Joel Murphy

There is a film studio called The Asylum which makes its money creating cheap knockoffs of popular films like The Day The Earth Stopped, The Da Vinci Treasure and Transmorphers. After watching the two-hour premiere of The Cape on NBC and seeing all of the similarities the show has to the Batman comic books, I’m beginning to wonder if The Ayslum wasn’t behind this series as well.

Like Batman, The Cape is a masked vigilante with no superpowers who uses theatricality, misdirection and combat training to defeat his foes in a city overrun with corruption. But the similarities don’t end there. Both vigilantes are aided by colorful sidekicks like circus performers (in Batman, there is Dick Grayson, who was part of The Flying Grayson, and in The Cape our hero is aided by a team of circus performers known as The Carnival of Crime) and an intelligent, tech savvy female who offers tactical support (in Batman it’s Oracle and in The Cape it’s Orwell … because by the time the writers got around to naming her, they had clearly already completely given up). Both heroes battle a large, incredibly strong reptilian villain (Killer Croc in Batman, Scales in The Cape). Hell, for good measure, Scales even binds The Cape in chains and tosses him into a river in an homage to the old Adam West Batman TV series.

While all of the poorly-copied Batman characters had me wanting to bail on this show within the first 10 minutes, I still soldiered on through the entire two-hour premiere in order to bring you this One Shot column. So without further ado, here are my thoughts on The Cape …

The Cape – “Pilot/Tarot “
(NBC – Mondays at 9 p.m.)

The Cape tells the story of Vince Faraday, an honest cop in a corrupt city. Faraday is also a family man – he lives in Palm City with his wife and his son.

Palm City is being controlled by Peter Fleming, the owner of the incredibly powerful Ark Corporation. Fleming moonlights as a supervillain named Chess who – you guessed it – dresses like a chess piece and actually says things like “Check mate” when pulling off his schemes. (To The Cape writers’ credit, the character is in no way ripped off from the Batman comics, but only because even Batman writers never came up with someone that lame … and Batman actually fights a villain named Calculator).

When Faraday stands up to Fleming, the villain decides to kill two birds with one stone by first framing Faraday as Chess, then capturing him and bringing him to justice, which will allow Fleming to achieve his goal of privatizing the police force (and putting himself in charge of it, naturally). Fleming sends his private SWAT team and a news helicopter after Vince. During the manhunt, Faraday is presumed dead when an oil truck he is hiding under explodes. (It explodes because the SWAT team pursuing Faraday shoots it, even though the entire chase is being televised and Vince is clearly unarmed, yet somehow this in no way keeps the city from handing over control of the police force to Fleming.)

Our hero can’t reveal he is still alive until he first clears his name, so he instead decides to become a superhero in order to bring down Fleming and his henchmen. Since Vince, like his writers, is uncreative, he creates his superhero persona by ripping off the title character of his son’s favorite comic book – The Cape.

Faraday is aided in his quest by a gang of circus performers named The Carnival of Crime. The Carnival of Crime start out as bank robbers, but for some reason (which the writers didn’t even bother to come up with) they suddenly decide to give up thieving to help Vince in his quest. And while Bruce Wayne devoted his whole life after his parents’ tragic death to the training needed to become Batman, the Carnival of Crime is able to teach Vince Faraday everything he needs to know about crime fighting in one brief montage. Of course, making things easier for Vince is the fact that C.o.C. leader Max Malini gives him a magical cape that when you grab it and flick it across the room is able to pick up items and bring them back to you. (Making this all the more ridiculous is the poorly-rendered CGI used to make this effect happen.)

Even more baffling than his magical cape is the fact that it isn’t until halfway through the second episode that Faraday decides to add a mask to his costume. Even though his face has been plastered all over the news since his apparent death and even though he knows he will be face-to-face with Fleming (the man he is hiding his true identity from in order to protect his family), Faraday decides for the entire first episode and half of the second one that all he needs is a hoodie to conceal his face. He also makes no effort whatsoever to disguise his voice when dressed as The Cape. Luckily, thanks to convenient lighting and camera angles, the hoodie does manage to hide most of his face and somehow no one recognizes his voice, but still, these are such frustrating oversights that I found myself wanting Fleming or someone else to stop and say, “Hey, aren’t you Vince Faraday?”

