie posters). But now I don't remember much more than a gag in which he gets frustrated with the licking the initially unskilled team is taking at the beginning of the first movie and ends up just stepping aside to let the opponents take a shot. Wikipedia says he had a lot of fart jokes to sustain him and that he later moved from goalie to defenseman.


Shaun Weiss, now 32, has been occasionally popping up in small roles in TV shows. These appearances include The King of Queens, Freaks and Geeks, and Crossing Jordan. His last credited appearance was as a bus driver in the 2008 film Drillbit Taylor. Though he also appeared in a 2010 short film entitled 19 Shots 32 Kisses and the Co@k Blocker and numerous commercials.

Adam Banks (Vincent Larusso)


Sporting perhaps the longest description in the Wikipedia entry on Mighty Ducks teammates, Adam Banks is a wealthy member of the rival team who is acquired by the Ducks after it turns out that he actually lives in their district. For all the evilness of the Ducks rivals, Banks was forthright and loyal to the team (to the point of leaving the academy's varsity team in the third movie to rejoin his old mates). Banks also gets injured more than anyone, probably because he keeps ditching rival teams and provoking their evil rage.


Vincent Larusso, now 33, graduated in 2000 from the Boston University School of Management. Six years after this, he's still had a few bit roles in the acting world, including a bank robber in Superhero Movie and "Buddy #2" in an episode of Dollhouse. He was also in a razor ad. Beyond that, it's kind of unclear what he's up to now.

Guy Germaine (Garette Ratliff Henson)


Clearly I haven't seen these movies in awhile. Guy Germaine is the first person mentioned in the Wikipedia list of Ducks players, and described as one of the most skilled players. He was also on one end of the few romances within the team, starting up a relationship with Connie Moreau. He appeared in all three movies.


Now 31, actor Garette Ratliff Henson starred in a few other movies during the 1990s, including Arachnophobia and Casper. He went to Sarah Lawrence University and got married in 2007. He still dabbles in acting, landing bit parts on NCIS and Cold Case as well as roles in the 2007 movie The Mannsfield 12. This year, he'll appear in the short movie Greetings From Montauk as a surfer. His brother also starred in the series as Fulton Reed.

Dave/Lester Averman (Matt Doherty)


Well this one I don't recall at all, two names and appearances in all three movies or not. The Wikipedia page describes him as a goofball and deadpan snarker who is an easy target for opposing enforcers and is the second most injured player on the team as a result.


Matt Doherty, now 32, went on to graduate from Northwestern University in 1999 with a theater degree. He hasn't appeared in many things on the screen, however, aside from small roles in Boston Common, So I Married an Axe Murderer, and a few other movies and TV shows. He's still getting by, though, and will appear as Fred in the upcoming film Last Call.

Jesse Hall (Brandon Quintin Adams)


He's described as a power forward whose attitude gets him in trouble sometimes, and he bows out before the third movie; good agent, there.


Now 31, Brandon Quintin Adams was also involved in The Sandlot, playing Kenny DeNunez there, and as a young Michael Jackson in Moonwalker. He went over to television after D2, returning to film in 2001 as Terry in MacArthur Park. His roles are more sporadic after that, voicing Raijin in the video game Kingdom Hearts II and Mike in the movie Stuck in the Corners. Adams also released a hip hop album under the alias B. Lee and is still acting, though he's slowed down a bit.

Dean Portman (Aaron Lohr)


Along with Fulton Reed, Dean Portman is a fearsome power hitter and one of the "Bash Brothers" on the team. He's listed as one of the players who doesn't attend the private academy, but somehow manages to come back to deliver some concussions in the end.


Despite his imposing appearance, actor Aaron Lohr has actually done a fair amount of song and dance. He was Max's singing voice in A Goofy Movie and appeared as a dancing kid in the 1984 music video for Deniece Williams' "Let's Hear It For The Boy." The now 35-year-old Lohr graduated from UCLA in 2000, majoring in film, and has showed up in several theatrical productions. Other notable roles include Marlon Baker in Sister Sister and the voice of Jak in the video game Jak and Dexter: The Precursor Legacy. His next slated role is Scott in Manslaughter

Fulton Reed (Elden Henson)


Um, this was the guy who was shooting pucks in an alley and took out a window in Bombay's van? I think? The other half of the "Bash Brothers," Fulton Reed has an insanely powerful if mostly inaccurate slapshot. He joins the academy in the third movie, but has trouble adapting to the new coach at first.


Elden Henson, brother of fellow Ducks actor Garette Ratliff Henson, is now 33 years old. He attended Emerson College but didn't graduate, staying rather visible in the acting world with roles in some recognizable movies such as Jesse Jackson in She's All That, Pnub in Idle Hands, Elden Madden in Cast Away, and Lenny in The Butterfly Effect. His last recorded role was as Gordon in the miniseries El Dorado in 2010.

