An alien space craft crashes into Graviton City, wiping out the entire population and leaving a massive crater where the city is rebuilt. Students A-ko Magami, a perky, fun-loving red-haired, sailor-suited teenage girl, and her best friend C-ko Kotobuki, a bubbly, carefree optimist, enter a new year of school as transfer students at the all-girls Graviton High School. Although A-ko possesses superhuman speed and strength, she considers herself an average teenager. She mostly worries about getting to school on time, due to her habit of chronically oversleeping her alarm clock each morning. The pair catch the unwanted attention of B-ko Daitokuji, a rich, snobbish, spoiled, and brilliant fellow student.

B-ko develops an obsession in regards to C-ko, and is determined to win her over. B-ko's attempts to win C-ko over fail, however, and remembering that she was A-ko's rival back in kindergarten, B-ko creates a series of mecha piloted by her team of female followers to attack A-ko each morning. After losing each new and more powerful mecha, she eventually creates and dons the "Akagiyama 23," a powered suit that looks like a bikini. B-ko quickly escalates the fight across the school with no restraint.

Trench-coated spy "D" has been monitoring A-ko and C-ko each morning and reporting back to a large spacecraft as it approaches Earth. The aliens' conclusion is that they have located a lost princess whom they have been looking for. The aliens finally reach Earth and begin an all-out attack against the Graviton military, which is outmatched by the alien technology. A-ko and B-ko's own fight continues across the big city even as the military and aliens do battle. C-ko is abducted in the middle of this confrontation by "D," who is revealed to be a member of the Lepton Kingdom of Alpha Cygni, an all-female race of aliens. C-ko is their princess.

Witnessing the abduction, A-ko and B-ko set aside their differences. Infiltrating the spaceship, A-ko confronts D and the ship's alcoholic Captain Napolipolita, while B-ko rescues C-ko. B-ko then reneges on the truce and opens fire on A-ko, D, and the Captain, destroying the ship's navigation system. The vessel lands, precariously perched on top of the city's Military Command Tower (actually the remains of the previously crashed ship).

A-ko happily awakens the next morning, sore from the previous day's adventures, and walks with C-ko to school in their new uniforms. The girls pass by a disheveled D and the Captain begging for donations to repair their ship. The film ends with B-ko, ready for yet another fight, smiling as A-ko appears on the horizon.

The mountainous kingdom of Paro and the coastal city-state of Itha had been at peace for over a century. They would have remained that way but for the ambitions of Paro's power-hungry king. Paro invaded Itha, despite the love between Jill, Paro's prince, and Ahanas, Itha's princess. Caught between duty and emotion, the star-crossed lovers were forced to fight a war to its bitter conclusion. Meanwhile, Isu was a simple farmer from the neutral village of Saki, but he saved Itha from being destroyed by a spy from Paro, and found himself hungering for wealth and glory that the Ithan monarchy couldn't provide. Agents from Paro made him an offer to fulfill his wishes, and he left his wife Marin behind in what would turn into a battlefield between the two kingdoms.

The music of Wyld Stallyns has created a utopian future society. In 2691, former gym teacher turned terrorist Chuck De Nomolos attacks the Bill & Ted University and steals a time-traveling phone booth, intending to alter the history of what he considers to be a foolish and frivolous society by sending evil robot replicas of Bill and Ted back to the late 20th century to prevent the originals from winning the San Dimas Battle of the Bands. Rufus attempts to stop De Nomolos but seemingly becomes lost in the circuits of time.

In the present, Wyld Stallyns are auditioning for an upcoming Battle of the Bands. Though Bill and Ted's current girlfriends and former 15th-century princesses Joanna and Elizabeth have become skilled musicians, the duo themselves are still inept. Despite this, the organizer, Ms. Wardroe, assures them a slot in the contest as the final act and informs them that victory will result in a record deal and $25,000 prize money. Following a party, the duo proposes to their fiancées right as the evil robots arrive from the future. After luring the real duo away to Vasquez Rocks and killing them by throwing them over the side of a cliff, the robots begin working to ruin the duo's eventual fame along with their relationships with their fiancées.

In the afterlife, Bill and Ted's souls are met by Death who says they may challenge him in a game for their souls, but warns that nobody has ever won. Bill and Ted escape after giving Death a "melvin". Attempts to contact the police by possessing Ted's father and a deputy fail, and their next attempt for help at a séance held by Missy ends with them being sent to Hell. Tormented by Satan and forced to face their own fears, the duo realize their only escape is to take Death's offer; he then appears and allows them to choose a game. To Death’s dismay, they select modern games like Battleship, Clue, Electric Football and Twister, beating him every time. Finally, he reluctantly concedes, placing himself at their command.

Realizing they need to locate the smartest person in the universe to help build robots to counter De Nomolos' evil robots, Death escorts the pair to Heaven. God directs the group to an alien duo named Station, who readily agrees to help them. On the eve of the Battle of the Bands, Bill and Ted are brought back to life; they race to the concert as Station constructs benevolent robot versions of themselves from supplies picked up at a hardware store. Elsewhere, the evil robots abduct the girls and tie them high above the stage at the Battle of the Bands, intending to drop them to their deaths at the finale.

Bill and Ted arrive just as the evil robots take the stage; the benevolent Good Robots easily defeat their evil counterparts and Joanna and Elizabeth are lowered by Station before their ropes break. De Nomolos appears in the time booth, preparing to kill Bill and Ted himself, and overrides the broadcasting equipment to send a live feed of their confrontation across the entire planet. Bill and Ted deduce that they can go back in time following the encounter to arrange events for De Nomolos to be captured in the present; though De Nomolos attempts to follow suit, the duo turn the tables by explaining that only the winners get to go back. After De Nomolos is "melvined" by Death and arrested by Ted's father Captain Logan, Ms. Wardroe reveals herself to be a disguised Rufus, who gives them the stage.

Acknowledging their ineptness, the duo decide to use the time booth; they immediately return to the auditorium with their families, which now include "Little Ted & Little Bill", after sixteen months of intense guitar training and a two-week honeymoon. Joined by Death, the Stations and the good robots on stage, Wyld Stallyns perform a stunning rock ballad as De Nomolos' broadcast continues, broadcasting their music worldwide and creating harmony. The victorious Wyld Stallyns encounter many perks of fame that help them to fulfill their destinies and create their utopian society with their music, eventually taking their act to Mars.

Sometime in the early 1970s, "toward the end of the War in Vietnam" as stated in the opening narration, a large castle in the Pacific Northwest is used by the US government as an insane asylum for military personnel. Among the many patients there is a former astronaut, Billy Cutshaw (Scott Wilson), who aborted a moon launch and was dragged screaming from the capsule, suffering from an apparent mental breakdown.

Colonel Hudson Kane (Stacy Keach), a former member of a United States Marine Corps special unit, arrives at the castle to take over the treatment of the patients. He meets Colonel Fell (Ed Flanders), who helps Kane acclimate himself to the eccentricities of the patients. Kane pays special attention to Cutshaw, repeatedly asking him why he did not want to go to the moon. Cutshaw refuses to answer but instead gives him a St. Christopher medal. Later, Cutshaw talks with Lieutenant Reno about Kane. Reno, who is attempting to stage the works of William Shakespeare with a cast of dogs, suspects that Kane is crazy himself. Reno asserts that psychiatrists often go crazy and have the highest suicide rate of any profession.

Kane falls asleep in his office and has a nightmare. When recounting it, he explains to Fell that they are the nightmares of his brother Vincent, a former patient and murderer who is now dead.

Cutshaw talks with Kane again, and they debate God and the idea that there is a divine plan. Kane, who believes that the existence of a God is far more likely than humanity's having emerged from "random chance", argues that deeds of pure self-sacrifice are proof of human goodness, which can only be explained by divine purpose. Cutshaw demands that Kane recall one concrete example of pure self-sacrifice from his personal experience; Kane is unable. Kane takes Cutshaw to a church service, which Cutshaw interrupts with several outbursts, and Kane momentarily hallucinates. After returning to the castle, Cutshaw thanks Kane and asks him to send him a sign as proof of an afterlife should Kane die first. Kane promises to try.

When Kane meets with a new patient, the patient calls him "Killer Kane", and Kane flashes back to Vietnam, where he has killed a young boy. The soldier urges Kane to leave, and he screams. In the present, Kane collapses, unconscious. Fell explains to the staff that Kane is Vincent "Killer" Kane and suffered a breakdown in Vietnam. When Fell, who is Kane's brother Hudson, was dispatched back to America, Kane received the dispatch by accident. Kane created a new persona for himself – a healer, like his brother. Subconsciously hoping to heal people to make up for his "murders", Kane returned to the US as his brother. Realizing Kane's mental state, the Army psychiatric staff maintained the charade and sent him to Fell's hospital under the pretext of being its commanding officer. In reality, Fell has been the commanding officer all along. Kane awakens and remembers nothing of the incident.

Cutshaw escapes the castle and visits a bar. A biker gang recognizes Cutshaw from news reports and brutalize him. A waitress (Linda Tuero, Blatty's wife at the time) contacts the hospital, and Kane arrives to retrieve Cutshaw. Kane humbles himself to the bikers to extricate Cutshaw, but the bikers are disgusted by his behavior and assault him. The gang then attempts to rape Cutshaw, causing Kane to snap and kill most of the bikers with his bare hands.

Kane and Cutshaw return to the castle, and the police arrive to arrest Kane for the murders at the bar. Colonel Fell interjects and tells the policemen that Kane must stay since he was provoked. Cutshaw visits Kane, who has wrapped himself in a blanket. Dreamy and distant, Kane disjointedly mumbles to Cutshaw about God and proof of human goodness before passing out. As Cutshaw leaves, Kane's hand emerges from his blankets and drops a bloodied knife. Outside Kane's room, Cutshaw notices a spot of blood on his shoe. Rushing back in, Cutshaw discovers that Kane committed suicide to provide proof of human goodness.

Some time later, Cutshaw has returned to uniform, and visits the now-abandoned castle. After reading a note left by Kane, which expresses hope that his sacrifice will shock Cutshaw back to sanity, Cutshaw finds a Saint Christopher's medal has somehow appeared in his car. He turns it over to confirm whether it was the one he gave to Kane and silently rejoices at what he sees.

Act I

The play starts in the town square of a small provincial French village. Two friends meet at a coffee shop: eloquent, intellectual and prideful Jean, and the simple, shy, kind-hearted drunkard Bérenger. They have met to discuss an unspecified but important matter. Rather than talk about it, Jean berates Bérenger for his tardiness and drunkenness, until a rhinoceros rampages across the square, causing a commotion. During the discussion that follows, a second rhinoceros appears and crushes a woman's cat. This generates outrage and the villagers band together to argue that the presence of the rhinoceroses should not be allowed.

Act II

Bérenger arrives late for work at the local newspaper office. Daisy, the receptionist, with whom Bérenger is in love, covers for him by sneaking him a time sheet. At the office, an argument has broken out between sensitive and logical Dudard and the violent, temperamental Botard. The latter does not believe a rhinoceros could appear in France.

Mrs. Bœuf (the wife of an employee) says that her husband is unwell and that she was chased all the way to the office by a rhinoceros. Botard scoffs at the so-called "rhinoceritis" movement and says that the local people are too intelligent to be swayed by empty rhetoric. A rhinoceros arrives and destroys the staircase that leads out of the office, trapping all the workers inside. Mrs. Bœuf recognizes the rhinoceros as her husband, transformed. Despite a warning, she joins him by jumping down the stairwell onto her husband’s back. Daisy has called the firemen. The office workers escape through a window.

Bérenger visits Jean in order to apologize for the previous day's argument. He finds Jean sick and in bed. They argue once more, this time about whether people can transform into rhinoceroses and then about the morality of such a change. Jean is at first against it, then more lenient. Jean begins to gradually transform. Finally, Jean proclaims that they have just as much of a right to life as humans, then says that "Humanism is dead, those who follow it are just old sentimentalists". After transforming fully, he chases Bérenger out of the apartment.

Act III

Bérenger is at home having a nightmare. He fears transforming like Jean, earlier. He has a sip of brandy and retires to bed. Dudard visits him and they have nearly the same exchange as with Jean earlier. Only this time, Dudard is accepting of the transformation and Bérenger resists the idea and defies that he will change.

Daisy arrives with a basket of love. Both Dudard and Bérenger desire her. Botard, Daisy reveals, has also changed. Many villagers, including firemen, have begun to transform. Dudard leaves, wanting to see firsthand. Bérenger tries to stop him. Dudard turns into a rhinoceros himself.

Bérenger laments the loss of Dudard. Daisy tells Berenger that they have no right to interfere in others’ lives. Bérenger says he will defend her. He blames both himself and Daisy for aiding, through lack of sympathy, the transformations of Jean and Papillon, respectively. Daisy allays his guilt.

The phone rings, but they hear only rhino trumpeting on the line. They turn to the radio for help, but the rhinos have taken that over, too. Bérenger professes his love for Daisy. She seems to reciprocate. They attempt to have a normal life amongst beasts. Bérenger suggests that they attempt to repopulate the human race. Daisy begins to move away from him, suggesting that Bérenger does not understand love. She has come to believe the rhinoceroses are truly passionate.

Bérenger slaps Daisy without thinking and then immediately recants. Bérenger exclaims that, "in just a few minutes we have gone through twenty-five years of married life!" They attempt to reconcile, but once more fight. As Bérenger examines himself in a mirror for any evidence of transformation, Daisy slips away to join the animals.

Now alone completely, Bérenger regrets his actions towards Daisy. In his solitude, he begins to doubt his existence. He attempts to change into a rhinoceros but cannot, then regains his determination to fight the beasts, shouting, "I'm not capitulating!"

Thirteen-year-old Harry Potter spends another unhappy summer at the Dursleys. After Aunt Marge insults Harry and his deceased parents, an angry Harry accidentally inflates her. Fearing expulsion from Hogwarts, he runs away. On a dark street, a large black dog watches Harry. Startled, Harry stumbles backward, causing his wand to emit sparks. The Knight Bus, a vehicle that rescues stranded wizards, suddenly arrives. Harry goes to the Leaky Cauldron in Diagon Alley where Cornelius Fudge, the Minister for Magic, is waiting. Harry is not expelled but is asked to remain in Diagon Alley until school starts. While there, Harry reunites with best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Mr Weasley warns Harry about the wizard Sirius Black, a convicted murderer who escaped Azkaban prison and is believed to be hunting down Harry.

Dementors, the hideous guards of Azkaban, board the Hogwarts Express train. As one approaches Harry, he relives his parents' deaths, then faints. The new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Remus Lupin wards off the creature with a Patronus charm. At Hogwarts, Professor Albus Dumbledore announces that dementors are patrolling the school grounds, hunting Black.

In Divination class, Professor Sybill Trelawney says the dog-shaped form in Harry's tea leaves is the Grim, a spectral death omen. She later predicts that Voldemort's servant will soon return. During a Quidditch match, Harry spots a black dog near the pitch, then faints and falls off his broomstick when dementors approach. Harry is uninjured but the Whomping Willow destroys his broom. Afterwards, Professor Lupin teaches Harry the Patronus charm to repel dementors.

Fred and George Weasley give Harry their Marauder's Map, a magical document created by four former Hogwarts students known only as, "Moony," "Padfoot," "Wormtail," and "Prongs." The map shows every person at Hogwarts and seven secret tunnels. Harry, who lacks guardian permission for school outings, sneaks into Hogsmeade. He overhears a conversation there that Sirius Black betrayed the Potters to Voldemort and killed their friend Peter Pettigrew. Also, Black is Harry's godfather. Black later breaks into Hogwarts twice, though Harry is unharmed.

Meanwhile, Ron accuses Hermione's cat, Crookshanks, of killing his missing pet rat Scabbers, straining their friendship. When Harry receives an expensive Firebolt broomstick as an anonymous gift, Hermione, fearing Black sent it, gets it confiscated for testing. Ron and Harry are furious at Hermione, who is already stressed after having taken too many classes. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Magic has ordered Hagrid's hippogriff Buckbeak to be executed for injuring Draco Malfoy, who deliberately provoked the animal. Harry, Ron, and Hermione visit Hagrid prior to Buckbeak's execution and seemingly hear Buckbeak's execution as they exit Hagrid's hut. While there, Hermione discovers Scabbers. Scabbers escapes Ron, who gives chase.

The black dog appears and drags Ron into a tunnel under the Whomping Willow. Harry and Hermione pursue them into the haunted Shrieking Shack. The dog reveals himself to be Sirius Black, an unregistered animagus. Lupin unexpectedly enters. He saw Pettigrew's name on the Marauder's Map and realised that he, not Black, betrayed the Potters. Hermione claims Lupin is a werewolf, which he admits. As students, Lupin (Moony), Black (Padfoot), Pettigrew (Wormtail), and Harry's father, James Potter (Prongs), created the Marauder's Map. The latter three secretly became Animagi to tame Lupin during his werewolf transformations. Scabbers is Pettigrew in his rat form. He is Voldemort's servant and faked his death, framing Black. Black escaped Azkaban after discovering Pettigrew was alive.

Severus Snape arrives to apprehend Black. His deeply-rooted grudge against Black and James Potter for bullying him in school has biased him against them. Harry, Ron, and Hermione simultaneously stun Snape unconscious. Lupin and Black are about to execute Pettigrew, but Harry instead wants him sent to Azkaban. As the full moon rises, Lupin transforms into a werewolf. He has forgotten his Wolfsbane potion, which now allows a werewolf to remain sane during transformations. Black, in his dog form, fights him off. Pettigrew escapes as dementors descend upon Harry, Hermione, and Black. A distant figure casts a powerful Patronus, scattering the dementors.

Black is captured and dementors are getting readied to suck out the captured Black's soul. Dumbledore instructs Harry and Hermione to save Black and Buckbeak by going back in time with Hermione's Time-Turner, a Ministry device she has been using to attend multiple classes simultaneously. They rescue Buckbeak and see dementors attacking their earlier selves. Harry casts a stag-shaped Patronus, scattering the dementors. Harry and Hermione ride Buckbeak to the tower and release Black, who escapes on Buckbeak.

Snape, enraged over Black's escape, intentionally lets slip that Lupin is a werewolf, forcing his resignation. Black writes Harry saying he sent the Firebolt and, as his legal guardian, gives Harry permission for school excursions.

In one version of the story, Bluebeard is a wealthy and powerful nobleman who has been married several times to beautiful women who have all mysteriously vanished. When Bluebeard visits his neighbor and asks to marry one of his daughters, the girls are terrified. After hosting a wonderful banquet, the youngest daughter decides to be his wife and she goes to live with him in his rich and luxurious palace in the countryside, away from her family.

Bluebeard announces that he must leave for the country and gives the keys of the château to his wife. She is able to open any door in the house with them, each of which contain some of his riches, except for an underground chamber that he strictly forbids her to enter lest she suffer his wrath. He then goes away and leaves the house and the keys in her hands. She invites her sister, Anne, and her friends and cousins over for a party. However, she is eventually overcome with the desire to see what the forbidden room holds, and she sneaks away from the party and ventures into the room.

She immediately discovers the room is flooded with blood and the murdered corpses of Bluebeard's former wives hanging on hooks from the walls. Horrified, she drops the key in the blood and flees the room. She tries to wash the blood from the key, but the key is magical and the blood cannot be removed. Bluebeard unexpectedly returns and finds the bloody key. In a blind rage, he threatens to kill his wife on the spot, but she asks for one last prayer with her sister Anne. Then, as Bluebeard is about to deliver the fatal blow, Anne and the wife's brothers arrive and kill Bluebeard. The wife inherits his fortune and castle, and has the dead wives buried. She uses the fortune to have her other siblings married then remarries herself, finally moving on from her horrible experience with Bluebeard.

Following the death of her parents, the book's heroine, Flora Poste, finds she is possessed "of every art and grace save that of earning her own living". She decides to take advantage of the fact that "no limits are set, either by society or one's own conscience, to the amount one may impose on one's relatives", and settles on visiting her distant relatives at the isolated Cold Comfort Farm in the fictional village of Howling in Sussex. The inhabitants of the farm – Aunt Ada Doom, the Starkadders, and their extended family and workers – feel obliged to take her in to atone for an unspecified wrong once done to her father.

As is typical in a certain genre of romantic 19th-century and early 20th-century literature, each of the farm's inhabitants has some long-festering emotional problem caused by ignorance, hatred, or fear, and the farm is badly run. Flora, being a level-headed, urban woman in the dandy tradition, determines that she must apply modern common sense to their problems and help them adapt to the 20th century – bringing metropolitan values into the sticks.

The setting is a steampunk Victorian era England. A time traveller on a reconnaissance mission from the distant future became stranded in the England of the late 1800s, and his technology came into the hands of the Royal Society, led by Baron Fortesque (based upon Charles Babbage), a grand inventor. Fortesque then retro engineered many of the futuristic contraptions, creating an entirely different, alternate timeline.

Baron Fortesque then succeeded in his greatest creation yet: the Chaos Engine, which was able to experiment with matter and the very nature of space and time. Unfortunately for the rest of the proud kingdom, the Engine then proceeded to become sentient, captured and assimilated its creator, and began to change the countryside for the worse. Vile monsters and destructive automata appeared everywhere, and even prehistoric beasts were resurrected. Telegram wires connecting the British Isles to the European mainland are cut, and any ship attempting to enter a British port is attacked. The British Royal Family, members of Parliament and a large number of refugees manage to escape across the sea, bringing with them many tales of horror. The British Empire is left in tatters, and the world in economic and political chaos. That lures a number of mercenaries on a potentially-rewarding quest to infiltrate the quarantined Britain, find the root of the problem, and swiftly bring a full stop to it.

At the end of the cellars in the hall of machines, the player characters face the Chaos Engine itself in a last battle. Upon its destruction, the narrator of the game is revealed to be the baron himself, trapped within the machine and studded with implants.

The introductory sequence is displayed in text on the screen on the floppy disk Amiga versions, but a slightly modified version is narrated with a voiceover on the Amiga CD32 version, together with some scene-setting animations.

''Crest of the Stars'' chronicles how Jinto met Lafiel and the events that followed before the war.

When Jinto was a young boy, his world is invaded by the Abh empire. His father who was then president of the Hyde Star System, surrendered the system and earned for himself and his family a nobility within Abh society. Young Jinto is sent off to school in planet Delktou to learn the ways of Abh nobility and the story of Crest of the Stars picks up as he meets the young Abh princess, Lafiel who as a pilot trainee has been assigned to escort him to the patrol ship Gothlauth, a.k.a. Gosroth). Soon, they find themselves unready participants in the incident that would ignite the war between the Abh Empire and the Four Nations Alliance of Humankind — an anti-Abh alliance of the democratic nations of the United Mankind, the Federation of Hania, the Republic of Greater Alcont, and the People's Sovereign Union of Planets.

The film's opening credits end with the words "dedicated to the memory of", with an image of Second World War British food and clothing ration coupons.

In post-Second World War London, an unexploded bomb detonates in Miramont Gardens, Pimlico. The explosion reveals a long-buried cellar containing artwork, coins, jewellery and an ancient manuscript. The document is authenticated by the historian Professor Hatton-Jones as a royal charter of Edward IV that ceded a house and its estates to Charles VII, the last Duke of Burgundy, when he sought refuge there after being presumed dead at the 1477 Battle of Nancy. As the charter had never been revoked, an area of Pimlico is declared to still be a legal part of Burgundy.

As the British government has no legal jurisdiction, it requires the local residents to form a representative committee according to the laws of the long-defunct dukedom before negotiating with them. Ancient Burgundian law requires that the duke himself appoint a council. Sébastien de Charolais arrives and presents his claim to the title, which is verified by Professor Hatton-Jones. He forms the governing body, which includes Spiller, the local policeman; Mr. Wix, the manager of the bank branch; and Arthur Pemberton, a neighbourhood shopkeeper, who is appointed as Burgundy's prime minister. The council begin discussions with the government, particularly about the Burgundian treasure.

After it dawns on people that Burgundy is not subject to post-war rationing or other bureaucratic restrictions, the district is quickly flooded with black marketeers and shoppers. Spiller is unable to handle the rising tide of problems by himself. In response, the British authorities surround the Burgundian territory with barbed wire. The residents retaliate against what they see as heavy-handed bureaucratic action; they stop a London Underground train as it passes through Burgundy, and ask to see passports of all passengers: those without documents are prevented from proceeding.

The British government retaliates by breaking off negotiations and isolating Burgundy. The residents are invited to "emigrate" to England, but few leave. Power, water and deliveries of food are all cut off at the border by the British. Late one night, the Burgundians covertly connect a hose to a nearby British water main and fill a bomb crater, solving the water problem, but this floods the food store. Unable to overcome this new problem, the Burgundians prepare to give up. Sympathetic Londoners begin to throw food parcels across the barrier, and soon others join in; the Burgundians have an ample supply, and decide to stay. A helicopter pumps milk through a hose and pigs are parachuted into the area.

Meanwhile, the British government comes under public pressure to resolve the situation. It becomes clear to the British diplomats assigned to find a solution that defeating the Burgundians through starvation is both difficult and unpopular with the British people, so they negotiate. The sticking point turns out to be the disposition of the unearthed treasure. Wix, now the Burgundian chancellor of the exchequer, suggests a Burgundian loan of the treasure to Britain. With the final piece of the deadlock eliminated, Burgundy reunites with Britain, which also sees the return of rationing for food and clothing to the area. The celebratory outdoor banquet is interrupted by heavy rain.

The play is written in five acts. The plot of the play centres on a rich widow, Christian Custance, who is betrothed to Gawyn Goodluck, a merchant. Ralph Roister Doister is encouraged throughout by a con-man trickster figure (Matthew Merrygreeke) to woo Christian Custance, but his pompous attempts do not succeed. Ralph then tries with his friends and servants (at Merrygreek's behest) to break in and take Christian Custance by force, but they are defeated by her maids and run away. The merchant Gawyn arrives shortly after and the play concludes happily with reconciliation, a prayer and a song.

On July 4, 1996, in Southport, North Carolina, Julie James and her friends Ray Bronson, Helen Shivers, and Barry Cox drive to the beach. While driving along a coastal byway, they accidentally hit a pedestrian. Julie's friend Max Neurick passes by them on the road. Julie reassures Max of their well-being, and he leaves. The group decides to dump the body in the water, but the pedestrian wakes up and attacks Helen. She struggles and he falls into the water. The group flees the docks and swears to never discuss what happened.

A year later in 1997, Julie returns home from college for the summer. The friends have gone their separate ways. Julie receives a letter with no return address, stating, "I know what you did last summer!" Julie tracks down Helen, and they take the note to Barry, who suspects Max. They confront Max on the docks, and Barry threatens him with a hook. Julie meets Ray, who now works as a fisherman. Later, Max is killed by a figure in a rain slicker wielding a hook. Later that night, Barry discovers a picture of his car in his gym locker saying, "I KNOW" on the back of it. He is then ambushed by the same assailant stealing and driving his car.

Julie researches newspaper articles, believing that the man they ran over was a local named David Egan. Helen and Julie meet with David's sister Missy at her home. Missy explains that their family was devastated by David's death and that a friend of his named Billy Blue visited her to pay his respects. That night, the killer sneaks into Helen's house, cuts off her hair while she sleeps and writes "SOON" in lipstick on her mirror.

The following morning, Julie finds Max's corpse wearing Barry's stolen jacket and covered in crabs in the trunk of her car. When she calls the others, the body and the crabs are missing. Julie, Helen and Barry confront Ray about the recent events. The latter claims to also have received a threatening letter. Julie goes back to visit Missy, while Barry and Helen participate in the 4th of July parade. Missy reveals David allegedly committed suicide out of guilt for the death of his girlfriend, Susie Willis, in a car accident and shows David's suicide note to Julie. As the writing matches that of the note she received, Julie realizes it was not a suicide note, but a death threat.

