Bullied: The 2010-2011 Boston Celtics Eulogy

At least it ended in a good way. LeBron went off, dropped the dagger, beat his chest, and acted like he had gotten further than the Eastern Conference Finals and like Dwayne Wade wasn’t the main reason for it. Wait, this isn’t a particularly good end. But it’s better than what I had envisioned, which was a game 7 loss, perhaps in overtime, as Lebron or Wade drove to the lane possession after possession, consistently drawing fouls while similar play on the other end went unrewarded. Or one of the Heat stars accidentally-on-purpose knocking a Celtic down and injuring him. Or maybe the refs overstepping their bounds and throwing a Celtic out of a crucial game for using bad language, which is technically in the rulebook but if applied fairly would mean nearly every player (except maybe Ray Allen and A.C. Green) would get tossed from every game.

With the way games one through three went, these scenarios weren’t even a fantasy. They actually happened. Now, no one wants to be the one who complains about the refs. “Only losers whine about that.” And yes, that’s true, and it’s unbecoming, but it also assumes a base level of competence from the officials. When the officials are decent and a losing fan complains about a borderline call, that’s whining. But in a series reffed the way this one was, it’s simply being realistic to discuss the effect the officiating had on the series. Consider:

In five games, Miami attempted 47 more free throws than Boston. So nearly ten per game. It’s generally accepted that the Celtics are more of a jump-shooting team, while the Heat like to go hard to the basket, so maybe this disparity isn’t surprising. But adding up the totals by shot type (according to CBS Sports), the Celtics actually attempted 108 layups and 18 dunks, while Miami only attempted 95 layups and 16 dunks. I’m willing to buy that Miami’s drives to the hoop were more likely to draw a foul, given James’ and Wade’s playing styles, but not so much more likely as to warrant such a disparity.

I was also pretty unhappy about Dwayne Wade pulling Rajon Rondo down and injuring his elbow, rendering him pretty ineffective for the next two games. Rondo is of course the Celtics’ biggest offensive weapon, and as we saw in previous playoffs, he has a tendency to turn up his game when the team needs him most. But on a play when the ball was far away, Wade hooked his leg around Rondo and knocked him over awkwardly. While he was ostensibly protecting Rondo from chasing the ball, I thought it was an unnecessary non-basketball play and should have been called a flagrant foul. But it fit right in with the Heat’s pattern of physical, bullying play that bruised Ray Allen’s chest, knocked Rondo down repeatedly, and got the Celtics into foul trouble (along with a couple phantom technicals*) and was generally ignored by the officials.

*Is it weird to anyone else how little was mentioned about the flagrant foul on Jermaine O’Neal and technical on Pierce in game one that caused a five-point swing in the former case and an ejection in the latter, both of which were later rescinded by the league? I know the refs can’t be perfect, but something is wrong when two calls that have such an obvious effect on the outcome of the game are later admitted by the NBA to be wrong.

Some more thoughts on the series:

-I’m unlikely to watch the rest of the playoffs at this point. It’s a shame, because basketball is a great game, but it’s really being ruined for me by poor officiating and boring play from the Heat. I much prefer teams that run offenses, setting screens and making the extra pass, than teams who put it in one of two players’ hands and either jab-step and shoot a jumper or drive and expect a foul at worst.

-Where do the Celtics go from here? There’s lots of talk about “blowing up the core,” but this doesn’t make any sense to me. The Big Four are all signed at least through next year (when Garnett’s contract expires) so it makes sense to me to bring them back, see what Jermaine and Shaq O’Neal can offer, see what an offseason can do for Jeff Green’s teamwork and basketball IQ (and for the Big Three’s legs and other nagging injuries) and see what happens. At the end of the year, Garnett and Allen’s contracts expire, so GM Danny Ainge needs to again take a look at the team at the trading deadline and, if things don’t look promising, deal those expiring contracts for future pieces. I don’t have any delusions about the Celtics’ chances next year, but if enough things go right (Green matures, good health, some good bench additions through free agency or even the draft) they have as much shot as anyone.