Connie Moreau (Marguerite Moreau)


How much do I remember about Connie Moreau? Not much, as it turns out. Another website I found declares that she did little more than pout, "I'm not a girl, I'm a duck." She's described in the Wikipedia page as a recurring, independent female player nicknamed as the "velvet hammer" who starts up a relationship with Guy Germaine. She appears in all three movies.


Holy damn. Er, I mean...Now 34, Marguerite Moreau has strung together a series of bit roles as well as a few bigger appearances, such as Julie in Wet Hot American Summer and Susan Atkins in Helter Skelter. She graduated from Vassar College in 1999 with a political science degree, and evidently does theater as well. For the Losties out there, you might recognize her as Starla from the episode "Everybody Hates Hugo." She'll be appearing in L!fe Happens as Pauline and Caroline and Jackie as Caroline this year.

Russ Tyler (Kenan Thompson)


The Ducks get schooled in a pickup game with a Los Angeles street hockey team during their world tour in the second movie, and Tyler was talented enough that the team picked him up. His signature move, hitting the puck face on in a way that somehow made it follow a crazy path when fired, racked up a few goals for the team ("It's knucklepuck time!"). The Wikipedia page also describes him as "very loquacious," which is a kind way of saying he never shut the hell up.


That sounds like what I've seen from Kenan Thompson all right. One of the more recognizable names in the credits, the now 33-year-old Thompson had a successful career in the children's circuit with starring roles in the Nickelodeon shows All That and Kenan & Kel. He's remained a comedian, doing standup shows and joining the cast of Saturday Night Live in 2003. He's also appeared in quite a few somewhat unimpressive movies, the most notable of which include Snakes on a Plane and Zombieland (albeit only as a brief appearance in the opening credits in the latter).

Julie Gaffney (Colombe Jacobsen-Derstine)


With a nickname of "The Cat" for her quick reflexes, Julie Gaffney becomes the go-to goalie after the second movie when she prevents a final Iceland shot and to give the Ducks the championship. She appears in the second and third movies, and kind of stays in the background from what I can remember. Aside from the occasional spectacular game-preserving defense, of course.


Colombe Jacobsen-Derstine, who I must say has grown up quite nicely, had a few post-Ducks parts, closing out in 2007 with roles as a prostitute in The Living Wake and Nadia in Descent. She now devotes herself to cooking, competing in the same year on The Next Food Network Star and producing a webisode series for the network called "Conscious Cooking." The 33-year-old Jacobsen-Derstine now runs the food website Colombe Du Jour, which says that she graduated from Natural Gourmet Cooking School and works as a professional chef, cooking instructor, and yoga teacher who would be happy to say hello if you ran into her at a farmers market in New York City.

Dwayne Robertson (Ty O'Neal)


Silly Texans, there's no ice there! Nonetheless, Dwayne Robertson is described on the Wikipedia page as the "best puckhandler" on the team. A rancher and Southern gentleman who shows up in the second and third movies, his most memorable scene might be the one in which he saves one of the girls (Connie, I believe) by lassoing a malicious enforcer bearing down on her. Strangest penalty ever.


Ty O'Neal, now 32, actually is a professional ranch hand and member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. He married a cowgirl in 2005 and works to train and quarter horses. It seems he's favored the ranch life to acting, as his last role was in the TV movie Tiger Cruise in 2004. He also had roles in The Postman, Wild Wild West, and American Outlaws.

Ken Wu (Justin Wong)


Ken Wu was a former Olympic figure skater who joined the team in the second movie. A skilled skater who was also soft-spoken, he earned a good deal of respect from the team's bruisers after putting their advice into action and pulling a towering Iceland player's jersey over his head during a scuffle.

Justin Wong, now 30, had only one more appearance after The Mighty Ducks series, playing a character in an episode of Millennium. Not to become confused with a video game expert of the same name, this Justin Wong has apparently disappeared or at least kept a low profile.

Luis Mendoza (Mike Vitar)


Luis Mendoza was one of the newer team members first introduced in the second movie. His main role was one of slapstick comedy, as he was a very fast skater but had trouble stopping once he was going at full speed.


Another 32-year-old at this point, Mike Vitar came into the film series with a notable role already under his belt; in the 1993 movie The Sandlot, he played Ben "The Jet" Rodriguez. Managing to get only a few minor appearances in TV shows when he was a teenager, Vitar gave up acting and has been a Los Angeles firefighter since 2002.

Hans (Joss Ackland)


Hans was the kindly old man and dear friend to Gordon Bombay. He owns the sporting goods shop where the Ducks get all of their equipment. The character died in the third movie.


Joss Ackland, now 83, is an English actor who has managed to dominate the stage and screen with dozens of roles even if you probably don't recognize his name right away. You may have seen him in The Hunt for Red October, Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, and the BBC two-parter Hogfather. He's still active,and will be appearing in the upcoming film Katherine of Alexandria. It seems the second movie's Hans was played by Jan Rubes, a Czech musician and part-time actor whose most notable role was Eli Lapp in Witness. Rubes died on June 29, 2009 at the age of 89.