At the Croaker Beauty Pageant, Helen witnesses Barry being murdered on the balcony. She rushes upstairs with a police officer, but finds no sign of the killer or Barry. The police officer is escorting Helen home when the killer lures him into an alley and murders him. Helen runs to her family's store, where her sister Elsa is closing for the night. The killer enters the store and murders Elsa. Helen is chased upstairs and escapes through a window, falling to an alleyway. She runs toward the street, but the killer stops her and slashes her to death, her screams unheard by the ongoing parade.

Julie finds an article mentioning Susie's father, Ben Willis, and realizes Ben was the man that they ran over, moments after he killed David to avenge his daughter. She goes to the docks to tell Ray, but notices Ray's boat is called ''Billy Blue'' and flees from him. A fisherman appears and knocks Ray unconscious, inviting Julie to hide on his boat. On the boat, she finds photos and articles about her and her friends, and pictures of Susie. The boat leaves the docks, and the fisherman is revealed to be Ben Willis. He chases Julie below deck, where she uncovers the bodies of his victims, including Helen, and Barry, in the boat's icebox. Ray regains consciousness and steals a motorboat to rescue Julie. He ultimately uses the rigging to sever Ben's hand and send him overboard. When Julie and Ray are questioned by the police, they deny knowing why Ben attempted to kill them, but are relieved not to have actually killed anyone, and reconcile.

A year later in 1998, Julie is in college in Boston. As she enters the shower, she notices the words "I still know" written in the steam on the shower door. Moments later, a dark figure crashes through it as Julie screams.

Successful singer-composer C.K. Dexter-Haven (the grandson of a Newport "robber baron") is divorced from wealthy Newport, Rhode Island socialite Tracy Samantha Lord. Dexter, who lives next door to the Lord estate, remains in love with her but she is now engaged to socially prominent and snobbish George Kittredge. As Tracy prepares for her upcoming wedding, Dexter is busily organizing elements of the Newport Jazz Festival.

Meanwhile, ''Spy'', a fictional tabloid newspaper, possesses embarrassing information about Tracy's errant father, Seth Lord, and has coerced the family into allowing reporter Mike Connor and photographer Liz Imbrie to cover the nuptials. Tracy, resenting their forced presence, begins an elaborate charade, including introducing her Uncle Willy as her father, while Seth is passed off as "wicked" Uncle Willy.

As a wedding gift, Dexter gives Tracy a scale model of their former sailboat, "True Love," which evokes her memories about their happy honeymoon aboard it. Tracy gradually realizes George knows little about her true self and has instead created an idealized image of her. When Tracy drives Mike around Newport, he notices some neglected mansions; Tracy explains many owners have been forced to board up or sell off their properties due to high taxes. Her Uncle Willy is selling his own estate. The two form a mutual attraction, leaving Tracy to choose from three very different men during a course of self-discovery. During the wedding-eve party at Uncle Willy's house, George catches a tipsy Tracy kissing Dexter on the patio. George leaves Tracy in an empty room to sober up but, still tipsy, she climbs out the window and runs into Mike. George finds her again after she and Mike have had a swim in the Lords' pool. The next day, Tracy has hazy memories of the previous night. She initially intends to go through with the wedding, then prods George into agreeing to call it off. While informing the waiting guests the wedding is canceled, Dexter suddenly proposes that he be the groom. Knowing she loves him, Tracy accepts. Liz and Mike, who now realize they love each other, tell Tracy and Dexter that they are not writing a story about the wedding or other events to protect the family's privacy.

In April 1946, Alicia Huberman, the American daughter of a convicted Nazi spy, is recruited by government agent T. R. Devlin to infiltrate an organization of Nazis who have escaped to Brazil after World War II. When Alicia refuses to help the authorities, Devlin plays recordings of her fighting with her father and insisting that she loves America.

Devlin and Alicia meet at the track, with Alexander watching from the grandstand. While awaiting the details of her assignment in Rio de Janeiro, Alicia and Devlin fall in love, though his feelings are complicated by his knowledge of her promiscuous past. When Devlin gets instructions to persuade her to seduce Alex Sebastian, one of her father's friends and a leading member of the Farben executives, Devlin fails to convince his superiors that Alicia is not fit for the job. Devlin is also informed that Sebastian once was in love with Alicia. Devlin puts up a stoic front when he informs Alicia about the mission. Alicia concludes that he was merely pretending to love her as part of his job.

Devlin contrives to have Alicia meet Sebastian at a riding club. He recognizes her and invites her to dinner where he says that he always knew they would be reunited. Sebastian quickly invites Alicia to dinner the following night at his home, where he will host a few business acquaintances. Devlin and Captain Paul Prescott of the US Secret Service tell Alicia to memorize the names and nationalities of everyone there. At dinner, Alicia notices that a guest becomes agitated at the sight of a certain wine bottle, and is ushered quickly from the room. When the gentlemen are alone at the end of the dinner, this guest apologizes and tries to go home, but another insists on driving him, implying that he will kill him.

Soon Alicia reports to Devlin, "You can add Sebastian's name to my list of playmates." When Sebastian proposes, Alicia informs Devlin; he coldly tells her to do whatever she wants. Deeply disappointed, she marries Sebastian.

. After she returns from her honeymoon, Alicia is able to tell Devlin that the key ring her husband gave her lacks the key to the wine cellar. That, and the bottle episode at the dinner, lead Devlin to urge Alicia to hold a grand party so he can investigate. Alicia secretly steals the key from Sebastian's ring, and Devlin and Alicia search the cellar. Devlin accidentally breaks a bottle; inside is black sand, later proven to be uranium ore. Devlin takes a sample, cleans up, and locks the door as Sebastian comes down for more champagne. Alicia and Devlin kiss to cover their tracks. Devlin makes an exit. Sebastian realizes that the cellar key is missing – yet overnight it is returned to his key ring. When he returns to the cellar, he finds the glass and sand from the broken bottle.

Now Sebastian has a problem: he must silence Alicia, but cannot expose her without revealing his own blunder to the rest of the Nazi emigres. When Sebastian discusses the situation with his mother, she suggests that Alicia "die slowly" by poisoning. They poison her coffee and she quickly falls ill. During a visit from Sebastian's friend Dr. Anderson, Alicia realizes both where the uranium has been mined and what is causing her sickness. Alicia collapses and is taken to her room, where the telephone has been removed and she is too weak to leave.

Devlin becomes alarmed when Alicia fails to appear at their rendezvous for five days and sneaks into Alicia's room, where she tells him that Sebastian and his mother poisoned her. After confessing his love for her, Devlin carries her out of the mansion in full view of Sebastian's co-conspirators. Sebastian and his mother go along with Devlin's story that Alicia must go to the hospital. Outside, Sebastian begs to go with them, but Devlin and Alicia drive away, leaving Sebastian behind to meet his fate.

In it, the crew of the brand-new USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-E) travel back in time to prevent the evil, cybernetic Borg drones from assimilating Earth. When they arrive in the mid-twenty first century, however, they find that they need to make sure Earth makes its first contact with aliens, in order to preserve their future.

The book is in three sections.

Part 1

The novel begins with some insight into the life of the Brodie household, where James Brodie seems to have everyone under his thumb. The main event that triggers the events in the novel is Mary Brodie's relationship with her first love, Dennis. Early in the story, Mary, who has occasionally met Dennis at the library, is invited by him to go to the fair in the town. She sneaks out without her family's knowledge and not only goes to the fair, but later on that night kisses and eventually makes love to Dennis, which we later learn, results in pregnancy.

This event of her unwanted pregnancy is the main plot in the first third of the novel, titled "Section One". We realise that Mary is pregnant, and when she is six months pregnant she makes a plan with Dennis to elope. Even though Mary was only seventeen, there would have been no legal problem with her marriage since the English law which, until 1970, generally required people under twenty-one to have parental consent to marry, did not apply in Scotland. But three days before Dennis is due to whisk Mary away, there is a massive storm, and she begins to go into labour. Mrs. Brodie stumbles into Mary's room and begins to scream at the fact that her daughter is with child, and calls James himself to sort it out. After being kicked in the stomach repeatedly by her father and thrown out on her face into the pouring rain (whilst in labour), she tries to reach safety. Mary nearly drowns in a river before finding a barn where she gives birth to her premature child, which dies. Dennis, who was, travelling on a train to rescue Mary, is killed when the train derails and plunges into the River Tay below, a retelling of the actual Tay Bridge disaster of 1879.
Fallen Tay Bridge from the north

Part 2

In the second part of the book, James Brodie's business as a hatter is destroyed. A rival company moves next door and attracts all his customers. Part of this is due to Brodie's pride, as the customers are driven away by his delusions of superiority. As his profits decrease, so does the weekly salary, so Mamma is left to deal with making the most of what little they have left for the family. Her illness, cancer of the womb, and the chronic stress of living with James Brodie hasten her death. After her death, Brodie's mistress, Nancy, moves in. Later she goes off abroad with Brodie's son Matt, and Brodie is left with only his younger daughter, Nessie, and his aged mother, Grandma Brodie.

Part 3

In the third part of the book, Brodie forces Nessie to study hard so as to win the "Latta", a valuable bursarship. He wants this not so much to provide a good future for his daughter, as to show that she is better than his rival's son, who is also entered for it. Under his threats and the dreadful fear of failure, she labours on with it, making herself mentally and physically ill. Nessie secretly writes to Mary asking her to come back, so she will have her company and comfort. Under pretext of coming to help with housework, Mary writes to her father, who initially refuses her return. After discovering that Nancy has deserted him, he writes again permitting Mary to come back, so she does.

Nessie obtains notice of the Latta result before her father sees it. Finding that her rival has won it and fearing her father, she sends Mary out to the chemist on the pretext of getting some medicine, then dresses up and hangs herself.

The story concludes with Dr. Renwick, who has been seeing Mary, taking her away with him to marry her.

Erik, a young Viking, discovers that he has no taste for rape and pillage, and suffers guilt over the death of an innocent woman, Helga.

Erik learns from the wise woman Freya that Fenrir the wolf has swallowed the sun, plunging the world into the age of Ragnarök. Erik resolves to travel to Asgard to petition the gods to end Ragnarök. Freya informs him that to do so he must seek the Horn Resounding in the land of Hy-Brasil. The first note blown upon the Horn will take Erik and his crew to Asgard, the second will awaken the gods, and the third will bring the crew home. Erik sets out with a crew of all ages and professions from his village, including Harald, a Christian missionary who does not believe the myths.

Keitel Blacksmith is persuaded by his apprentice Loki into secretly opposing Erik's plan, and joins Erik's crew in order to sabotage Erik's plans. Loki sneaks out to inform Halfdan the Black, a local warlord afraid that peace will mean the end of his reign. Halfdan's crew sets sail in pursuit of Erik.

Arriving at Hy-Brasil, Erik and crew are astonished to find it a sunlit land where the people, who dress like ancient Greeks, are exceedingly friendly and hospitable (if musically untalented). Erik promptly falls in love with Princess Aud, daughter of King Arnulf. During one of their romantic encounters, Erik hides from Arnulf using Aud's magic cloak of invisibility.

Aud has warned the Vikings that should blood ever be shed upon Hy-Brasil, the entire island would sink beneath the waves. Erik and his crew defend Hy-Brasil against Halfdan's ship. Loki is found aboard the ship, and pretends to have sneaked aboard to sabotage it. In gratitude for Erik's having saved Hy-Brasil, King Arnulf presents him with the Horn Resounding, which is much larger than Erik had imagined. Loki steals the Horn's mouthpiece in the night, without which it cannot be sounded, and persuades Keitel to throw it in the sea. Snorri, one of Erik's men, catches them in the act and Loki kills him. A single drop of the man's blood falls from Loki's dagger and triggers an earthquake that causes the island to sink.

Erik's crew prepare to escape in their ship with Aud and the Horn safely aboard. Arnulf refuses to join them, denying that the island is sinking, up to the very moment he and the other islanders are swallowed by the waves. Aud, who witnessed Snorri's murder and was able to recover the mouthpiece, sounds the first note on the Horn. The ship is propelled over the edge of the flat Earth and into space, where it comes to rest upon the plane of Asgard. Erik sounds the second note to awaken the gods, and he and his crew climb a path made of stars to approach the great Hall of Valhalla.

Erik and the crew encounter old friends and enemies slain in battle. The gods are revealed to be petulant children who have no interest in answering mortal prayers. Harald the missionary sees neither hall, nor ghosts or gods, and passes intangibly through its walls due to his Christianity. Odin persuades Fenrir to spit out the sun, but tells Erik that the end of Ragnarök will not bring peace to the world. Odin then informs Erik that he and his crew cannot return home. Nor may they remain in Valhalla, since they were not slain in battle; instead they are to be cast into the fiery Pit of Hel. Some of the crew who died earlier in the adventure attempt to save them, but even as they are drawn into the Pit, they hear the Horn Resounding's third note, blown by Harald, who had returned to the ship, which flings them clear.

Erik's crew, including the formerly dead men, immediately find themselves back in their home village. They are dismayed to find that Halfdan and his soldiers have arrived before them and are holding the villagers captive. Halfdan and his men are suddenly crushed to death by Erik's ship as it falls out of the sky, with Harald aboard. As the villagers celebrate Erik's return and Halfdan's defeat, the sun rises, ending the age of Ragnarök.

Launch of a V-2 rocket '''Part 1: "Beyond the Zero"''': The opening pages of the novel follow Pirate Prentice, an employee of the Special Operations Executive (S.O.E.), first in his dreams, and later around the house in wartime London that he shares with several others in the S.O.E. He soon is driven to the site of a V-2 rocket strike. Pirate's associate Teddy Bloat photographs a map depicting the sexual encounters of U.S. Army Lt. Tyrone Slothrop, an employee of a fictional technical intelligence unit, ACHTUNG. Slothrop and his background are detailed through discussions by some of his co-workers and through references to his family's history, reaching back to early colonial times, in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts. (There are loose parallels to Pynchon's own family history.) Slothrop's (fictional) home town of Mingeborough is mentioned for the first time (although the town and a young boy named Hogan Slothrop had previously been featured in Pynchon's short story, "The Secret Integration"). That family setting will be mentioned several times much later in the novel, following the family's decline over time within a Puritan legacy of sterility and death.

Employees of a fictional top secret psychological warfare agency called PISCES, headquartered at a former insane asylum known as "The White Visitation", investigate Slothrop's map of his presumed sexual encounters in London, finding that each location appears to precede a V-2 rocket strike in the same place by several days. This coincidence intrigues Pavlovian behavioral psychologist Edward W. Pointsman, who thinks there may be a direct causal relationship between Slothrop's erections and the missile strikes, and his associate, statistician Roger Mexico, who suggests that the relationship is only a random coincidence of probabilities, as seen in Poisson distributions, leading to further reflections in this section and later on topics as broad as the occult, Determinism, the reverse flow of time, and the sexuality of the rocket itself. Pointsman is all the more intrigued to find that as a baby, Slothrop had been subjected to behavioral experiments conducted by a Dr. Laszlo Jamf that involved the stimulation of his penis to erections.

Many characters not significant until later are introduced in "Beyond the Zero", including one of Dr. Jamf's former students, Franz Pökler, a German engineer who has worked on early German experiments in rocketry and later on the V-2 rocket, and Pökler's wife Leni, a former student radical. Others who appear significant in Part One, such as Pointsman's associate Thomas Gwenhidwy and Roger Mexico's girlfriend Jessica Swanlake, vanish from the narrative and don't re-appear until much later. Indeed, most of the 400 named characters make only single appearances, serving merely to demonstrate the sheer scope of Pynchon's universe. Character names sometimes consist of outrageous puns (such as "Joaquin Stick") but may also relate to particular traits of that character or to themes within the novel. Some names of historical characters also have thematic relevance. Under the influence of sodium amytal administered through Pointsman's maneuvers, Slothrop has a hallucinatory flashback to a scene in Boston's Roxbury district. References here include "Red, the Negro shoeshine boy," who will much later be known as the Black Power leader Malcolm X, and jazz saxophonist Charlie "Yardbird" Parker, both of whom represent a threat to white racism. Another fictional character, Katje Borgesius, is contacted in this section by Pirate in order to bring her to safety from the Continent to England. Katje had been a Dutch double agent who infiltrated a V-2 rocket-launching battery commanded by a sadistic SS officer named Captain Blicero. Blicero had kept Katje and a young soldier named Gottfried as sex slaves in a perverse enactment of the Hansel and Gretel story. However, Blicero (a Teutonic name connoting Death) is also revealed to be the code name of a former Lieutenant Weissman ("White Man") who earlier appeared in Pynchon's first novel, ''V.'' He has had an ongoing but now-severed relationship with Enzian, a Herero he had brought to Germany from German South West Africa (now Namibia), and who is the leader of a group of Herero rocket technicians known as the Schwarzkommando, who had been helping Blicero in his own project to create and fire a rocket. Katje, on the other hand, will come under Pointsman's control in England, while, as the Christmas season ends, Roger Mexico worries about losing Jessica Swanlake to her other, bureaucratic and sedate, boyfriend, Jeremy (also referred to as "Beaver" because of his beard).

'''Part Two: "Une Perm au Casino Hermann Goering"''': Slothrop is sent away by his superiors under mysterious circumstances to a casino on the recently liberated French Riviera, in which almost the entirety of Part Two takes place. He is in fact being monitored by associates of Pointsman, including Katje and a linguist named Sir Stephen Dodson-Truck. One of the more bizarre Pavlovian episodes involves the conditioning of octopus Grigori to attack Katje. Early in part two, the octopus attacks Katje on the beach in France, and Slothrop is "conveniently" at hand to rescue her. Katje and Slothrop eventually have sex. At the Casino, he learns of a rocket with the irregular serial number 00000 (Slothrop comments that the numbering system doesn't allow for four zeroes in one serial, let alone five), which features a mysterious component called the S-Gerät (short for Schwarzgerät, 'black device'), made out of the hitherto unknown plastic Imipolex G. It is hinted that Slothrop's prescience of rocket hits is due to being conditioned as an infant by the creator of Imipolex G, Laszlo Jamf. Later, the reality of this story is called into question, as is the very existence of Slothrop's original sexual exploits.

Meanwhile, at The White Visitation, Pointsman brings the unit and its mission under his control. The unit's nominal commander, Brigadier General Ernest Pudding, who is haunted by his traumatic memories of World War I, is brought to (literal) submission through sado-masochistic rituals with Katje, engineered by Pointsman.

Slothrop becomes increasingly paranoid, as old associates disappear. He begins to suspect he is being monitored and adopts the persona (one of many) of "Ian Scuffling," a British war correspondent. He escapes from the casino into "The Zone", the coalescing post-war wasteland of Europe, first to Nice in France and then to Switzerland, searching for the 00000 and S-Gerät. In the closing of Part Two, Katje is revealed to be safe in England, enjoying a day at the beach with Roger Mexico and Jessica, as well as Pointsman, who is in charge of Slothrop's furtive supervision. While unable to contact Slothrop (or prohibited from contacting him), Katje continues to follow his actions through Pointsman, who is showing greater signs of mental instability.

'''Part Three, "In The Zone"''': Slothrop's quest continues for some time as he meets or is chased by other characters, compared at various times to such characters as Orpheus and Wagner's Tannhauser. He learns more about his own past, Dr. Jamf's experiments on him, and his father's apparent complicity. In this section, Slothrop comes to doubt that his search for the S-Gerat is a Grail quest and finds his paranoia ("the fear that everything is connected") succumbing to "anti-paranoia" ("the fear that nothing is connected"). On the way he meets Geli Tripping, a self-described witch in love with a Russian colonel, Vaslav Tchitcherine, who had previously worked for the Soviet state bringing the New Turkic Alphabet to central Asia, especially Khirghizstan, where he had sought a mystical experience referred to as the "Khirghiz Light". Slothrop and Geli have a near-mystical experience at the summit of the Brocken, the German mountain that was the setting for Walpurgisnacht in Goethe's ''Faust''. Slothrop's travels bring him to Nordhausen, in Germany, and the Mittelwerk, where V-2 rockets were assembled using slave labor from the Dora concentration camp. Confronted by the racist American Major Duane Marvy, he escapes in a slapstick chase.

Slothrop meets members of the Schwarzkommando, a fictional cadre of African rocket technicians, descended from survivors of the Herero genocide of 1904 who were brought to Europe by German colonials. An extensive subplot details a schism within the Schwarzkommando; one faction is bent on a program of racial suicide, while the other finds mystical, semi-religious meaning in the V-2 rocket. Another long subplot details Tchitcherine's past and his quest to hunt and kill Enzian, leader of the latter group of Schwarzkommando and, it turns out, Tchitcherine's half-brother.

With papers identifying him as former German film star Max Schlepzig in Berlin, Slothrop adopts an operatic Viking costume with the horns removed from the helmet, making it look like a rocket nose-cone and is given the name "Rocketman". One of the people he meets is the American sailor Pig Bodine (who or whose ancestors appear in most of Pynchon's other works). Bodine commissions Slothrop to retrieve a large stash of hashish from the centre of the Potsdam Conference. In the nearby abandoned movie studio that was once the center of the German film industry, Slothrop meets Margherita (Greta) Erdmann, a former silent film actress from the era of German Expressionist film, now in physical and mental decline. Slothrop also comes to meet Gerhardt von Göll, a megalomaniac German director who had previously been seen in Britain, directing a fake propaganda film featuring Black soldiers in Germany. Von Göll is now involved in black market activities. In the longest episode of the book, we learn more of the history of Franz Pökler, who fathered a child, Ilse, with his wife Leni after being aroused by Greta's image in an erotic scene in ''Alpdrücken'', von Göll's "masterpiece". Greta had also become pregnant in the filming of that scene, producing a daughter of her own, Bianca. While working on the V-2 project, Pökler had been coerced into working on the S-Gerät by Blicero, who was holding Ilse in a concentration camp, allowing her to visit Pökler only once a year. As Ilse ages over several years, however, Pökler becomes increasingly paranoid that she is really a series of impostors sent each year to mollify him. Pökler's work for Blicero is tied to the history of organic chemistry, with its own outcomes in the production of dyes and plastics and the international cartels that would come to control them, such as I.G. Farben, and a culture of death-in-life.

Slothrop is led by Margherita to northern Germany and onto the ''Anubis'', a private yacht (named for the Egyptian god of the dead) filled with uninhibited European aristocrats. Here, Slothrop has sex with Margherita's teenage daughter, Bianca. Margherita, along with her partner, Thanatz, are revealed to know more about the 00000, S-Gerät, and Imipolex G than they let on. Ensign Morituri, a Japanese liaison officer, tells Slothrop about how Margherita and Thanatz had brought their traveling sado-masochistic act to Captain Blicero's rocket battery, from which Rocket 00000 had apparently been fired in the Spring of 1945, towards the end of the war. Margherita spent many days in a mysterious and ambiguously described factory, where she was clothed in an outfit made from the "erotic" plastic Imipolex G. Slothrop falls overboard and is rescued by black marketeers heading towards Peenemünde, the test site for the V-2 rocket, now occupied by Soviet forces.

Slothrop later returns to the ''Anubis'' to find Bianca dead, possibly hastening his already hinted-at decline. He continues his pilgrimage through northern Germany, having changed clothing with Tchitcherine, arriving at Lüneberg Heath and the town of Cuxhaven, also sites of tests and launches by Allied forces of captured V-2 rockets. On the way, he again meets Major Marvy, who fails to recognize him. At a village festival, he is invited by children to don the costume of a pre-Christian Pig Hero, "Plechazunga." Meeting Pökler at the abandoned amusement park where Ilse used to meet her father, Slothrop finds out more about his childhood and the 00000. It becomes steadily apparent that Slothrop is connected to Laszlo Jamf through Lyle Bland, a Slothrop family friend who apparently played a role in funding Jamf's experiments on the infant Slothrop. Bland, in turn, is connected to many threads, including pinball machines and the Masons, that implicate him as part of an international conspiracy of industrial cartels.

Slothrop is introduced to and sleeps with Solange, a prostitute who is actually Leni Pökler, recently freed from a concentration camp herself. In the same building, Major Marvy has found Slothrop's pig costume and dons it, only to be caught, sedated, and castrated by agents working for Pointsman, who believe that Slothrop is still in the suit. Major political and social realignments have been taking place throughout The Zone. Towards the end of this section, several characters not seen since early in the novel make a return, including Pointsman, who is now in official disgrace, as bureaucratic operatives consider how to deal with him. Other characters, including Pirate Prentice and Katje Borgesius, begin to coalesce as a group styling itself as the "Counterforce" in resistance to the emerging post-war industrial-military complex.

'''Part Four: The Counterforce:''' Elements in this section become increasingly fantastic and sometimes self-referential, the narrator at one point saying, "You will want cause and effect. All right" (page 663 in the Viking edition) before explaining how certain events in Part 3 tie in. Despite the efforts of some to save him, Slothrop is repeatedly sidetracked until his persona fragments totally, more than one hundred pages before the novel's end. A flashback reveals how Roger Mexico, now in Germany, has come to join the Counterforce despite its inherent contradictions as a group organizing against international organizations. A long digression gives the story of "Byron the Bulb," a sentient, seemingly immortal lightbulb whose existence links with Dr. Jamf and his experiments and to the integration of power companies and their Grid to the network of cartels. The Schwarzkommando become reunited and finish construction of their own version of the 00000 rocket.

There are several brief, hallucinatory stories of comic, fallible superheroes; silly Kamikaze pilots; and an "Incident in the Transvestites' Toilet" where Slothrop has been hiding in drag. Such incidents may be products of Slothrop's finally collapsed mind; or of the increasingly chaotic state of affairs outside the realm of a rising technological class and society that comes to be labeled the "Raketen-Stadt" (Rocket-State) of the future. For Slothrop, these scenes more or less culminate with his finding, and failing to understand, a headline announcing the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

Tchitcherine is told by his superior officer that he is to head back to the U.S.S.R. with some German rocket scientists, despite his own misgivings about Marxist dialectics. A conference is held by members of the Counterforce, which now includes some with questionable pasts, personalities, or motives, such as von Göll. Jessica tells Roger that she is going to marry Jeremy/Beaver. Invited to a dinner at the home of a German industrialist, Roger and Pig Bodine manage to escape with the help of some disgusting culinary repartee, but it becomes increasingly clear that the Counterforce does not have the capacity to counter the emerging Rocket State, in part because "the Man has a branch office in each of our brains."

Some individuals, however, provide some hope. Earlier, Slothrop had encountered a young boy on what seems to be a futile quest to find his lost pet lemming. Meeting once again, it turns out that the lemming has been found. Geli Tripping's complete love for Tchitcherine and her connection with the natural organic world contrasts with a flashback in which Blicero explains to Gottfried his obsessive desire to transcend nature and "its cycle of infection and death." Geli does cast a spell on Tchitcherine that (perhaps) keeps him from recognizing Enzian when they finally meet, averting a potentially fatal encounter.

The final identification of Slothrop of any certainty is his picture on the cover of an album by obscure English band "The Fool" (another allusion to Tarot, which becomes increasingly significant), where he is credited as playing the harmonica and kazoo. The hundred pages or so of the novel include titled vignettes that summarize events in Slothrop's home town of Mingeborough; offer a (self-referential) reading of the Tarot cards for Weismann/Blicero, who also prepares for a final launch of the 00000 rocket with Gottfried in the nosecone; describe failed last-minute non-rescues by popular culture heroes; and allude to the Sacrifice of Isaac and the mythical figures of Apollo and Orpheus.

As the novel draws to an ambiguous close, the launch of the rocket with Gottfied is intercut with scenes contemporary to the novel's publication, at the (fictional) Orpheus (movie) Theater in Los Angeles, managed by a character named "Richard M. Zhlubb," a thinly-veiled parody of President Richard Nixon. Zhlubb is running a "Bengt Ekarot / Maria Casares Film Festival." Both actors played personifications of Death, in Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal and Jean Cocteau's Orpheus, respectively, overt examples of several possible references in the novel to European modernist cinema. The novel concludes as a rocket (perhaps Weissman's) is frozen in its last moment of descent above the theater, where the film being projected has broken, and a hymn composed by Slothrop's heretical colonial ancestor, William Slothrop, is offered.

is referred to in the narrative, giving a quite exact timeframe for some events in the book.