Hey, at least they didn’t go down like the Lakers!

Any Day Ellsbury #4: Very Superstitious

Inspired by Ted Walker’s “Every Day Ichiro” over at Pitchers & Poets, I’ll be chronicling the 2011 Red Sox season by paying close attention to outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury.

I have no idea if Jacoby Ellsbury has any kind of pregame rituals or superstitions. I haven’t even noticed if he has prepitch routine. (I did, however, notice that a few games ago, in his first AB, Ellsbury did the thing Ichiro does where he holds his right arm straight out, holding the bat vertically. I’ve never noticed him do that before, and I haven’t seen him do it since.) I’m not sure it matters for the purposes of this post, anyway; the fact that I’ve started every sentence so far with “I” should make it clear that this post is about more about me than Ellsbury. When it comes to baseball, I am very superstitious. 

Two nights ago, Ellsbury’s 19-game hitting streak was snapped by an 0-4 night at the plate. Around 15 games, I started thinking, “If he keeps this going, I’m going to have to write about it.” At 18 games, I thought, “Well, I don’t want to jinx him.” Yes, I do, in fact, know how silly it is to think that a blog post discussing Ellsbury’s hitting streak could ruin it, just as I think it’s silly any time a fan thinks any of his or her actions can directly influence the outcome of a game. But for some reason my own weird baseball-related superstitions have never gone away.

Baseball, maybe more than any other sport, is full of these little eccentricities. Teammates don’t talk to a pitcher in the middle of a no-hitter. The words “perfect game” or “no-hitter” are off limits until the possibility of either has disappeared. Players avoid stepping on the foul lines while taking the field, except for those players who go out of their way to always step on the line. Then there are all the different prepitch routines. These are only examples of on the field routines. Back when my brother was still playing, if he hit a home run one day, he had to eat the same exact meals the next day (a fact I found very entertaining when he opened the 2001 season with homers in his first three games).

As for myself: back when I played, I believed in not washing my white sanitary socks (for those who don’t know, those are the socks that go under your stirrups) until I went hitless in a game. The same went for my long-sleeve undershirt. Needless to say, I had moments on my summer league teams where I probably smelled really disgusting. Anyway, those days are long gone (I’m OLD!), but apparently some kind of remnants have lingered long enough for me to think I could have ruined Ellsbury’s hit streak. Fortunately, I can write this knowing I had nothing to do with his streak’s end. 

Ellsbury gets a chance to start a new streak tonight as the Red Sox visit Yankee Stadium.

Any Day Ellsbury #3: Where I Ramble About Stephen Crane and Ellsbury the Killer Robot

Inspired by Ted Walker’s “Every Day Ichiro” over at Pitchers & Poets, I’ll be chronicling the 2011 Red Sox season by paying close attention to outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury.

I’ve always been drawn to people in the middle of things. One of my former literature professors called them “characters on edges.” Stephen Crane’s Jack Potter, town marshal of Yellow Sky in “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky,” has always been one of my favorite characters because of how he had one foot in the diminishing Wild West and the other in the more civilized West. Newland Archer—despite his Hamlet-esque waffling in Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence—is another, simply because he was torn between two smoking hot babes who apparently represented old Victorian values and a new age of American modernism. If you’re not yet wondering what this has to do with Jacoby Ellsbury, then congratulations, you are just as nerdy as I am. I wrote before that I’m drawn to Ellsbury’s extremes; he struggles badly and goes on crazy hot streaks. Ellsbury constantly hovers on the precipice of greatness and mediocrity. 