I Make Fun of State Quarters: Arizona

I want you to think for five, ten seconds about what would appear on the Arizona state quarter. Don't cheat and scrounge through your wallet, just do it. All right, that should be enough time. What did you come up with?



Well, maybe for the redesign. No, it looks something like this:



Of course the most impressive natural feature in the country is going to dominate the Arizona quarter. The state's Wikipedia article doesn't even have a section for notable attractions, so what else would they put on there if they didn't go with the canyon? The cactus wren? Jimmy Eat World? They don't call it the Grand Canyon State for nothing, after all. Though the only problem with this seems to be the scale. Is it really a good idea to distill a 277-mile long geological wonder into a gray, one-inch vista? Given the halfhearted boycott efforts against Arizona, I have to wonder if some people canceled a vacation and instead wedged an Arizona state quarter into their eye socket and imagined they were there...after some apocalyptic event left everything gray and lifeless, of course.

In fact, there were four finalists for the Mint design and three of them zeroed in on the giant erosion pit. One was just the canyon alone, another added a human element by focusing on the 1869 expedition of John Wesley Powell down the Colorado River and through the canyon, and a final one was pretty much the winning design with the cacti in different locations. Whoever put all that time and effort into it must have been pissed. Another QUARTER-finalist (suck it, professional stand-ups!) honored the Navajo codetalkers of World War II, but the state apparently realized it had an image to uphold of excluding people who have lived there all along as well as those folk from south of the Rio Grande.

QuarterDesigns, a site dedicated to the official quarters as well as the finalists and a few other trivia bits, has a surprisingly complete page dedicated to the Arizona coin. It seems the Arizona Daily Star had a design contest where people were invited to submit their own ideas. Several were detailed, thought-out efforts showcasing unique architecture, desert scenery, or the mythical jackalope. Others were cheesy tourist trap pictures, such as a cactus giving the peace sign or a cartoon snowbird playing golf for some reason. Others referenced heat, drought, scarce work, or other variations on the theme of "this state sucks." But for that pure, welcoming Arizona attitude, you can't beat the submission of Murray Bolesta:

Fine, dick. I'll make my own Grand Canyon. With blackjack, and hookers.

YouTube Scavenger Hunt, Volume 1

Well, this is a simple social experiment: taking on the contention that you can find anything on YouTube. That's certainly an exaggeration, but among the millions of videos on the website you're sure to find most of the things you're looking for. So I decided to launch this feature as a semi-regular look at the bizarre world of online multimedia, thinking up 10 random phrases or images, seeing if it's available in video form, and checking to see how many views and comments it has (reflected by whenever I got around to viewing the thing, given that it takes awhile to draft these entries). Some are fairly common, some are a little bizarre. Let's see what we can get.

A computer mouse used as a lasso



Incredibly enough, there actually is a video matching these terms. In this 30-second clip uploaded on Jan. 10 2010, animator and "unemployed/starving artist" someynguy depicts a battle between a cordless mouse and a mouse with a cord. The cord mouse's first trick is to use the cord like a lasso, and it later employs it like a whip.

Views: 148
Comments: 0

A hit for the phrase "dumbass kid" and the word "snake"

Apparently even dumbass kids know not to mess with snakes. The one video listed as a match for no apparent reason is this one, of a kid doing a front flip off a swing set into deep snow. It was uploaded by MrPATRIOT64 on Feb. 6 2010.



There's no mention of the word "snake" in the description of tags, so it's unclear how snakes are involved in this. Maybe the town name, who knows.

Views: 762
Comments: 2

A crab fishing clip that isn't from The Deadliest Catch

The hit Discovery Channel show The Deadliest Catch, following a handful of vessels on their hazardous journeys into the Bering Sea to hunt crab, has plenty of clips and candid shots of Sig Hansen, Phil Harris, and the rest of the affable guys that man these boats. The show also frequently uses home videos, though, and crab fishing has obviously been going on long before the show started airing. There are loads of amateur videos to reflect that.



In this three-minute video, described only as red king crab fishing on the Bering Sea, a deckhand takes a break to film the process of reeling in and sorting a pot. It all seems very quiet after what is aired on the show. It was posted on Dec. 5 2006 by dpcatala.

Views: 119,099
Comments: 63

A video showing someone's tongue being detached from a frozen flagpole

Well, it doesn't quite show the process, but apparently it's not something that happens too often after the cautionary tale of A Christmas Story. In this short Associated Press clip, a girl looks quite chipper despite the fact that her tongue seems to be bleeding, and some firefighters mill about as a reporter discusses how she got her tongue there in the first place and how rescuers got her detached.