Most of ''The Honeymooners'' takes place in Ralph and Alice Kramden's small, sparsely furnished two-room apartment. Other settings used in the show included the Gotham Bus Company depot, the Raccoon Lodge, a neighborhood pool parlor, a park bench where Ralph and Ed occasionally meet for lunch, and on occasion the Nortons' apartment (always noticeably better-furnished than the Kramdens'). Many episodes begin with a shot of Alice in the apartment awaiting Ralph's arrival from work. Most episodes focus on Ralph's and Ed's characters, although Alice played a substantial role. Trixie played a smaller role in the series, and did not appear in every episode as did the other three. Each episode presented a self-contained story, which rarely carried over into a subsequent one. The show employed a number of standard sitcom clichés and plots, particularly those of jealousy, get-rich-quick schemes, and comic misunderstanding.

As to the occasional plot continuations, there were two such sequences—one concerning Ralph being sent to a psychiatrist because of "impatient" behavior during work that resulted in several passengers lodging complaints about his professional demeanor, and one that continued for two sequential shows in which Aunt Ethel visited and Ralph hatched a scheme to marry her off to the neighborhood butcher.

The series presents Ralph as an everyman and an underdog who struggles to make a better life for himself and his wife, but who ultimately fails due to his own shortcomings. He, often along with Ed, devises a number of get-rich-quick schemes, none of which succeed. Ralph would be quick to blame others for his misfortune until it was pointed out to him where he had fallen short. Ralph's anger then would be replaced by short-lived remorse, and he would apologize for his actions. Many of these apologies to Alice ended with Ralph saying in a heartfelt manner, "Baby, you're the greatest," followed by a hug and kiss.

In most episodes, Ralph's short temper got the best of him, leading him to yell at others and to threaten comical physical violence, usually against Alice. Ralph's favorite threats to her were "One of these days ... One of these days ... Pow! right in the kisser!" or to knock her "to the Moon, Alice!" (Sometimes this last threat was simply abbreviated: as "Bang, zoom!") On other occasions, Ralph simply told Alice, "Oh, are you gonna get yours." All of this led to criticism, more than 40 years later, that the show displayed an ironic acceptance of domestic violence. But Ralph never carried out his threats, and others have pointed out that Alice knew he never would because of their deep love for each other. In retaliation, the targets of Ralph's verbal abuse often responded by simply joking about his weight, a common theme throughout the series. Incidentally, Alice never was seen to back down during any of Ralph's tirades.

For the "Classic 39" episodes of ''The Honeymooners'', there was no continuing story arc. Each episode is self-contained. For example, in the series premiere episode "TV Or Not TV," Ralph and Norton buy a television set with the intent to share it. By the next week's show, the set is gone although in later episodes a set is shown in the Nortons' apartment. In the installment "The Baby Sitter," the Kramdens get a telephone, but in the next episode, it is gone. And, in the episode, "A Dog's Life," Alice gets a dog from the pound which Ralph tries to return. But, in the end, Ralph finds himself growing to love the dog and decides to keep it along with a few other dogs. However, in the next episode, the dogs are nowhere to be seen and are never referred to again.

Occasionally, references to earlier episodes were made, including to Ralph's various "crazy harebrained schemes" from the lost episodes. Norton's sleepwalking in "The Sleepwalker" was referenced in "Oh My Aching Back." But, it was not until the 1967 "Trip To Europe" shows that a ''Honeymooners'' story arc is finally used.

Noboru Takizawa transfers to a school where all disputes are settled through fighting. He quickly runs afoul of the school bully, Saburō Ibuki, who has a boxing match with "God's Hall Monitor", Kōichi Jōnouchi, to determine who will date the lovely Yukari. Takizawa is enraptured with Yukari, and decides to intervene in the fight which Ibuki won by bending the rules. Takizawa loses the fight in the first OVA to Ibuki's deadly finishing punch, but in the second OVA Takizawa develops his own finishing punch and eventually wins the day.

Kindhearted but clumsy MI7 agent Johnny English dreams of becoming Agent One. After Agent One and the remaining agents are killed by English's unwitting incompetence, he is the lone surviving agent capable of finishing Agent One's mission.

Assigned to thwart a plot to steal the newly restored Crown Jewels at an event hosted by French prison mogul Pascal Sauvage, English meets the mysterious Lorna Campbell at the jewels' unveiling at the Tower of London. The jewels are stolen during a sudden blackout. English accidentally knocks out the deputy head of security and fights an imaginary assailant to cover his mistakes; he gives a false description of the unseen suspect to MI7 head Pegasus.

English and his assistant Angus Bough follow a tunnel dug beneath the jewel's display case and confront German thieves Dieter Klein and Klaus Vendetta, who escape in a hearse. Having pursued the wrong hearse, English gatecrashes a funeral.

Sauvage is revealed to be Klein and Vendetta's employer, and instructs the thieves to eliminate English. Pegasus does not believe English and Bough's claims that Sauvage is involved. English and Bough are attacked by Vendetta, who escapes when English mistakenly attacks Bough. English again encounters Campbell and, having seen her at two crime scenes, his suspicions deepen when no record of her can be found.

English and Bough parachute into Sauvage's headquarters and learn that Sauvage, a descendant of Charles Edward Stuart, plans to make himself king using an impostor Archbishop of Canterbury. English observes that the fake Archbishop has a tattoo on his bottom saying ''Jesus is coming — look busy''. Campbell reveals herself to be an Interpol agent tracking Sauvage. English crashes a reception hosted by Sauvage and is fired by Pegasus.

Sauvage scraps his plan to use the fake Archbishop and instead blackmails Queen Elizabeth II to abdicate and erase her line of succession by threatening her corgis. Campbell, now in charge of the assignment, convinces English to travel with her to Sauvage's French château and investigate behind Pegasus's back. English and Campbell learn Sauvage intends to transform mainland Britain into the world's biggest prison. English accidentally blows their cover; he steals an incriminating DVD but accidentally takes the wrong disc before the two agents are captured.

Bough rescues English and Campbell, and the three race to stop Sauvage's coronation. English exposes the Archbishop's bare bottom and discovers by the lack of the expected tattoo that he is genuine. Undeterred, English has Bough play the incriminating DVD, only to find it is bugged footage of himself lip-syncing to ABBA's "Does Your Mother Know" in his underclothes. Having snuck away, English swings back in on a wire to steal St Edward's Crown from the Archbishop. Sauvage attacks English, who drops the crown, falls from the wire, lands on the throne knocking Sauvage off, and is crowned himself. As king, English has Sauvage arrested before restoring Elizabeth to the throne, requesting only a knighthood as reward.

Sauvage is awaiting trial for high treason and execution while English and Campbell drive to southern France. English accidentally ejects Campbell from his car whilst attempting to kiss her. She lands in a swimming pool where Bough and a man matching the description of the imaginary assailant are on holiday.

In a near-future dystopian Australia that is facing a breakdown of civil order primarily due to widespread oil shortages, berserk motorbike gang member Crawford "Nightrider" Montazano kills a rookie officer of the poorly-funded Main Force Patrol (MFP)—one of the last remaining law enforcement agencies—and escapes with his girlfriend in the dead officer's Pursuit Special. Nightrider is able to elude the MFP until the organization's top pursuit man, Max Rockatansky, manages to break his concentration and steer him into a roadblock, resulting in a fiery crash that kills both Nightrider and his girlfriend.

At the MFP garage, Max is shown his new police car: a specially-built supercharged V8-powered black Pursuit Special. A conversation between Max's superior, Captain Fred "Fifi" Macaffee, and Police Commissioner Labatouche reveals the Pursuit Special was authorised to bribe Max, who is becoming weary of police work, into staying on the force.

Nightrider's motorbike gang, which is led by Toecutter and Bubba Zanetti, run riot in a town, vandalising property, stealing fuel, and terrorising the populace. A young couple attempts to escape, but the gang destroys their car and rapes them. Max and fellow officer Jim "Goose" Rains arrest Toecutter's young protégé, Johnny the Boy, at the scene. No witnesses appear in court and Johnny is deemed mentally unfit to stand trial, however, so, against Goose's furious objections, he is released into Bubba's custody.

While Goose visits a nightclub in the city that night, Johnny sabotages his police motorbike, causing it to lock up at high speed the next day and launch Goose off the road. Dazed, but uninjured, Goose borrows a ute to haul his bike back to MFP headquarters. On the way, Johnny throws a brake drum through his windshield, and he crashes again. Toecutter urges, and then forces, a reluctant Johnny to throw a match into the wreck of the ute, burning Goose alive.

After seeing Goose's charred body in the hospital ICU, Max informs Fifi that he is resigning from the MFP to save what is left of his sanity. Fifi convinces him to take some time off and think it over, so Max goes on a trip in his panel van with his wife, Jessie, and infant son, "Sprog" (Australian slang for a child). When they stop to fix the spare tire, Jessie takes Sprog to get ice cream and is molested by Toecutter and his gang. She escapes, and the family flees to a remote farm owned by an elderly friend named May Swaisey. The gang follows and chases Jessie through the woods, and they capture Sprog while Max is off looking for them. May helps Jessie free the boy and the trio escapes in the van, but it soon breaks down. Jessie grabs Sprog runs down the road until the gang catches up and runs them over. Sprog is killed instantly, while a comatose Jessie is brought to the ICU, where she is expected to succumb to her injuries.

Driven into a rage by the loss of his family, Max dons his police uniform and takes the black Pursuit Special without authorization to pursue and eliminate the gang. He kills several gang members before being caught in a trap set by Toecutter, Bubba, and Johnny. Bubba shoots Max in the leg and drives over his arm before Max is able to shoot Bubba with a sawn-off shotgun. Toecutter and Johnny ride away, and Max staggers to his car and chases Toecutter, who he forces into the path of an approaching semi-truck.

After a long search, Max finds Johnny stealing boots from a dead motorist. Ignoring Johnny's desperate pleas that he did not kill the man and he is not responsible for what happened to Max's family due to his diagnosed psychopathy, Max handcuffs Johnny's ankle to the corpse's overturned vehicle and creates a crude time-delay fuse utilizing leaking petroleum and Johnny's lighter. He gives Johnny a hacksaw, saying Johnny can either try to saw through the handcuffs, which will take ten minutes, or his ankle, which will take five minutes, in order to survive. The vehicle explodes soon after Max drives away. Now a shell of his former self, Max blankly heads off to points unknown.

A pair of truck drivers, the experienced Gorō and a younger sidekick named Gun, stop at a decrepit roadside ramen noodle shop. Outside, Gorō rescues a boy who is being beaten up by three schoolmates. The boy, Tabo, turns out to be the son of Tampopo, the widowed owner of the struggling business, Lai Lai. When a customer called Pisken harasses Tampopo, Gorō invites him and his men to step outside. Gorō puts up a good fight, but outnumbered by Pisken and his men, he is knocked out and wakes up the next morning in Tampopo's home.

When Tampopo asks their opinion of her noodles, Gorō and Gun tell her they are "sincere, but lack character." After Gorō gives her some advice, she asks him to become her teacher. They decide to turn her establishment into a paragon of the "art of noodle soup making". Gorō takes her around and points out the strengths and weaknesses of her competitors. She still cannot get the broth just right, so Gorō brings in the "old master" and his superlative expertise. When they rescue a wealthy elderly man from choking on his food, he lends her his chauffeur Shohei, who has a masterly way with noodles. Also, through clever trickery they pry ramen secrets from their competitors. During the transition, the group agrees to change the restaurant's name from "Lai Lai" to "Tampopo".

Pisken feels bad for being too drunk to tell his men to stay out of the fight, so he offers Gorō another chance one-on-one. After the rematch ends in a draw, Pisken reveals he is a contractor and offers to make over the shop's interior. Tampopo's latest effort still comes up short, so Pisken teaches her his own secret recipe. When the five men consume her latest creation down to the last drop, Tampopo knows she has won. (Tabo also triumphs, beating all three of his tormentors). As customers fill her newly redecorated shop, the men file out one by one.

The main narrative is interspersed with stories involving food on several levels. Other vignettes follow a lowly worker who upstages his superiors by displaying his vast culinary knowledge while ordering at a gourmet French restaurant; a housewife who rises from her deathbed to cook one last meal for her family; and a women's etiquette class on how to eat spaghetti properly. Another scene involves a supermarket clerk who has to deal with an aged woman obsessed with squeezing food. The clerk's scene segues into a restaurant involving an investment scam and the intended victim, who turns out to be a conman himself.

The primary subplot involves a young gangster in a white suit and his lover, who explore erotic ways to use food. In the end, the man is shot several times by an unknown assailant, to his lover's horror, but uses his last words to convey his secret recipe for sausages.

Throughout, the film puns off stereotypical American movie themes, characters, music and camera set-ups and shots.

The main character is '''Gustav von Aschenbach''', a famous author in his early 50s who recently has been ennobled in honor of his artistic achievement (thus acquiring the aristocratic "von" in his name). He is a man dedicated to his art, disciplined and ascetic to the point of severity, who was widowed at a young age.

As the story opens, he is strolling outside a cemetery and sees a coarse-looking, red-haired foreigner who stares back at him belligerently. Aschenbach walks away, embarrassed but curiously stimulated. He has a vision of a primordial swamp-wilderness, fertile, exotic and full of lurking danger. Soon afterward, he resolves to take a holiday.

After a false start in traveling to Pula on the Austro-Hungarian coast (now in Croatia), Aschenbach realizes he was "meant" to go to Venice and takes a suite in the Grand Hôtel des Bains on the Lido island. While shipbound and en route to the island, he sees an elderly man in company with a group of high-spirited youths, who has tried hard to create the illusion of his own youth with a wig, false teeth, make-up, and foppish attire. Aschenbach turns away in disgust. Later, he has a disturbing encounter with an unlicensed gondolier—another red-haired, skull-faced foreigner—who repeats "I can row you well" when Aschenbach orders him to return to the wharf.

Aschenbach checks into his hotel, where at dinner he sees an aristocratic Polish family at a nearby table. Among them is an adolescent boy of about 14 in a sailor suit. Aschenbach, startled, realizes that the boy is supremely beautiful, like a Greek sculpture. His elder sisters, by contrast, are so severely dressed that they look like nuns.

Later, after spying the boy and his family at a beach, Aschenbach overhears '''Tadzio''', the boy's name, and conceives what he first interprets as an uplifting, artistic interest.

Soon the hot, humid weather begins to affect Aschenbach's health, and he decides to leave early and move to a cooler location. On the morning of his planned departure, he sees Tadzio again, and a powerful feeling of regret sweeps over him. When he reaches the railway station and discovers his trunk has been misplaced, he pretends to be angry, but is really overjoyed; he decides to remain in Venice and wait for his lost luggage. He happily returns to the hotel and thinks no more of leaving.

Over the next days and weeks, Aschenbach's interest in the beautiful boy develops into an obsession. He watches him constantly and secretly follows him around Venice. One evening, the boy directs a charming smile at him, looking, Aschenbach thinks, like Narcissus smiling at his own reflection. Disconcerted, Aschenbach rushes outside, and in the empty garden whispers aloud "I love you!"

Aschenbach next takes a trip into the city of Venice, where he sees a few discreetly worded notices from the Health Department warning of an unspecified contagion and advising people to avoid eating shellfish. He smells an unfamiliar strong odor everywhere, later realising it is disinfectant. However, the authorities adamantly deny that the contagion is serious, and tourists continue to wander obliviously round the city.

Aschenbach at first ignores the danger because it somehow pleases him to think that the city's disease is akin to his own hidden, corrupting passion for the boy. During this period, a third red-haired and disreputable-looking man crosses Aschenbach's path; this one belongs to a troupe of street singers who entertain at the hotel one night. Aschenbach listens entranced to songs that, in his former life, he would have despised – all the while stealing glances at Tadzio, who is leaning on a nearby parapet in a classically beautiful pose. The boy eventually returns Aschenbach's glances, and although the moment is brief, it instills in the writer a sense that the attraction may be mutual.

Next, Aschenbach rallies his self-respect and decides to discover the reason for the health notices posted in the city. After being repeatedly assured that the sirocco is the only health risk, he finds a British travel agent who reluctantly admits that there is a serious cholera epidemic in Venice.

Aschenbach considers warning Tadzio's mother of the danger; however, he decides not to, knowing that if he does, Tadzio will leave the hotel and be lost to him.

One night, a dream filled with orgiastic Dionysian imagery reveals to him the sexual nature of his feelings for Tadzio. Afterward, he begins staring at the boy so openly and following him so persistently that Aschenbach feels the boy's guardians have finally noticed, and they take to warning Tadzio whenever he approaches too near the strange, solitary man. However, Aschenbach's feelings, although passionately intense, remain unvoiced; he never touches Tadzio or speaks to him, and while there is some indication that Tadzio is aware of his admiration, the two exchange nothing more than occasionally surreptitious glances.

Aschenbach begins to fret about his aging face and body. In an attempt to look more attractive, he visits the hotel's barber shop almost daily, where the barber persuades him to have his hair dyed and his face painted to look more youthful. The result is a fairly close approximation to the old man on the ship who had so appalled Aschenbach.

Freshly dyed and rouged, he again shadows Tadzio through Venice in the oppressive heat. He loses sight of the boy in the heart of the city; then, exhausted and thirsty, he buys and eats some over-ripe strawberries and rests in an abandoned square, contemplating the Platonic ideal of beauty amid the ruins of his own once-formidable dignity.

A few days later, Aschenbach goes to the lobby in his hotel, feeling ill and weak, and discovers that the Polish family plan to leave after lunch. He goes to the beach to his usual deck chair. Tadzio is there, unsupervised for once, and accompanied by Jasiu, an older boy. A fight starts between the two boys, and Tadzio is quickly bested; afterward, he angrily leaves his companion and wades over to Aschenbach's part of the beach, where he stands for a moment looking out to sea, then turns halfway around to look at his admirer. To Aschenbach, it is as if the boy is beckoning to him: He tries to rise and follow, only to collapse sideways into his chair.

His body is discovered minutes later.

Effi Briest, who is attracted by social status, moves to the fictional Pomeranian port of Kessin (loosely modeled on Swinemünde). Her husband Innstetten is away for weeks at a time, and Effi, who is shunned by local nobles, finds but one friend. Her suspicions that their house may be haunted are not entirely laid to rest by Innstetten. When she says there may be a ghost, he derides her fears. The scorn he would bear if people knew of her terror would stall his career; hence his angry reply.

When Major Crampas arrives, Effi cannot help relishing his attentions despite Crampas being a married womaniser, and their love is consummated. Her husband looks down on Crampas, whom he finds a lewd philanderer with cavalier views of law. Crampas views Innstetten as a patronising prig.

Years later, Effi's daughter Annie is growing up, and the family moves to Berlin due to Innstetten's ascent. All seems well, but when Effi's letters to Crampas are found by her husband, he decides to divorce her. He gets custody of Annie and influences her to disdain Effi. When Effi and Annie meet briefly some years later, it is clear the two are estranged, and Effi stops trying to establish a good relationship with Annie.

The Briests disown Effi, thinking it ill behooves them to deal with someone who tarnished their name. Innstetten tells Crampas he wants to duel; he agrees and is killed by Innstetten. But the halcyon days of Innstetten's past life are over, and career success fails to delight him.

Effi's parents take her back when she becomes the victim of nervous disorder, depression. Facing death, she asks Luise to tell Innstetten about her regrets and willingness to forgive him. Her death forms a rather symmetrical ending that matches the novel's start. In the end scene, her parents vaguely concede guilt for her fate without daring to question the social canons that sparked the tragedy, citing the German maxim, "That would be too wide a field" (''ein weites Feld'').

In 1835, the wealthy and respected Buddenbrooks, a family of grain merchants, invite their friends and relatives to dinner in their new home in Lübeck. The family consists of patriarch Johann Buddenbrook Jr. and his wife Antoinette; their son Johann III ("Jean") and his wife Elizabeth, and the latter's three school-age children, sons Thomas and Christian, and daughter Antonie ("Tony"). They have several servants, most notably Ida Jungmann, whose job is to care for the children. During the evening, a letter arrives from Gotthold, estranged son of the elder Johann and half-brother of the younger. The elder Johann disapproves of Gotthold's life choices, and ignores the letter. Johann III and Elizabeth later have another daughter, Klara.

As the older children grow up, their personalities begin to show. Diligent and industrious Thomas seems likely to inherit the business some day. By contrast, Christian is more interested in entertainment and leisure. Tony has grown quite conceited and spurns an advance from the son of another up-and-coming family, Herman Hagenström. Herman takes it in stride, but Tony bears a grudge against him for the rest of her life. The elder Johann and Antoinette die, and the younger Johann takes over the business, and gives Gotthold his fair share of the inheritance. The half-brothers will never be close, though, and Gotthold's three spinster daughters continue to resent Johann's side of the family, and delight in their misfortune over the coming years. Thomas goes to Amsterdam to study, while Tony goes to boarding school. After finishing school, Tony remains lifelong friends with her former teacher, Theresa "Sesame" Weichbrodt.

An obsequious businessman, Bendix Grünlich, of Hamburg, introduces himself to the family, and Tony dislikes him on sight. To avoid him, she takes a vacation in Travemünde, a Baltic resort northeast of Lübeck, where she meets Morton Schwarzkopf, a medical student in whom she is interested romantically. In the end, though, she yields to pressure from her father, and marries Grünlich, against her better judgment, in 1846. She produces a daughter, Erika. Later, though, it is revealed that Grünlich had been cooking his books to hide unpayable debt, and had married Tony solely on the hopes that Johann would bail him out. Johann refuses, and takes Tony and Erika home with him instead. Grünlich goes bankrupt, and Tony divorces him in 1850.

Christian begins traveling, going as far as Valparaíso, Chile. At the same time, Thomas comes home, and Johann puts him to work at the business. During the unrest in 1848, Johann is able to calm an angry mob with a speech. He and Elizabeth become increasingly religious in their twilight years. Johann dies in 1855, and Thomas takes over the business. Christian comes home and initially goes to work for his brother, but he has neither the interest nor the aptitude for commerce. He complains of bizarre illnesses and gains a reputation as a fool, a drunk, a womanizer, and a teller of tall tales. Thomas, coming to despise his brother, sends him away, to protect his own and his business's reputation. Later, Thomas marries Gerda Arnoldsen, daughter of a wealthy Amsterdam merchant, violin virtuoso and Tony's former schoolmate.

Klara marries Sievert Tiburtius, a pastor from Riga, but she dies of tuberculosis without producing any children. Tony marries her second husband, Alois Permaneder, a provincial but honest hops merchant from Munich. However, once he has her dowry in hand, he invests the money and retires, intending to live off his interest and dividends, while spending his days in his local bar. Tony is unhappy in Munich, where her family name impresses no one, where her favorite seafoods are unavailable at any price in the days before refrigeration, where even the dialect is noticeably different from her own. She delivers another baby, but it dies on the same day it is born, leaving her heartbroken. Tony later leaves Permaneder after she discovers him drunkenly trying to rape the maid. She and Erika return to Lübeck. Somewhat surprisingly, Permaneder writes her a letter apologizing for his behavior, agreeing not to challenge the divorce, and returning the dowry.

In the early 1860s, Thomas becomes a father and a senator. He builds an ostentatious mansion and soon regrets it, as maintaining the new house proves to be a considerable drain on his time and money. The old house, now too big for the number of people living in it, falls into disrepair. Thomas suffers many setbacks and losses in his business. His hard work keeps the business afloat, but it is clearly taking its toll on him. Thomas throws a party to celebrate the business's centennial in 1868, during which he receives news that one of his risky business deals has resulted in yet another loss.

Erika, now grown up, marries Hugo Weinschenk, a manager at a fire insurance company, and delivers a daughter, Elizabeth. Weinschenk is arrested for insurance fraud and is sent to prison. Thomas's son, Johann IV ("Hanno"), is born a weak, sickly runt and remains one as he grows. He is withdrawn, melancholic, easily upset, and frequently bullied by other children. His only friend, Kai Mölln, is a dishevelled young count, a remnant of the medieval aristocracy, who lives with his eccentric father outside Lübeck. Johann does poorly in school, but he discovers an aptitude for music, clearly inherited from his mother. This helps him bond with his uncle Christian, but Thomas is disappointed by his son.

In 1871, the elder Elizabeth dies of pneumonia. Tony, Erika, and little Elizabeth sadly move out of their old house, which is then sold, at a disappointing price, to Herman Hagenström, who is now a successful businessman himself. Christian expresses his desire to marry Aline, a woman of questionable morals with three illegitimate children, one of whom may, or may not, be Christian's. Thomas, who controls their mother's inheritance, forbids him. Thomas sends Johann to Travemünde to improve his health. Johann loves the peace and solitude of the resort, but returns home no stronger than before. Weinschenk is released from prison, a disgraced and broken man. He soon abandons his wife and daughter and leaves Germany, never to return.

Thomas, becoming increasingly depressed and exhausted by the demands of keeping up his faltering business, devotes ever more time and attention to his appearance, and begins to suspect his wife may be cheating on him. In 1874, he takes a vacation with Christian and a few of his old friends to Travemünde during the off season, where they discuss life, religion, business, and the unification of Germany. In 1875, he collapses and dies after a visit to his dentist. His complete despair and lack of confidence in his son and sole heir are obvious in his will, in which he directed that his business be liquidated. All the assets, including the mansion, are sold at distress prices, and faithful servant Ida is dismissed.

Christian gains control of his own share of his father's inheritance and then marries Aline, but his illnesses and bizarre behavior get him admitted to an insane asylum, leaving Aline free to dissipate Christian's money. Johann still hates school, and he passes his classes only by cheating. His health and constitution are still weak, and it is hinted that he might be homosexual. Except for his friend Count Kai, he is held in contempt by everyone outside his immediate family, even his pastor. In 1877, he takes ill with typhoid fever and soon dies. His mother, Gerda, returns home to Amsterdam, leaving an embittered Tony, her daughter Erika, and granddaughter Elizabeth, as the only remnants of the once proud Buddenbrook family, with only the elderly and increasingly infirm Theresa Weichbrodt to offer any friendship or moral support. Facing destitution, they cling to their wavering belief that they may be reunited with their family in the afterlife.

Set in Italy , ''Emilia Galotti'' tells the story of a virtuous young woman of the bourgeoisie. The absolutist prince of Guastalla, Hettore Gonzaga, becomes obsessed with the idea of making Emilia his lover after their first meeting. He thus gives his conniving Chamberlain, Marinelli, the right to do anything in his power to delay the previously arranged marriage between Emilia and Count Appiani. Marinelli then hires criminals who shortly thereafter murder the count on his way to the wedding. Emilia is quickly brought to safety in the prince's nearby summer residence. Unlike her mother Claudia, Emilia does not yet recognise the true implications of the scheme. A few moments later, Countess Orsina, the prince's former mistress, comes to the residence as well. Out of frustration over her harsh rejection by the prince, she attempts to convince Odoardo, Emilia's father, to avenge Count Appiani by stabbing the prince to death. Odoardo, however, hesitates in agreeing to this proposal and decides to leave the revenge in the hands of God. Emilia, who must remain under the protection of the prince due to another intrigue on Marinelli's behalf, attempts to convince her father to kill her in order to maintain her dignity in light of the prince's exertions to seduce her. The father agrees and stabs her, but immediately feels appalled by his deed. In the end Odoardo leaves the matter to the prince. He subsequently decides that Marinelli is responsible for the catastrophe and has him banned from his court. Ultimately, Emilia's father recognises God as the absolute authority.

While walking home from work one day, a doctor named Shuichiro notices an angel, Kohaku, stuck on a tree while being attacked by a crow. He rescues Kohaku and, in return, Kohaku offers to grant him a wish. However, Shuichiro does not want one. He likes his life, his work is going well, he has no money problems and he believes in fulfilling his own dreams. So Kohaku decides that the best thing to do is stay and help him until he does think of a wish they can grant.