Aided by the Carnival of Crime and a sexy blogger he encounters named Orwell, The Cape battles Fleming and his goons Scales and Cain. Meanwhile, his wife tries to get a job and some other boring stuff that I already forgot about happens and eventually we end with a totally clichéd shot of The Cape on a rooftop ready to protect Palm City.

As the season progresses, The Cape will surely try to defeat Chess and clear his name, but the only way they could get me to tune in to this show again is if Vince Faraday defeats his one true enemy … shitty writing.

Joel Murphy is the creator of HoboTrashcan, which is probably why he has his own column. He loves pugs, hates Jimmy Fallon and has an irrational fear of robots. You can contact him at murphyslaw@hobotrashcan.com.

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Joel Murphy

On the surface, No Ordinary Family seems tailor made for someone like me. I’m a guy who has made camping out to see every Batman movie on opening night a priority in my life. Growing up, I had debates with friends about which superpower would be better – flight or invisibility (for the record, the answer is totally invisibility). Hell, for the past few days in my head I’ve been going over the pros and cons of hiring Zack Snyder to direct the new Superman movie. If I’m not the target demographic for a show about a family with superpowers, then I don’t know who is.

And yet, I’ve felt completely apathetic toward the show. I can’t exactly pinpoint why, but I just haven’t been interested in watching it. Perhaps it’s superhero fatigue after the slew of films Hollywood has released over the past few years or maybe I just still feel burned by Heroes and am not ready to open my heart up to another superhero TV show again, but whatever the case, I was content to take a pass on this series.

But because of my dedication to you fine readers (and because it’s a slow news week … but, you know, mostly the dedication thing), I decided to give No Ordinary Family “One Shot” to impress me. Without further ado, here is what I took away from the series’ second episode …

No Ordinary Family – “No Ordinary Marriage”
(ABC – Tuesdays at 8 p.m.)

Part of the fun of superhero origin stories is that we get to put ourselves in the shoes of the hero and imagine what it would be like to discover we had supernatural powers (which, let’s face it, deep down we all want). Watching Spider-man swing through Manhattan for the first time in Sam Raimi’s first film was great fun because we could all imagine how exhilarating it would be to experience that initial thrill (before web-slinging became sadly routine and monotonous and Spider-man found himself begrudgingly doing swinging through the city at two in the morning to appease Mary Jane after forgoting to pick up the milk once again).

My biggest problem with No Ordinary Family at this early stage is that the family already sees their powers as a burden – and it’s only the second episode. In the world of the show, having a superpower seems awful. None of the characters know how to control their gifts or what to do with them, so they just sort of mope around with these extraordinary powers that have no real purpose yet. There’s plenty of time to address the downside of being a superhero – I mean, that’s basically what all good Batman and Spider-man stories are all about – but crime fighting should at least be fun starting out. There should be the thrill of discovering what they are now capable of.

To his credit, the father of the Powell family (for those of you who have never read one of these “One Shot” pieces before: no, I didn’t bother to learn these characters’ first names) seems to at least be trying to have some fun with his newfound gift. Since he is played by Michael “Chicklets,” his superpower is super strength (with an impressive vertical leap thrown in for good measure). So essentially, he’s still playing The Thing, except without the rocky façade and the cool catchphrase (“It’s clobberin’ time!”). Papa Powell spends the episode trying to figure out how to stop cars barreling toward him by throwing his shoulder into the front of them. It doesn’t go so well.

Papa Powell is the only family member who wants to be a superhero, but he’s not very good at it. He is, however, a good sport about the whole thing. He allows his “sidekick” to run over him repeatedly while trying to figure out how to stop cars. His sidekick is played by Romany Malco from The 40 Year Old Virgin and Weeds, who is apparently an Assistant District Attorney fed up with the system. I found myself really wondering how these two ever became friends – it doesn’t seem likely that they would ever actually hang out with each other. Unless there is some unwritten code that states bald guys have to stick together, I’m not really buying their friendship.

Papa Powell also shows just how bad he is at the whole superhero thing by trying to thwart a bank robbery – not once, but twice – without so much as a ski mask to hide his identity. When you are a family man, it’s always a good idea to piss off bank robbers who can easily identity your face, not to mention police officers, who frown on the whole vigilante thing. (Jumping into this show in the second episode, it was hard to tell what exactly Papa Powell does for a living – he seems to work at a police station, but behind a desk, so he is either a flat-footed cop or the burliest secretary ever.) A female officer instantly recognizes him at a crime scene and ends up confronting him at his home at the end of the episode.

