Monday Mule Pack – Cellblock 303, Twin Peaks, Samurai Jack, and the Shogun of Sorrow
May 22, 2017
A weekly look at some of the more interesting articles from around the web.
A lot of crappy things are happening in the world right now, many of which are thanks to the man-child currently occupying the White House. But I’m going to ignore those things right now and mention just a few of the good and memorable things that happened over the last few days in this edition of the Mule Pack.
First, the Nashville Predators just clinched their first trip to the Stanley Cup Finals. Although first and foremost I am a Philadelphia sports fan, and the Flyers are my first love, I do also love my adult hometown team, the Preds. I was at the Preds very first game back in 1998, when I was a college student at Belmont University. I went to many games that year. At the time I was working as an intern for the man who they now call “The Warden” of Cellblock 303, Mark Hollingsworth. Mark became a friend to me, in addition to being my boss, and was generous enough to take me to many games that year. Back then in their first year, the Preds weren’t very good at hockey, but we always had a lot of fun at the games in section 303. If you watch or attend Predators games and hear all the fans’ chants, know that they all began in section 303, and specifically they all began with Mark. There have been a few good articles about Cellblock 303 lately, such as this one from the Tennessean:
Loudest, proudest Predators fans live in Cellblock 303
Hollingsworth has been making signs and creating taunts for nearly two decades. Every game, he lugs in a large folder with at least 30 poster boards covered in black Sharpied sayings with funny comments on the game or the other team.
I remember going to my first game with Mark back in the Preds’ inaugural season and thinking “what the heck is he doing with that massive folder?” I soon found out. He was making the games fun and leading the charge. If you’re a Preds fan and have never sat in 303, you need to make it a priority to get a ticket there sometime.
The Preds weren’t the only exciting thing happening around here over the last few days. After 25+ years, we finally got the return of Twin Peaks.
How ‘Twin Peaks’ Got Lost, and Found Its Way Back
Such swings between absurdity and horror turned “Twin Peaks” into an instant hit for ABC in an otherwise milquetoast prime-time landscape. In 1990, there was little precedent for a series that probed so graphically and enigmatically into the darkest corners of the American psyche. By bringing an auteur like Mr. Lynch, a best-director Oscar nominee for “Blue Velvet”(1986), into the world of serials, the network ultimately seeded a revolution: The show used the devices of popular television to subvert it.
Twin Peaks is one of the greatest TV shows of all time. If you’ve never seen the original two seasons, you owe it to yourself to go back and watch them (available on Netflix).
And while Twin Peaks returned, another of TV’s greatest shows came to an end. This past Saturday was the final episode of Samurai Jack. The final showdown between the noble Samurai and the evil Aku, the Master of Masters, the Deliverer of Darkness, the Shogun of Sorrow. I wrote about my love for Samurai Jack before the beginning of this long overdue final season. And now that it’s finished, I can say that Season 5 not only met my expectations, but vastly exceeded them. This season cemented Jack as one of the greatest animated shows in history. The whole season was simply brilliant. Well, mostly brilliant. To be honest, I was a little disappointed with the final episode, mainly because it felt so rushed. It could have easily been expanded into two or three episodes, rather than the single 22-minute episode that aired. Still, the end of Jack’s story resulted in one of the most heart-wrenching endings to any show or story that I’ve ever seen.