During their stay, the angel Hisui, and two demons, Koryuu and Kokuyo, also begin living in the house, along with the Koryuu's servants Ruri and Hari. Kokuyo is the son of Satan and is in love with Hisui, who is one of the four Angel Masters controlling the four elements: earth, wind, fire, and water; with wind being their element. Kokuyo admits that he made love to Hisui and that is how they ended up together. This relationship, however, is forbidden in both Heaven and Hell, so the two sought refuge on Earth. Kohaku originally came to Earth to find Hisui, who had been a mentor and parental figure to them. In spite his new housemates, Shuichiro remains as stoic as ever. Although he persists in not making a wish, without realizing it, he grows attached to Kohaku.

Eventually Kohaku is forced back to Heaven against their will by God, because they have the important task of hatching the eggs from the Tree of Life by singing to them. However, Kohaku deeply misses Shuichiro and realizes they had developed feelings for him. Likewise, Shuichiro misses them and continues to hold on to one of their earrings to try to prevent them from staying in Heaven. Unable to bear the separation, Kohaku returns without God's permission, and the couple is happily reunited. Their reunion is short-lived as the three remaining Angel Masters come to Earth to punish both Kohaku, and Hisui for being in love with a demon. Hisui is stripped of their Angel Master status and is banished from Heaven, to their and Kokuyo's delight. Kohaku, in turn, is stripped of their powers and forced to remain in a small form for the next one hundred years. They are devastated that they could not grant Shuichiro's wish, but as Shuichiro's wish was for Kohaku to stay with him forever, it was one he could not have fulfilled himself.

Shortly afterward, Shuichiro suddenly dies while on a walk with Kohaku. Kohaku is put into a one hundred years sleep, so that Shuichiro will have been reincarnated by the time Kohaku awakens. Kokuyo and Hisui are sentenced to look after their sleeping form. One hundred years later, the reincarnation of Shuichiro, now 17, passes by his old house which awakens Kohaku. He has no memory of them, so their relationship starts anew, but he soon remembers them.

The premise of the show is that the main character, Tom Chance, is frequently the victim of unlikely circumstances, although he cares little about this and is, in fact, largely oblivious to much of what happens around him.

He meets his long-suffering girlfriend, Alison Little, by chance. This happens when Tom Chance goes to the same hotel on a blind date to meet a girl (who is also called Alison), that Alison Little has arranged to meet her cousin Tom (for the first time since they were young children).

Tom is shy towards Alison. However, Alison has fallen in love with Tom at first sight and she is keen for their friendship to develop into something more intimate.

Tom has a tendency to get into trouble as a result of unlikely coincidences. This leads to Tom being arrested for crimes he did not commit – which happens so often that police Sergeant Gough eventually gives orders for Tom not to be arrested, no matter how suspicious the circumstances. Tom accepts the unintentional incidents which continuously occur in his life with great stoicism.

Tom has an amusing ability to drink an entire pint of lager in one gulp whilst in the middle of speaking a sentence. (According to Callow in a DVD commentary, a trick glass containing a fraction of a pint was actually used.)

Tom's style of speaking is a key component of his comic nature. He speaks only in short staccato sentences similar to a telegram: "Can’t talk Alison. Car being towed. Problem with lawn furniture."

He also has a fascination with Surrey and England cricketer Alec Bedser, and a cricket bat, which has been autographed by the cricketer, is one of Tom's most treasured possessions. (Or at least was, before it was chewed up by next door's alsatian.) And in the penultimate episode, Alison presents her husband-to-be with a book containing a signed dedication by Bedser, to Tom's great delight.

After rescuing U.S. Marshal Ray Carter in Mongolia, the Angels: Natalie Cook, Dylan Sanders, and Alex Munday together with John Bosley's adoptive brother Jimmy Bosley are sent to recover titanium rings stolen from the United States Department of Justice that can display the people listed in the witness protection program. DOJ official William Rose Bailey and a protected witness, Alan Caulfield are among those killed. At Caulfield's house in San Bernardino, the Angels track his assassin Randy Emmers to a beach where they meet former Angel Madison Lee. During the Coal Bowl motorcycle race, Emmers targets another witness named Max Petroni, but is killed by the Thin Man because he was protecting Max. Inside Emmers' pocket, the Angels discover the photos of Caulfield, Max, and, surprisingly, Dylan, under her birth name, Helen Zaas.

Dylan reveals that she is a protected witness after sending her former boyfriend, Irish mob leader Seamus O'Grady to prison. O'Grady has since targeted those who wronged him; including Dylan and Max, whose parents O'Grady killed. Max is sent to the home of Bosley's mother for his protection. At a monastery, the Angels learn about the Thin Man's past from the Mother Superior, who reveals his name, Anthony. Afterwards, the Angels track O'Grady's mob at San Pedro and manage to get the rings, but O'Grady threatens Dylan with the murder of everyone she loves. Natalie attends her boyfriend, Pete Kominsky's high school reunion at Hermosa Beach, where she overhears his friends implying he might propose, which she feels is too fast since they just moved in together. Alex returns home while Dylan leaves the Angels and heads to Mexico. When Natalie, Bosley, and Alex notice the letter she left for them, they realize that Dylan fled to protect them. Natalie asks Charlie how O'Grady got out of jail, and Charlie reveals someone had him released on good behaviour. While hiding out in Mexico, Dylan is convinced to return after seeing an apparition of former Angel Kelly Garrett.

Natalie and Alex deduce that Carter is the one who let O'Grady out of prison after seeing him return Bosley's keys without any pain, despite claiming to have broken his ribs beforehand. Following him, the two witness him killed by Madison, the true mastermind. Though Dylan arrives to back the group, the Angels are shot by Madison, who takes the rings, though they survived via Kevlar vests. Back at the base, Charlie reprimands Madison for what she's done and confronts her for endangering her former teammates' lives. Madison responds by shooting the speaker and blowing him off. The Angels realize that Madison is going to sell the rings to the O'Grady Crime Family, the Antonioni Mafia, the Tanaka Yakuza, and the Diablo Cartel at the Hollywood Walk of Fame, where Jason's film premiere is about to commence.

The Angels arrange for the buyers to be arrested by the FBI while they confront Madison and O'Grady. The O'Gradys enter the melee, having avoided arrest when Seamus realized the Angels' plan. The Thin Man comes to the Angels' aid, helping Alex and rescuing Dylan when she is being attacked by O'Grady - he begins to fight O'Grady and kicks him off the roof. The Thin Man grabs Dylan and chokes her at first, but they ended up sharing a kiss and he pulls some of Dylan's hair out. Just as he is about to say something, O'Grady stabs him and he falls off the roof. O'Grady nearly succeeds in killing Dylan as well, but she blinds him, causing him to lose his footing and fall to his death (in the unrated cut, O'Grady is still alive and attempts to get back up but is stopped by The Thin Man, who also survived; Dylan accidentally knocks over the "E" sign and it falls on O'Grady, possibly The Thin Man as well). The Angels fight Madison all the way to an abandoned theatre, where they kick her into a chamber filled with gas and she fires her gun, inadvertently blowing herself up.

The Angels attend the premiere, where they learn that Mama Bosley is adopting Max. Peter surprises Natalie by asking her to get a puppy (the big question he was planning on asking her) and Alex terminates her "time out" with Jason. The Angels celebrate their victory together with Bosley.

Part One: Anatomy of a Plot

The book begins in 1962 with the (historical) failed attempt on de Gaulle's life plotted by, among others, Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry in the Paris suburb of Petit-Clamart: Operation Charlotte Corday. Following the apprehension of Bastien-Thiry and various other conspirators, the French security forces wage a short but extremely vicious "underground" war with the terrorists of the OAS, a militant right-wing group who believe de Gaulle to be a traitor to France after his grant of independence to Algeria.

The French secret service, particularly its covert operations directorate (the "Action Service"), is remarkably effective in infiltrating the terrorist organisation with their own informants, allowing them to capture and interrogate the OAS operations commander, Antoine Argoud. The failure of the Petit-Clamart assassination, and a subsequent betrayal of the next attempt on de Gaulle's life at the École Militaire, compounded by Bastien-Thiry's eventual execution by firing squad, likewise demoralise the antagonists.

Argoud's deputy, Lt-Col Marc Rodin, carefully examines what few options they have remaining and establishes that the only way to succeed in killing de Gaulle is to hire a professional mercenary from outside the organisation, someone completely unknown to both the French government and the OAS itself. After extensive inquiries, he contacts an English hitman (whose true identity is always unknown), who meets with Rodin and his two principal deputies in Vienna, and agrees to assassinate de Gaulle, although he demands a total of US$500,000 (roughly US$  million in dollars). The killer further requires that half of the amount be paid in advance and the rest on completion. They also agree on a code name, "The Jackal". The triumvirate of OAS commanders then take up residency on the top floor of a Rome hotel guarded by a group of ex-legionnaires to avoid the risk of being captured, like Argoud, and subsequently revealing the assassination plot under interrogation.

The remainder of this part describes the Jackal's exhaustive preparations for the forthcoming project. He first acquires a legitimate British passport under a fake name, "Alexander Duggan", which he intends to use for the majority of his operation. He then steals the passports of two foreign tourists visiting London who superficially resemble him for use as contingency identities. Masquerading as Duggan, the Jackal travels to Brussels, where he commissions a master gunsmith to build him a special suppressed sniper rifle of extreme slimness with a small supply of mercury-tipped explosive bullets. He also acquires a set of forged French identity papers from a professional forger. The latter makes the mistake of attempting to blackmail him, for which the Jackal kills him and locks his body in a large trunk where he determines it will not be found for a considerable time. After exhaustively researching a series of books and articles by, and about, de Gaulle, the Jackal travels to Paris to reconnoitre the most favourable spot and the best possible day for the assassination.

Following a series of armed robberies in France, the OAS is able to deposit the first half of the Jackal's fee in his Swiss bank account. Meanwhile, the French authorities, suspicious about Rodin and his subordinates being holed up in the hotel, composes and despatches a fake letter that lures Viktor Kowalski, one of Rodin's bodyguards (and a hulking giant) to France, where he is caught and tortured to death. Interpreting his incoherent ramblings, the secret service is able to decipher Rodin's plot, but knows nothing of the assassin himself save for his codename. When informed of the plan, de Gaulle (who was notoriously careless of his personal security) refuses to cancel any public appearances, modify his normal routines, or even allow any kind of public inquiry into the assassin's whereabouts to be made: any investigation, he orders, must be done in absolute secrecy.

Roger Frey, the French Minister of the Interior, organises a conference of the heads of the French security authorities. Because Rodin and his men are in a foreign hotel under heavy guard, kidnapping them for interrogation will be impossible (unless it is achieved through a commando-style operation), nor can they be executed. The rest of the meeting is at a loss to suggest how to proceed, until a Commissioner of the Police Judiciaire reasons that their first and most essential priority is to establish the Jackal's ''true'' identity, which is something that he insists is "pure detective work". When asked to name the best detective in France, he volunteers his own deputy commissioner: Claude Lebel.

Part Two: Anatomy of a Manhunt

Granted special emergency powers to conduct his investigation, Lebel does everything possible to uncover the Jackal's identity. He first calls upon his old boy network of foreign intelligence and police contacts to inquire if they have any records of a top-class political assassin. Most of the inquiries are fruitless, but in the United Kingdom, the inquiry is eventually passed on to the Special Branch of Scotland Yard, and another veteran detective, Superintendent Bryn Thomas.

A search through Special Branch's records turns up nothing. However, one of Thomas's subordinates suggests that if the assassin were an Englishman, but primarily operated abroad, he would most probably come to the attention of the Secret Intelligence Service. Thomas makes an informal inquiry with a friend of his on the SIS's staff, who mentions hearing a rumour from an officer stationed in the Dominican Republic at the time of President Trujillo's assassination. The rumour states that a hired assassin stopped Trujillo's car with a rifle shot, allowing a gang of partisans to finish him off. Additionally, Thomas also learns that the assassin was an Englishman, whom he identifies as a man named Charles Calthrop.

To his surprise, Thomas is summoned in person by the Prime Minister (unnamed, but most probably intended to represent Harold Macmillan), who informs him that word of his inquiries has reached higher circles in the British government. Despite the enmity felt by much of the government against France in general and de Gaulle in particular, the Prime Minister informs Thomas that de Gaulle is his friend, and that the assassin ''must'' be identified and stopped, with a limitless amount of resources, manpower or expenses at Thomas' disposal. Thomas is handed a commission similar to Lebel's, with temporary powers allowing him to override almost any other authority in the land. Checking out the name of Charles Calthrop, Thomas finds a match to a man living in London, said to be on holiday. While Thomas confirms that this Calthrop ''was'' indeed in the Dominican Republic at the time of Trujillo's death, he does not believe it justifies informing Lebel, until one of his junior detectives realises that the first three letters of his first name and surname form the French word for Jackal (Chacal).

Unknown to any member of the council in France, there is an OAS mole among them: the mistress of an arrogant Air Force colonel attached to de Gaulle's staff. Through pillow talk, the officer unwittingly feeds the Jackal a constant stream of information as to Lebel's progress. The Englishman enters France through Italy, driving a rented Alfa Romeo sports car with his weapon soldered/wired to the chassis. Although he receives word from the OAS agent that the French are on the lookout for him, he assesses that he will succeed whatever happens and decides to take the risk. In London, the Special Branch raids Calthrop's flat, finding his passport, and deduce that he must be travelling on fake papers. When they discover that the Jackal is travelling in the name of Duggan, Lebel and a police force comes close to apprehending him in the south of France, but due to his OAS contact he leaves his hotel early and evades them by only an hour. With the police on the lookout for him, the Jackal seeks refuge in the château of a woman whom he encountered and seduced at the hotel: when she goes through his things and finds the weapon, he kills her and flees after disguising himself as the first of his two emergency identities. He then disposes of Duggan's belongings in a ravine in the process. The murder is not reported until much later that day, allowing him to board the train for Paris.

Part Three: Anatomy of a Kill

Lebel becomes suspicious of what the rest of the council label the Jackal's apparent "good luck", and has the telephones of all the members tapped, which leads him to discover the OAS agent. The Air Force colonel withdraws from the meeting in disgrace and subsequently tenders his resignation. When Thomas checks out and identifies reports of stolen or missing passports in London in the preceding months, he closes in on the Jackal's remaining secondary identities.

While meeting the council on 22 August 1963, Lebel deduces that the killer has decided to target de Gaulle on 25 August, the day commemorating the liberation of Paris during World War II. It is, he realises, the one day of the year when de Gaulle can definitely be counted on to be in Paris and to appear in public. Believing the inquiry to be over, the Minister orchestrates a massive, citywide manhunt for the Jackal now that he can be publicly reported as a murderer, dismissing Lebel with hearty congratulations – but the killer eludes them yet again: slipping into a gay bar while disguised as his second contingency identity, he gets himself picked up by a local man and taken to his flat, where he kills him and waits.

On the 24th, the Minister summons Lebel yet again and tells him that the Jackal still cannot be found. Lebel listens to the details of the President's schedule and security arrangements, but can suggest nothing more helpful than that everyone "should keep their eyes open", much to Roger Frey's dismay. On the 25th itself, the Jackal, masquerading as a one-legged French war veteran, passes through the security checkpoints carrying his custom gun concealed in the sections of a crutch. He makes his way to an apartment building overlooking the Place du 18 Juin 1940 (in front of the soon-to-be-demolished façade of the Gare Montparnasse), where de Gaulle is presenting medals to a small group of Resistance veterans. As the ceremony begins, Lebel is walking around the street, questioning and re-questioning every police checkpoint. When he hears from one CRS guard about a one-legged veteran with a crutch, he realises what the Jackal's plan is, and rushes into the apartment building, calling for the patrol to follow him.

Having sneaked into a suitable apartment to shoot from, the Jackal prepares his weapon and takes aim at de Gaulle's head, but his first shot misses by a fraction of an inch when the President unexpectedly leans forward to kiss the cheeks of the veteran he is honouring. Outside the apartment, Lebel and the CRS man arrive on the top floor in time to hear the sound of the first, silenced shot. The CRS guard shoots off the door lock and bursts in as the Jackal is reloading: the Englishman turns and fires, killing him with a shot to the chest. At this point, the detective and the assassin, having developed grudging respect for each other during the pursuit, stare at each other briefly. The Jackal scrambles to load his third and last bullet while the unarmed Lebel snatches up the dead policeman's submachine-gun: Lebel is faster and shoots the Jackal with half a magazine-load of 9mm bullets, instantly killing him.

Epilogue

In London, the Special Branch are searching Calthrop's apartment when the real Charles Calthrop storms in and demands to know what they are doing. Once it is established that Calthrop truly has been on holiday in Scotland and is totally separate to the killer, the British are left to wonder "if the Jackal wasn't Calthrop, then ''who the hell was he''?"

The Jackal is buried in an unmarked grave in a Paris cemetery, officially recorded as "an unknown foreign tourist, killed in a car accident." Aside from a priest, policeman, registrar and grave-diggers, the only person attending the burial is Police Inspector Claude Lebel, who then leaves the cemetery to return to his family.

In Washington state in 1964, Selma Ježková, a Czech immigrant, has moved to the United States with her 12-year-old son, Gene Ježek. They live a life of poverty as Selma works at a factory with her good friend Kathy, whom she nicknames Cvalda. She rents a trailer home on the property of town policeman Bill Houston and his wife, Linda. She is also pursued by the shy but persistent Jeff, who also works at the factory.

Selma is gradually losing her vision due to a degenerative eye condition, but is saving money to pay for an operation that will prevent Gene from sharing her fate. She also takes part in rehearsals for a production of ''The Sound of Music'' and accompanies Kathy to the local cinema, where together they watch Hollywood musicals, as Kathy describes them to her.

In her day-to-day life, Selma slips into daydreams, imagining herself in a musical. Jeff and Kathy begin to realize that Selma's vision is worse than they thought, and that she has been memorizing eye charts in order to pass vision tests and keep her job. Bill reveals to Selma that Linda's excessive spending has put the couple's house in danger of foreclosure by their bank. He has contemplated suicide, but cannot bring himself to carry out the act. Selma promises to keep his secret and confides in him about her advancing vision loss. Bill pretends to leave the trailer but stays, knowing that Selma cannot see him, and watches her hide her money in a tin.

The next day, Selma accidentally breaks a machine at the factory and is fired from her job. She returns home to add her last wages to the tin, but discovers it to be empty. Realizing that Bill has robbed her, she goes to his house to confront him. Linda accuses Selma of trying to seduce her husband, explaining that Bill told her Selma wanted him for his money. Not wanting to reveal her knowledge of the impending foreclosure, Selma ignores Linda and confronts Bill about the theft. They fight over the money, with Bill drawing a gun only to be accidentally shot by Selma.

Bill yells for Linda to call the police, saying that Selma has tried to rob him, then begs Selma to kill him; he claims that it is the only way she will ever reclaim her stolen money. Selma shoots Bill several times, but only wounds him further due to her poor vision, and finally beats him to death with a safe deposit box once the gun runs out of ammunition. She slips into a trance and imagines that Bill's corpse stands up and slow dances with her. Taking her money back, she flees the house and pays for Gene's operation.

Not knowing about the murder, Jeff takes Selma to rehearsal, where her director calls the police to have her arrested. In court, she is accused of being a Communist sympathizer and of pretending to be blind to exploit the American healthcare system. Although she tells as much truth about the situation as she can, she refuses to reveal Bill's secret, saying that she had promised not to. When her claim of sending all her money to her father in Czechoslovakia is proven false, she is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Kathy and Jeff eventually figure out what happened and get back Selma's money, using it instead to pay for a trial lawyer who can free her. Selma refuses the lawyer, opting to face execution by hanging rather than let her son go blind, but she is deeply distraught as she awaits her death. As Selma begins crying, Kathy runs in to tell her that the operation was successful and that Gene will see. Relieved, Selma sings the final song on the gallows with no musical accompaniment. The trap door opens and she is hanged before she can finish the last verse, whose lines are displayed as the proceedings conclude.

Richard Johnson's ''The History of Tom Thumbe'' of 1621 tells that in the days of King Arthur, old Thomas of the Mountain, a plowman and a member of the King's Council, wants nothing more than a son, even if he is no bigger than his thumb. He sends his wife to consult with Merlin. In three months' time, she gives birth to the diminutive Tom Thumb. The "Queene of Fayres" and her attendants act as midwives. She provides Tom with an oak leaf hat, a shirt of cobweb, a doublet of thistledown, stockings of apple rind, and shoes of mouse's skin.

Tom cheats at games with other boys and because of his many tricks, the boys will not associate with him. Tom retaliates by using magic to hang his mother's pots and glasses from a sunbeam. When his fellows try the same, their pots and glasses fall and are broken. Thereafter, Tom stays home under his mother's supervision. At Christmas, she makes puddings, but Tom falls into the batter and is boiled into one of them. When a tinker comes begging, Tom's mother inadvertently gives him the pudding containing her son. The tinker farts while crossing a stile, but Tom calls out about the farting and the frightened tinker drops the pudding. Tom eats himself free and returns home to tell his mother and father of his adventure.

His mother thereafter keeps a closer watch upon him. One day, he accompanies her to the field to milk the cows. He sits under a thistle, but a red cow swallows him. The cow is given a laxative and Tom passes from her in a "cow turd". He is taken home and cleaned. Another day, he accompanies his father for the seed sowing and rides in the horse's ear. Tom is set down in the field to play the scarecrow, but a raven carries him away. His parents search for him, but are unable to find him.

The raven drops Tom at the castle of a giant. The cruel giant swallows the tiny boy like a pill. Tom thrashes about so much in the giant's stomach that he is vomited into the sea. There, he is eaten once more by a fish which is caught for King Arthur's supper. The cook is astonished to see the little man emerge from the fish. Tom then becomes King Arthur's Dwarf.

Tom becomes a favorite at King Arthur's royal court, especially among the ladies. There is revelry; Tom joins the jousting and dances in the palm of a Maid of Honour. He goes home briefly to see his parents, taking some money from the treasury with the king's permission, then returns to court. The Queene of Fayres finds him asleep on a rose and leaves him several gifts: an enchanted hat of knowledge, a ring of invisibility, a shape-changing girdle, and shoes to take him anywhere in a moment.

Tom falls seriously ill when a lady blows her nose, but is cured by the physician to King Twaddell of the Pygmies. He takes a ride in his walnut shell coach and meets Garagantua. Each boasts of his many powers. When Garagantua threatens to harm Tom, he is cast under an enchantment and Tom hurries home to safety. King Arthur listens with amazement to Tom's many adventures.

Richard Johnson's 1621 narrative ends here, but he promised his readers a sequel that has never been found, if published at all. In 1630, a metrical version in three parts was published that continues Tom's adventures.

Later narratives

Other versions paint a different picture to Tom's end. Dinah Mulock continued the tale and noted that Tom exhausted himself with jousting but recovered in Fairyland. When he returned to Arthur's court, he accidentally landed in a bowl of the king's frumenty. Tom enrages the cook and is threatened with beheading. He seeks refuge in the mouth of a passing slack-jawed miller. Sensing tiny voices and movements within him, the man believes he is possessed. He yawns and Tom emerges, but the Miller is so angry he tosses Tom into a river where he is swallowed by a salmon. The fish is caught, taken to the King's kitchen, and Tom is found and kept in a mousetrap until King Arthur forgives him.

The court goes hunting and Tom joins them upon his steed, a mouse. A cat catches the mouse and Tom is injured. He is carried to Fairyland where he recovers and dwells for several years. When he returns to court, King Thunston now reigns. Charmed by the little man, the king gives Tom a tiny coach pulled by six mice. This makes the queen jealous as she received no such gifts and she frames Tom with being insolent to her. Tom attempts to escape on a passing butterfly, but is caught and imprisoned in a mousetrap. He is freed by a curious cat and once more wins back the favor of King Thunston. Sadly, he does not live to enjoy it as he is killed by a spider's bite. Tom is laid to rest beneath rosebush and a marble monument is raised to his memory with the epitaph:

:Here lies Tom Thumb, King Arthur’s knight, :Who died by a spider’s cruel bite. :He was well known in Arthur’s court, :Where he afforded gallant sport; :He rode at tilt and tournament, :And on a mouse a-hunting went; :Alive he fill’d the court with mirth :His death to sorrow soon gave birth. :Wipe, wipe your eyes, and shake your head :And cry, ‘Alas! Tom Thumb is dead.

Popular Democratic President Andrew Shepherd prepares to run for re-election. The president and his staff, led by Chief of Staff and best friend AJ MacInerney, attempt to consolidate the administration's 63% approval rating by passing a moderate crime control bill. However, support for the bill in both parties is tepid: conservatives reject it, and liberals think it is too weak. If passed, however, Shepherd's re-election is presumed to be guaranteed. Shepherd resolves to announce the bill, and have the Congressional support to pass it, by his State of the Union Address.

When the unmarried President's cousin, Judith, is sick and unable to act as hostess at a state dinner for the French president, Shepherd realizes his staff's public portrayal of him as lonely widower is true. Soon after, Shepherd meets and is attracted to Sydney Ellen Wade, a lawyer employed by an environmental lobbying firm that is working to pass legislation to substantially reduce carbon dioxide emissions. During a meeting, Shepherd strikes a deal with Wade: if she can secure 24 votes for the environmental bill before his State of the Union Address, he will deliver the last 10 votes. MacInerney believes Wade will fail to obtain enough votes, thus releasing Shepherd from responsibility if the bill fails to pass.

Shepherd and Wade begin seeing each other and fall in love. Presidential hopeful Senator Bob Rumson steps up his attacks, focusing on Wade's activist past and maligning Shepherd's ethics and family values. The President's refusal to refute Rumson's aspersions lowers his approval ratings and erodes crucial political support that threatens the crime bill.

Wade is dejected after her failed meeting with three Michigan congressmen to discuss the environmental bill. When she tells Shepherd about the meeting, she inadvertently mentions that the congressmen want to defeat both the President's crime bill and Wade's environmental bill. Shepherd and A.J. are conflicted about how they obtained this sensitive information, but are unable to ignore the opportunity to pass the crime bill, even if it means the president going back on his deal with Wade.

Eventually, Wade secures enough votes for the environmental bill while Shepherd is three short. He can only obtain them by shelving the environmental bill to solidify the three Michigan congressmen's votes for the crime bill which he agrees to do. Wade's firm fires her for failing to achieve their objectives and for seemingly jeopardizing her political reputation. She goes to see Shepherd to end their relationship and says she has a job opportunity in Hartford, Connecticut. While he defends the crime bill as his top priority, she criticizes it as weakly worded with little chance of preventing crime.

Prior to the State of the Union Address, Shepherd makes a surprise appearance in the White House press room and rebukes Rumson's attacks on his values and character, as well as his relentless innuendos that Wade prostituted herself for political favors. He declares he will send the controversial environmental bill to Congress with a massive 20% cut in fossil fuels far more than the 10% originally proposed. Furthermore, he is withdrawing the crime bill for a stronger one with significant gun control measures. His passion galvanizes the press and his staff. Shepherd and Wade reconcile, then she walks him to the doors of the House chamber where he enters to thunderous applause as he is about to deliver the State of the Union Address.

''Coq Rouge'' (1986)

''Original Swedish title: Coq Rouge: berättelsen om en svensk spion'' (literal: ''Coq Rouge – the Story of a Swedish Spy'')

In the mid 1980s, a high-ranking officer in the Swedish security service, SÄPO, is found murdered in Stockholm. Together with the policemen of the security service, the young Carl Hamilton is tasked with investigating the murder and soon makes use of his secret military training. The conservative Swedish police put their main focus on Palestinians and left wing radicals, but when the investigation takes Hamilton to Beirut and Israel he finds a different truth.

''Den demokratiske terroristen'' (1987)

''The Democratic Terrorist''

The West German security service has need of a Swedish colleague to help them infiltrate a remaining group of the Red Army Faction (RAF) that is supposedly planning a terrorist operation in Sweden. Carl Hamilton is the perfect choice with his military training and radical background in the leftist movement.