Ellsbury’s ridiculous speed and athleticism might be all that keeps him from sliding into mediocrity. He is, in all other aspects, a rather generic baseball player. He’s an outfielder who is decent at reading the ball off the bat but makes up for bad jumps by being super fast, and he has a below-average throwing arm. His streaky hitting is usually caused by his mechanics getting a little out of wack. In short: Ellsbury is close to being a replacement level player. Maybe this doesn’t surprise a lot of people. I know a fair amount of Boston fans were ready to ship him out last season. But when he’s on his game (which he has been lately), Ellsbury looks less like the generic, Randy Winn-type outfielder and more like the electrifying Carl Crawford-type player.* Maybe that’s an unnecessary shot at Winn, but the point is that Winn is an entirely unremarkable player.

*While discussing this post with a friend of mine, he said Randy Winn wishes he could be as good as Carl Crawford while Crawford is currently playing like Randy Winn.

Since Ellsbury’s athleticism is what separates him from the pack, it’s what I find myself focusing on. I look for smiles, laughter, and other facial expressions, even the slightest burst of anger at a bad call or a swing he’d like to take back, but there’s almost never anything there. It’s as if Ellsbury has learned his on-field demeanor from JD Drew, who is only notable in that he never expresses any emotion. He is often robotic, and Ellsbury has adopted Drew’s machine-like qualities. Ellsbury is always stone-faced and sometimes seems cold, which makes his speed that much more fun. Everyone knows that, once he’s on first, he’s going to steal second. It’s a programmed decision, and Ellsbury is only calculating the precise pitch to run on. Sometimes he teases the pitcher into throwing to first a billion times, making the pitcher think maybe he’s held Ellsbury close enough to prevent the theft. And when he steals anyway, I like to imagine it crushes the soul of the pitcher, because he’s less of a replacement level player and more of a killer robot designed to crush spirits.

*Photo courtesy of Keith Allison via Creative Commons License

Any Day Ellsbury #2: The Weekend in Jacoby

Inspired by Ted Walker’s “Every Day Ichiro” over at Pitchers & Poets, I’ll be chronicling the 2011 Red Sox season by paying close attention to outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury.

Ellsbury hasn’t done a whole lot to write about so far. He has made a couple of nice defensive plays, he’s still struggling at the plate, and—like all of the Red Sox—he’s been upstaged by Dustin Pedroia’s “Laser Show.” Pedroia seems to want to carry the whole team on his back, and he’s doing a damn fine job of it. At times I thought I picked the wrong player to follow for the season, but there’s just something more attractive about a player who can both be an offensive spark and also struggle at times. I wonder what goes through the mind of a player like Ellsbury when he looks so visibly disappointed at himself after watching a perfect fastball go by him for a called strike. On the other hand, I wouldn’t be surprised if Pedroia never went through another slump ever again. 

On to the weekend: I’ll admit I didn’t watch an entire game this weekend, but I did catch most of all three games. I spent most of the weekend doing household chores and watching sports, rotating through baseball and the NBA playoffs. Baseball has always been my favorite sport, so I always go back to it. Ellsbury served as my anchor this weekend; no matter what I did, I did my best not to miss an Ellsbury at-bat. Washing dishes can be quite relaxing with the TV volume loud enough to hear Remy’s and Orsillo’s voices over the swoosh of soapy water. 

Despite not having a hit on Saturday, Ellsbury showed why he can be such an asset to the Sox offense with two walks. I’m okay with Ellsbury walks because they’re pretty much the same as a double. After a walk in the second inning, I (and all of Fenway) expected Ellsbury to steal second, which led to a number of throw-overs by Jays pitcher Jo-Jo Reyes, which ultimately led to a Jed Lowrie home run. I feel like it’s easy to overrate the effect a runner can have on distracting a pitcher from the batter, but I do think there’s something to it. Maybe some advanced stats guys can educate me on that. (Also, Ian and I have been on the #FreeJedLowrie hashtag on the Twittermachines.)

On Sunday, he crushed a ball around the Pesky Pole for his third homer of the season. Three homers for Ellsbury this early in the season is a bit surprising, if not a little troubling. As Remy pointed out, his swing had a bit of an uppercut motion to it. I don’t really want him trying to hit homers. I want him hitting line drives, which he’s not doing right now. He is, however, getting walks, which is nice. 