Views: 107,351
Comments: 306

Someone scuba diving in a cave in the Caribbean

I thought of this one since a local theater had a talk by a diver who had been exploring underwater caves in the Caribbean. National Geographic was involved in this talk and several associated lecturers, so of course a search readily brings up a clip from a National Geographic show, Wild Chronicles. It looks at an exploration of an underwater cave in Cuba. The video was posted by oceancontent, an official channel with a ton of ocean videos, on September 10, 2008.



Views: 15,228
Comments: 0

A Frisbee hitting a camera



This short video was uploaded by kljacobson, an Oregon resident who has posted several videos of her dog, on July 10, 2010.

Views: 89
Comments: 2

A humpback whale breaching

Sorry for those of you who absolutely hate Coldplay, but hopefully you can stomach a 30-second clip of one of their songs for this rather amazing video from near Husavik, Iceland. As someone who went on a whale watch in elementary school and saw little more than a couple of blowholes spouting off, I imagine this was well worth the ticket price for passengers.



This was uploaded on Nov. 1 2008 by fdjunk, a Dutch guy whose videos include a BASE jump into a Norwegian fjord, a laughing baby, and a rather popular one of a marathon runner who has become completely exhausted in the final 200 meters of a marathon as dozens of people cruise past him.

Views: 16,870
Comments: 12

Elmo and some celebrity

Famous actors love them some Sesame Street, so I figured this one wouldn't be too hard. This video is actually geared more to celebrities in general, as Ricky Gervais sings Elmo a "celebrity lullaby." Elmo certainly doesn't seem overly bothered that Gervais is in his house for no apparent reason and that the letter N is watching him when he sleeps.



This video was uploaded by the official Sesame Street channel on YouTube on December 18, 2009.

Views: 2,252,616
Comments: 1,381

Some average Joe on top of Mt. Kilimanjaro

Kilimanjaro, in Tanzania, is apparently the easiest continental high peak to summit since it's a more gradual climb. Here's a short video from a couple of guys who did the hike to raise money for the Make a Wish Foundation and Wounded Warrior Project.



This was put up by Joshua Goldstein (JoshuaGoldstein23) on July 24, 2008. In addition to an outtake video from the summit, he's uploaded his best man speech, a couple of concert videos, and a short video of the 2010 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Views: 1,382
Comments: 5

A chess set on fire

Well, right now no one has uploaded a video where they've set a chessboard on fire. However, there is this:



This is taken from Marostica, Italy, a city known for a human chess game that has taken place every other years since 1923. This is apparently how they start the festivities.

Views: 509
Comments: 0

Double Feature Review: 127 Hours and Unstoppable

127 Hours

Synopsis: A dramatization of a 2003 incident in which hiker Aron Ralston becomes trapped under a boulder in a Utah canyon and desperately tries to figure out how to escape.

The bad news first: Thankfully, director Danny Boyle realized that the alternate ending available on the DVD was about 20 minutes too long. So the main complaints I would have had were with the conclusion that wasn't used.

Though I didn't mind it, some viewers might not like the semi-frequent cuts to flashbacks from Ralston's life. It might seem like there's only so much you can do with a story about being trapped in one place, but there's quite a bit that does take place there and it's certainly the meatiest part of the story. The flashbacks mostly serve to put Ralston's character in a little more context, especially as he reflects on his life from the dire situation. At times they can be a little too distracting, but most of the time they work.

The good stuff: For all the brief flashbacks and Ralston's brief encounters with a couple of hikers early in the film, this is essentially a one-man show featuring James Franco. It's a huge burden to carry, and he does a tremendous job. From Ralston's fun-loving if reckless demeanor early in the film to his mood shifts and delirium throughout his entrapment, you believe every moment of it and truly sympathize with the character.

I've also become a big fan of Danny Boyle, given that I really liked 28 Days Later, Sunshine, and Slumdog Millionaire. He really pinpoints the sense of claustrophobia and panic, but also the resolve and ultimate triumph of human determination. Come to think of it, that's mostly how the three aforementioned films ultimately work as well: unease, fear, and claustrophobia (in 28 Days Later, managing to turn the entire English isle into a boxed-in environment) with audacity winning out in the end. It might be a bit of a niche style, then, but it's obviously very flexible and he does it very well.

Carrying on that theme, 127 Hours is the first movie in awhile that has honestly creeped me out. Portraying an event that actually happened is much scarier than anything a horror movie can hope to achieve. The scene immediately following Ralston's entrapment, in which he screams for help at the top of his lungs, is accompanied by a slow zoom-out of the canyon, with the screams diminishing to a whisper by the time the shot is at the surface and to silence when it shows the landscape as a whole. That, along with the graphic portrayals of Ralston's efforts to free himself, are enough to send chills down your spine.

Verdict: You won't be disappointed.

Unstoppable


Synopsis: Also based on a true story (albeit more loosely), a veteran engineer and rookie conductor race to stop a runaway train loaded with hazardous materials.