If there is one thing Hollywood truly loves, it’s a good wet blanket wife, so of course Mrs. Powell (played by the lovely Julie Benz) forbids her husband from being a superhero, even though it’s pretty clear he is impervious to pain. To her credit, she does at least have some super-sex with him at the beginning of the episode (which is thankfully implied and not actually shown) which couldn’t be fun with a regular Michael Chiklis, let alone one who could easily crush you with his super-strength. Mama Powell has been blessed with super-speed, which is beneficial to her as tries to balance being a mom with her career. The mom part gets her involved in a boring plotline where she attends PTA meetings and helps plan a carnival, while the career woman part gets her involved in a boring plotline where she is apparently some kind of scientist attempting to uncover the source of the family’s superpowers. Between the lame storylines and her general wet blanketness, the only real highlight for her is when she texts while running super fast and ends up tripping over a tricycle left out in the street.

Daughter Powell has the ability to hear everyone’s thoughts, which frankly would be awful. (After all, being able to hear what women think apparently drove Mel Gibson insane.) She spends the entire episode wishing she could turn her power off. Thankfully, by the end, Mom helps her figure out how to focus on just one person’s thoughts instead of being overwhelmed by everyone’s brainwaves at once. It’s unclear why it takes her two entire episodes to think of that.

While Dad is struggling, Mom is a wet blanket and the daughter is miserable, no one seems worse off than the Powell’s son. Before the family got superpowers, he was apparently a moron. Now, he’s been blessed with the amazing ability to … um, be really good at math, I guess. It’s not quite as lame as Meg Griffin’s ability to quickly grow out her fingernails, but it’s up there. Of course, he may be super-smart now, but because he was such an colossal idiot before, no one actually believes he is capable of the grades he is getting and they all just assume he is cheating, which defeats the whole point of his lame power. If only he was Asian – no one would question him.

A supervillain with a “Force”-like ability to control objects with his mind is also introduced in the episode, but only briefly. While the episode didn’t show much of him or his power, he did at least seem to be having fun, which is more than I can say for the Powells.

So if mopey, boring superheroes are your thing, then I recommend No Ordinary Family. I, however, found the Powells to be much too ordinary for my liking. I wasn’t really interested in this show in the first place and there wasn’t anything about this episode that really sucked me in, so I don’t think I’ll be tuning back in. I’ll stick to Batman and Spider-man – they at least making being mopey seem fun.

Joel Murphy is the creator of HoboTrashcan, which is probably why he has his own column. He loves pugs, hates Jimmy Fallon and has an irrational fear of robots. You can contact him at murphyslaw@hobotrashcan.com.

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Joel Murphy

Vampires and werewolves are a hot commodity these days. Since Hollywood has never been able to stop itself from running a good idea into the ground, there are currently countless TV shows and movies out there featuring these iconic supernatural entities.

That means that to stand out in a world oversaturated with these creatures of the night, any good vampire/werewolf show needs to find its niche. True Blood appeals to those who like their mythical creatures oversexed and delightfully southern. Twilight has cornered the market on supernatural entities as sparkly parables for teen abstinence. But there are still plenty of uncharted avenues to explore within the genre. All it takes is one creative writer to come along and shake things up a bit.

Unfortunately, that writer does not work on ABC’s new summer show The Gates. It seems as if the creative forces behind The Gates actively set out to make the most clichéd, predictable vampire/werewolf show on the air today.

In fact, the show is so paint-by-numbers that I had no choice but to give its premiere episode the old One Shot treatment …

The Gates – “Pilot”
(ABC – Sundays at 10 p.m.)

(Side note: As per usual, I’m far too lazy and unmotivated to go learn these character’s names, so I’ll be assigning generic titles to these characters as I go along.)

We quickly learn that “The Gates” is the name of a posh gated community (wonder how long it took the developers to come up with that brilliant name?) surrounded by giant impenetrable walls that are, of course, guarded by a bumbling, idiotic security guard.

We are introduced to the Monohans (which, I believe, is Latin for “one hand”). Papa One-hand is the new police chief of The Gates. Taking a page from Die Hard (and countless other cop movies), we learn that Chief One-hand was a detective in Chicago who accidentally shot an unarmed man, so he took this job in this supposedly quiet neighborhood to get a fresh start. We also meet Momma One-hand and their two kids, Charlie and Forgettable Younger Sister.