Ellsbury’s been bounced from leadoff to the 8- and 9-spots in the lineup, which is indicative of how much lineup shuffling has been going on with the Sox in general. I believe most of the shuffling is caused by trying to get Crawford going and finding a consistent spot for him in the lineup. Ideally, I’d like to see Ellsbury leading off, followed by Crawford and Pedroia, but the Sox lineup has so many offensive weapons—especially when Lowrie is in there—that finding a consistent lineup can be difficult.

Lights Out: War

I was tempted to write this final recap in an unending sequence of clichés that built upon each other because it would have been exactly like the season/series finale of Lights Out: a bunch of rehashed tropes that was somehow entertaining to watch. From the boxing sequences (where Lights gets thrown out of the ring and uses the rope-a-dope) to random camera shots (Barry, Hal, Johnny, and Pops waiting in the hall after the fight could have been lifted straight out of Ocean’s 11), everything seemed overdone.

Instead, I’ll keep this short because, unfortunately, there’s not a lot to say about this show. This final episode seemed to be building new story lines for the show’s second season that won’t happen, like the League of Extraordinary Boxing Gentlemen, the incredible and bloody aftermath of trifling with Barry K. Word’s business, and the (immediate) onset of Lights’s memory loss. None of that really matters, I suppose. The only thing I’ll miss without a second season is seeing how Reynolds deals with his fall from grace. I’ve said before that Reynolds was a lot like Lights, and it would have been interesting to see how that played out as he went through the same things Lights did. 

Sidenote: During the press conference, Reynolds points out that if he were in the same legal troubles as Lights, he would immediately face an assumption of guilt because he’s black. This is obviously a huge theme that seldom arose throughout the season, and discussing racism so openly always puts people on alert. This should have been bigger all season. This is why you can’t have nice things, FX Network.

Real Life Sidenote: The moment where Lights tells the ref to stop the fight was interesting, when you consider what happened in the recent Manny Pacquiao fight.

Literary Sidenote: The ending of Lights Out had a very nice ambiguously happy-sad ending. I immediately thought of Thom Jones’s The Pugilist at Rest, which is a fantastic book of short stories about boxing (and other awesome things).

Lights Out: Sucker Punch

In any half-decent writing workshop, someone inevitably says something like, “You know what? I need to know more about (blank) character.” Even if it’s a stupid comment, it always comes up. If Lights Out were being workshopped, that question would be followed by ones like, “Where is the Leary mother?” and “Why did she leave?” And if you’re writing workshop is only half-decent, the writer will carelessly throw in some crazy answers to the crazy questions late in their story just because everyone bugged them about it. Lights Out did just that, introducing Patrick’s mother, Mae, played by Valerie Perrine. 

Mae walks back into the Leary life, and Patrick and Pops welcome her with open arms. I’m not sure why Pops didn’t react the way Margaret and Johnny did, because it’s not like Mae has entered and exited their lives five or six hundred times or anything. Patrick’s daughters fawn over their new grandma, too, which is weird. Blah, blah, blah. It’s another cliché plot device in a season full of clichés. She left Pops for a drummer (not to be mistaken for a musician) who is so broke he forces Mae to weasel money out of the Leary family. Patrick finds out and breaks little drummer boy’s hand before giving Mae $20 grand I didn’t know he had and cutting her out of his and his family’s lives. 

Yes, this show has been a series of clichés and guest stars, but it’s somehow still very entertaining. Maybe it’s because the acting is great. Barry K. Word should burst into every scene and just start spittin’ hot fire at everyone. Margaret’s hospital freak out was great. (She’s been one of the best characters on the show despite not getting as much camera time as others.) Then Eamonn Walker as Ed Romeo and David Morse as “Rainmaker” were great. Even Lester the drummer, who gets two minutes of airtime was played by the very good Paul Calderon. Or maybe it’s because the show is smart enough to have Margaret (and Johnny) treating Mae the way they did. It adds a nice bit of believability to a show that can feel shark-jumpy with all the coming and going of side characters.