The bad news first: The movie's director, Tony Scott, has way too much love for the swivel cam. The shots of railroad destruction and antics on moving vehicles generally avoid this, but Scott apparently thinks that when these aren't taking place the camera needs to be orbiting a locomotive, person's face, etc. It's enough to make you dizzy.

Most of the later shots of the runaway train are accompanied by at least one helicopter, usually a colorful news chopper bobbing and weaving seemingly three feet off the ground. On the one hand, this means the action scenes get some pretty unique shots. On the other hand, the helicopters more often than not are competing for the viewer's attention.

Finally, it suffers from ending about five minutes too late. Everyone literally stands around grinning and there's an Animal House-esque "where are they now" conclusion that's too goofy to really fit.

The good stuff: The movie takes a rather simple plot and makes it work. When I first heard of this movie, I thought of Atomic Train, a TV movie that came out some time ago. I caught a few trailers and the the second half or so during some lazy movie night, and it seemed to have a similar story. The key difference is that Atomic Train languishes about in a meandering story based more on the special effects of Denver getting nuked than anything: train wrecks, the Russian bomb it's carrying for some reason goes off, and the characters dick about in the ruins for the rest of the movie. Unstoppable, meanwhile, just keeps with the runaway train aspect, and it turns out you can actually spin a pretty good yarn out of that.

Though it takes awhile for our heroes to start chasing down the speeding locomotive and its deadly cargo, we're kept entertained by some pretty good characters, namely the two numbnuts who let the train get away in the first place, a no-nonsense communications center chief, and a welder who takes an especially active role in the chase. The pursuit of the train lasts a good long time and every minute is worth it, thanks in part to the heightened realism due to a minimal use of CGI. The actual runaway was much less dramatic, but the artistic license is reasonable enough.

And finally, two last points: first, I enjoyed the newscasts folded into the narrative. Second, one nice part of the characterization was the fact that it didn't follow the cliche of the two main characters hating each others' guts and warming up due to the crisis. Rather, it feels like a genuine relationship between a more seasoned worker and a rookie, alternating between the bonding that comes with a humdrum journey and the aggravating nuisances that also occur along the way.

Verdict: Maybe not the most cerebral of thrillers, but a fun ride anyway.

Break Out The Sad Tissues: The Dragon In My Dreams

I don't link too many sites off this blog, and there are various reasons for that. First and foremost is the fact that I like to write blog posts but generally have to construct them in bits and pieces during periods of free time, and they're sporadic enough as it is that I don't spend too much time working with the layout. There's also the fact that I don't have a huge array of websites that I follow, and I find that the ones I do generally give me a laugh after a day of work. One of the ones that updates more infrequently but is well worth it when it does is Cinemassacre Productions, home of the Angry Video Game Nerd.

"It fucking sucks, it sucking fucks, it fucking blows, it's a piece of shit...and I don't like it."

Rolfe first launched the Angry Video Game Nerd in 2004. It's a character rather than his true personality, since he's rather polite and soft-spoken in interviews while the Nerd is constantly sarcastic, enraged, profane, and psychotic. Using what seems like every video game system in the world and the crummiest of their associated games and devices, Rolfe then proceeds to rip into the flaws of each one, usually with a good deal of obscenity and over-the-top antics (up to and including the destruction of the most flagrant games).The videos vary in length, usually 10 to 20 minutes. Between scripting, editing, special effects, and other components, it seems like Rolfe usually manages to get one episode of the Angry Video Game Nerd out a month, although he also does a lot of videos on other pop culture from the 80s and 90s. Like any good nerd, he shows particular affection for Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones, and horror flicks.

One might be forgiven for watching Rolfe's Angry Video Game Nerd installments and assuming he's a "failure to launch" despite being an Internet celebrity. After all, his videos are mostly shot from a futon in a basement festooned with Nintendo Power magazines and a plentiful supply of Rolling Rock. This doesn't seem to be the case, though. Rolfe is mostly a private person, but has done some professional video work for Spike TV as well as a small videography company in Philadelphia. Somewhere along the way, he even got married.

Rolfe has shared several of his earlier projects, and one or two videos about his evolution as a filmmaker. Still, it was a bit of a surprise when Rolfe released a video looking into how and why he got into the craft:



The summary of this video, for those of you who didn't care to watch the entire thing: Rolfe drives along in search of his "fountain of youth," commenting how he's about to turn 30 and has made over 300 movies. Recalling how he's been wielding a camera since he was a child, he wonders where his creative drive comes from. He traces it to a recurring nightmare where he is attacked by a dragon. Rolfe visits his mother, who remembers how a concrete dragon feature was part of a park near the hospital where he was born and Rolfe thought it was awesome. Sometimes we're just drawn to the things that terrify us, he muses as he gives a brief biography of how he got into making movies, spent time in college, and held a variety of the jobs in the video field.