Chief One-hand quickly starts ruffling feathers in The Gates by investigating the mysterious disappearance of a contractor. The Contractor was last seen in front of the house of … let’s call them Mr. and Mrs. Vampire. The Contractor was talking on his cell phone while driving, which distracted enough to almost run over Little Girl Vampire. The Contractor manages to cut open his head on the steering wheel when he slams on the brakes, so Mrs. Vampire invites him in to treat the wound. You can guess how that turns out.

Mr. Vampire returns home from his business trip and is not pleased to find out his wife murdered The Contractor. However, when Chief One-hand comes snooping around, Mr. Vampire helps her lie to the chief and then later helps dispose of the body and the truck (ditching the truck in the woods and making it look like The Contractor was attacked by wolves). However, he later scolds her, warning her that her actions could blow their cover and jeopardize their custody of their adopted daughter.

Chief One-hand is immediately suspicious of the Vampire family, but no one seems to take his hunch too seriously. The developer of The Gates advises him to drop it, lest he upset the town council. The chief’s request for a warrant to search the Vampire’s property is also denied. So, following the clichéd cop story handbook, Chief One-hand goes rogue and searches their property on his own. Mr. Vampire catches him and One-hand claims he had a report of a prowler on the loose. Mr. Vampire is unconvinced.

Meanwhile, Charlie One-hand adjusts to life at his new high school. Following in a long and storied cinematic tradition, his teacher has conveniently tailored his lesson plan so that it directly relates to the plot of the show. In this case, the teacher has the class reading Flannery O’Connor, which facilitates a class discussion about blending in with society when saddled with a deformity. Charlie talks about O’Connor’s battle with lupus (which, he tells us, is Latin for “wolf”) and argues that O’Connor believes that appearances matter and that assimilation is important.

Charlie’s comments impress one of his female classmates. She tracks him down after class and convinces him to join Mock Trial. Sticking to the clichéd plot handbook, she too is an outsider in town who is nonplussed about living in The Gates. She quickly falls for Charlie’s good looks and sensitivity, but she is of course already dating a meathead jock (who also happens to be a werewolf). Meathead Jock immediately hates Charlie and gets jealous of the way his gal fawns over him. Before long, Outsider Girl convinces Charlie to help her test out a lie detector (don’t ask), which reveals Charlie’s secret crush on her. Meathead Jock, who is apparently a human lie detector, studies her pupils and body language to uncover her feelings for Charlie.

Meathead Jock naturally wants to go all “Teen Wolf” on Charlie, but another one of the werewolf boys in the neighborhood talks him out of it. This other werewolf also tries to talk Meathead into joining his wolf pack, but he politely declines.

Mama One-hand manages to stumble across two other occult figures in the town – a pair of witches running competing holistic medicine shops. One of them uses her magic for good, giving people herbal potions that improve their lives, while the other one is secretly giving her customers potions to control them. Mama One-hand unknowingly ends up in the shop of the evil witch. But with any luck, someone will drop a house on her before she does anything too nefarious to Mama One-hand.

The episode ends with Mama One-hand throwing a wet blanket over top of the chief’s hunch and convincing him to drop his investigation of the Vampire family. She says that after shooting that unarmed man and uprooting the family to The Gates, he owes it to them to keep a low profile and to not go rocking the boat too much. (Yes, she actually plays the “You Accidentally Killed A Guy” card in the first episode. She seems delightful.) Just when he is ready to drop the case, he gets a call informing him that a body has been found in the woods. He heads to the crime scene, thinking it might be The Contractor, but instead discovers that it’s the police chief he replaced, who everyone thought had retired to Mexico.

Final Thoughts: Seriously, this show isn’t even trying. Every single thing that happened has happened in another show or movie countless times before. The characters are incredibly bland. The only thing The Gates has going for it is that Rhona Mitra, who plays Mrs. Vampire, is incredibly hot, but since this is on ABC and not premium cable, there’s not even any hope of seeing her naked. I just can’t see who this show would appeal to. If you want to see a show about vampires and werewolves, there are so many better options out there. There’s no point in investing yourself in one that makes you feel like you’ve already seen in countless times before.

Joel Murphy is the creator of HoboTrashcan, which is probably why he has his own column. He loves pugs, hates Jimmy Fallon and has an irrational fear of robots. You can contact him at murphyslaw@hobotrashcan.com.