''I nationens intresse'' (1988)

''In the Interest of the Nation''

Hamilton has been transferred to the military intelligence he was intended for. His first mission is to escort a defecting Soviet Admiral from Cairo to Sweden, and soon learns that the Soviet Armed Forces has installed secret underwater bases in the Stockholm archipelago. In the shadow of this great threat to the nation, Hamilton is tormented by guilt from a brutal event that his intense military training has caused in his private life.

''Enemy's Enemy'' (1989)

''Original Swedish title: Fiendens fiende.'' English translation by Thomas Keeland in 1992.

A Soviet defector in London feeds the Swedish security service information that Hamilton is a double agent working for Russia. Much of this information seems to come from another Swedish double agent, who has recently escaped Swedish prison and is now guarded by the Russians in Moscow. This leads to the disturbing question if the Swedish military intelligence can conduct a secret murder on one of their own citizens.

''Den hedervärde mördaren'' (1990)

''The Honourable Murderer''

Retired high-ranking Swedish officers are being brutally murdered, and the murderers are leaving traces to a supposed Nazi past. While Sweden is in turmoil from racist movements, Hamilton and his colleagues in the military intelligence are tasked to conduct their own investigation of the murders, searching the military archives and learning the dark past of their predecessors.

''Vendetta'' (1991)

''Vendetta''

When members of the Swedish arms industry are kidnapped by the Italian mafia in Sicily, Hamilton is tasked to handle the negotiations. He brings one of his closest friends and military colleagues for the mission, and after a deadly first encounter with the mafia, he is thrown into a vicious vendetta where all of his military training is put to use.

''Ingen mans land'' (1992)

''No Man's Land''

Hamilton and the Swedish military intelligence are tasked with preventing stolen nuclear warheads from being smuggled out of Russia, resulting in a secret military operation across the Russian border with a very dark and very disturbing mission.

''Den enda segern'' (1993)

''The Only Victory''

As a sequel to the previous novel, a second nuclear warhead has been smuggled out through Sweden, revealing that the first deadly attempt was meant only as a sinister distraction. Hamilton, who is tormented by his deeds during that mission, must now work with former enemies in the Russian military intelligence to track the second warhead and the people who stole it, and to prevent a war he must also try to bring the new conservative government in Sweden and the US military into a collaboration with his old friends in the PLO.

''I hennes majestäts tjänst'' (1994)

''On Her Majesty's Service''

The British MI5 and MI6 need the assistance of Hamilton and his unit within the Swedish military intelligence to investigate a growing number of mysterious deaths in the British defence industry. Meanwhile, hateful enemies from Hamilton's own past are planning a sinister revenge.

''En medborgare höjd över varje misstanke'' (1995)

''A Citizen Raised Above Every Suspicion''

With his private life in ashes, Hamilton is appointed head of the Swedish security service and begins an effort to reshape the organization. While he is doing a lecture tour of Sweden's universities, several immigrant agents of the security service are being murdered with military skill.

''Hamlon'' (novella) (1995)

After escaping from Sweden, convicted of murder, Hamilton is now living a secret life as a retired rich man in La Jolla, California, with the name Charles Hamlon under the protection of the FBI. When a local murder investigation makes the FBI search for a suspect with elite military skills, Hamlon is taken into consideration.

This novella is written as a draft for an eleventh novel, but the plot was never intended to be solved and it ends with an afterword where Jan Guillou accounts for why the series would not continue. Guillou states that ''En medborgare höjd över varje misstanke'' was the last book and the conclusion of the series, and in order to make sure that Hamilton would never return he was now "banished" from Sweden through a life sentence and eternal exile in California. Since Guillou only intended to write with clear political themes, based around Sweden, no further books would be possible.

''Madame Terror'' (2006)

Carl Hamilton has spent ten years in secret exile as Charles Hamlon in California, where he is keeping his body in shape and getting psychological help. One day an old friend from the Palestinian intelligence service, Mouna al-Husseini who the world presumed dead, comes to recruit him for a mission. With the help of the Russians, who want revenge on the Americans for sinking the ''Kursk'' submarine, the Palestinians have developed a high-tech alfa class attack submarine. The crew is mixed Russian and Palestinian, but they have trouble collaborating. They need a strong leader that is neither Russian nor Palestinian, but who can speak Russian, supports the Palestinian cause, has Russian and Palestinian medals, has naval background, understands the strategies of war and is a high-ranking officer. Only one living man fits this description: Carl Hamilton. Their mission is to destroy the entire Israeli fleet.

''Men inte om det gäller din dotter (2008)''

''But Not If it Concerns Your Daughter''

After leading the Palestinians to a short-lived victory against Israel, Hamilton is exiled to Russia since the Americans under the George W. Bush regime has declared him an enemy and a terrorist. When he can no longer stay in Russian, after having refused a demand from president Vladimir Putin to become a commander of brutal Russian military operations, he returns to Stockholm in order to have his old murder conviction reconsidered in court. Acquitted, he begins a new retired life in the company of new and old friends, but when a small child is kidnapped by Saudi Arabian terrorists he must once again take up arms and lead another military operation.

Background

Throughout the three previous novels in the ''Harry Potter'' series, the main character, Harry Potter, has struggled with the difficulties of growing up and the added challenge of being a famed wizard. When Harry was a baby, Lord Voldemort, the most powerful dark wizard in history, killed Harry's parents but was mysteriously defeated after unsuccessfully trying to kill Harry, though his attempt left a lightning-shaped scar on Harry's forehead. This results in Harry's immediate fame and his being placed in the care of his abusive Muggle (non-magical) aunt and uncle, Petunia and Vernon Dursley, who have a son named Dudley.

On Harry's eleventh birthday, he learns he is a wizard from Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and enrols in Hogwarts. He befriends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger and confronts Lord Voldemort, who is trying to regain power. In Harry's first year, he has to protect the Philosopher's Stone from Voldemort and one of his faithful followers at Hogwarts. After returning to school after summer break, students at Hogwarts are attacked by the legendary monster of the Chamber of Secrets after the Chamber is opened. Harry ends the attacks by killing a Basilisk and thwarting another attempt by Lord Voldemort to return to full strength. The following year, Harry hears he has been targeted by escaped mass murderer Sirius Black. Despite stringent security measures at Hogwarts, Harry encounters Black at the end of his third year and learns Black was framed and is actually Harry's godfather. He also learns that it was his father's old school friend Peter Pettigrew who betrayed his parents.

Overview

In a prologue, which Harry sees through a dream, Frank Bryce, Muggle caretaker of an abandoned mansion known as the Riddle House, is murdered by Lord Voldemort after stumbling upon him and Wormtail. Harry is awoken by his scar hurting.

The Weasleys invite Harry and Hermione Granger to the Quidditch World Cup, to which they travel using a Portkey. After the match, masked Death Eaters, followers of Voldemort, attack the camping site. The Dark Mark is fired into the sky, causing mass panic. Harry discovers his wand is missing. It is later found in the possession of Winky, Barty Crouch's house elf, and was used to cast the Dark Mark. Barty Crouch fires Winky.

At Hogwarts, Professor Dumbledore announces that Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody is the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Dumbledore also announces that Hogwarts will host the Triwizard Tournament, in which a Hogwarts champion will compete against champions from other wizarding schools. The Goblet of Fire will choose the champions from names dropped into it. Only students 17 years old and above can enter. Harry is under the age of majority in the wizarding world, and barred from entering. The Goblet of Fire picks Fleur Delacour from Beauxbatons Academy, Viktor Krum from Durmstrang Institute and Cedric Diggory from Hogwarts. Unexpectedly, it chooses Harry as a fourth champion, forcing him to compete. Many students, including Ron, believe Harry cheated to enter solely because he wants more fame. A rift develops between Harry and Ron.

Hagrid covertly reveals to Harry that the first task involves getting past a dragon and retrieving a golden egg. Harry struggles with how to accomplish this until Moody suggests flying. Hermione helps him perfect a Summoning Charm, which he uses to summon his Firebolt broomstick and fly past the dragon to retrieve the egg. The egg contains a clue to the next task, but when opened it shrieks loudly. Following Cedric's tip, Harry discovers he must recover something valuable from Merpeople at the bottom of the lake in the castle grounds.

In the weeks before the second task, Harry does little to prepare and has no idea how to survive underwater. On the day of the task, Dobby, who now works at Hogwarts, gives him Gillyweed to breathe underwater, having heard about it from Moody. Harry finds Ron at the bottom of the lake. However, he refuses to leave the other "hostages" behind. Krum retrieves Hermione, but when Fleur fails to appear, Harry also takes her sister, Gabrielle. Harry finishes last, but is awarded high marks for 'moral fibre'.

While talking near the Forbidden Forest, Harry and Krum encounter Crouch, who had stopped appearing at work. Seeming insane, he claims to have done something terrible, and begs for Dumbledore. Leaving Krum with Crouch, Harry fetches Dumbledore but returns to find Krum stunned and Crouch gone. Moody tries and fails to find Crouch. Harry later has a dream involving Voldemort punishing Wormtail for a mistake. Harry goes to tell Dumbledore about it. While waiting, he stumbles upon a Pensieve in Dumbledore's office. With it, he discovers that Crouch's son, Barty Jr. was a Death Eater and sentenced to Azkaban, where he supposedly died.

Harry prepares for the final task, a hedge maze filled with dangerous obstacles, the goal being to reach the Triwizard Cup at the centre. Inside the maze, Harry and Cedric reach the Cup, and agree to touch it simultaneously. However, it is a Portkey that transports them to a graveyard. There, Wormtail appears, kills Cedric on Voldemort's orders, and performs a ritual involving Harry to restore Lord Voldemort to a body.

Voldemort summons his Death Eaters, berates them for believing him dead, and mentions that he has a servant at Hogwarts, who has led Harry there. He tortures Harry, then challenges him to a duel. However, when he and Harry fire spells at each other, their wands' streams connect, as they share a core, causing echoes of Voldemort's previous spells to appear, including manifestations of Cedric and Harry's parents. These echoes help Harry escape with Cedric's body to the Cup and return to Hogwarts.

Amid the panic caused by Harry's sudden arrival and Cedric's dead body, Moody takes Harry to his office. He reveals himself to be Voldemort's servant, having put Harry's name into the Goblet, and guided him throughout the tournament to ensure he would touch the Cup. As Moody prepares to kill Harry, Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Snape intervene and stun Moody. Moody is revealed to be impersonated by Barty Crouch Jr., Crouch Sr.'s son who was presumed dead, via Polyjuice Potion. Using Veritaserum, they learn that Crouch Sr. had rescued his son to fulfill his dying wife's wish. Crouch Jr. was kept at home until Winky convinced Crouch Sr. to allow him to attend the Quidditch Cup, where he escaped, stole Harry's wand, and conjured the Dark Mark. Voldemort discovered Crouch Jr. and plotted to install him at Hogwarts, abducting the real Moody. Crouch Sr. was imprisoned by Wormtail, and when he escaped to Hogwarts, Crouch Jr. killed him.

Dumbledore announces Voldemort's return to the school. However, many people, including Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge, refuse to believe it. The Dementor's Kiss is performed on Crouch Jr., rendering him unable to testify for Voldemort's return. Dumbledore puts plans against Voldemort into action. Not wanting his tournament winnings, Harry gives them to Fred and George to start a joke shop, and returns to the Dursleys for the summer.

Sinuhe recounts, in his old age at his location of forced exile by the Red Sea coast, the events of his life. His tone expresses cynicism, bitterness and disappointment; he says humans are vile and will never change, and that he's writing down his story for therapeutic reasons alone and for something to do in the rugged and desolate desert landscape.

Sinuhe begins his life as a foundling discovered in a reed boat in the Nile, and grows up in the poor part of Thebes. His adoptive father Senmut is a doctor, and Sinuhe decides to walk in his footsteps. As an assistant to a royal doctor who knows his adoptive father, Sinuhe is allowed to visit the court, during a trepanation on the dying Amenhotep III – here Sinuhe, the young crown prince Akhenaten and Horemheb meet for the first time. Well educated, Sinuhe sets up a clinic and acquires the sly and eloquent slave Kaptah, who will be his companion and close friend throughout his life.

One day he gets acquainted with the gorgeous woman Nefernefernefer and is bewitched by her. Nefernefernefer gets Sinuhe to give her everything he owns – even his adoptive parents' house and grave. When the woman has realised that Sinuhe has run out of possessions, she gets rid of him. Ashamed and dishonored, Sinuhe arranges his adoptive parents to be embalmed and buries them in the Valley of the Kings (they had taken their lives before eviction), after which he decides to go to exile in the company of Kaptah to Levant, which was under Egyptian rule at the time.

In Syria, his medical skill earns him fame and wealth. During an Egyptian military operation in Syria, he re-encounters Horemheb, serving as a military commander. From this, Sinuhe is commissioned to travel at his expense in the known world to determine what military potential the established nations have.

Sinuhe, in company of Kaptah, travels first to Babylon where he engages in science and socializes with the city's scholars. One day he is summoned to the sick king Burraburiash, whom he manages to cure. Soon Kaptah is selected for the traditional day of the false king, where the city's greatest fool is king for a day and then killed. A young Cretan woman named Minea has been recently acquired to the king's harem against her will; during a feast, Sinuhe, in the process of falling in love with her, smuggles Minea and Kaptah from the palace and flees with the two to the neighboring country Mitanni. From there they proceed to Anatolia and to the fast-growing Hittite empire. Sinuhe and his companions feel unhappy about the militarism and tough rule of law that characterize the kingdom of the Hittites, and they decide to leave Anatolia and sail to Crete, Minea's homeland.

Minea has grown up with the mission to sacrifice herself as a virgin to the local bull god who lives in a mountain cave at the sea. Sinuhe is horrified by this and fears that he will not see her again. In the evening before Minea should enter the mountain cave, they marry each other unofficially. A while after Minea has been escorted into the mountain cave, Sinuhe enters the cave in search for her. He finds Minea's dead body and the remains of the Cretan god (described as a bull-headed sea serpent), and realises that she has been killed by the god's high priest Minotaurus to prevent her from returning and telling the god is dead. Sinuhe loses his mind from grief, but Kaptah eventually succeeds in calming him down and convinces him that it's best to move on and return to Syria.

In Syria, Sinuhe returns to medical profession and regains his previous status. He notices, however, that the Egyptian sovereignty in the area has now begun to be questioned and threatened. This rebellious mood is triggered not in the least by the Syrian, Hittite-friendly Prince Aziru, whom Sinuhe still befriends, among other things, through a medical assignment.

One day Sinuhe decides to return to Egypt. He sails to Thebes and opens a clinic for the poor in the same neighborhood he grew up in. He does not get rich in this, being driven by ideological motives instead. His slave Kaptah (now released by Sinuhe) instead becomes a businessman and buys a pub called "Crocodile's Tail". There Sinuhe meets a woman named Merit, who becomes Sinuhe's life partner.

In Egypt, a new king, Akhenaten, has begun to convey a monotheistic teaching centered around the sun god Aten. According to Akhenaten's doctrine, all people are equal, and in the new world order there no longer would be slaves and masters. Aspects of Akhenaten prove to be unpopular: his pacifism, among Horemheb and others concerned with the threat of Syrian and Hittite invasion; his attempts at redistributing property to the poor; and his worship of Aten at the exclusion of the old gods, among the clergy of the mighty state god Amon. Sinuhe is attracted to the teachings that the new king proclaims and, as he feels, focus on light, equality and justice, and joins Akhenaten's court.

After a particularly violent public incident, Akhenaten, fed up with opposition, leaves Thebes with Sinuhe to middle Egypt where a new capital, Akhetaten, dedicated to Aten, is built. However, the conflicts between Amon and Aten continue, and it all develops into a civil war. Aten's kingdom on Earth begins to fall, and the courtiers, one after another, abandon Akhenaten and Akhetaten in favor of Amon and Thebes. The final battle takes also place in Thebes. Sinuhe fights for the sake of Aten and Pharaoh to the end, but ultimately the side of Amon priesthood is victorious. During the chaos, Merit and her son Thot are killed – the latter would turn out to be Sinuhe's offspring. When defeat has become reality, Akhenaten dies after having drunk a cup of poison mixed by the embittered Sinuhe. Queen Nefertite's father, Ay, takes the throne, after the boy king Tutankhamun's short reign, despite Sinuhe having realised from Tiy that he himself is of royal blood and must be the son of Amenhotep III and his Mitannic consort, and thus closer to the throne.

With Akhenaten out of the way, Horemheb gathers all fit men and conducts a full-scale war against the Hittite kingdom – Egypt's premier rival at this time. Both Sinuhe and Kaptah participate in this battle, as Sinuhe wanted to know what war is like. A peace treaty is ultimately established, and king Aziru and his royal family are captured and publicly executed. Sinuhe later succeeds with Horemheb's and Ay's mission to assassinate the Hittite prince Shubattu, secretly invited by Baketamon to marry her, preventing him from reaching Egypt and seizing the throne.

Sinuhe now goes back, afflicted by all the losses, to a simple dwelling in Thebes, bitter and disillusioned in the heart. Every now and then he is visited by his former servant Kaptah, who only becomes richer and richer, and is now Sinuhe's patron. Sinuhe begins to criticise the new regime led by his old friend Horemheb, and as a punishment for this he is exiled to the Red Sea coast.

A group of men are interviewed regarding Christina Walters; they consider her a player and a user of men in the swinging singles market. Christina is a 28-year-old successful interior designer living in San Francisco near Chinatown. She meets up with her friend Courtney Rockcliffe, a divorce lawyer. They console their friend and roommate Jane, who had recently broken up with her boyfriend, by taking her out to a dance club. Jane feels out of place, so Christina grabs a man named Peter to set Jane up with, but he berates Christina for her methods before disappearing for the night. While in the bathroom with Courtney, she calls him by name, leading her to suspect that he got under Christina's skin and she is actually in love with him, which she denies. After running into Peter again, Christina buys him a drink and they spend time together. He explains that he will be attending a wedding on Saturday, and that he is at the club with his obnoxious, womanizing brother Roger to celebrate. He invites Christina and Courtney to an after-party at their hotel, but Christina goes home and later regrets not going.

The next day, Christina cannot stop talking about Peter, while Jane pays an embarrassing visit to the dry cleaner. Courtney arranges for Christina and herself to travel to Somerset, where Peter's brother's wedding is to take place, and they meet Jane's boyfriend. After they leave in Courtney's Saab 9-5, Christina and Courtney go on a series of misadventures including an exploding toilet, a glory hole discovery, and a motorcyclist who is led to believe Courtney is receiving cunnilingus while driving. Meanwhile, Jane encounters her boyfriend at her retail job and is nearly caught having sex with him in a changing room. When Christina and Courtney finally arrive in Somerset, they visit a store to replace their wet and ruined clothes, only to come out in extremely gaudy, indiscreet outfits. Christina begins having second thoughts, but a series of coincidences causes a change of heart, and they attend Peter's brother's wedding. However, they discover that it is Peter, not Roger, who is getting married, and the pair nearly ruin the ceremony in their attempt to escape. Peter and his fiancée then decide that they do not want to marry each other and they call off the wedding. Christina and Courtney return home and help Jane get out of a sexual situation where the emergency crew was called in. Christina is back to a newly unfulfilled life of being single again. Later, Peter finds Christina's address in the log at the store they bought their clothes in and tracks her down. Christina, determined not to fear the commitment, kisses Peter and then walks away disappointed.

Sometime later, Courtney is dating a doctor and is clearly very attracted to him, and Peter is interviewed like the men at the beginning of the film, retelling his version of the events calling her a bitch and a player, but ultimately reveals that he and Christina are together, having gotten married and are living very happily with Jane and Courtney and Roger as well.

Amateur tennis star Guy Haines wants to divorce his promiscuous wife Miriam so he can marry Anne Morton, the daughter of a US Senator. On a train, wealthy smooth-talking psychopath Bruno Antony recognizes Haines and reveals his idea for a murder scheme: two perfect strangers meet and "swap murders" — Bruno suggests he kill Miriam and Guy kill Bruno's hated father. Each will murder a total stranger, with no apparent motive, so neither will be suspected. Guy humors Bruno by pretending to find his idea amusing, but is so eager to get away from Bruno that he carelessly leaves behind his engraved cigarette lighter, which Bruno keeps.

Guy meets with Miriam, who is pregnant by someone else, at her workplace in Metcalf, their hometown. Miriam informs Guy that she no longer wants to end their marriage. She threatens to claim that he is the father, in order to thwart any divorce-attempt. They argue loudly.

That evening, Bruno follows Miriam to an amusement park and strangles her while Guy is traveling on the train back to Washington. When Guy arrives home, Bruno informs him Miriam is dead and insists that he must now honor their deal, by killing Bruno's father.

Guy goes to the Mortons' home, where Anne's father informs Guy that his wife has been murdered. Anne's sister Barbara says that the police will think that Guy is the murderer since he has a motive. The police question Guy, but are unable to confirm his alibi: a professor Guy met on the train was so drunk that he cannot remember their encounter. Instead of arresting Guy, the police assign an around-the-clock escort to watch him.

To pressure Guy, Bruno follows him around Washington, introduces himself to Anne, and appears at a party at Senator Morton's house. To amuse another guest, Bruno playfully demonstrates how to strangle someone, by putting his hands around her neck. His gaze falls upon Barbara, whose glasses and physical appearance resemble Miriam's. This triggers a flashback; Bruno compulsively squeezes the woman's neck, and other guests intervene to stop him from strangling the woman to death. Barbara tells Anne that Bruno was looking at her while strangling the other woman, and Anne realizes Barbara's resemblance to Miriam. Her suspicions aroused, Anne confronts Guy, who tells her the truth about Bruno's crazy scheme.

Bruno sends Guy a package containing a pistol, a house key, and a map showing the location of his father's bedroom. Guy creeps into Bruno's father's room to warn him of his son's murderous intentions, but instead he finds the suspicious Bruno there waiting for him; the father is not at home. Guy tries to persuade Bruno to seek psychiatric help; Bruno threatens to punish Guy for breaking their deal.

Anne visits Bruno's home and unsuccessfully tries to explain to his befuddled mother that her son is a murderer. Bruno mentions Guy's missing cigarette lighter to Anne and claims that Guy asked him to search the murder site for it. Guy correctly infers that Bruno intends to plant it at the scene of the murder, and incriminate him. After winning a tennis match, Guy evades the police-escort, and heads for the amusement park to stop Bruno.

Bruno is delayed when he accidentally drops Guy's lighter down a storm drain and must retrieve it. When Bruno arrives at the amusement park, a carnival worker recognizes him from the night of the murder; he informs the police, who mistakenly think he has recognized Guy. After Guy arrives, he and Bruno fight on the park's carousel. Believing that Guy is trying to escape, a police officer shoots at him, but the shot misses, and instead kills the carousel operator, causing the carousel to spin out of control. A carnival worker crawls underneath it and applies the brakes too abruptly, causing the carousel to violently spin off its support, trapping the mortally injured Bruno underneath. The worker who had called the police now tells them that Bruno, not Guy, is the one whom he remembers seeing the night of the murder. As Bruno dies, his fingers open to reveal Guy's lighter in his hand. Realizing that Guy is not the murderer, the police ask him to come to the station the next day to tie up any loose ends.

In a final train scene, another stranger attempts to strike up conversation with Guy in the same way as had Bruno. Guy and Anne coldly walk away from him.

Eva, an upper class housewife, becomes frustrated and leaves her arrogant husband. She is drawn to the idea of becoming a call girl. With the aid of a prostitute named Yvonne, Eva learns the basics and then they both set out looking for janes and johns together. She meets a charming man who she falls in love with and comes to his house late at night for a romantic tryst. He turns out to be a gigolo. Consequently, they move into his penthouse, which is large enough for both of them to offer their services separately.

Then slowly Eva enters the world of sado-masochism. She finds being a dominatrix extremely satisfying, and begins to take pleasure in controlling others and causing them intense pain. She discovers this in a scene in which a man is hiding under a table. Eva can see that his hands are sticking out from under the table and are clearly visible. Coldly, and with intense inner satisfaction, Eva proceeds to crush the man's hands by slowly walking over them with her stiletto-heeled boots.

Chris, the gigolo, becomes jealous of her and wants to know what's going on upstairs and how she is making so much money. She tells him it is from hurting men, and that the more she hurts them, the more money she gets. This upsets him greatly. She also becomes jealous of his boyfriend/client, a man who has been coming to him for many years. The scenes in the upstairs room intensify. One day he sneaks up and observes her in a scene dominating a man tied to a chair. He has a look on his face like "see, this is what you truly are," and the look on her face says proudly "yes, this is what I truly am." He tries to whisk her away from all of it, buying her furs, talking about marriage. She tells him that she's been dreaming about hitting him, and in the dream he likes it.

The setting is all there for a romantic ending, and yet, he panics, he takes all their money and invests it in a restaurant that she doesn't want to be part of. She tries to walk out on him, and he gets angry, throws her against the wall, hits her, pours alcohol on her, and lights her on fire.

But the last scene shows her unscathed, happy with her friend the sex worker/madame, and they're getting thrown out of a bar that Chris owns.

Xi and his San tribe are living happily in the Kalahari Desert, away from industrial civilization. One day, a glass Coca-Cola bottle is thrown out of an airplane by a pilot and falls to the ground unbroken. Initially, Xi's people assume the bottle to be a gift from their gods, just as they believe plants and animals are, and find many uses for it. Unlike other bounties, however, there is only one glass bottle, which causes unforeseen conflict within the tribe. As a result, Xi, wearing only a loincloth, decides to make a pilgrimage to the edge of the world and dispose of the divisive object.

Along the way, Xi encounters biologist Andrew Steyn, who is studying the manure of wildlife; Steyn's assistant and mechanic, M'pudi; Kate Thompson, a woman who quit her job as a journalist in Johannesburg to become a village school teacher; and eventually a band of guerrillas led by Sam Boga, who are being pursued by government troops after a failed assassination attempt.

Steyn is tasked with bringing Kate to the village where she will teach, but he is awkward and clumsy around her. Their Land Rover stalls while trying to ford a deep river; he hoists it out with a winch, but it continues lifting the vehicle to a very high treetop level while a forgetful Steyn is distracted extricating Kate from a briar bush. She more than once mistakes his attempts to evade wild animals, and putting out an evening campfire, as advances towards her. Eventually, a snobbish safari tour guide named Jack Hind arrives, and takes Kate the rest of the way to the village.

One day, Xi happens upon a herd of goats, and shoots one with a tranquilizer arrow, planning to eat it. He is arrested and sentenced to jail. M'pudi, who once lived with the San and can speak the San language, is discontent with the verdict. He and Steyn arrange to hire Xi as a tracker for the remainder of his sentence in lieu of prison time, and teach Xi how to drive Steyn's Land Rover. Meanwhile, the guerrillas invade Kate's school, taking her and the students as hostages as they make their escape to a neighbouring country.

Steyn, M'pudi and Xi, immersed in their fieldwork, find that they are along the terrorists' and children's path, and observe their movements with a telescope. They manage to immobilize six of the eight guerrillas using makeshift tranquilizer darts launched by Xi with a miniature bow, allowing Kate and the children to confiscate the guerillas' firearms. Steyn and M'pudi apprehend the remaining two guerrillas by frightening one with a snake and by shooting at a tree above the other, causing latex to drip from the tree and irritate his skin. Jack Hind arrives and takes away Kate, taking credit for the rescue that Steyn, M'pudi and Xi had actually planned and executed.

Later, with Xi's term over, Steyn pays his wages and sends him on his way. Xi has never seen paper money (banknotes) before, and throws them on the ground. Steyn and M'pudi then drive from their camp to visit Kate. Steyn attempts to explain to Kate his tendency to be uncoordinated in her presence, but accidentally and repeatedly knocks over a number of objects in the process. Kate finds his efforts endearing, and kisses Steyn.