"I owe it all to the dragon, and now it's time for a reunion," Rolfe says as he pulls up to his old playground. He is overcome with emotion as he arrives at the dragon, aged and flaking paint but still standing. The park is under renovation and by a stroke of luck he's visiting on the last day the dragon will be as he remembers it in his childhood. "It's time to say goodbye to the past, time to move forward and create those movies in my dreams," he says. "Because dreams are where it all started." Rolfe looks back sadly as a construction worker resumes jackhammering around the dragon, then composes himself and drives away. The film concludes with the park (dragon still visible) fading into the distance, a short montage of photos from Rolfe's childhood, and a thank you to his parents.

Some of the movie has a bit of a staged feel to it, such as when Rolfe first reacts to the dragon. In fact, as this "outtakes" video reveals, Rolfe did indeed stage part of the video. He admits that the actual first encounter with the dragon in a couple of decades was different than what appears in the video, but also notes how you can see that his feelings are the same as what he portrays. He thanks the workers for letting him film the scene, wistfully commenting on the sentimentalism of others.

Still, there's something about the video that's very touching. To a certain degree, Rolfe is living a warped version of his childhood. He's usually in front of an NES or similarly antiquated system and surrounded by materials left over from when he was younger. He's still cranking out the Angry Video Game Nerd videos, so he hasn't entirely given up on it. But his final reflection is essentially Rolfe saying farewell to his past, which the dragon represents as something you can never revisit in exactly the same way. It's easy to get sentimental about the places from our childhood, especially as we get older and those places change.

I'm only a few years shy of Rolfe's age, and there are a lot of things from my childhood that I've lost, ranging from the original building my elementary school occupied to my uncle. It's a reflection on life: it's always a little bittersweet, as we are saddened by the things we lost and hopeful for what lies ahead. It's optimistic, but it can still bring a tear to your eye, though.

Top 10 Half-Life Loose Ends

"I can't close my report until every loose end is tied up." --G-Man

I'm a fan of the Half-Life games, though I was a bit spoiled in that I started off with Half-Life 2, arguably the best in the series. In 2007 its second sequel, Half-Life 2, Episode 2 was released in a package with its two predecessors, which a friend deeded to me via the game platform Steam since he already had them. Half-Life 2 and its sequels have some pretty good graphics, great atmosphere, engaging characters, cool weapons, and in general a lot going for it. There's a third episode sequel set to come out and wrap up the entire series, but unfortunately the developer, Valve, has been dragging their feet on it. They've put their focus on the fan bases of the associated Portal and Left 4 Dead games, cranking out a couple of them while Half-Life languishes.

I doubt Valve has given up on the whole enterprise, especially when they're this close to concluding it. One possibility is that they're expanding the shorter sequels to Half-Life 2, which usually take about six hours to complete, to a full-fledged conclusion. There are more than a few questions that need to be answered, though. And here are my picks for them, with all images supplied via Combine Overwiki:

10. What's going on in the rest of the world?

Half-Life started things out at a classified research base in New Mexico, but the survivors of the Black Mesa Incident wound up in some locale in Eastern Europe known only as City 17. How exactly this happened is unclear, though it's hinted that Earth's population is being subjected to a lot of forced relocation. The Black Mesa administrator, Dr. Wallace Breen, negotiated a speedy surrender to the Combine, has chosen to live in relatively comfortable conditions atop the skyline-dominating Citadel and he and/or the Combine have opted to situate their headquarters in this location. The only other place we really see is New York City, in a newspaper clipping in Eli's workspace.

The Combine have put a halt to reproduction, meaning humanity's been slowly dying off for 20 years when Gordon is reawakened. Still, there must be a fairly significant population left and the games from Half-Life 2 on have all been in City 17 and the vicinity. Obviously, this constitutes only a small portion of the planet. Are there other strongholds on Earth, perhaps Cities 1 through 16? How's the resistance there doing?

Likelihood of resolution: Unlikely, considering we don't even know exactly where City 17 is. Half-Life games have always kept in one general area, and even with Gordon and Alyx likely to fly to a polar region they probably won't be stopping off in Berlin for a quick jaunt. The game probably won't end in a single, smashing victory against the Combine that liberates Earth, either. And as a post on TV Tropes points out, even if the Combine are defeated the planet will still be infested with Xen wildlife, with most of the original Earth species extinct.

9. What happened to the rest of the Xen creatures?


Through the course of Half-Life, Black Mesa is invaded by a wide variety of creatures from Xen. These include zombifying little things called headcrabs, electricity-shooting Vortigaunts, long-tongued barnacles, water-dwelling icthyosaurs, acid-spitting bullsquids, blast wave-producing houndeyes, hovering humanoid aliens that shoot energy balls at you, armored troops with arms that fire insect-like ammunition, and gigantic Gargantua beasts. In the sequels, the first four make an appearance although the Vortigaunts have become your allies and the icthyosaur makes a cameo. The rest of the creatures are never seen.