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Joel Murphy

I’m baffled that we live in a world where Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson are given awards for acting (even if they are just meaningless MTV Movie Awards) and I’m still not entirely sure what a Justin Bieber is, but being the editor of a pop culture site, I do try my best to stay in touch with what the kids are following these days.

That’s why I recently watched as much as I could stomach of Lady Gaga’s video for her song “Alejandro”, which officially surpasses Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” for the title of “Most Homoerotic Gyrating By the Guys in the Background of a Slightly Manish Singer’s Music Video.”

It’s also why I tuned in to last night’s finale of Glee, a show that has become a surprise hit this season. I had never seen a single moment of Glee before and I didn’t know much about the show beyond the fact that it was about a glee club and that Jane Lynch was in it being her usual snarky and hilarious self, so I decided to give the show the ol’ One Shot treatment to see if it could hook me in with its big season finale.

Glee – “Faithfully”
(Fox – Tuesdays at 9 p.m.)

(Side note: As per usual, I’m far too lazy and unmotivated to go look up these character’s names in advance, so I’ll be assigning generic titles to these characters as I go along.)

The “Previously On …” vignette opening the show tells me that some blonde girl got kicked out of her parents’ house for being pregnant and that someone named Jesse “dropped Rachel and McKinley and the New Directions and he’s back on Vocal Adrenaline,” whatever that means. Also, the glee club must win regionals or the group must disband forever (and the terrorists win).

However, we quickly discover that the deck is stacked against them because Jane Lynch, the school’s cheerleading coach who hates Glee Club, is a celebrity judge at the competition for some reason, even though that seems like a horrible conflict of interest. (Perhaps she earned celebrity status for making this fantastic iPhone parody.) Glee Club Teacher is very upset by this development, but Principal With A Funny Accent doesn’t really care.

We cut to a cheerleader and a guy with a Mohawk messing around with each other. She tells Mohawk that she can’t go all the way because she is the president of the Celibacy Club, but he tells her to have another wine cooler and relax. He finally seals the deal after telling her that this isn’t just another hook up and she’s not fat.

Glee Club Teacher tries to cheer up the troops, who don’t like their chances of winning now that Jane Lynch is a judge. They are so upset that they refuse to eat any of the pizza Glee Club Teacher brought. Token Asian Girl is incredibly sad because she had no friends before Glee Club and is worried she will lose all her new friends if they disband.

To fulfill the show’s sexual tension quota, GCT talks to his dream girl, who conveniently works at the school. He looks to her for words of encouragement about regionals and she reminds him how much he loves his job. Then, she brings him back down a notch by telling GCT she’s dating her dentist (although apparently he hasn’t gotten around to drilling her cavity yet, if you know what I mean).

Glee Club Teacher hears Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” in his car and begins to get all weepy. Trust me, GCT, we’ve all been there. The dulect tones of Mr. Steve Perry can make even the manliest of men a bit teary-eyed. Apparently, the song inspires GCT to have the group perform a Journey medley at regionals. (And why wouldn’t it?)

We cut to regionals, where we are introduced to our celebrity judges. In addition to Jane Lynch, we have Josh Groban, Olivia Newton-John and Some Other Guy. The competition begins with the group Oral Intensity (which incidentally would be a great title for Tori Black’s follow up to Batman XXX). Oral Intensity, apparently tipped off to the identity of the celebrity judges in advance, sing a medley of Olivia Newton-John and Josh Groban tunes.

Next up are our heroes, New Directions. We start with Some Douchey Kid and a Brunette Singer Chick, who kissed earlier in the episode, so I’m guessing they are now dating or something. They open with “Faithfully,” an awesomely cheesy Journey love ballad about how much the band missed their wives while they were out on the road being offered copious amounts of hookers and blow. It was hard to enjoy this show’s rendition though because as soon as Douchey Kid began singing, my hand automatically balled itself up into a fist, ready to beat him down for butchering it with his completely generic and forgettable vocals. Luckily, Brunette Singer Chick jumps in and saves it, hitting the high parts beautifully. The rest of the group joins in and they all switch over to “Any Way You Want It” and eventually “Don’t Stop Believing.” Jazz hands and fist pumps abound.

After their performance, Pregnant Girl’s mom shows up and tells her that she kicked dad out of the house for having an affair with Bombshell McGee. So now Pregnant Girl is welcome back home. PG is happy, but there’s no time to celebrate because her water just broke.

