3 Shows that Didn't Answer Questions Within the Plotlines

    There is one thing in life that I can be confident about:  That is that eventually all these years of paying attention to pop culture will actually pay off.  Thankfully, writing this column is the stepping stone for that because it gives me the inspiration to write about one industry that I know best: Hollywood.  

     While watching random stuff on my Netflix account the other day, I realized that television shows are NOTORIOUS for plot holes.  I am one of those annoying people that cannot stand when things aren't explained, and even worse I over think things causing me to raise questions that no one else will think of.  That is the curse of having a passion for popular culture.  

     So while I sit here thinking about all the numerous plot holes in television I was able to come up with a few that really were head scratchers to me.  This is the big beefy stew I have concocted in my brain pertaining to such:

Did Joyce "Come Back Wrong" on Buffy The Vampire Slayer?

     

   In the fifth season of the mega cult hit, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy's mom Joyce was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  The declining health of Joyce definitely created a tone more serious to the Buffy universe.  Joyce's character was always known as the compassionate, yet naive mother who always had her daughters' best interest at heart.  Despite the fact that her daughter's night job was killing the mythological creatures that Stephanie Meyer bastardized with Twilight.  

    Three quarters of the way through the season, Buffy comes home to find her mother sprawled out on the couch with her eyes wide open and completely lifeless.  Apparently show creator, Joss Whedon had decided that it was time for Joyce to get the ax but decided to not have her be killed by demons.  Just a brain aneurysm. 

 Poor Joyce

    In the following episode, the entire cast is trying to cope with Joyce's death and some are handling it far worse than others.  Joyce's younger daughter, Dawn (who used to be a key mind you) decides to do something completely stupid even after her friends tell her it's a bad idea and that was to resurrect her mother from the grave she had just buried her in.   

    Quick little backstory:  Dawn is that whiny, bitchy, almost legally retarded teenager that no one wants their kid to grow into.

It's like Pippy Longstocking...except you want her to die...slowly

   Long story short, Dawn performs the spell after being told that her mother could come back from the dead, "wrong".  Now what exactly this means is however you want it to mean I guess.  But considering we never really find out what clawed its way out of Joyce's casket we can only assume that something wasn't right based on the cinematography of the episode in the final five minutes. 

   We never see "Mombie" (as a brilliant fan writer referred to the being on the internet).  All we see is a pair of lady's shoes and the bottom hem of a dress walking on a patch of grass.  Then we see an eerie (and oddly terrifying) shadow pass by the drawn curtains as Buffy and Dawn are fighting about stuff.  One topic is how stupid and whiny Dawn is. 

This scene made me terrified of shadows....just saying

    WHAT MAY HAVE HAPPENED:

  

   Considering Mombie's face and actual form are never shown and all we get is a pair of feet, a shadow and some cliche "the boogeyman's coming" horror music when both are shown, I think it is safe to say that she came back wrong.  I realize that what Dawn rose from the dead wasn't the point of the episode but like I said in the intro, I over think things.  

    Joyce probably rose from the dead with a hunched over body like a usual zombie.  Her face was probably sporting an evil grimace and she probably ate a few people as she staggered home from the cemetery.  Even looking at the shadow in the above picture it looks like whatever it is has a hunched back.  

     If Buffy had answered the door and Dawn hadn't broken the spell at the last minute she would have had to re kill her mother.  That would have ruined the heartbreaking ending of Buffy answering the door to find Mombie was gone and allowing her to accept her mother's death.  But the big thing is, even though the way it was shot freaked me the fuck out, I still wonder what Mombie would have looked like.  Probably like this:

Aaaaahhhhhhh kill Joyce! Kill Joyce!!

Did Tony Die at the End of The Sopranos?

   This will forever be one of the biggest questions filed under Unresolved Television Plots.   The Sopranos went out with an absolute BANG as Tony, his wife and his son all sit in a restaurant eating onion rings and jamming out to "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey.  Absent from the onion ring/Journey jam out is the daughter Meadow...because she is trying to park the car.  

    Take a few moments and watch the final scene from the series.  Even if you never watched an episode of The Sopranos it doesn't matter because this is all you need to know.

What...the...%$#@?!?!?!?

     Now, I wasn't into The Sopranos.  I actually stumbled upon this because of a Family Guy joke at the Emmy's one year.  I'm really glad I was never into the show because if I spent six years watching it for it to end like that I would have been pissed.  I do know plenty of people who watched it religiously and thought that in that final second their cable went out.  Nope....you just got mind fucked from HBO.  Merry Christmas.

      There are numerous, actually thousands of websites dedicated to the whole What Happened to Tony thing.  It really did end in such an epic way that it will forever be remembered as the best...and most frustrating...series finales of all time.  