The explanation no doubt has to to with the developers not being able to cram everything into Half-Life 2, and the game is probably better for keeping only some of the old enemies and introducing new ones. Still, it's unclear whether other Xen creatures are roaming about and what may have happened to the ones that disappeared after their initial invasion.

Likelihood of resolution: Unlikely. The sequels ditched a few aliens and brought a few new ones in, and the players seem to be happy with that.

8. Where is Barney Calhoun?


Like most of the Half-Life characters, Barney Calhoun is much-beloved: resourceful, slightly sarcastic, and battle-hardened. He makes his first appearance in Blue Shift, a pre-Half-Life 2 expansion, where he manages to rescue a few scientists and get away from Black Mesa in the midst of the chaos. After that, he sticks with the Black Mesa crew and infiltrates Civil Protection, a low-level unit of civilian collaborator troops, to assist the City 17 resistance from within.

In what may have just been a case of too little room, Barney doesn't make an appearance in Episode 2. He is last seen in Episode 1, on board a train evacuating City 17 with several other civilians. It had several minutes' head start on a second train boarded by Gordon and Alyx, which was derailed in the Citadel explosion, but there was no word as to whether Barney's train outran the blast. Gordon and Alyx spend most of the second episode fighting their way to the White Forest base, meaning we don't see any other characters in person until they get there. To that end, it makes sense that Barney is excised although it is a little odd that he doesn't make so much as a cameo (with the arguable exception that he congratulates Gordon on a job well-done at the end of a massive battle that concludes Episode 2) while an entirely new character is introduced. With Gordon set to head to a new environment, it remains to be seen whether Barney will be along for the ride.

Likelihood of resolution: We may not figure out what he's been up to in the interim, but it seems likely that we'll see him again.

7. How much has G-Man's original plan been altered?


Half-Life 2 ended with G-Man on the verge of putting Gordon into stasis again after only a few hectic days on the Combine-dominated Earth (or weeks if you count the jump through time in a collapsing portal). In that short time, he accomplishes quite a bit: he decimates many of the Combine defenders in City 17, inadvertently starts a major uprising, kills Dr. Breen, and causes the full-scale meltdown of the dark energy reactor atop the Citadel. At that point, G-Man freezes time and prepares to cart Gordon off, leaving Alyx to die in the explosion and his former Black Mesa colleagues and other rebels to fight for themselves. But then the Vortigaunts step in, rescuing Gordon and Alyx and keeping them in the present time.

It doesn't seem like too much is affected by Gordon staying put. The Citadel melts down, destroys the city, and leaves a gaping superportal overhead which threatens to bring the full brunt of Combine reinforcements to Earth. It's sealed later on when Gordon helps fight off a last-ditch attack on another rebel stronghold and a rocket is launched to take care of the problem. It's kind of up in the air as to whether the resistance could have handled this on their own, but Gordon certainly helped things along. It's entirely possible that the rocket would have failed to launch, given that Gordon and his gravity gun were the main factors involved in destroying the powerful Striders advancing on the base. So what was G-Man's original plan for Gordon, and when and where was he going to be deposited next? Did G-Man aim to help the resistance in some way or allow Combine forces to come to Earth and wipe out humanity once and for all?

Likelihood of resolution: This question is likely to be resolved when we find out what the deal is with the G-Man.

6. What are the Vortigaunts planning?

From their ability to wipe out a massive invasion of antlions with hand-fired bolts of electricity to their seemingly psychic ability to heal Alyx, the Vortigaunts are some seriously powerful creatures. Their show of staving off the G-man and rescuing Gordon and Alyx from the Citadel after stopping or slowing time is certainly their most impressive act thus far. How they were able to perceive what was going on, get to the top of the Citadel, and deliver the two to safety before disappearing is likely to remain just another mystery as to how they can do what they do.

However, it begs the question of what the Vortigaunts have in mind. Were they just trying to rescue a couple of resistance members and happened to interfere with the G-man along the way? Or is G-man a force of evil that they're trying to fight?

Likelihood of resolution: It's possible that this might get swallowed up as a bit of a plot hole, or simply ignored. The Vortigaunts have allied with humanity, but given that they speak in riddles on larger matters they might keep it somewhat cryptic.

5. Will Race X return?


In Opposing Force, Adrian Shepherd witnesses Gordon jumping into the portal to Xen; from there, he sees what goes on at Black Mesa in that unseen time after Gordon's departure in Half-Life. The main development: a completely different set of aliens who start infesting the facility and provide cool new weapons such as an electro-burst biological arm and another living weapon that shoots balls of acid.

And then the aliens simply disappeared. Part of this seems to be a result of Adrian Shepherd defeating the giant worm poking his head through a portal in the final boss; Combine Overwiki said this is a "Gene Worm," a forerunner of Race X colonization efforts. Perhaps Race X would have been duking it out with the Combine for domination of the planet, but the defeat of the worm left Earth to the Combine.