Vocal Adrenaline (which is such a stupid, nonsensical name) hits the stage and begins singing “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Jesse the traitor sings lead. In a really cool sequence, the show cuts back and forth between their performance and Pregnant Girl being rushed off to the hospital to deliver her baby. She even shouts out a perfectly timed “Let me go” in the delivery room, which syncs up with the music. Eventually, she delivers the baby (which has way too much hair and none of that gross jelly stuff they usually smear all over newborns on TV shows) as Vocal Adrenaline wrap up their performance.

Brunette Singer has a heart-to-heart with some older brunette lady, who I gather is the coach of Vocal Adrenaline (and possibly Brunette Singer’s mom or something). Brunette Singer wants this lady to come co-teach the Glee Club at her school, but the lady says she regrets missing out on living a domesticated life, so she’s going to do that instead.

The celebrity judges deliberate on the three performances. Olivia Newton-John is sad that only one school honored her in song and she is incredibly unimpressed with New Directions’ shabby costumes. (She hilariously asks if they are “a poor person’s school.”) Josh Groban and Other Guy also start piling on to New Directions, which makes Jane Lynch begin to feel sorry for them. Eventually, the other three judges turn on Lynch too, saying she isn’t a “real” celebrity.

They all vote and Vocal Adrenaline emerge as the big winners. New Directions finish in last place, which means they have to disband. After that, (No Longer) Pregnant Girl and her baby daddy decide to give their kid up for adoption and the coach of Vocal Intensity, looking to get started on that domesticated life, adopts their baby. Glee Club Teacher finally professes his love for Required Sexual Tension Girl and they kiss, which probably receives an “awww” from people watching who are actually invested in this storyline.

Then, all of the Glee Club meet up and talk about how they really are winners because of how much they’ve grown together. They all sing a song that I can’t identify as their big finale together before disbanding forever.

But, it turns out it’s not really over for the club (since, you know, that would be the end of the show and all). It seems Jane Lynch went to the principal and demanded Glee Club get another year. Sure, she hates them and managed to best them once and for all, but like The Joker without Batman, she knows things just wouldn’t be the same without having her nemesis around to do battle with. (We also discover via flashback that she actually voted for them to win regionals, though she doesn’t reveal this to GCT). In gratitude, he attempts to shake her hand, but she refuses, saying: “I’ve seen that car you drive, I don’t want to catch poor.”

We end the episode with the teacher telling the club the good news. Then, he breaks into the Israel Kamakawiwo`ole version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” a great tune which has sadly become one of the most overplayed songs on television and in movies today.

Final Thoughts: The “Bohemian Rhapsody” sequence was well done and Jane Lynch was as funny as I hoped she would be. Olivia Newton-John had some great lines (although her overly-tight face was a bit distracting) and, outside of the one douchey kid, the vocals were pretty solid.

That being said, this show really isn’t for me. Sure, it’s fun watching Jane Lynch, but she’s entertaining in everything she’s in and I’d much rather see her in something like Best in Show or The 40-Year-Old Virgin. As for the rest of the show, I thought this was supposed to be a comedy, but it was overly dramatic and there weren’t nearly enough jokes. I’m not sure if having more background information on these characters would have helped me enjoy it more, but everyone just seemed so mopey and emo and overly dramatic. There were too many unrequited loves being requited and boring melodramatic plotlines being resolved in this episode for characters I am in no way attached to. The song choices, too, while pleasant, all seemed rather obvious and easy. It all seemed too safe, like they are making sure not to take any chances with the musical selections on this show.

So my apologies, today’s youth, but I won’t be becoming a gleek anytime soon. Now, can one of you young whippersnappers please explain to me what a Justin Bieber is before you all kindly get off my lawn.

Joel Murphy is the creator of HoboTrashcan, which is probably why he has his own column. He loves pugs, hates Jimmy Fallon and has an irrational fear of robots. You can contact him at murphyslaw@hobotrashcan.com.

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Joel Murphy

“Every man has his own destiny: the only imperative is to follow it, to accept it, no matter where it leads him.”

- Henry Miller

There are moments in life when average men are called to greatness. David was just another unassuming villager before he hoisted up that sling and slew Goliath. Jim Larranaga was a no-name basketball coach at George Mason before his path took him on an improbable Cinderella run to the Final Four. Thomas Anderson was an unhappy computer programmer until destiny handed him
a red pill, transforming him into Neo, the savior of Zion.