Oh yeah, while all this was going on, there’s some preparation for a big boxing match that is supposed to be happening in the season’s (and series’s) final episode next week. The betting line drops so hard that Barry comes in and spits fire, someone tries to pull a drive-by on Hal and Margaret, and Johnny pulls an amusing prank to steady the line, making the media think Reynolds had a heart attack. It’s a jerkface move that even Pops seems to enjoy. Johnny’s smirk when seeing his work unfold really was a fantastic moment of television. Hal then tells Lights that he was moving the line low because that way, the odds against Lights means a bigger payout for anyone who bets on him. Somehow Barry, Johnny, or anyone else missed that day of Gambling 101.

Sidenote: Ever since I found out Billy Brown is both “Death Row” Reynolds and the narrator of the U.S. Marines commercials, it’s been impossible for me to watch any of his outbursts on Lights Out without thinking, “The few. The proud. The marines.” This amused me even more after he threw a table over on (live?) television. 

Gross Sidenote: I mentioned it a few times throughout the season, but I don’t get how schleazy old Johnny manages to hook up with everyone in exchange for promoting his brother’s boxing career.

Hilarious Historical Guest Character Sidenote: Valeria Perrine’s IMDB page says she was the “first woman to display (on purpose) her nipples on American network television.”

Lights Out: Rainmaker

I’ll be honest: I’ve never gotten completely on board with Lights Out, but I only figured out why after watching last night’s episode. The show seems to float between a successful serial drama and a show more like Law & Order, where the stories are wrapped up at the end of each episode. “Rainmaker” is a perfect example.

All of a sudden, Patrick has to deal with the repercussions of his delivering a birthday cake with a sweet filling of CASH MONEY to a lowdown dirty councilman. This takes up most of the episode, as Patrick is arrested, his home is searched, and a nice FBI man pays a courtesy visit to Patrick at the Leary gym.

While all this is going on, there’s another story line involving another former boxing champion by the name of Rainmaker (played very well by David Morse, of Treme and House). For 3/4 of the episode, the two stories seem unrelated; Margaret says she wanted Patrick to see him because he’s all punchdrunk, broke, and can’t remember anything he doesn’t write down. She doesn’t want to see her brother end up like that. At one point, Theresa, who apparently watches crime dramas like Law & Order when she’s not on camera, is surprisingly willing to come up with an amazing and complicated story about how Rainmaker was the “champ” who delivered the moneycake, not Lights. 

These plots come together in the very end when it’s revealed that Lights paid Rainmaker to make it rain (with his fists, not cash money) on the councilman. Rainmaker gobbles down the paper with the councilman’s hotel address on it, so it’s like it never happened. For me, that moment saved the episode from being a complete bust. It was such a good ending that I didn’t see coming, even though it should have been ridiculously obvious. (Theresa pretty much lays the groundwork for it with her crazy plan!) The problem is that Rainmaker will likely disappear completely from the series, like Ed Romeo, while the major story line of the FBI investigations has to keep going. 

Sidenote: Reynolds’ brief appearance is rad. He essentially turns Lights into their rematch’s bad guy by pointing out that, with the sum of shady things happening to Lights, some of it has to be true. Then he implies that he’s always the bad guy because of his race, which is probably true. Reynolds kicks ass.

Sad-eyed Sidenote: I love Hal Brennan as a bad guy. He’s so calm and evil! I have to admit though, I crack up every time he gives this sad puppydog face to threaten Patrick.

Book Review: Play Their Hearts Out

As the book’s subtitle says, Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine sheds a necessary light on the machine of grassroots basketball that extends from the youth levels into high school, college, and even the NBA. The story’s main players here are a coach, Joe Keller, and his player, Demetrius Walker. Author George Dohrmann follows them on their quests for two very different American dreams. Keller’s dream is simple: he wants to be a millionaire, and his dream can be achieved by convincing the ten-year-old Demetrius that he will help the boy achieve his own dream of reaching the NBA. There are other players involved, including a number of athletes, parents, and Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) coaches, and the major shoe companies—Adidas, Nike, and Reebok—always loom large in the background.  