Xi eventually arrives at God's Window, the top of a cliff with a solid layer of low-lying clouds obscuring the landscape below. Convinced that he has reached the edge of the world, he throws the bottle off the cliff, and returns to his family.

Cody Banks, a 15-year-old bullied high school junior in Seattle, applies for a junior field ops position at the Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Division after completing a training summer camp. Answering to his handler Agent Ronica Miles, Cody is called upon a mission to find information about a scientist named Dr. Albert Connors. Connors is employed by a SPECTRE-type organization named ERIS, led by Dr. Brinkman and his henchman François Molay. As every CIA officer is known to Brinkman's organization, the CIA uses the unknown Banks, who is placed into the prep school of Dr. Connors' daughter Natalie, the William Donovan Institute.

Cody soon finds he has no social skill with girls and has no time to do this while balancing his chores and homework. The CIA decides to help by doing his chores and homework, trying to build his status, and going into the school to set him up with Natalie. The CIA also assemble a varying team of "experts" to train Cody into how to talk to girls, and issue him with a variety of gadgets with various functions.

Eventually, Cody befriends and falls in love with Natalie after rescuing her from falling off a ladder while putting up a banner, and he is invited to her 16th birthday party, where he goes undercover to her father's lab. Cody finds that Dr. Brinkman is planning to use nanobots — which can destroy any carbon or silicon-based substance — to destroy the world's defense systems so he can threaten anyone who opposes him. Since the nanobots are inactive in the cold, he plans to use ice cubes to distribute them. After Connors, Dr. Brinkman, and François leave the lab, Cody tries to take one of the ice cubes, only for it to melt his shoe when in his possession.

Shortly after this, Cody fights male bullies, at the party. The fight makes the school newspaper, and the CIA suspends Cody from the mission. Meanwhile, with Connors refusing to aid him in his plans, Dr. Brinkman sends François and some men to catch Natalie and bring her into his base in the Cascade Mountains. Meanwhile, disobeying orders to leave her out of it, Cody and Natalie eat ice cream at a restaurant. Cody attempts to explain things to Natalie but François and a group of henchmen come over to their table, beat Cody up, and take Natalie. Cody is fully removed from the mission and is grounded for being missing for hours from his house.

Cody gets his brother Alex to make sure his parents do not find out that he has disappeared by giving him the $5,000 the CIA gave him. Knowing Natalie's location via a tracking device in a necklace he gave her as a birthday present, Cody breaks into the CIA weapons hold and steals a rocket powered snowboard and other devices to rescue Natalie. Cody gets a ride to the top of the mountain and snowboards to the factory where Natalie is held. However, he gets caught in a grove of trees as Ronica finds him using a SoloTrek XFV. After convincing her that they need to rescue Natalie, the pair infiltrate the laboratory and Cody rescues Natalie, also explaining the truth about why he went out with her.

However, the trio are captured by Brinkman's men, although Cody quickly escapes. Natalie is held hostage by Dr. Brinkman, who puts an ice cube with a nanobot inside on her forehead to make her father program the system. Cody sets off a series of explosive charges he and Ronica planted throughout the base, and in the ensuing battle, Ronica fights off several of Dr. Brinkman's men, and Natalie kills Dr. Brinkman by placing the ice cube with the nanobots into his mouth, causing it to melt, and the nanobots to devour him from the inside out. Cody later defeats François and sends him to the CIA using the SoloTrek XFV, before fleeing the exploding facility in a helicopter with Ronica, Natalie and Dr. Connors. The CIA welcomes Cody back to the team and congratulates him for completing the mission, and Cody decides to have Natalie earn her drivers license as a reward in which she succeeds in. Then they stop by at a beach cutting Ronica off when she calls. They then kiss starting a relationship.

In 1194, at the end of the Third Crusade, Richard the Lionheart, King of England is visiting France. This leaves the cruel Sheriff of Nottingham—aided by his cousin Guy of Gisbourne, the evil witch Mortianna, and the corrupt Bishop of Hereford—to rule the land. The Lord of Locksley Castle is killed by the Sheriff's men for remaining loyal to King Richard and refusing to join their gang. His lost son, Robin of Locksley, had followed the king's Crusade and spent five years in an Ayyubid prison in Jerusalem.

Robin and his comrade, Peter Dubois, break out of prison, saving the life of a Moor, named Azeem. Mortally-wounded, Peter makes Robin swear to protect his sister, Marian, and distracts the pursuers so Robin can escape. Robin returns to England with Azeem, who has vowed to accompany him until his life-debt is repaid. After a run-in with Gisbourne, Robin goes home and finds his father's rotted corpse on display in the ruined castle. Duncan, an old family retainer blinded by Gisbourne, tells him how his father was falsely accused of devil worship. The Sheriff consults Mortianna, who foresees King Richard's return and panics that Robin and Azeem "will be our deaths".

Robin tells his childhood friend Marian of her brother Peter's death and his promise, but Marian sees little need for his protection and is determined to stay and look after the people on her demesne. They flee the Sheriff's forces to hide in Sherwood Forest, and encounter an outlaw band also in hiding. Their leader, Little John, challenges Robin to a duel which Robin wins after some difficulty. Will Scarlet, one of the bandits, holds a grudge against Robin and protests when Robin assumes command of the outlaws. Robin shapes the group into a formidable force against Nottingham. They rob rich folk passing through the forest and distribute the stolen wealth and food among the poor. Friar Tuck joins them once he understands their cause. Marian offers Robin any aid she can, and they begin to fall in love.

Robin's successes infuriate the Sheriff, who worsens his abuse of the public, but which increases their support for Robin. The Sheriff kills Gisbourne for failing to stop the outlaws, and hires vicious mercenary Celtic warriors. The Bishop betrays Marian after she gives him a message warning King Richard of Nottingham's plots, and she is taken prisoner. Duncan rides to Sherwood, but is followed. The Sheriff storms and burns the outlaws' hideout, capturing many with Robin presumed dead. To consolidate his power and claim the throne, the Sheriff proposes marriage to Marian (who is Richard's cousin), claiming that, if she accepts, he will spare the lives of the woodsmen and their families, specifically the children caught during the attack. As well as her Lady-in-waiting. Marian reluctantly agrees, but the captured ringleaders, according to Nottingham are to be hanged anyway as part of the wedding celebration.

Will bargains with the Sheriff that he will find out if Robin is alive and kill him. Will informs Robin, Azeem, John, and a few other survivors of the Sheriff's plans, but does not trust Robin. Will reveals that the reason for his animosity toward Robin is because he is actually Robin's half-brother; after Robin's mother died, his father had taken comfort with Will's mother, a peasant woman. Robin's anger over what he saw as a betrayal of his mother's memory caused his father to leave Will's mother, leaving Will fatherless. Robin is overjoyed to learn that he has a brother, and they reconcile.

On the wedding day, Robin and his men infiltrate Nottingham Castle and free the prisoners. Azeem inspires the Nottingham peasants to revolt, forcing the Sheriff to retreat with Marian into his keep. The Bishop performs the marriage, and the Sheriff is about to consummate it when Robin bursts in and kills him in a fierce fight. Azeem kills Mortianna in defense of Robin, fulfilling his life-debt. Friar Tuck finds the Bishop fleeing with bags of gold, and burdens him with additional treasure before defenestrating him.

Robin and Marian profess their love for each other. Their wedding in Sherwood is briefly interrupted by the return of King Richard, who gives the bride away and thanks Robin for saving his throne.

Director Alan Smithee has been allowed to direct ''Trio'', a big-budget action film starring Sylvester Stallone, Whoopi Goldberg and Jackie Chan. The studio recuts the film, and when Smithee sees the results (which he describes as being "worse than ''Showgirls''"), he wants to disown the film. However, since his name is also the pseudonym used by Hollywood when someone does not want to have their name attached to a bad film, he steals the film and flees, threatening to destroy the film by burning it.

Amanda King is a divorced housewife who lives with her mother, Dotty, and her young sons, Philip and Jamie.

One morning, Agency operative Lee Stetson, code-named "Scarecrow", hands her a package while he is being pursued. He instructs her to "give it to the man in the red hat", but she is unable to complete the assignment, as there are many men in fezzes in the train car at the time. Scarecrow later has to track her down to recover the package, inadvertently getting her involved with his case. When Stetson is captured by his pursuers and marked for elimination, King ends up solving the secret behind the package, finding and rescuing Stetson, and even taking down their opponents, thereby getting introduced to the Agency.

Inquisitive, King seeks to learn more about the organization and ends up working for them, first in an office role and later receiving training to become a full agent, while keeping her new job a secret from her family. She works under Stetson's boss, Billy Melrose, and with dismissive fellow agent Francine Desmond. Stetson and King work together even though he is initially reluctant to work with the "rookie" but eventually they become a good team.

The pair travel to places like Germany and England and help each other as they pose as other people, sometimes posing as husband and wife. Escapades involving cruise ships and getting "married" are some of their assignments, and the KGB or other enemies of the United States are always involved. Amanda's ex-husband, Joe King, is still friendly with Amanda and is later suspected of murder.

Stetson and King develop a friendship that turns into a romantic relationship. While many suitors for King and Stetson appear, in the end they stay with each other. Stetson professes his love for King before going into hiding from the Agency, and he then proposes after her kidnapping. However, because of concerns for the safety of King's family, they must keep the marriage secret from their employer, friends, and families.

Harriet (Lady Peter Wimsey) has evacuated her family to the Wimseys' country house, Talboys in Hertfordshire, taking her two children, along with the three children of her sister-in-law, Lady Mary, and Peter's venerable old housekeeper, Mrs Trapp. Peter and Bunter are away on an undercover assignment.

During an ARP drill, a young woman is murdered in the village, and Superintendent Kirk (who last appeared in ''Busman's Honeymoon'') recruits Harriet to help solve the murder, as the police are short-staffed due to the war and Harriet, as a crime novelist and the wife of a detective, is felt to be the best-qualified available person to find the murderer.

The murdered girl, Wendy Percival, had come from the city as a Land Girl, to do agricultural work and help the war effort. She was killed in the village street while most people were in the village's two air raid shelters during the drill, and much of the investigation turns on who had been, or could have been, outside the shelters when the murder was committed. Patient investigation leads Harriet to eliminate several potential suspects, including two young men in the village with whom Wendy flirted and the RAF pilot who was last with her on the night she died. She also establishes that everyone in the shelters is accounted for, and that there was no way for anyone to leave either shelter unnoticed during the drill. Glumly, she reflects that her list of possible suspects has been reduced to a random "wandering maniac".

Returning home from one of her investigations, Harriet encounters "Bungo", Peter's old school friend and now a high-ranking officer in British Intelligence, who has received a coded message from Peter which Peter had said only she could decipher. The message is based on a book code, and after thinking carefully she realises that the key to the code is the sonnet which she started and Peter completed in ''Gaudy Night''. The decoded message says that Peter and Bunter have accomplished their mission, but their danger is now great and they must come home separately. They require assistance to get home, and the message says which routes they will be taking. By solving the cipher, Harriet has saved Peter's life, just as he once saved her life. The message also instructs Harriet, in the event of his death, to read the letter he left for her in his bureau. Handling the unopened letter, Harriet reflects ruefully on the years she spent avoiding Peter's proposals of marriage, when all she wants now is to be with him again. Then she realises that she married him when the time was right for her, and that to have "settled" on the wrong terms would have been disastrous for both of them.

Bunter returns

On a brief trip to London to meet the Wimsey family solicitor, Harriet is trapped in the basement of her old home by a sudden air raid, and is surprised to encounter a dishevelled Bunter, returned home from his and Peter's mission. He says he has no word from Peter. The following week, he appears at Talboys to resume service with the household, since he has been denied permission to re-enlist in the army because of his age.

At the suggestion of Peter's sister Mary, Harriet summarises her progress in the murder investigation in letters to Peter, which she does not send. While writing one of these letters, Harriet realises that there is one person she has overlooked: an RAF pilot named Alan Brinklow, billeted in the village while recovering from a broken ankle. Not being a villager, he would not have been in either of the air raid shelters, but not being posted to any of the surrounding air bases, he would not have been expected there either. Although she has no reason to suspect Brinklow of having a motive to kill Wendy, Superintendent Kirk agrees to question him.

Peter returns

Peter returns, alive and well, to Harriet's immense relief and joy. A short time later, Kirk returns to Talboys to report that Brinklow's dead body has been found buried behind a farmer's shed. Peter is confused, saying he recognises the name Brinklow from his own mission and the man is already long dead.

Bungo is summoned to Talboys, and is present as Peter explains that Alan Brinklow was shot down over the North Sea some weeks ago; his body was recovered by a British patrol boat, whose captain decided to plant some false papers on the body and send it drifting into enemy territory, hoping to mislead the enemy. The ploy worked, but the Germans decided to infiltrate an enemy agent into Britain, using Brinklow's name, as they thought the British were unaware that the real Brinklow was dead. The "Brinklow" who had been living in Paggleham for the past few weeks was actually a German spy.

Bungo explains that "pseudo-Brinklow" is unlikely to have been killed by anyone from British Intelligence, as they would want any enemy agent captured alive. Kirk is at a loss for any other suspects, until Harriet suggests that the real Alan Brinklow might have had an enemy for some reason. In Brinklow's records, Peter and Harriet trace the name of a young woman, Joan Quarley, living in Northumberland. When they confront Joan's brother, an RAF pilot named Jeff, he admits that Alan was his squadmate, and that he and Joan fell in love, and she became pregnant with his child before his last mission.

Officially they were told that Alan was missing and presumed dead, but then they heard rumours that an "Alan Brinklow" was living in Paggleham. Jeff went there to confront Alan, and forced pseudo-Brinklow to meet him in private, at night. Not seeing the man clearly, Jeff demanded to know what "Alan" was going to do about Joan. When the man responded, "Who is Joan?", Jeff went berserk and attacked him. Finding himself in a fight to the death, Jeff drew a knife and tried to cut Alan's hamstrings, but accidentally cut the man's throat instead. Seeing the man in the light, Jeff saw that it was not Alan after all, so he buried the body in a panic and fled Paggleham.

After repeating this story for Bungo, Superintendent Kirk, and his commanding officer, Jeff is allowed to return to duty. Bungo tells Mrs Quarley that Jeff will not be charged with any crime, and the real Alan Brinklow acted honourably and died bravely. Mrs Quarley, who suspected Jeff's role in pseudo-Brinklow's murder, is vastly relieved, while Joan is triumphant, vindicated in her faith in the man she loved.

Return from Northumberland

On their way back to Hertfordshire, Peter and Harriet make a brief overnight stop at Duke's Denver, where Peter reflects that his nephew, Lord St. George, also an RAF pilot, is unlikely to survive the war, which would mean that Peter would become the heir to the dukedom. However, Peter is determined that he and Harriet will raise their sons as "normal" boys, not as aristocrats, since the privileges accorded to the nobility become harder to justify with each passing year, and will become even harder to justify when the war is over.

Over dinner with Peter's mother, the Dowager Duchess, the news service announces Neville Chamberlain's resignation as Prime Minister and his replacement by Winston Churchill, who promises only "blood, toil, tears and sweat".

Returning to Talboys, Harriet says she is unhappy to be coming home to a still-unsolved murder. Peter says that, on the contrary, Harriet did solve Wendy Percival's murder, having eliminated all the possible suspects except pseudo-Brinklow. As to his motive, Peter says they may never know for sure, but he can make an educated guess: Wendy, who traveled extensively in Europe before the war and was drawn to handsome men of any nationality, must have met pseudo-Brinklow in Germany, and recognised him instantly when they encountered each other, by chance, in the village during the drill. He had no choice but to silence her immediately. Harriet remarks that it is a strange inversion: pseudo-Brinklow killed Wendy because she recognised him for who he really was, yet he was killed himself because of who he was pretending to be.

The radio signals

The only mystery, Peter says, is exactly what pseudo-Brinklow's mission in Paggleham was. This mystery is solved by, of all people, Peter's ten-year-old nephew, Charlie Parker, and his friend from the village, Sam Bateson. Charlie got a crystal radio set from Lord St. George as a present, but was frustrated because it had an intermittent fault. Now he realises it was working perfectly, but intercepting signals from a transmitter in the village: the last of which occurred just before pseudo-Brinklow was killed. Charlie and Sam borrowed a book on Morse code and wrote down their intercepts, even though they cannot decipher them. Peter delivers the intercepts to Bungo, and a few days later a secret air base near Paggleham is closed and relocated.

Peter is retired from active service and, while still involved in intelligence, assures Harriet that he will not be sent abroad again. He confesses to Harriet his worry that being married to her, and fathering their children, has sapped his bravery, and made him unfit to undertake another assignment. Harriet shrewdly points out that this is not true: she recalls Bunter's account of his separation from Peter during the mission, when one of them had to go home by the safer of two routes, and they decided to flip a coin for it. Bunter suspected, and Peter now admits to Harriet, that Peter deliberately faked the coin toss to send Bunter home by the safer route. Peter is reminded of why he loves Harriet: she sees him more clearly than he sees himself. Embracing her, he shows her a copy of Shelley's ''Prometheus Unbound'' and they read the last passage together, that true love between two persons is not war, but it is the surest form of victory.

Following a global war and the collapse of civilization after oil supplies were nearly exhausted, the world is in a state of barbarism. Haunted by the death of his family, former policeman Max Rockatansky now roams the desert wilderness of a post-apocalyptic Australia in a scarred, black, supercharged V-8 Pursuit Special. Scavenging for food and petrol, Max's only companion is an Australian Cattle Dog. After driving off a gang led by the unhinged biker warrior Wez, and taking petrol from one of their wrecked vehicles, Max finds an apparently abandoned gyrocopter and decides to collect its fuel, but is ambushed by the pilot. Max manages to overpower him and spares his life in return for being led to an oil refinery that the pilot has discovered. When they arrive, Max finds the compound under siege by the Marauders, a motley gang of drivers and motorcyclists of which Wez is a member. The Marauders' leader, a large masked man called "Lord Humungus", has his gang attacking the complex daily, believing that the compound contains fuel reserves.

Biding his time, Max sees an opportunity when several groups of the settlers attempt to break out of the besieged compound and are chased down by the Marauders. Max rescues the single survivor of one group and strikes a deal to return him to the complex in exchange for fuel. The man dies from his wounds shortly after Max takes him back, and the settlers' leader Papagallo reneges on the deal. The settlers are on the verge of killing Max when the Marauders return. Although Wez wants to kill all the settlers after his partner is killed by a metal boomerang thrown by a feral child living within the complex, Humungus offers the settlers safe passage in exchange for the fuel supply.

Max offers an alternative deal to Papagallo: he will procure a vehicle to haul the settler's tanker if they return his car and give him as much fuel as he can carry. The settlers accept, but keep his car until he returns. That night, carrying fuel for the truck, Max sneaks out on foot with the Feral Kid's help. He again encounters the Gyro Captain and forces him to carry the fuel to the truck, a Mack semi which Max discovered after his initial encounter with Wez. With aerial support from the Gyro Captain, Max drives the semi through the Marauders' encampment into the compound. Though the settlers want Max to escape with them to the Far North, (revealed to be the Sunshine Coast by a set of postcards), Max opts to collect his fuel and leave. However, while attempting to break through the siege, Max is seriously injured when his car is wrecked after being run off the road by Wez in Lord Humungus's nitrous oxide-equipped vehicle. One of the Marauders kills Max's dog with a crossbow and is about to kill Max when the Toadie's attempt to siphon the fuel from the Pursuit Special's tanks triggers the car to self-destruct; both Marauders are killed in the explosion. Max is left for dead, but the Gyro Captain rescues him and flies him back to the compound.

Despite his injuries, Max insists on driving the repaired and now armored truck with the fuel tanker. He leaves the compound, accompanied by the Feral Kid with Papagallo and several of the settlers in armored vehicles to provide protection. Lord Humungus and most of his warriors pursue the tanker, leaving the remaining settlers free to flee the compound in a ramshackle bus, rigging the compound to explode. After Papagallo and the defenders are killed during the chase, and the Gyro Captain shot down, Max and the Feral Kid find themselves alone against the Marauders as Wez boards the truck to kill the two of them.

However, the semi's head-on collision with Humungus' car kills both him and Wez as the out-of-control truck rolls off the road while the surviving Marauders leave. As the injured Max carries the Feral Kid from the wrecked tanker, he sees not oil, but sand, leaking from the tank, revealing it to be a decoy which allowed the other settlers to escape with the fuel in oil drums hidden inside their vehicles. With Papagallo dead, the Gyro Captain succeeds him as their chief and leads the settlers to the coast, where they establish the "Great Northern Tribe". The Feral Kid (as an adult and the Northern Tribe's new leader) is revealed as the film's narrator, reminiscing about the Road Warrior, who departed for parts unknown, and now lives on only in legend.

The book chronicles the rise to fame of one Montgomery Marvin, a professor of economics who, as an academic teacher, keeps a low profile but who nevertheless is given tenure quite early in his career. While outwardly concerning himself with unspectacular research focusing on "Mathematical Paradigms in an Approach to Refrigerator Pricing" (which is also the title of his Ph.D. thesis), Marvin's extracurricular activities centre on becoming very rich in a very short time. For that purpose, Marvin has devised a new formula—a stock forecasting model by means of which he and his wife can cash in on people's euphoria, greed and, as they call it, dementia. Eventually, while everyone loses money in the wake of the "Black Monday" stock market crash of October 19, 1987, the Marvins gain an awful lot. (See also Michael Milken and leveraged buyout.)

They decide to spend their money wisely, according to their liberal agenda. Intent on strictly observing the code of business ethics, they start to make use of the "positive power of wealth" and embark on a life of philanthropy. They fund a number of chairs in peace studies to be established at, of all places, military academies. They also secure legislation by which companies are required to label their products according to the percentage of female executives employed by them. After they have launched several of their projects, their operations are increasingly considered un-American and officially put under surveillance. But whatever will happen - Marvin knows that he will be able to nourish his family, as he has been accorded tenure.

''A Tenured Professor'' was republished as paperback by Houghton Mifflin in 2001 ( ).

Merlin has spent the last several years on Earth learning computer science while building Ghostwheel, a trump- and pattern-based computer, elsewhere in Shadow. Having completed his project, he wishes to know who has been trying to kill him every April 30, and why some of the better attempts failed, before he leaves. He meets with his friend Lucas Reynard (Luke), a salesman, who tries to convince him to stay, and who tells him that Julia Barnes, Merlin's ex-girlfriend, may be in trouble. Merlin investigates and finds Julia slain by creatures from another shadow.

Merlin investigates through shadow, and is given orders by king Random to shut down Ghostwheel. However, Ghostwheel has become sentient and capable of defending itself. Eventually, Luke - who, it turns out, is Brand's son - imprisons Merlin in a blue crystal cave so he can attempt to take control of Ghostwheel for himself.

Set in 1986, in the fictional city of Rummidge, the book describes the relationship between Robyn Penrose, a feminist university teacher specialising in the industrial novel and women's writing and Vic Wilcox, the manager of J. Pringle & Sons Casting & General Engineering ("Pringle's"). Robyn is a temporary lecturer at Rummidge, where her boss is Professor Philip Swallow. Swallow is still head of the English Department but is now also Dean of Rummidge's Arts Faculty. Robyn has the temporary lectureship at Rummidge because of the time demands of Swallow's new administrative responsibilities.

As part of the "Industry Year Shadow Scheme", the university is required to send one of its faculty into a local factory. Robyn is the chosen faculty member from Rummidge and the chosen factory is Pringle's, where Robyn is to shadow Vic Wilcox and observe the inner workings of a real-life foundry, which she has never seen.

The novel also traces the separate private lives of Robyn and Vic. In the Wilcox family are Vic, his father, his wife Marjorie and his children. Separately, Robyn goes through various stages of her long-standing relationship with her boyfriend, Charles, a fellow literary scholar. Later in the novel, to Robyn's discomfort, after she has completed her time at Pringle's, the shadow scheme reverses, with Vic shadowing her during her teaching at Rummidge. The philosophical conflict between the ideologies of industry and academe come to the fore. Later, away from Vic, Professor Morris Zapp, a friend of Swallow's from the fictional American university Euphoric State (based on UC Berkeley), and a character from the earlier two novels in the Campus Trilogy, pays a brief visit to Rummidge on his way to a conference. He learns about Robyn's work for the first time and is impressed. Zapp tries to arrange for Robyn to have a job interview at Euphoric State for an open faculty position, to run interference against his ex-wife, whom Euphoric State's faculty is trying to recruit for the post. The uncertainty in Robyn's professional status comes from whether she will be able to find a permanent post anywhere, in the context of national budget reductions to the universities.

The relationship between Robyn and Vic reveals their weaknesses. Robyn's academic position is precarious because of national budget cuts to education and the universities. Vic has to deal with industrial politics at Pringle's. The plot is a pastiche of the industrial novel genre, alluding to ''North and South'' by Elizabeth Gaskell. This gentle ribbing acts to undermine the postmodern and feminist position of Robyn, who accepts the hand of fate despite ridiculing its role as the sole restorative capable (in the minds of authors of industrial novels) of elevating the female to a serious social position. Robyn acquires insight into the pragmatic ethos whose encroachment on university culture she resents and about the physical reality of factories of which her only prior knowledge was literature. In his turn, Vic learns to appreciate the symbolic or semiotic dimension of his environment and discovers a romanticism within himself that he had previously despised in his everyday life.

Carly Beth Caldwell is a naive, timid and gullible 11-year-old girl who scares easily. Thus, she is constantly ridiculed by Steve Boswell and Chuck Greene at Walnut Avenue Middle School. The pair play several tricks on her, such as offering a sandwich containing a live worm. After school, she goes home and finds her mother has made her a plaster of Carly Beth's face as a symbol of love. When she goes to her room, her younger brother Noah scares her in a duck costume also made by their mother. At the school science fair, Steve causes a panic by announcing his pet tarantula has escaped, and exploits Carly Beth's arachnophobia by pinching her leg, leading her to believe that the tarantula has bitten her. She flies into a frenzied and destructive panic and is once again humiliated in front of her teachers and classmates. Carly Beth exasperatedly vents to her friend Sabrina and promises vengeance upon Steve and Chuck. She plots to go to a new shop that has opened, which sells frightening costumes, and plans to scare Steve and Chuck as payback.

Within the shop, Carly Beth sneaks into a back room and discovers a row of hideously deformed masks. The store owner reluctantly sells her one of the masks and Carly Beth goes home in delight. After successfully scaring Noah with the mask, she dons it again on Halloween evening and manages to scare Chuck and Steve. However, as the night goes on, her voice deepens and her behavior becomes violent; she strangles Sabrina and frightens children she does not know. Carly Beth later discovers that she is unable to remove the mask and realizes to her horror that the mask has become one with her skin.

Carly Beth returns to the shop, where the shopkeeper tells her that the "masks" in the back room are actually living faces that can only be removed by a "symbol of love", but if it attaches itself to her or another person again, the fusion will be permanent. The other masks suddenly come to life and begin to pursue Carly Beth. While running away from the masks, she realizes that the plaster mold her mother made is a symbol of love. Carly Beth finds the mold and uses it to deter the masks and remove the mask from her face. She returns home to her mother, tossing the mask away. Noah later bursts in and asks her, "How do I look in your mask?"

One morning in New York City, Rael is holding a can of spray paint, hating everyone around him. He witnesses a lamb lying down on Broadway which has a profound effect on him ("The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway"). As he walks along the street, he sees a dark cloud take the shape of a movie screen and slowly move towards him, finally absorbing him ("Fly on a Windshield"), seeing an explosion of images of the current day ("Broadway Melody of 1974") before he wakes up in a cave and falls asleep once again ("Cuckoo Cocoon"). Rael wakes up and finds himself trapped in a cage of stalactites and stalagmites which slowly close in towards him. As he tries to escape, he sees many other people in many other cages, before spotting his brother John outside. Rael calls to him, but John walks away and the cage suddenly disappears ("In the Cage").