Yesterday, I received my call to greatness. My battlefield: KFC. The enemy: The Double Down. Two hunks of bacon and two thick slices of Monterey Jack cheese smothered in the Colonel’s “secret sauce” and wedged between two thick pieces of fried chicken. No bread, no vegetables. Just an artery-clogging amalgamation of meat and cheese forged by Lucifer himself.

Like all great battles, I knew that even if I emerged victorious, I would forever be changed by the experience. The damage, both emotional and physical, would linger on long after the last bite reached my lips. Sure, the stomach cramps I experienced yesterday evening faded away with time, but the emotional scars and irreparable damage to my arteries never will.

So why square off against Double D? I do it for all of you – the nervous eaters with sensitive stomachs, the “just a salad” folks watching their figures as bathing suit season looms and those poor, misguided vegans so desperate for a taste of the Double Down that they’ve concocted their own meatless version. Sure, outwardly you may scoff at this monstrosity as all that is wrong with our overweight, entitled society, but deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want to know what it tastes like. You want to eat one for the same reason Eve plucked that bright red apple from the Tree of Knowledge, knowing full well she was dooming all of humanity in doing so – because it just looks so damn tasty.

But you can’t. You lack the intestinal fortitude to handle this malicious marriage of meat and cheese. Your stomachs are too delicate, your abs too washboardy. This was my cross to bear. I was called upon to eat the sandwich that others cannot. Like Mikey from Swingers sitting on an 11, it was simply my time to Double Down.

As I defiantly marched into the KFC, signs and billboards taunted me with glossy, high res shots of my opponent. The woman behind the counter was cheerful enough, but beneath her pleasant demeanor and portly exterior, I sensed apprehension. Sure, she claimed to eat Double Downs for breakfast, but I know that her false bravado was only there to help quash my fears.

I carried my tray over to an empty booth; the Double Down flanked by a medium Coke and a side of potato wedges. As I began to size up my opponent from inside his plastic container, a crowd of gawker and onlookers began to form. I won’t say it was exactly like the final scene of Field of Dreams, but it was close enough.

The first thing I noticed was its size. It was larger than I had imagined. The chicken patties weren’t simply normal KFC strips; they were thick, juicy slices of breast meat. And while part of me was disgusted at the sight of this abomination, I couldn’t help but think how tasty it looked. The corner of the Monterey Jack slices, coated ever so slightly with special sauce, poked out of the corner of the sandwich, beckoning to me like ancient sirens seeking out forlorn sailors. The bacon was nowhere to be seen – a hidden treasure wrapped in meat just waiting to be discovered by my hungry lips.

I hefted the behemoth to my mouth and bit in. The first bite was overwhelmingly chicken with just a hint of the special sauce. The cheese was overpowered and the bacon, sadly, was still nowhere to be found. Still, the chicken was delicious and, having struck my first blow to my opponent, I was now more determined than ever to press forward. Subsequent bites led me further down the rabbit hole. The bacon finally emerged and the cheese, which had begun to melt, finally began to play a larger role in the flavor explosion erupting inside my mouth. Although I must admit, the bacon never played as big a role as I had hoped it would. It was content to be merely a bit player, a mostly casual observer in this epic food fight.

I made short work of the sandwich, knowing that the longer the battle waged on, the more the scales tipped in favor of my worthy opponent. In no time, the Double Down, the side of wedges and the tasty beverage were all consumed. The crowd let out a cheer as I took my final bite – the only remnants of war on my tray were empty containers and a plethora of grease-stained napkins.

I left KFC feeling as though I had won. The sandwich had proved to be a much easier, tastier foe than I had imagined. Little did I know that the war was still raging on inside my stomach. Over the next few hours, stomach cramps and lethargy washed over me. My only option was a nap.

At this point, surely you must be wondering if it was worth it. I set out to sample a deadly sandwich so that all of you don’t have to. I sacrificed myself to the fast food gods so that all of you could be spared the pain. But did I enjoy the sandwich? And would I ever wage war against a Double Down again? The answer, my friends, is yes.

Now, this is not a battle that I will seek out anytime soon. In fact, I hope it is months, if not years, before I ever cross paths with a Double Down again. But let it be known, if fate should decide to pit us against each other in an inevitable sequel, I will be ready to slay the sandwich a second time. I just hope next time it brings more bacon.

Joel Murphy is the creator of HoboTrashcan, which is probably why he has his own column. He loves pugs, hates Jimmy Fallon and has an irrational fear of robots. You can contact him at murphyslaw@hobotrashcan.com.

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