After meeting in 2000, Keller agrees to let Dohrmann follow him because, as Keller says, “Having a guy from Sports Illustrated affiliated with my program will help with recruiting.” From the outset, Keller knows Demetrius’s talent is the golden ticket he’s been looking for. Throughout the book, Keller uses Demetrius to pop on to the AAU radar and, consequently, nab a boatload of money from Adidas before disappearing from Demetrius’s life. 

Dohrmann follows Demetrius through high school and into college. This makes Demetrius the lens through which we view the corruption of the grassroots basketball world. We see teammates, parents, and coaches move in and out of his life during his formative years, and each time, the aftermath is heartbreaking. Through his reporting, Dorhmann can see all the forces working for and against Demetrius, even when Demetrius is blind to them. The true beauty of the book is how Dohrmann exposes the way the grassroots system influences every level of basketball without overshadowing Demetrius’s personal journey. Each chapter opens with a photo—some provided by players’ parents—that, along with the narrative Dorhmann creates, leaves readers with the feeling of growing up alongside Demetrius.

Unofficial Video Companion: There’s a neat, 21st century feel to this book as well. Basketball fans will love looking up PTHO’s athletes on YouTube to watch their highlight reels. Dohrmann’s basketball scenes are already lively, but the videos bring to life the nuances in each player’s style and movement. Of course, many of those highlights are provided by the same hype machine Dorhmann writes about in the book, making them another reminder of how players are built up from such an early age.

Further Viewing: PBS’s Frontline documentary series will be airing “Money and March Madness” on March 29, featuring Sonny Vaccaro. Vaccaro, who appears in PTHO numerous times, has worked for all three major shoe companies and helped create the grassroots moneymaking system.

Further Reading: Dohrmann agreed not to publish his book until all the kids reached college. Now that they have, Dorhmann continues to have contact with most of PTHO’s players. He posts updates on his personal blog.

Lights Out: Cut Men

Finally, Lights and Reynolds fight! Too bad it didn’t happen in the ring, as Lights Out has been promising all along. To be honest, I’m not sure I care. Even though this episode cranked up the energy for the Lights/Reynolds rematch, it also reinforced the modern family drama aspect as the show’s real strength.

It turns out Reynolds isn’t that different from Patrick. In fact, he’s Patrick Leary five years before the show starts, willing to sacrifice everything for his wife and child. Earlier in the season, I wrote that I hoped Lights Out discussed the racial issues brought up by Reynolds always playing the “black hat” in the fight narratives, but it’s almost a non-factor for him. The fight’s audience is the only party served by the racial tension. Regardless of race, all the fighters are being used by the same machine until they’re no longer profitable. (Barry K. Word has made money off Lights, Morales, Reynolds, and Omar Assarian, all casting them as stereotypes of their ethnicities, and now he’s doing the same with the mention of the Ukrainian Mustafa.) Personally, I think the show could take a very interesting turn if Patrick and Reynolds never got their rematch and forced them both to deal with their lives outside of the ring. Just when Reynolds starts to think the same thing, Patrick makes a deal with Brennan and gets all loud and punchy with Reynolds, keeping them both trapped in the Barry K. Word money machine. 

How delightfully evil is Hal Brennan? Look at his grin. His business gets shadier, too. Earlier, it seemed he was in business with Barry K. Word (whose full name is really fun to say, type, and read), but now it seems he’s just making his own shady deals with other shady people. 