WHAT MAY HAVE HAPPENED

  Did you notice the guy sitting at the diner repeatedly looking at the Soprano family as they nibbled on their onion rings?  

   Dude was seriously sketchy.  And this is my theory.  Anyone who has seen The Godfather knows the best way to hide a gun is in the bathroom for when you are gonna whack your enemy.  Oddly enough, in Italian Mobster fashion, the diner guy slips into the bathroom a few moments before Meadow opens the door and the screen turns black.  So could he have pulled a Michael Corleone and came out of the bathroom and shot Tony?   It is very well possible.  Unfortunately the creator of the show has vowed to take the answer with him to his grave.  Bastard.

    Then that leaves what happened to the rest of the family.  Perhaps the entire family got taken out by creepy jacket wearing diner guy.  But based on reading fans comments on the subject it is 99% a chance that dude came out of the bathroom and completely shot the hell out of Tony Soprano.  

Then stole his onion rings and nonchalantly returned to his seat...

since no one goes on exile to Sicily anymore.

Where the Hell is Constance's Fourth Child on American Horror Story?

   American Horror Story on FX has got to be the psychologically fucked up program on television since Buffy.  Every episode has a crazy ending and insane plot twist that makes you think in the end, "What the hell just effing happened?" It is sincere horror television at it's finest.  Not neccesarily because it has that whole sudden movement makes you jump thing but it messes with your head.

    Like getting impregnated by a dude in a rubber man suit

   The only problem with AHS is that it has a few missing plot points.  One of the biggest ones is what happened to Constance Langdon's fourth child. 
    Back story: One of the central characters, Constance Langdon (also one of the only living characters) had four children.  She mentions early on that out of the four only one of them was born without a deformity. Instead, the perfect one, Tate, is the quintessential definition of evil.  He went on a Columbine-esque shooting spree and was shot dead by SWAT teams and thus is going to be haunting The Murder House forever.  Thankfully, he has his Kurt Cobain looks to swoon the teenage girls that inhabit the house.

I smell like Teen Spirit.

  On the flipside of that, she had two other children.  Adelaide (Addie) and Beauregard.  Adelaide had down syndrome and Beauregard...well, look at him and you can decide what deformity he was cursed with.

Personally, I call it Holy Fuck Syndrome.

    So we know of those three children, who are all dead by the way.  Addie got hit by a car.  Tate was shot dead by SWAT, and Beauregard was smothered to death by his mother's love interest of that day.  If you came out of the womb of the creepiest senior citizen in prime time television, more than likely you are going to die if you haven't already.  Which raises the eternal question: Where is the fourth kid?

WHAT MAY HAVE HAPPENED:

   The fourth Langdon child was never spoken of, except for when Constance was explaining to the series protagonist that she had four children.  Then it was never spoken about again.  At all.  

    So let's say for argument sake Baby X died as well.  Probably got sucked into the Murder House and got eaten by the Infantata.  Now, if you do not watch AHS, Infantata is a Baby Frankestein who kills everything.  And it looks like this:

Come at me, bro!

      The child was probably just as grotesque as it's brother Beauregard.  I personally would hate to be part of Constance's gene pool.  Apparently her spawn, albeit for one came out with some sort of issue that doesn't go away.  Maybe for that reason the kid committed suicide and the pain is too hard for Constance to talk about.  Or then again, maybe the creators just decided that flaunting around three kids were enough.  Or maybe they just forgot about him.  Those neglectful douchebags.

   Yeah, television is known greatly for having hidden plot points and missing details and leaving loyal viewers in the dark.  There are plenty more examples, but I feel as though I have made my point for now.  Eventually, there will be a part two.  If I don't get eaten by a Frankenbaby first.

3 Things Living In Vermont City People Can't Handle

   It never fails.  City people just do not understand simple living in the country.  As someone who grew up in a town with roughly 1,000 people I grew up seeing the world completely different than someone who grew up in a metropolitan area.  I wish I had a nickle for every time someone referenced how small my hometown is.  Usually it goes along the lines of, "Tor, you're town has like six people in it!"  And whenever I hear that kind of jab, I want to punch people in the nose.  There are perks to growing up or living in Small Town, Vermont.  And there are things about living in Small Town, Vermont that would make city people want to kill themselves.  Such as...

# 3: Everyone Knows Everybody, Their Mother, and Their Dirty Little Secrets


   For all my readers who are also from my hometown, you will be able to relate that living here everyone knew your business.  You can't take a shit in Small Town, Vermont without the entire town knowing about it.  No one can get away with having affairs for a long period of time because eventually it will circulate through the town.  So to all you politicians and business executives that use the company credit card to hook up with your mistresses and high class Heidi Fleiss prostitutes, Vermont is not the place to engage in extracurricular activities of coitus.  Hell, the cows will even talk about it.

