Murder She Wrote Recaps: S2E8: Dead Heat

Her amateur sleuthing has regularly put her in danger, but Jessica faces the most bizarre attempt on her life yet during her investigation into the murder of a racehorse owner. As she confronts a conspirator in the barn, he notes that the prize-winning horse "never did like people" and releases it from its stall, hoping it will murder her. She is saved by a stableboy named Cookie.

The Manager's Lament: Why Thor Is the Most Relatable Avenger

Iron Man is a successful American businessman. Captain America is a working-class soldier who grew up in Brooklyn. Black Widow was forced by a strict parental figure down a career path that she never wanted. Hawkeye is a family man who loves home renovation projects and recreational archery. Hulk is a guy who made one really bad mistake at work and has regretted it ever since.

And Thor? Thor is a member of a highly advanced alien race, is practically indistinguishable from a god, wields a magic hammer that can transport him through space, and is heir to his culture's throne.

Thor is also the Avenger I can relate to more than any other. Why? Because all his problems are managerial.

Sure, Tony Stark might be the figurehead of Stark Industries, but it's been clearly documented that he leaves the day-to-day operation of the company in Pepper Potts' hands while he focuses on inventing the deadly mistakes he'll have to address three movies from now.

Thor, though. Thor just wants to do his day-to-day work. He wants to get out there into the Nine Realms and smash some rock monsters and bust some heads with Mjolnir, then hit the bar for HH after he clocks out and try to get into that Party Thor mindset. But it's never that simple. The Asgardian bureaucracy is a crushing avalanche of performance evaluations and strategic planning.

Just look at the staffing issues he has to deal with. How do you best determine on which projects to leverage the skills of the Warriors Three? Sure, they're usually pretty effective. But their adherence to Asgardian brand standards is questionable and they give zero craps about red tape. Classic loose cannons. They get the job done, and their boss has to swoop in afterwards to do damage control on those upset by broken protocol and the like. But what's Thor going to do, NOT utilize the W3? There's so much overhead invested in them––hell, Volstagg's incidentals alone have got to be through the roof––that Thor probably can't justify NOT using them.

I don't care which star your hammer was forged inside the heart of, that's a thorny management issue. And sure, sometimes Thor can bump this stuff up the ladder to Odin (by the way, did I mention the added stress of being groomed to inherit the family business?), but let's be honest. Half the time Odin is either abusing loopholes in company policy to go on vacation––my workplace's time-tracking utility does not offer "Odinsleep" as a valid reason for missing work, does yours? I say thee nay––or he's playing little corporate mind games in the name "preparing Thor for the burden of leadership." After all, what was Thor's banishment to New Mexico if not an extended culture and values workshop?

I guess it's not all bad for Thor, though. He did certainly enjoy working with those external vendors on Midgard.

What's Andre the Giant Doing in the 1970s? #28

Ordering five beers at a time!

Are You Band Enough? Music Reviews: Stan Bush's The Ultimate: Track 5: "Stand in the Fire"

"Caught in between the fire and the flame/ You gather your strength as you take deadly aim"

You've heard of being caught between a rock and a hard place. What could be worse than that? Being caught between two deadly things that are the same deadly thing. And the only way out? Burning away all your weaknesses!

If "Heat of the Battle" is the perfect song to accompany bone-crushing karate tournament action, then "Stand in the Fire" is its prequel, the aural embodiment of the blood, sweat and tears you expend during your pre-battle training montage. This is despite appearing two tracks later in order of songs on The Ultimate. Clearly this was done with purpose, to drive home the fact that life itself is not a chronological journey but a collection of moments throughout history that can strike at any time.

The construction of the song cleverly mirrors the struggles of training. The song's signature guitar riff is extremely technically complex. It must've taken forever to perfect, just like how it takes years to hone the 70 Snake Palm Strike technique. But when that riff gives gives way to devastating power chords in the pre-chorus, that's when you set your new record for maximum bench press weight. And reps.

What's Andre the Giant Doing in the 1970s? #27

Reading the Necronomicon with Ric Flair in Japan!

The Essential Clone Wars Episodes

Star Wars: The Clone Wars. This animated series got surprisingly little hype for being George Lucas's official follow-up to Episode III. I think everybody, assuming that no more movies would ever be made, wanted a live-action TV series. Not to mention there was a lot of angst over the prequels not matching expectations and people were eager to move on.

But in retrospect, animated was definitely the way to go. A live-action show would have to be on a small scale for budgetary reasons, and this show is anything but small scale. Sure, the animation and visuals are modest at first, but by the third season, Uncle George had cracked open the wallet, and things started looking amazing.

It's not just about the looks, though. The series, which takes place in the three-year span between Episode II (which kicked off the in-universe Clone War) and Episode III (which ended with the Emperor's ascension and the birth of Darth Vader), addresses a lot of the common complaints about the prequels––that Anakin wasn't at all likable, that we didn't get to see his much-talked-about friendship with Obi-Wan, that all the actual star wars seemed to happen offscreen between movies.

That said, the series does swing and miss occasionally, which is why I've created this list of all the guaranteed good stuff. It's worth your time, and it's on Netflix streaming, so it couldn't be easier to jump in.

Clone Wars is anthological in nature, meaning that we don't follow one set of characters through every episode. This is good in that out of nowhere you might get a crazy bounty hunter-focused episode, watch some jobber Jedi go on a doomed mission, or be treated to one of the series' classic genre-themed episodes. But you also might get stuck with a Padme diplomacy episode or Jar-Jar hijinks. (Guess which ones I left off the list?)

To complicate things further, the episodes were produced out of chronological order until the third season. That's why this list starts with the 16th episode of the second season and continues to jump around a bit between seasons––due to the anthological nature of the show, it's not totally necessary to watch episodes in chronological order, but it doesn't hurt, and the last few seasons do tend to add more of the serialized elements that you would expect from a quality modern TV show, often building on seemingly unconnected aspects of early episodes in interesting ways.

This list contains the bare essentials. As you can see, it's weighted heavily to the later seasons, where the show really got rolling. If you get hooked and are left wanting more, you could do worse than watching the whole series, or picking and choosing additional episodes based on their Netflix descriptions. If it sounds like you'd like it, you probably will.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. These are the Clone Wars episodes you should watch! Do it!

Murder She Wrote Recaps: S2E7: A Lady in the Lake

What could go wrong when Jessica vacations at an upstate lake resort with a painting of Edgar Allen Poe in every room? Murder, for one thing. But even worse, she must suffer the awkward romantic advances of an amateur ornithologist. Luckily, he turns out to be the killer. Two birds, one stone. Well played, Fletcher.