Theresa is not shady. Maybe for the first time, Lights Out lets her carry a scene without any other established characters, and she comes out a winner because we actually see her making the decision to give up on her dream in order to support her husband. Obviously, that doesn’t stop Patrick from doing his own thing. This will likely lead to his own Johnny moment, where he effs things up by trying to do the right thing. The lies are also piling on for Patrick. He tells Theresa the money from the Morales fight went to the IRS when we know it all went to Brennan. 

As usual, the sum of each episode is more problems for Patrick. He’s gotta fight Reynolds now, but what is it worth? How much of his purse goes to Brennan? How is he supposed to train with that wound in his side? (Also, how did he not die when Reynolds punched him in his wound?) On the plus side, I like seeing the fightin’ spirit coming out in Lights. Sometimes he’s too passive, willing to be reactive instead of proactive. Showing up at the restaurant to pick a fight with Reynolds is a nice way for Lights to make things happen. 

Sidenote: Regarding the family drama, how about the tension when Johnny withholds information from Theresa by saying “It’s a family thing,” revealing how he sees Patrick’s other family?

Other sidenote: Seeing Patrick walk around Theresa’s graduation with his sunglasses on indoors was hilarious. That’s what happens when you pick fights with people, Lights: the next day, you end up being “that guy.” Everyone knows “that guy.” “That guy” sucks.

Shakespearean sidenote: Johnny’s just going to keep making Shakespearean references, isn’t he? This time it was The Merchant of Venice: “You got stabbed. He wants his pound of flesh.”

Final sidenote: Barry K. Word rules. Hearing him say “I never play” is simply chilling. Also, he looks superfly in a purple bow tie.

Lights Out: Infight

Lights Out spends most of the time examining the gray areas between right and wrong, understanding that almost nothing in life is ever that simple. Most of this episode built toward Lights’s firing of new trainer and awesome character Ed Romeo. Despite all the hints that made firing Romeo pretty much inevitable—Patrick walking in on what looks like Romeo making Daniella cry, Patrick walking in on Romeo and Theresa holding hands—I didn’t want it to happen. Sure, he’s wrong to ask Patrick to completely avoid Johnny and Pops, but his motivation is admirable. It’s both right and wrong. I would totally understand if Patrick suddenly cut Johnny out of his life completely; he’s a total fuck-up who repeatedly makes Patrick’s life worse. He’s also trying to do the right thing. In a way, Johnny and Romeo aren’t that different. They’re both making good and bad things happen with the best intentions. Only Johnny is kind of a skeezebag.

Romeo takes over this episode, which I’m OK with. He’s unstable, and he’s got real emotional problems. It’s interesting that the camera stays with Romeo when he breaks down in his bedroom. I believe that’s the first time a Lights Out character has completely let his guard down on camera. Humanity is always intriguing to see. This is why we watch TV and movies, right? Romeo is clearly damaged, so we understand why Reynolds fired him. But Reynolds’s relationship (or lack thereof) also says a lot about Romeo. We see that Romeo (at least) seems wrong in his assessment that Reynolds is afraid and uncentered, but we also see Reynolds doing yoga, swimming, and having all of his life priorities straightened out. If Romeo were able to put aside his history with Reynolds, I imagine he’d mostly approve of Reynolds’s mindset while preparing to fight Lights.

From there, things get all pushy, punchy, and even stabby. You just knew another bad thing had to happen to Lights.

Sidenote: Love the literary fun going on in this episode. Johnny calls Romeo “Othello.” And what’s going on with the book Romeo is reading (Ether, God, and Devil)?

Other sidenote: During a commercial break, I discovered that Blue Crush was on at the same time. Turns out Blue Crush and Lights Out have some pretty similar story arcs going. In Blue Crush, Ana Marie Chadwick (Kate Bosworth) is preparing for a huge surfing competition, only her roommates, most notably Eden (Michelle Rodriguez), disagree with her “training” by teaching some hot young stud how to surf. Chadwick = Lights, Eden = Johnny, hot young stud = Romeo. I found this humorous. It’s a pretty canned plot, especially for sports films and shows, but Lights Out is at least doing it in interesting ways.