Rael now finds himself on the floor of a factory and is given a tour of the area by a woman, where he watches people being processed like packages. He spots old members of his New York City gang, and also John with the number 9 stamped on his forehead. Fearing for his life, Rael escapes into a corridor ("The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging") and has an extended flashback of returning from a gang raid in New York City, ("Back in N.Y.C.") a dream where his hairy heart is removed and shaved with a razor, ("Hairless Heart") and his first sexual encounter ("Counting Out Time"). Rael's flashback ends, and he finds himself in a long, red-carpeted corridor of people crawling towards a wooden door. Rael runs past them and exits via a spiral staircase ("Carpet Crawlers"). At the top, he enters a chamber with 32 doors, surrounded by people and unable to concentrate ("The Chamber of 32 Doors").

Rael finds a blind woman who leads him out of the chamber ("Lilywhite Lilith") and into another cave ("The Waiting Room"), where he becomes trapped by falling rocks ("Anyway"). Rael encounters Death ("Here Comes the Supernatural Anaesthetist") and escapes the cave. Rael ends up in a pool with three Lamia, beautiful snake-like creatures, and has sex with them, but they die after drinking some of his blood ("The Lamia"). He leaves the pool in a boat ("Silent Sorrow in Empty Boats"), and finds himself in a group of Slippermen, distorted, grotesque men who have all had the same experience with the Lamia, and finds that he has become one of them ("The Arrival"). Rael finds John among the Slippermen, who reveals that the only way to become human again is to visit Doktor Dyper and be castrated ("A Visit to the Doktor"). Both are castrated and keep their removed penises in containers around their necks. Rael's container is taken by a raven and he chases after it, leaving John behind ("The Raven"). The raven drops the container in a ravine and into a rushing underground river ("Ravine").

As Rael walks alongside it, he sees a window in the bank above his head which reveals his home amidst the streets ("The Light Dies Down on Broadway"). Faced with the option of returning home, he sees John in a river below him, struggling to stay afloat. Despite being deserted twice by John, Rael dives in to save him and the gateway to New York vanishes ("Riding the Scree"). Rael rescues John and drags his body to the bank of the river and turns him over to look at his face, only to see his own face instead ("In the Rapids"). His consciousness then drifts between both bodies, and he sees the surrounding scenery melting away into a haze. Both bodies dissolve, and Rael's spirit becomes one with everything around him ("''it.''").

In the tale, a long train must be pulled over a high mountain after its locomotive breaks down. Larger locomotives, treated anthropomorphically, are asked to pull the train; for various reasons they refuse. The request is sent to a small engine, who agrees to try. The engine succeeds in pulling the train over the mountain while repeating the motto: "I-think-I-can".

The story of the little engine has been told and retold many times. The underlying theme is the same—a stranded train is unable to find an engine willing to take it on over difficult terrain to its destination. Only the little engine is willing to try and, while repeating the mantra "I think I can, I think I can", overcomes a seemingly impossible task.

An early version goes as follows:

A little railroad engine was employed about a station yard for such work as it was built for, pulling a few cars on and off the switches. One morning it was waiting for the next call when a long train of freight-cars asked a large engine in the roundhouse to take it over the hill. "I can't; that is too much a pull for me", said the great engine built for hard work. Then the train asked another engine, and another, only to hear excuses and be refused. In desperation, the train asked the little switch engine to draw it up the grade and down on the other side. "I think I can", puffed the little locomotive, and put itself in front of the great heavy train. As it went on the little engine kept bravely puffing faster and faster, "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can."

As it neared the top of the grade, which had so discouraged the larger engines, it went more slowly. However, it still kept saying, "I—think—I—can, I—think—I—can." It reached the top by drawing on bravery and then went on down the grade, congratulating itself by saying, "I thought I could, I thought I could."

A Disney version of the story was published in 1976:

The story begins with a toy-filled train pulled by a small red engine on its way to a town on the other side of a mountain but the engine shortly breaks down upon reaching the mountain. The toy clown flags down other engines to help them: a shiny yellow passenger engine, a big black freight engine, and a rusty old engine. The shiny passenger engine and big freight engine both refuse to help them and the rusty old engine is too tired and must rest. Finally, a little blue engine arrives. Although she is simply a switcher engine and has never been over the mountain, she agrees to help pull the train. In the end, she was able to successfully reach the top of the mountain before slowly heading down towards the town.

Marion Holland flees with nearly $10,000 she stole from the company safe of her employer, Sidney Strutt, the head of a tax consulting company, whom she charmed into hiring her without references. Changing her appearance and identity, Marian, whose real name is Margaret "Marnie" Edgar, travels to Virginia, where she stables a horse named Forio. She then visits her invalid mother, Bernice, whom she supports financially, in Baltimore.

Mark Rutland, a wealthy widower who owns a publishing company in Philadelphia, meets with Strutt on business. He learns about the theft and recalls Marnie from a previous visit. Some months later, Marnie, posing as Mary Taylor, applies for a job at Mark's company. Mark hires her after recognizing her. While working weekend overtime with Mark, Marnie has a panic attack during a thunderstorm. Mark comforts, then kisses her. They begin dating. Marnie suffers from bad dreams, and the color red can trigger an extreme emotional reaction.

Soon after, Marnie steals money from Mark's company and flees again. Mark tracks her to the stable where she keeps Forio. He blackmails her into marrying him, much to the chagrin of Lil, the sister of Mark's late wife, who is in love with him. Lil grows suspicious when she discovers Mark has spent a considerable sum since marrying Marnie.

On their honeymoon cruise, Marnie resists Mark's desire for physical intimacy. Mark initially respects her wishes, but it is implied that he rapes her offscreen. The next morning, she attempts to drown herself in the ship's swimming pool, but Mark saves her.

After overhearing Marnie on a phone call, Lil tips off Mark that Marnie's mother is not dead, as Marnie claimed. Mark hires a private detective to investigate. Meanwhile, Lil overhears Mark telling Marnie he has "paid off Strutt" on her behalf. Lil mischievously invites Strutt and his wife to a party at the Rutland mansion. Strutt recognizes Marnie, but Mark pressures him into doing nothing. When Marnie later admits to additional robberies, Mark works to reimburse her victims to drop charges.

Mark brings Forio to their estate, pleasing Marnie. During a fox hunt, Forio bolts, misses a jump, breaks a leg, and lies on the ground screaming in pain. Marnie frantically runs to a nearby house, obtains a gun, and shoots her horse. Crazed with grief, Marnie goes home, where she finds the key to Mark's office. She goes to the office and opens the safe, but finds herself unable to take the money, even after Mark arrives and "urges" her to take it.

Mark takes Marnie to Baltimore to confront her mother and extract the truth about Marnie's past. They arrive in a thunderstorm. As it is revealed that Bernice was a prostitute, Marnie's long-suppressed memories resurface: when she was a small child, one of Bernice's clients tried to calm a frightened Marnie during a thunderstorm. Seeing him touch Marnie and believing he was trying to molest her, Bernice attacked him. As the man fended her off, she fell and injured her leg, leaving her disabled. Marnie, frightened and attempting to protect her mother, fatally struck the man in the head with a fireplace poker. The sight of his blood caused her hatred of the color red, the thunderstorm that night caused her fear of them, and the connection of the deadly night to sex caused her revulsion at physical intimacy. In the aftermath, Bernice told police that she killed the man and prayed Marnie would forget the event. Understanding the reason behind her behavior, Marnie asks for Mark's help. They leave holding each other closely.

Eight British and American civilians, service members and United States Merchant Mariners are stuck in a lifeboat after their ship and a German U-boat sink each other in combat. Willi, a German survivor, is pulled aboard. During an animated debate, engine room crewman Kovac demands the German be thrown out to drown. However, the others object, with radioman Stanley, wealthy industrialist Rittenhouse and columnist Connie Porter succeeding in arguing that he be allowed to stay. Porter is thrilled at having photographed the battle, but her photo camera is the first of her many possessions to be lost overboard in a succession of incidents.

Mrs. Higley, a young British woman whose infant child is dead when they are pulled from the water, must be tied down to stop her from hurting herself. She jumps off the boat in Porter's mink coat, while the other passengers sleep. Willi is revealed to be the U-boat captain, rather than a mere crewman.

The inhabitants attempt to organize their rations, set a course for Bermuda, and coexist as they try to survive. The passengers also cooperate through this stress, such as when they must amputate the leg of one of their boatmates, the injured Gus Smith.

Kovac takes charge, rationing the little food and water they have, but Willi, who has been consulting a concealed compass and reveals that he speaks English, wrests control away from him in a storm.

Gus Smith, who has been drinking seawater and is hallucinating, catches Willi drinking water from a hidden flask. Gus tries to tell Stanley but Stanley doesn't believe him. While the others sleep, Willi pushes him over the side. Gus' calls for help rouse Stanley and the others, but it is too late.

When the inhabitants realize that Willi does actually have a flask of water, Joe pulls it from Willi's shirt, but it breaks. Willi explains that like everyone on a U-boat he had food tablets and energy pills. To survive, one must have a plan.

In anger, they descend upon Willi as a group, all but Joe, to beat Willi and toss him from the boat to his death.

Later, Rittenhouse says that he will never understand Willi's ingratitude. "What do you do with people like that?" No one answers. Stanley proposes to Alice, and she accepts, although they have little hope of surviving.

Connie chastises everyone for giving up then offers her bracelet as bait for fish. A fish strikes, but Joe sights a ship, and in the rush for the oars, the line goes overboard and the bracelet is lost.

It is the German supply ship to which Willi had been steering them. But before a launch can pick them up, both it and the supply ship are sunk by gunfire from an US warship and a brief battle is waged between the two ships which nearly destroys the little boat. After the battle ends, Kovac estimates that the Allied vessel will be there in 20 minutes. Connie panics over her appearance. Joe hopes his wife isn't worried. Rittenhouse admires a picture of Joe's family and still persists in calling him "Pullman porter George". They talk briefly about their plans for after the rescue.

A frightened, wounded, young German seaman is pulled aboard the lifeboat. Rittenhouse is now all for killing him, and the others, including Kovac, have to hold him back. The German sailor pulls a gun but is disarmed by Joe. The seaman asks in German, "Aren't you going to kill me?" Kovac muses, "'Aren't you going to kill me?' What are you going to do with people like that?" Stanley says "I don't know, I was thinking of Mrs. Higley and her baby, and Gus." "Well," Connie says, "maybe they can answer that."

That ends the film, with the apparent conclusion that they were then rescued and returned to American society.

Hansel and Gretel are the young children of a poor woodcutter. When a famine settles over the land, the woodcutter's second wife tells the woodcutter to take the children into the woods and leave them there to fend for themselves, so that she and her husband do not starve to death. The woodcutter opposes the plan, but his wife claims that maybe a stranger will take the children in and provide for them, which the woodcutter and she simply cannot do. With the scheme seemingly justified, the woodcutter reluctantly is forced to submit to it. They are unaware that in the children's bedroom, Hansel and Gretel have overheard them. After the parents have gone to bed, Hansel sneaks out of the house and gathers as many white pebbles as he can, then returns to his room, reassuring Gretel that God will not forsake them.

The next day, the family walk deep into the woods and Hansel lays a trail of white pebbles. After their parents abandon them, the children wait for the moon to rise and then follow the pebbles back home. They return home safely, much to their stepmother's rage. Once again, provisions become scarce and the stepmother angrily orders her husband to take the children further into the woods and leave them there. Hansel and Gretel attempt to gather more pebbles, but find the front door locked.

The following morning, the family treks into the woods. Hansel takes a slice of bread and leaves a trail of bread crumbs for them to follow to return back home. However, after they are once again abandoned, they find that the birds have eaten the crumbs and they are lost in the woods. After days of wandering, they follow a beautiful white bird to a clearing in the woods, and discover a large cottage built of gingerbread, cookies, cakes, and candy, with window panes of clear sugar. Hungry and tired, the children begin to eat the rooftop of the house, when the door opens and a "''very old woman''" emerges and lures the children inside with the promise of soft beds and delicious food. They enter without realizing that their hostess is a bloodthirsty witch who built the gingerbread house to waylay children to cook and eat them.

The next morning, the witch locks Hansel in an iron cage in the garden and forces Gretel into becoming a slave. The witch feeds Hansel regularly to fatten him up, but serves Gretel nothing but crab shells. The witch then tries to touch Hansel's finger to see how fat he has become, but Hansel cleverly offers a thin bone he found in the cage. As the witch's eyes are too weak to notice the deception, she is fooled into thinking Hansel is still too thin to eat. After weeks of this, the witch grows impatient and decides to eat Hansel, "''be he fat or lean''".

She prepares the oven for Hansel, but decides she is hungry enough to eat Gretel, too. She coaxes Gretel to the open oven and asks her to lean over in front of it to see if the fire is hot enough. Gretel, sensing the witch's intent, pretends she does not understand what the witch means. Infuriated, the witch demonstrates, and Gretel instantly shoves her into the hot oven, slams and bolts the door shut, and leaves "''the ungodly witch to be burned in ashes''". Gretel frees Hansel from the cage and the pair discover a vase full of treasure, including precious stones. Putting the jewels into their clothing, the children set off for home. A swan ferries them across an expanse of water, and at home they find only their father; his wife died from some unknown cause. Their father had spent all his days lamenting the loss of his children, and is delighted to see them safe and sound. With the witch's wealth, they all live happily ever after.

Nikita (Anne Parillaud) is a nihilistic teenage junkie who commits her life to anarchy, drugs and violence. One night, she participates in the robbery of a pharmacy owned by a friend's parents. The robbery erupts into a gunfight with local police, and her accomplices are killed. Suffering severe withdrawal symptoms, she murders a police officer. Nikita is arrested, tried, and convicted of murder, and is sentenced to life in prison.

In prison, government officials fake her death, making it appear that she has committed suicide, and remove her from prison. She awakens in a nondescript room, where a well-dressed, hard-looking man named Bob (Tchéky Karyo) tells her that, although officially dead and buried, she is in the custody of a shadowy government agency known as "the Centre" (possibly part of the DGSE). She is given the choice of becoming an assassin, or of occupying "row 8, plot 30", her fake grave. After some resistance, she chooses the former and gradually proves to be a talented killer. She is taught computer skills, martial arts, and firearms. One of her trainers, Amande (Jeanne Moreau), transforms her from a degenerate drug addict to a beautiful femme fatale. Amande implies that she also was rescued and trained by the Centre.

Nikita's initial mission, killing a foreign diplomat in a crowded restaurant and escaping from his well-armed bodyguards to the Centre, doubles as the final test in her training. She graduates and begins life as a sleeper agent in Paris (under the name Marie). After meeting Marco (Jean-Hugues Anglade) in a supermarket, the two develop an intimate relationship, although he knows nothing of her real work. Marco is curious about her past and why she has no family or other friends. Nikita invites Bob to dinner as "Uncle Bob". He tells stories about "Marie"'s imaginary childhood, and give the couple tickets for a trip to Venice, purportedly as an engagement gift.

Nikita and Marco go on the trip. As they prepare to make love after arrival, the phone rings. She thinks it's the room service they just ordered, but it is instructions for her next job. Her room is perfectly located for her to shoot the target. She goes to the bathroom, supposedly to take a bath, and as she prepares the rifle, Marco tries to talk to her through the door. The instructions about her target take longer than expected and she can't answer him. She finally shoots her target but barely conceals the rifle before Marco walks in, against her wishes. Nikita is distraught that her work has caused them difficulties.

Still, her career as an assassin goes well until a document-theft mission in an embassy goes awry. The Centre sends in Victor "The Cleaner" (Jean Reno), a ruthless operative, to salvage the mission and destroy all the evidence of the foul-up. When another operative is killed by Victor, Nikita is assigned to take his place. They nearly complete the mission before it goes bad. Victor takes on a bunch of guards before being fatally wounded, but drives Nikita to safety before succumbing to his wounds.

Marco reveals that he has discovered Nikita's secret life, and, concerned over how her activities are affecting her psychologically, persuades her to disappear. Upon discovering that she abandoned the Centre, Bob goes to their apartment and meets with Marco. When Bob says that Nikita is at risk because she still has the documents taken from the embassy, Marco hands them over. The two men agree that they will both miss Nikita.

In 1973, a 10-year old Michael Jordan tells his father, James, about his dreams of playing in the NBA. Twenty years later, following his father's death, Jordan announces his retirement from basketball and pursues a baseball career.

Meanwhile, in outer space, the amusement park Moron Mountain is in decline. Mr. Swackhammer, the park's proprietor, learns of the Looney Tunes from his minions, the Nerdlucks, and tasks them with forcing them to use as attractions. Upon their arrival beneath Earth's surface, the Nerdlucks take the Looney Tunes prisoner, but Bugs Bunny convinces them into allowing them to defend themselves. Noting the Nerdlucks' small stature, the Looney Tunes challenge them to a basketball game. After learning more of basketball, the Nerdlucks infiltrate various games, usurping the talents of Charles Barkley, Shawn Bradley, Patrick Ewing, Larry Johnson, and Muggsy Bogues. The Nerdlucks use these talents to transform into gigantic, muscular creatures, whom Sylvester refers to as Monstars. The Looney Tunes realize that they need professional help.

While golfing with Bill Murray, Larry Bird, and his PA, Stan Podolak, the Looney Tunes abduct Jordan into their universe. Bugs explains their situation to Jordan, who is initially reluctant to help. However, Jordan agrees after a confrontation with the Monstars, and forms the Tune Squad with the Looney Tunes; they are joined by Lola Bunny, with whom Bugs is enamored. Initially unprepared, Jordan sends Bugs and Daffy Duck back to his house to obtain his basketball gear. Jordan's children aid them and agree to keep the game a secret; Stan notices the pair, follows them back to their world, and joins the team. Meanwhile, the incapacity of the five NBA players results in national panic that culminates in the season's suspension. The players try to restore their skills through various methods, with no success.

The game between the Tune Squad and the Monstars commences, with Swackhammer arriving to observe. The Monstars dominate the first half, lowering the Tune Squad's morale. During halftime, Stan sneaks into the Monstars' locker room, learns how they obtained their talent, and informs the Tune Squad. Using a unique plan, Bugs and Jordan motivate the Tune Squad, who improve in the second half with cartoon physics. During a timeout, Jordan raises the stakes with Swackhammer: if the Tune Squad wins, the Monstars must relinquish their stolen talent; if the Monstars win, Jordan will become a new Moron Mountain attraction. On Swackhammer's orders, the Monstars become increasingly violent, injuring most of the Tune Squad.

With ten seconds left in the game, the Tune Squad are down by one point and one player, with only Jordan, Bugs, Lola, and Daffy still able to play. Murray unexpectedly arrives and joins the team. In the final seconds, Jordan gains the ball with Murray's assistance but is pulled back by the Monstars. On Bugs' advice, Jordan uses cartoon physics to extend his arm and achieve a slam dunk, winning the match with a buzzer beater. After Swackhammer scolds the Monstars for their failure, Jordan helps them realize that they only served him because they were once smaller. They shove Swackhammer inside a missile and send him to the Moon. After relinquishing their talent, the Nerdlucks join the Looney Tunes and return Jordan to Earth.

Jordan later returns the talent to the five players, whose remarks convince Jordan to return to the NBA.

''Naked Lunch'' is a non-linear narrative without a clear plot. The following is a summary of some of the events in the book that could be considered the most relevant.

The book begins with the adventures of William Lee (also known as "Lee the Agent"), who is Burroughs' alter ego in the novel. His journey starts in the U.S. where he is fleeing the police in search of his next fix. There are short chapters describing the different characters he travels with and meets along the way.

Eventually he gets to Mexico where he is assigned to Dr. Benway; for what, he is not told. Benway appears and he tells about his previous doings in Annexia as a "Total Demoralizator." The story then moves to a state called Freeland, a form of limbo, where we learn of Islam Inc. Here, some new characters are introduced, such as Clem, Carl, and Joselito.

A short section then jumps in space and time to a marketplace. The Black Meat is sold here and compared to "junk", i.e. heroin. The action then moves back to the hospital where Benway is fully revealed as a manipulative sadist.

Time and space again shift the narrative to a location known as Interzone. Hassan, one of the notable characters of the book and "a notorious liquefactionist", is throwing a violent orgy. AJ crashes the party and wreaks havoc, decapitating people and imitating a pirate. Hassan is enraged and tells AJ never to return, calling him a "factualist bitch," a term which is enlarged much later when the apparently "clashing" political factions within Interzone are described. These include the Liquefactionists, the Senders, the Factualists, and the Divisionists (who occupy "a midway position"). A short descriptive section tells of Interzone University, where a professor and his students are ridiculed; the book moves on to an orgy that AJ throws.

The book then shifts back to the market place and a description of the totalitarian government of Annexia. Characters including the County Clerk, Benway, Dr. Berger, Clem and Jody are sketched through heavy dialogue and their own sub-stories.

After the description of the four parties of Interzone, we are told more stories about AJ. After briefly describing Interzone, the novel breaks into sub-stories and heavily cut-up influenced passages.

In a sudden return to what seems to be Lee's reality, two police officers, Hauser and O'Brien, catch up with Lee, who kills both of them. Lee then goes out to a street phone booth and calls the Narcotics Squad, saying he wants to speak to O'Brien. A Lieutenant Gonzales on the other end of the line claims there's no one in their records called O'Brien. When Lee asks for Hauser instead, the reply is identical; Lee hangs up, and goes on the run once again. The book then becomes increasingly disjointed and impressionistic, and finally simply stops.

In an alternate 1980s, the United States of America is strategically isolated after NATO is disbanded. At the same time, the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies aggressively expand. In addition, the Ukrainian wheat harvest fails while a socialist ''coup d'état'' occurs in Mexico.

In September, in the town of Calumet, Colorado, a local high school teacher pauses upon seeing Soviet troops parachuting from An-12 transport aircraft. He walks outside to question them and they open fire. Pandemonium follows as students flee amid heavy gunfire. Jed Eckert, who had dropped his brother Matt off at the high school, returns to pick up him and several of their friends, narrowly escaping the chaos.

In downtown Calumet, Cuban, Nicaraguan, and Soviet troops begin imposing order after a hasty occupation. Cuban Colonel Ernesto Bella instructs the KGB to go to the local sporting goods stores and obtain the records of the store's gun sales, the ATF Form 4473, to determine who owns firearms in Calumet and in the surrounding rural area.

Brothers Jed and Matt Eckert, along with their friends Robert Morris, Danny, Daryl Bates, and Arturo "Aardvark" Mondragon, flee into the wilderness after hastily equipping themselves at the sporting goods store. At one point they encounter a Soviet roadblock, but are saved by a U.S. Army UH-1 helicopter gunship. After several weeks in the forest, they learn that Jed and Matt's father is being held in a "re-education camp". They visit the camp, speaking to Mr. Eckert through the fence, and learn that their mother is dead; Mr. Eckert reminds them he had purposely raised them in a strenuous manner, ordering them to avenge them.

The kids visit the Masons, behind enemy lines in "occupied America". Robert's father was executed because of the inventory the kids had taken from his store. The Masons ask Jed and Matt to take care of their granddaughters, Toni and Erica. After killing Soviet soldiers in the woods, the youths begin attacking the occupation forces, calling themselves "Wolverines" after the school mascot. The Soviets respond with reprisals, executing groups of civilians following every Wolverine attack. The fathers of Jed, Matt, and Aardvark are killed in one of these executions. Daryl's father, Mayor Bates, tries to save the lives of the captured citizens by collaborating, but with little success. These reprisal tactics fail to stop the Wolverines.

The Wolverines meet American F-15 fighter pilot Lt. Col. Andrew Tanner (Powers Boothe), shot down by Cuban MiG-21s. He informs them of the current state of the war: several American cities, including Washington D.C., were destroyed by nuclear strikes, Strategic Air Command was crippled by Cuban saboteurs, and paratroopers were dropped from airliners to seize key positions in preparation for assaults via Mexico and Alaska. Most of the southern United States and Northwestern Canada are occupied by the Soviets, but American counterattacks have halted Soviet advances along the Rockies and the Mississippi, and the lines have stabilized. Remaining U.S. allies, the United Kingdom and China, are crippled. Nuclear fallout concerns on both sides restrict further use of nuclear weapons.

Tanner assists the Wolverines in organizing raids. This draws the attention of a Soviet general, who orders further reprisals against the civilian population. The Wolverines' actions, and the reprisals lead to the high command on both sides of the war to know the name "Wolverines", and the Soviet generals publicly state that the area "may not be pacified for much longer". Soon after, visiting the front line, Tanner and Aardvark are killed in the crossfire of a tank battle. Daryl is caught by the Soviets after being turned in by his father. Using threats of torture, KGB officers force him to swallow a tracking device, and release him to rejoin the guerrillas. A ''Spetsnaz'' unit is sent into the mountains carrying portable radio triangulation equipment, but are ambushed by the Wolverines. The group traces the source of the signal to Daryl, who confesses, pleading for mercy. He is executed by a hardened Robert after Jed executes a Spetsnaz operative as the others cannot kill their friend.

The remaining Wolverines are ambushed by Mi-24 helicopter gunships, and Toni and Robert are killed. Jed and Matt attack the Soviet headquarters in Calumet to distract the troops while Danny and Erica escape. The plan works, but both Jed and Matt are mortally wounded. Colonel Bella finds the brothers, but feeling the already too-great loss of the war, the colonel is unable to kill them, so he motions them on. The brothers reach a bench in the park, holding each other as they die. Meanwhile, Danny and Erica trek through the Rocky Mountain Wilderness, reaching the frontier of Free America.

In the closing scene, a plaque is seen with Partisan Rock in the background. It is fenced off and an American flag flies nearby implying that the United States won the war. The plaque reads:

From the first series voice-over:

Every government has its secret service branch. America, CIA; France, Deuxième Bureau; England, MI5. NATO also has its own. A messy job? Well that's when they usually call on me or someone like me. Oh yes, my name is Drake, John Drake.

The line "NATO also has its own" is not always present. ''Danger Man'', Series 1, The Honeymooners, 1962.

Motorcycle racer Bud Clay undertakes a cross-country drive, following a race in New Hampshire, in order to participate in a race in California. All the while he is haunted by memories of his former lover, Daisy. On his journey he meets three women, but Bud seems to be a lost soul, and he is unable to form an emotional connection with any of them. He first meets Violet at a gas station in New Hampshire and convinces her to join him on his trip. They stop at her home in order to get her clothes, but he drives off as soon as she enters the house.

Bud's next stop is the home of Daisy's parents, the location of Daisy's brown bunny. Daisy's mother does not remember Bud, who grew up in the house next door, nor does she remember having visited Bud and Daisy in California. Next, Bud stops at a pet shelter, where he asks about the life expectancy of rabbits (he is told it is about five or six years). At a highway rest stop, he meets a distressed woman, Lilly. He comforts and kisses her, before starting to cry and eventually leaving her. Bud appears more distressed as the road trip continues, crying as he drives. He stops at the Bonneville Speedway to race his motorcycle. In Las Vegas, he drives around prostitutes on street corners, before deciding to ask one of them, Rose, to join him for a lunch. She eats McDonald's food in his truck until he stops, pays her, and leaves her back on the street.

After having his motorcycle checked in a Los Angeles garage, Bud stops at Daisy's house, which appears abandoned. He leaves a note on the door frame, after sitting in his truck in the driveway remembering about kissing Daisy in this place, and checks in at a hotel. Daisy eventually appears there. She seems nervous, going to the bathroom twice to smoke crack cocaine, while Bud waits for her, sitting on his bed. As she proposes to go out to buy something to drink, Bud tells her that, because of what happened the last time they saw each other, he does not drink anymore.

They have an argument about Daisy kissing other men. At this point, Bud undresses Daisy and she fellates him. Once done, he insults her as they lie in bed, talking about what happened during their last meeting. Bud continuously asks Daisy why she had been involved with some men at a party. She explains that she was just being friendly and wanted to smoke marijuana with them. Bud becomes upset because Daisy was pregnant and it transpires that the baby died as a result of what happened at this party.