Likelihood of resolution: Race X may have simply been written out with the above scenario. It's unlikely that we'll see them again, despite some fans' hope to get a chance to electrocute things again.

4. Is Adrian Shephard coming out of stasis?


Opposing Force rounded out the perspectives on the first Half-Life game quite nicely. The original was from the viewpoint of Gordon, a scientist, and it was followed by Barney, a security guard, in Blue Shift. Opposing Force put you in the boots of Adrian Shephard, one of the rather unsympathetic grunts who spent the prior games gunning down Black Mesa employees in a poorly executed cover-up plan. Shephard crash-lands in the action not long before Gordon teleports to Xen and is prevented from evacuating by G-Man, leaving him to clean up the Race X invasion virtually unassisted. G-Man thanks him for this job well-done by getting him out of the facility before it is obliterated by a nuclear weapon, having had to make a case for keeping Shephard alive, and detains him pending "further evaluation." Shephard hasn't been seen or heard of since.

By humanizing the soldiers and adding some G-man interaction pretty much on the par of what Gordon experienced, Shephard became fairly popular with players and there has been a decent amount of speculation as to whether or not he will return. The closest thing to a reference to him has been in companion game Portal, which features keyboards with the letters included in Shephard's name highlighted. The developers claim, somewhat unconvincingly, that it is a mere coincidence.

Likelihood of resolution: Episode 3 is likely to be the last game in the series. If Shephard shows up, he may have to get a secondary speaking role unless the first-player action switches between him and Gordon. It seems like it might be a little difficult to shoehorn Adrian into this part of the narrative, however, so he might be left off.

3. What is on board the Borealis?


One nugget which will have to be explored before the series wraps up is a mystery introduced in Episode 2. A bit of data painstakingly smuggled out of the Citadel and brought to White Forest by Alyx shows footage of the Borealis, a ship belonging to Aperture Science that mysteriously vanished, along with a portion of the dry dock, back in the days before the Black Mesa Incident. Kleiner thinks the discovery of the ship means the resistance can turn the tables against their foe, while Eli thinks doing so could lead to a catastrophe on the level of the one that got Earth invaded in the first place. Mossman, meanwhile, is apparently in the region fighting Combine defenders to try to get to the ship while advance art shows the thing already swaddled in Combine mech.

As a more video game savvy friend pointed out, the clues are pretty much all there as to what will be in the ship. In Half-Life 2, Mossman mentions that the Combine are struggling to develop the teleportation technology that the resistance has gotten relatively under control. In this way, they have a slight advantage over their alien overlords (which increases once an invincible badass physicist enters the fray). The Borealis, meanwhile, is the property of the company featured in Portal: a game about a gun that allows you to use a handheld device to create inter-dimensional doorways. Uh-oh.

Likelihood of resolution: Certain. Valve wouldn't introduce the Borealis without taking care of the question of what's on board.

2. How do you defeat a Combine Advisor?


The Combine Advisors may be the brain bugs behind the entire invading force. Resembling giant grubs, they make their first appearance in Episode 1 and Gordon has several unpleasant close-ups in Episode 2. The Advisors are ridiculously powerful, having the ability to telekinetically hold people in place (or break them in half). Getting near one leads to some psychic bursts that impair your vision and coordination. When we last saw them, the Advisors were sucking out some of Eli's vitals.

It looks like the Advisors can be hurt. Eli gets in a few whacks with a pipe before he's killed, and Gordon and Alyx are saved because Alyx's pet robot DOG comes in and wrestles an Advisor, sending it scurrying off. The developers have said you'll go head to head with at least one Advisor, but there's still the question of whether you can do that with your existing weapons or if you'll need a new one.

Likelihood of resolution: Should be addressed, given the developer commentary.

1. Who/what is G-Man?


This is the big one. G-Man first showed up in the original game, watching Gordon's progress through Black Mesa from inaccessible points and finally appearing to Gordon after he defeats the game's big bad. The final sequence suggests that G-Man might not even need Gordon that much, since a refusal of his job offer merely sends Gordon off to die in some alien-infested landscape. Indeed, he's shown to have had some interaction with Eli, Alyx, Breen, and Shephard, and was apparently keeping an eye on Barney for awhile. G-Man seems to be something of a chessmaster, putting people in situations and seeing what they can do, but also takes direct action such as reactivating the nuclear bomb at Black Mesa after Shephard defuses it.

It's unknown whether G-Man is trying to help the resistance or the Combine, or whether he's falling somewhere in between. It's not even clear what he is. He obviously has some superhuman abilities, what with the ability to stop time and all, and one description suggested that he seems like something doing a somewhat passable impression of a human. Another suggestion is that he is Gordon from the future, a theory plausible enough that it may have been the original intention but may now be something different if the developers decide they need a more surprising reveal.

Likelihood of resolution: This is what people have been wondering about for 12 years. They'll have to offer some sort of explanation.