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Comment Thread

by Joe
(unregistered id: D27323FDCE)
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It's probably been mentioned before, but I've finally confirmed what I've sorta known all along: The reason I'm having trouble getting into this season is the serious lack of Brock.

I wouldn't build the entire show around him of course (and Doc and Jackson certainly don't) but he was able to act as an anchor for me. He was, for the most part, the only one who was halfway grounded in "our" reality, i.e. the fact that the whole superheroes and super scientists and super-villians thing and the bureaucratic absurdity that it's been taken to, is just plain, well, absurd.

While other characters are utterly clueless, he's on top of things, but at the same time doesn't rub it in their face (like Rusty and his Best Little Whorehouse In Texas thing) all that much.

The boys are clueless, Rusty's pretty naive and addled from "20 years of amphetamines and failture, the Order of Triad's reason for being is, as the Alchemist put it, "totally gay" and the Monarch is, well, a serious butterfly fetishist.

But Brock, he's merely stuck on Zep and his Charger. He was railroaded by Sergeant Hatred into Operation Rusty's Blanket due to matters mostly beyond his control.

So Brock, to me, is the "reality" anchor of the show...and I've missed that.

But yes, that's how the show is progressing. The boys are (finally) growing up beyond being 16 years old and Rusty is having to actually be a father to two mortal boys...all without Brock's influence and help. So, here's to a good Season 4.1 finale and a big payoff in Season 4.2

Dec. 9, 2009, 12:37am

by vein train
(unregistered id: 4C7284CA08)
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Dermott is a real guy. i'm sure i was in school with him. he listened to the Ramones and that was the only thing he had going for him. other than his lie world.

Brock, i dont kno anyone like him or need to. more women action is what i miss. Dr. Girlfriend kicking ass, i could do with that for a whole season. seriously, who would you pick as a badygaurd? Brock or one of the kick ass ladies from this show? Sharon Stone/the mom aside.

Dec. 9, 2009, 7:51pm

by Hoff
(unregistered id: 125D2FF0B7)
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I take Brock in a heartbeat - he's probably the biggest reason I like this show so much. And I totally agree with Joe. While the last night was pretty funny, this whole season has been out there. Sorry to Doc and Jackson, but I never really like Hatred very much. I'm really missing Brock's character, as well as his kicking ass all the time.

Dec. 9, 2009, 10:14pm

by Joe
(unregistered id: D27323FDCE)
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vein train,
You're right, Dermott is a real guy, and I'm pretty sure he went to my school too.
Change that blondish greasy mullet to a brown greasy mullet and he's the spitting image. Same propensity for exaggeration, although not as absurd as Dermott is.

Actually a rather bizarre yet pleasant surprise to hear him give some decent advice during this ep

Dec. 10, 2009, 1:40am

by Chris Thompson
(unregistered id: D6E3D83D37)
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I very much agree, Joe. The theme of the show is failure, as Doc and Jackson are glad to point out. Brock was the only character who wasn't really a failure. Yeah, he was stuck on a crappy assignment, sure. But he's also a jacked badass killing machine with a sweet car who gets laid every other episode when he isn't continuing his on-again, off-again love affair with Jessica Rabbit's deadlier little sister. You NEED that likable success amid all those losers otherwise it's just too much failure.

Dec. 10, 2009, 6:41pm

by jjjj
(unregistered id: 608FF5051E)
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Actually, Brock is failure at one thing. For the purposes of the show its pretty minor, but he is failure at controlling his rage. Even now after all these seasons get him a bit angry and hell murder a bunch of henchmen and supervillains. He's also a failure at dying(which I am very glad for).

Dec. 10, 2009, 9:59pm

by Joe
(unregistered id: D27323FDCE)
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Sure, Brock has plenty of failures about him (is that grammatically correct?) but he was at least successful in what he did for a living, hair-trigger temper notwithstanding. But since the theme of the show is failure, he was railroaded out of active field ops into a "rookie" assignment.

Say, speaking of Operation Rusty's Blanket, I wonder if OSI knew that Orb was broken all along or not...certainly Jonas Sr. didn't know, otherwise why go through those whole clues and puzzle rigmarole...UNLESS he was hiding something ELSE and the Orb hunt thing was a red herring!

Dec. 11, 2009, 12:44am

by Pvt. Schwa
(unregistered id: BB7AC5FBA9)
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I have to take issue with the way people refer to the theme of the show. OK, it's about failure, we get it, but that doesn't mean that every character is a complete failure in every situation. Every character has crippling flaws, but they manage to rise above them sometimes, and that is a lot more poignant than watching a bunch of infallible people succeed all the time.

Dec. 12, 2009, 7:08am

by Joe
(unregistered id: D27323FDCE)
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Yeah, I can see your point and I totally agree. I through that remark about failure in there mostly to forestall criticism of my characterization of Brock as being the most successful one in the bunch.

Having said that, I'll expand upon it:
Frankly, I don't see how Brock is a failure at all.
So he has a hair-trigger temper. So what? That was more a 1st Season thing to begin with (the bartender at the strip club, Bud Manstrong etc).
His banishment to being Rusty's bodyguard, as it turns out, wasn't a failure of his at all.
The most "failure" I've seen out of him was his final realization that he'd seen enough weirdness, so he quit and let himself go for a few months...only to return with a new "life" and a new purpose with Sphinx.

And THAT is why I've had trouble identifying with Season 4.1
We'd temporarily lost the one truly competent character on the show.

Granted, other characters have stepped up and matured and developed, most especially 21, so maybe that was the point: Allow the other characters the opportunity to shine while the one successful guy on the show was given a hiatus.

Dec. 12, 2009, 4:21pm

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