"OMG! Did you hear Old McDonald is sleeping with

Little Bo Peep?"

    The benefit of living in a city is there is plenty of places to hide from the dark corners that are surrounded in your life.  In Small Town, Vermont, you can't.  Now, this has it perks and its downsides.  The perks are that who you really are gets picked up on right away because townsfolk can spot a fraud a mile away.  The downside is, if you fuck up in your life just once whether it be getting arrested for a DUI or wetting your pants from laughing to hard at that one redneck joke, everybody-and I do mean EVERYBODY will know about it.  And no...they will not forget it.  Even when you are about to pass onto the afterlife, the others in the old age home will still be talking about it...fifty freakin years later. 

"We'll see who's laughing about that one time at band camp

eighty years ago now...."

    I know everyone that comes into my store on a first name basis.  For professional purposes, it is amazing because building a relationship with your clientele is very important.  But the gossip that comes with it is sometimes unbearable.  With Small Town, Vermont, a gossip topic doesn't go away right away either.  Usually it takes another bigger, and juicier scandal to wipe the other one off the map.  Unfortunately that doesn't happen as quickly as it would in a city.  Distractions are hard to come by when you live in Small Town, Vermont.  

    So, to sum up, you can't get away with cheating on your spouse here without the entire town knowing about it.  You cannot live down something you did skatey-eight years ago and you hear so much talk for a very long time until something better comes along...if it does.

#2:  There is Absolutely, Positively, Generally Nothing to Do Within Walking Distance of Your Place of Residence

     The house I grew up in is a fifteen minute drive from grocery stores, Walmart, K-Mart, etc.  If you want to go to the bar, you better damn well find a generous enough designated driver who is willing to drive your ass those fifteen minutes back to your house if you don't live directly in  Mini City, Vermont.   We have one movie theater that only has seven screens, and old school seating that is NOT comfortable at all.  We have the smallest Walmart in the United States.  Not just in Vermont, but in the whole goddamned country.  We just recently upgraded and got a PetCo.  We're really moving up in the world and I think our pets are happy.

Heeeyyyyyy

    I wish I did live in Mini City, Vermont.  Then I could go bar hopping and not have to worry about paying $35 to the Mini City, Vermont taxi service to ensure I get home without killing myself or a deer.  City people have trains and can walk everywhere.  It would be one hell of a huff it if you had to huff it back home after a night of fun in the downtown district.  I mean, we have a bus and yes it really does look like this:

Eeewww

   We do have festivals and stuff to do, but mostly they are seasonal.  There isn't a solid thing going on all year round to keep us entertained.  If you don't hunt, fish, or partake in out door activities, then you really shouldn't look to occupy your time here because that's really all we have.  Except for mudding.  City people, in case you don't know what mudding is, it's when you drive your trucks through the mud.  Thus, your vehicle goes from looking like this:

TO THIS:

 Oooooofya

    Now I'm the worst backwoods Vermonter ever, because I have never been mudding.  It looks like fun though.  I hear that it is fun.  But again, you have to drive and drive and drive to find good spots to do it in.  Generally, the best destinations are always an hour away.  I think that's a rule or something.

     Without the endless possibilities being within walking distance, city people would go absolutely batshit because they would have to drive to have fun.  It drove me crazy when I moved back from living out by Boston.  I feel the pain, but at the same time, it keeps overpopulation away.  It's bad enough we have leaf peepers three months out of the year.

#1:  There Are More Animals Than There Are Humans and They Will Kill You...

      

    Woodland creatures are not the cute little laundry doing friends Snow White had.  They can and will kill you.  Like this video above.  That was a hunter.  Apparently, Bambi was seeking revenge.  Regardless, deer kill people.  A lot of times it is when they run out in front of your car in the wee hours of the morning.  I know, because I almost hit one every night on my way home from work.  Replace this deer with a bear or a moose or any other creature and you will still die because they are animals.  With most of Vermont being wooded areas, they are EVERYWHERE!!  

    City people on the other hand just have to worry about cougars:

Cougars in couture and turning pop culture upside down that is.

   

   I would love to move back to a city at some point, but part of the reason why I love Small Town, Vermont is that I don't have to worry about looking over my shoulder every minute worrying about getting mugged.  The homicide rate here is extremely low and with everyone knowing everyone it is a good place to be.  Yeah, it kinda sucks that I have to drive an hour to get to the nearest mall, but living a simple life without flashy neon signs in my window at night isn't necessarily a bad thing.  It's not for everyone, and I know plenty of people born and raised in cities who wouldn't last a day in Vermont.  But not everyone can be Vermont Strong!