Through flashback scenes, the viewer understands that Daisy was raped at the party, a scene witnessed by Bud, who did not intervene. Daisy asks Bud why he did not help her, and his feelings of guilt on this are considerable. He tells her that he did not know what to do, and so he decided to leave the party. After he came back a bit later, he saw an ambulance in front of the house and Daisy explains to Bud that she is dead, having passed out prior to the rape and then choked to death on her own vomit. Bud awakens the next morning, alone; his encounter with Daisy turns out to have been a figment of his imagination. The movie ends as Bud is driving his truck in California.

The game loosely mirrors a portion of the series' plot, representing most of the events in the first book. Arthur Dent wakes up one day to find his house about to be destroyed by a construction crew to make way for a new bypass. His friend Ford Prefect, who is secretly an extraterrestrial, helps to calm Arthur down and hitches them a ride on one of the ships in the approaching Vogon constructor fleet, moments before the fleet destroys the Earth to make way for a new hyperspace bypass.

Aboard the ship, Arthur learns that Ford is a journalist for ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' and has been on Earth researching the planet for the Guide. The two are discovered by Vogons and subjected by the captain to a reading of his poetry. The two manage to survive this, and the Vogons throw them into the airlock and shoot them out into space. By a huge improbability, they are picked up in the last moment before they die of asphyxiation by the spacecraft ''Heart of Gold'' while it is traveling on Infinite Improbability Drive. After getting safely aboard the ship, Arthur and Ford meet Ford's friend Zaphod Beeblebrox, who had stolen the ''Heart of Gold'' as his first act of office as the Galactic President, as well as Arthur's friend Trillian (Tricia McMillan), whom Zaphod had picked up from a party on Earth. Zaphod wants to travel to the legendary planet of Magrathea, believing it to hold a great secret.

At this point, Zaphod leaves the task of getting to Magrathea to the ship's computer Eddie, and he, Ford, and Trillian depart to the ship's sauna. Arthur finds Eddie incapable of getting to Magrathea without help. Arthur initially tries to help by supplying the Infinite Improbability Drive with a tea substitute from the ship's Nutrimatic device to serve as a source of Brownian motion, but this only causes Arthur to temporarily take on the consciousness of Ford, Zaphod, and Trillian in their respective pasts, and he must manipulate events such that items in these past periods are brought aboard the ''Heart of Gold'' in the present. Through this, Arthur gains enough parts as to replace the circuit board in the Nutrimatic so that it can produce real tea. This tea is powerful enough to power the Drive to get them to Magrathea, but in orbit, the ship is attacked by two missiles from the surface. Arthur employs the Drive again to change the missiles into a sperm whale and a bowl of petunias, neutralizing the threat.

The ship prepares to land, but the computer will not let them do so. Again, the other three head off to the sauna, leaving Arthur to figure out how to fix this. This requires Arthur to reach Marvin the Paranoid Android's closet on the ship in order to get the final tools needed to fix the computer and get it to land. The game ends as Arthur and the others are about to set foot on Magrathea.

Believing the World to be corrupt, the secret organization Across plans to conquer the world. The first step in the plan for world domination is to begin by focusing on one city in order to minimize setbacks. Across consists of the leader of the organization, Il Palazzo, and his young adult officers: the enthusiastic and energetically devoted Excel and the soft-spoken Hyatt, who is prone to fainting and losing lots of blood at a time. Excel and Hyatt live in an apartment building in the city, along with their pet dog Menchi, who they have deemed their emergency food supply. Excel and Hyatt are later joined by a snobbish but equally clueless rival officer of Across named Elgala.

Living in the neighboring apartment are three guys: Iwata, Sumiyoshi and Watanabe, who along with apartment neighbor and co-worker Matsuya, work for the Department of City Security. The Department's leader, Dr. Kabapu, also has a grandiose plan on stopping Across; he has the City Security workers dress in Super Sentai-like uniforms and sends them on different missions. Supporting Kabapu is an inventor Gojo Shiouji who likes little girls, and his gynoid Ropponmatsu, who later is deployed as two models.

The series follows the daily interactions among the two groups. Il Palazzo would send the girls on their missions but the results are usually a failure with some explosive or catastrophic damage to the city. Kabapu would send the City Security workers on some equally ridiculous assignment which would also go wrong. Eventually Il Palazzo and Kabapu become aware of each other's manipulations and escalate their plans. Excel finds herself being replaced by an impersonator who heads the ILL Corporation. Massive amounts of money is spent on elections and politics. Eventually the members of Across begin making appeals directly to the City's citizens before Il Palazzo publicly declares the existence of Across and its intentions to the public. Hyatt is captured and Excel and Elgala are later held in an immigrant detention center before being rescued by Il Palazzo, who begins the new phase of his plans.

The anime adaptation introduces some original characters: immigrant worker turned wandering spirit Pedro; alien mascot-like creatures called Puchuu; and The Great Will of the Macrocosm, the last of whom occasionally resets the storyline. The anime director Shinichi Watanabe cameos as an afro-wearing guy named Nabeshin, and a caricature of the manga artist also makes appearances.

Advertising consultant Cayce Pollard, who reacts to logos and advertising as if to an allergen, arrives in London in August 2002. She is working on a contract with the marketing firm Blue Ant to judge the effectiveness of a proposed corporate logo for a shoe company. During the presentation, graphic designer Dorotea Benedetti becomes hostile towards Cayce as she rejects the first proposal. After dinner with some Blue Ant employees, the company founder Hubertus Bigend offers Cayce a new contract: to uncover who is responsible for distributing a series of anonymous, artistic film clips via the internet. Cayce had been following the film clips and participating in an online discussion forum theorizing on the clips' meaning, setting, and other aspects. Wary of corrupting the artistic process and mystery of the clips, she reluctantly accepts. Cayce is not entirely comfortable with Ivy's chat group called "Fetish:Footage:Forum" (or F:F:F), as shown by the following excerpt:

A friend from the discussion group, who uses the handle Parkaboy, privately emails her saying a friend of a friend has discovered an encrypted watermark on one clip. They concoct a fake persona, a young woman named Keiko, to seduce the Japanese man who knows the watermark code. Cayce, along with an American computer security specialist, Boone Chu, hired to assist her, travels to Tokyo to meet the man and retrieve the watermark code. Two men attempt to steal the code but Cayce escapes and travels back to London. Boone travels to Columbus, Ohio to investigate the company that he believes created the watermark. Meanwhile, Blue Ant hires Dorotea who reveals that she was previously employed by a Russian lawyer whose clients have been investigating Cayce. The clients wanted Cayce to refuse the job of tracking the film clips and it was Dorotea's responsibility to ensure this.

Through a completely random encounter Cayce meets Voytek Biroshak and Ngemi, the former an artist using old ZX81 microcomputers as a sculpture medium, the latter a collector of rare technology (he mentions purchasing Stephen King's word processor, for example). Another collector, and sometime 'friend' of Ngemi's, Hobbs Baranov, is a retired cryptographer and mathematician with connections in the American National Security Agency. Cayce strikes a deal with him: she buys a Curta calculator for him and he finds the email address to which the watermark code was sent. Using this email address Cayce makes contact with Stella Volkova whose sister Nora is the maker of the film clips.

Cayce flies to Moscow to meet Stella in person and watch Nora work. Nora is brain damaged from an assassination attempt and can only express herself through film. At her hotel, Cayce is intercepted and drugged by Dorotea and wakes up in a mysterious prison facility. Cayce escapes; exhausted, disoriented and lost, she nearly collapses as Parkaboy, who upon Cayce's request was flown to Moscow, retrieves her and brings her to the prison where the film is processed. There Hubertus, Stella and Nora's uncle Andrei, and the latter's security employees are waiting for her. Over dinner with Cayce, the Russians reveal that they have been spying on her since she posted to a discussion forum speculating that the clips may be controlled by the Russian Mafia. They had let her track the clips to expose any security breaches in their distribution network. The Russians surrender all the information they had collected on her father's disappearance and the book ends with Cayce coming to terms with his absence while in Paris with Parkaboy, whose real name is Peter Gilbert.

The plot concerns a merchant, Mr Sterling, who wants to marry off his elder daughter to Sir John Melvil, who is actually in love with her younger sister, Fanny. Fanny, however, is in love with a humble clerk, Lovewell, whom she has secretly married. Her attempts to extricate herself from the arrangement with Melvil lead to her becoming the proposed bride of Melvil's elderly uncle, Lord Ogleby. When the truth comes out, Fanny and Lovewell are forgiven.

The Great Leslie and Professor Fate are competing daredevils at the turn of the 20th century. Leslie is the classic hero – always dressed in white, handsome, ever-courteous, enormously talented and successful. Leslie's nemesis, Fate, is the traditional melodramatic villain – usually dressed in black, sporting a black moustache and top hat, glowering at most everyone, possessing a maniacal evil laugh, filled with grandiose plans to thwart the hero, and dogged by failure. Leslie proposes an automobile race from New York City to Paris and offers the Webber Motor Car Company the opportunity to build an automobile to make the journey. They design and build a new car named "The Leslie Special". Fate builds his own race vehicle, "The Hannibal Twin-8", complete with hidden devices of sabotage. Other car owners enter the race, including one owned by New York City's most prominent newspaper. Driving the newspaper's car is beautiful photojournalist Maggie DuBois, a vocal suffragist.

A seven-car race begins, but Fate's long-suffering sidekick Maximilian Meen has sabotaged four other cars (and his own, by mistake), leaving just three cars in the race. The surviving teams are Leslie with his loyal valet Hezekiah Sturdy, Maggie DuBois driving a Stanley Steamer by herself, and Fate and Max. The steamer car breaks down and Maggie accepts a lift in the Leslie Special. Fate arrives first at a refueling point, the small Western frontier town of Boracho. A local outlaw named "Texas Jack" becomes jealous of the attraction to Leslie shown by showgirl Lily Olay and a saloon brawl ensues. Fate sneaks outside amidst the chaos, steals the fuel he needs, and destroys the rest. Leslie uses mules to pull his car to another refueling point, where Maggie tricks Hezekiah into boarding a train and handcuffs him to a seat, lying to Leslie that Hezekiah had quit and "wanted to go back to New York".

The two remaining cars reach the Bering Strait and park side by side in a blinding snowstorm. Keeping warm during the storm, Leslie and Maggie begin to see each other as more than competitors. Mishaps, including a polar bear in Fate's car, compel all four racers to warm themselves in Leslie's car. They awaken on a small ice floe which drifts into their intended Russian port, where Hezekiah is waiting for Leslie, who in turn casts off Maggie for deceiving him. Maggie is snatched by Fate, who drives off in the lead.

After driving across Asia, both cars enter the tiny kingdom of Carpania, whose alcoholic and foppish Crown Prince Friedrich Hapnick is the spitting image of Professor Fate. Plotters under the leadership of Baron Rolfe von Stuppe and General Kuhster kidnap the Prince, Fate, Max, and Maggie. Max escapes and joins Leslie to rescue the others. Fate is forced to masquerade as the Prince during the coronation so that the rebels can gain control of the kingdom. Leslie and Max overcome Von Stuppe's henchmen and confront Von Stuppe. Following a climactic sword fight with Leslie, Von Stuppe attempts escape by leaping to a waiting boat, but bursts the hull and sinks it. Leslie and Max return the real Prince to the capital in time to defeat Kuhster's plan for a military coup. Fate, still masquerading as Prince Hapnick, takes refuge in a bakery but falls into a huge cake. A pie fight ensues involving the racers, the Prince's men and the conspirators. The five racers, covered in pie filling, depart Carpania with King Friedrich's best wishes.

As the racers leave Pottsdorf (with Maggie now back in Leslie's car), it becomes a straight road race to Paris. Nearing Paris, Leslie and Maggie have a spirited argument regarding the roles of men, women and sex in relationships. Leslie stops his car just short of the finish line under the Eiffel Tower to prove that he loves Maggie more than he cares about winning the race. Fate drives past to claim the winner's mantle, but becomes indignant that Leslie let him win. Fate demands a rematch: a race back to New York.

The return race commences, with newlyweds Leslie and Maggie now a team. Fate lets them start first, then attempts to destroy their car with a small cannon. The shot misses the Leslie Special, instead knocking down the Eiffel Tower.

Peter and Mary Jackson are driving quietly on a desolate Nevada highway when they are pulled over and arrested by the disturbed Collie Entragian. They are taken to the police station of a deserted small mining town named Desperation, where Entragian kills Peter. Several other people are held captive here: the Carver family, whose daughter was also killed by Entragian; Johnny Marinville, a writer who was on a cross-country motorcycle trip to gather new material; and Tom Billingsley, the town veterinarian. Meanwhile, Johnny's assistant Steve, who had been trailing him at a distance, finds Johnny's bike and searches for him with Cynthia, a hitchhiker.

Entragian takes Ellen Carver with him, and during his absence, the intensely devout Carver son, David, manages to free everyone, and the party takes him on as a spiritual guide. They take refuge in an abandoned theater and are joined by Steve, Cynthia and Audrey, an employee of the mine. They realize that they are the only survivors of a wave of carnage committed by an evil supernatural entity named Tak. Tak had been imprisoned in an old mine shaft and can take possession of human beings, but this state quickly deteriorates the host and requires it to change hosts. Tak can also manipulate desert wildlife such as coyotes, buzzards, spiders and scorpions. Billingsley is killed by a cougar controlled by Tak, and Audrey, also under its influence, attempts to kill David. She nearly succeeds in strangling him, but is prevented by the intervention of Steve and Johnny. Tak occupies Ellen's body and takes Mary captive.

The survivors contemplate leaving the town, but David, having come out of a trance, reveals to them that God has other plans for them. Mary takes advantage of the rapid deterioration of Ellen's body to escape her, and upon Ellen's death, Tak occupies the body of a golden eagle. The group gather some ANFO to blow up the well from which Tak escaped. Tak attacks David, but kills his self-sacrificing father Ralph. Johnny prevents the now-orphaned David from giving his own life, and takes his place by blowing up the well and sealing Tak inside. David, Mary, Steve and Cynthia begin to leave the town of Desperation. While in Mary's car, David finds in his pocket the hall pass from his previous "deal with God" with a message from Johnny written on it.

On 12 October 1978, police are summoned to the Hotel Chelsea in New York City, where they find Nancy Spungen dead. Her boyfriend, Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious, is taken into custody. Nancy's friend Gretchen mourns her as paramedics remove her body. Sid is driven to a police station and told to describe what happened. Police officers become frustrated when Sid is visibly troubled and unable to speak.

A little more than a year earlier, in 1977, close friends and band members Sid and Johnny Rotten meet Nancy, a heroin-addicted American groupie who had come to London to bed the Sex Pistols. Sid dismisses her at first, as her intentions are obvious, but begins dating her after feeling sympathy for the rejection she faces from fellow punk performers. The two swiftly bond over heroin use, and it is implied that Nancy introduces Sid to the drug.

Sid and Nancy fall deeply in love, but their self-destructive, drug-fueled relationship frays Sid's relationship with the rest of the band. Nancy is distraught when Sid departs on a month-long American tour without her. The tour is notably disastrous, with Sid strung out of his mind, often drunk or on methamphetamine, and physically violent. Phoebe, Sid's friend and road manager, unsuccessfully attempts to help him stop drinking. Meanwhile, Nancy remains in London, staying with her friend Linda, a dominatrix. Although several of Sid's friends and acquaintances warn him of Nancy's devastating effect on his life, Sid stubbornly ignores these warnings. On 17 January 1978, in the midst of the group's American tour, the band breaks up.

Sid reunites with Nancy in New York City, and he attempts to start a solo career with Nancy as his manager. The two visit Paris to begin recording sessions, but the trip is unfruitful. Sid is quickly dismissed in the music industry as a has-been, and he and Nancy descend deeper into heroin addiction; Nancy also begins suffering from severe depression, and the couple eventually make a suicide pact. Nancy brings Sid to Philadelphia to meet her family, who are horrified by the couple's reckless behavior and physical state. Sid and Nancy return to New York and settle in the Hotel Chelsea, where they isolate in squalor and depend on opiates supplied by their drug dealer, Bowery Snax.

Their love affair ends tragically one night when, during an argument in which Sid announces his plans to stop using heroin and return to England to restart his life, a suicidal Nancy begs him to kill her. She attacks him and they fight in a drug-induced haze, leading to him stabbing her, although whether it was intentional is left to interpretation. They fall asleep and later Nancy awakes and stumbles into the bathroom, where she collapses and dies. Sid is bailed out temporarily by his mother, who is also a heroin addict. After Sid wanders to a pizzeria and eats a pizza, some street kids convince him to dance with them. A taxi appears and picks Sid up, and he believes he finds Nancy alive in the back seat. The two embrace as the cab drives off.

A postscript says that Vicious died of a heroin overdose, and lastly reads: "R.I.P. Nancy and Sid."

Set in the near future, A Gift traces the first generations to survive nuclear war and its aftermath. Writer Mary Hope and painter Rachel Morrow scratch out a meager existence on a farm called Amarna on the Oregon coast. They are determined to collect and preserve for a new civilization all the great books of western culture. Farther down the coast lives the Arkites, a fundamentalist group that denies all knowledge not found in the Bible. After a plague strikes the Arkites Mary agrees to take in a few survivors on the condition that she be allowed to educate the children as she sees fit.

The inhabitants of post-apocalypse Labrador have vague knowledge of the "Old People", a technologically advanced civilization they believe was destroyed when God sent "Tribulation" to the world to punish their forebears' sins. The inhabitants practise a form of fundamentalist Christianity; they believe that to follow God's word and prevent another Tribulation, they must preserve absolute normality among the surviving humans, plants and animals, and therefore practice eugenics. Humans with even minor mutations are considered blasphemies and either killed or sterilized and banished to the Fringes, a lawless and untamed area rife with animal and plant mutations, and suggested to be contaminated with radiation. Arguments occur over the keeping of a tailless cat or the possession of over-sized horses. These are deemed by the government to be legitimate breeds, either preexisting or achieved through conventional breeding. The government's position is considered both cynical and heretical by many of the orthodox frontier community, and it is suggested that they support the usage of these animals for the sole purpose of their greater efficiency.

The inland rural settlement of Waknuk is a frontier farming community, populated with hardy and pious individuals, and is where the story mainly takes place. David Strorm, the son of Waknuk's most religious man, Joseph Strorm, has dreams of large cities and "horseless carts", although he does not understand why he has these dreams or what they mean, and is cautious about mentioning it to his father, lest he raise suspicion that he's a mutant. He makes friends with Sophie, a girl who secretly has six toes on one of her feet. Later, Sophie's family attempts to escape from the reprisals (ceremonies in which blasphemies are sterilized) when her wet footprints are seen and reported by a local boy.

David and other children in Waknuk hide their own form of mutation: telepathy. David's Uncle Axel, who learned about the group from talking to David about his telepathy when he was young, advises David and protects them from persecution. He advises David on the wisdom of hiding his and the others' ability, and later kills the husband of one of the group's members who was planning to blackmail the telepaths. David's younger sister Petra demonstrates exceptionally strong telepathic talent when her horse is attacked by a wildcat she calls to all the telepaths for help across the entire Waknuk area, and stuns those closest to her. That leads to suspicion from the locals, and Uncle Axel warns the group, via David, that the Inspectors are beginning to investigate them.

Later, two telepaths, Katherine and Sally, are captured and tortured for information, while David, his cousin Rosalind, and Petra escape to the Fringes. A group of men from various districts band together to track and capture the telepaths unknown to the Norms, the posse includes a telepath named Michael who keeps the escaping group informed of the trackers' progress. Later, with Petra's strong telepathic abilities, they contact a society with telepaths in a different country they mistakenly refer to as "Sealand" (New Zealand). With the help of Sophie, who is now living in the Fringes, they escape the hunters and are rescued by a Sealand expedition. Unfortunately, they do not have enough fuel to take the craft back to Waknuk to pick up Rachel, the lone remaining Waknuk telepath, so they continue to Sealand. Michael vows to return to Waknuk to rescue Rachel, and join them in Sealand however they can.

Set in New Zealand's North Island during the New Zealand Wars, Utu follows Te Wheke (Anzac Wallace), a Maori Captain in the British army. When Te Wheke's unit comes across a village that has been slaughtered he, recognising it as his own, deserts the army and organises a guerilla force to terrorise the invading British forces. When the unit destroys the home of Williamson (Bruno Lawrence) and kills his wife, Williamson vows to hunt down Te Wheke and kill him himself. Meanwhile, army scout Wiremu (Wi Kuki Kaa) and recent Boer War veteran Lieutenant Scott (Kelly Johnson) aim to track down Te Wheke themselves, also using guerilla warfare techniques against the will of corrupt Colonel Elliot (Tim Eliott).

Fritz Knobel (the film's alter-ego of real-life forger Konrad Kujau) supports himself by faking and selling Nazi memorabilia. He sells a portrait of Eva Braun and one volume of Hitler's alleged diaries to factory owner Karl Lenz. Lenz presents this to his guests during a "birthday party for the ''Führer''", among whom is sleazy journalist Hermann Willié. Willié works for the magazine ''"HH press"'', which links to Hamburg (as a licence plate abbreviation), where the ''Stern'' magazine is located and also to the common abbreviation for "''Heil Hitler''" among neo-Nazis. Knobel writes the subsequent diaries based on what happens around him; after he meets Martha and she becomes his lover beside his wife Biggi, she also becomes his inspiration for Eva Braun in the diaries. The rumors about his work cause a major Nazi craze among the high society, allowing former Nazi officials to use openly their Nazi ranks (e.g. Obergruppenführer). Willié becomes even more obsessed buying the old yacht ''Carin II'' of Hermann Göring and starting an affair with his (fictional) grandniece Freya von Hepp, based on Hermann Göring's daughter Edda Göring.

Towards the end, the plot has developed its own dynamics, putting more and more pressure on Knobel to deliver the remaining volumes while permanently fearing the uncovering of the forgery. The volumes are convincing enough to fool the enthusiastic journalists, who are willing to overlook some oddities, especially a false monogram "FH" instead of "AH" on one of the volumes. They even invent ''alternative facts'' for their explanation (the term "Führerhauptquartier" instead of "Adolf Hitler" for instance). Later Knobel manages to manipulate a forensic graphoanalysis to his advance but it seems only a matter of time until the truth is discovered. The constant fear and the struggle with a too close identification with the person he is writing about make Knobel collapse. His two spouses take over the initiative forcing him to pull himself out of the forgery business just in time, while the others fall, similar to the end of World War II, more or less hard according to their personal level of belief.

The following text from the box cover summarizes the premise:

Long ago, when magic still prevailed, the evil wizard Mangar the Dark threatened a small but harmonious country town called Skara Brae. Evil creatures oozed into Skara Brae and joined his shadow domain. Mangar froze the surrounding lands with a spell of Eternal Winter, totally isolating Skara Brae from any possible help. Then, one night, the town militiamen all disappeared. The future of Skara Brae hung in the balance. And who was left to resist? Only a handful of unproven young Warriors, junior Magic Users, a couple of Bards barely old enough to drink, and some out-of-work Rogues. You are there. You are the leader of this ragtag group of freedom fighters. Luckily you have a Bard with you to sing your glories, if you survive. For this is the stuff of legends. And so the story begins...

In the game, the player forms a group of up to six characters. Game progress is made through advancing the characters so that they are powerful enough to defeat the increasingly dangerous foes and monsters in the dungeons, obtaining certain items relevant to solving the overall quest, and obtaining information.

The fictional town of Skara Brae consists of 30x30 map tiles containing either buildings or streets (plus gates and magical guardian statues blocking certain streets). Access to one tower in the northeastern and southwestern city corner each is blocked by locked gates. The main city gates, which open to the west, are blocked by snow and remain impassable throughout the game. One street seems to lead south endlessly, by actually teleporting the party back to its beginning upon reaching the portion where the city walls would be.

Certain buildings within the city are special, such as the Adventurer's Guild, Garth's Equipment Shoppe, the Review Board (which is unmarked and must be found first, and is the only place where characters can advance in experience levels), various taverns and temples, and the dungeons. The latter are mazes of various kinds—cellars, sewers, catacombs, or fortresses—full of monsters and riddles, some guarded by magical statues that come to life to attack trespassing player parties.

• The first dungeon is the '''Wine Cellar''' (1 level) of a tavern, which turns out to be connected to the '''Sewers''' of Skara Brae (3 levels) that in turn feature an exit that leads to the otherwise inaccessible southwestern corner of the city where Mangar's Tower, the final dungeon, is located. The tower cannot be entered without a key, however. In the sewers, numerous hints are found, including the name of the Mad God. Finding the Wine Cellar requires the party to order some wine at a specific tavern. There was a hint to this in the manual (''Hint: The first dungeon is the wine cellar of the only tavern in town which serves wine. It's on Rakhir Street''). However, this hint was not present in the manual included with the C64 release of the game . Upon ordering wine, the party is sent by the bartender to his cellar to fetch a bottle themselves. It is not actually possible within the game to obtain a bottle of wine, nor is it required to proceed.
• The undead-infested '''Catacombs''' (3 levels) beneath the temple of the Mad God, accessible only if his name is known (the player must type the password to enter). On the lowest level, a Spectre must be defeated to obtain an eye.
• If they possess the eye, a statue of the Mad God in Baron '''Harkyn's Castle''' (3 levels) will teleport the party to the (otherwise inaccessible) northeastern area of Skara Brae where the next dungeon is located; however, it is not required to proceed to the next dungeon immediately. If weakened too much from the fighting in the castle, the party may elect to leave the area via one-way portals instead at this point and return to the city and the Adventurer's Guild.
• '''Kylearan's Tower''' (1 level) can only be reached through the teleporter in Harkyn's Castle, requiring any party who wishes to enter to fight through the castle's three levels first. Kylearan the Archmage awaits the party at the conclusion of his tower maze and turns out to be friendly. He gives the party an access key to Mangar's Tower, the final dungeon, but they still have to circumvent the locked gates around the tower by going through the Sewers.
• Still reachable only via the Sewers at this point in the game, '''Mangar's Tower''' (5 levels) is the final dungeon that has to be overcome to reach Mangar and slay him, provided the party has acquired several items in the other dungeons which are required to best him. At one point within the tower, the party can acquire a key that will allow them to access Mangar's Tower and Kylearan's Tower from the city directly thenceforward, without having to move through the Sewers or Harkyn's Castle, respectively.

A group of American scientific researchers, isolated in Antarctica by the nearly-ended winter, discover an alien spaceship buried in the ice, where it crashed twenty million years before. They try to thaw the inside of the spacecraft with a thermite charge, but end up accidentally destroying it when the ship's magnesium hull is ignited by the charge. However, they do recover an alien creature from the ancient ice, which the researchers believe was searching for heat when it was frozen. Thawing revives the alien, a being which can assume the shape, memories, and personality of any living thing it devours, while maintaining its original body mass for further reproduction. Unknown to them, the alien immediately kills and then imitates the crew's physicist, a man named Connant; with some 90 pounds of its matter left over it tries to become a sled dog. The crew discovers the dog-Thing and kill it in the process of transformation. Pathologist Blair, who had lobbied for thawing the Thing, goes insane with paranoia and guilt, vowing to kill everyone at the base in order to save mankind; he is isolated within a locked cabin at their outpost. Connant is also isolated as a precaution and a "rule-of-four" is initiated in which all personnel must remain under the close scrutiny of three others.

The crew realizes that they must isolate their base and therefore disable their airplanes and vehicles, yet they pretend that everything is normal during radio transmissions to prevent any rescue attempts. The researchers try to figure out who may have been replaced by the alien (simply referred to as the Thing), in order to destroy the imitations before they can escape and take over the world. The task is almost impossibly difficult when they realize that the Thing is also telepathic, able to read minds and project thoughts. A sled dog is conditioned by human blood injections (from Copper and Garry) to provide a human-immunity serum test, as in rabbits. The initial test of Connant is inconclusive as they realize that the test animal received both human and alien blood, meaning that either Doctor Copper or expedition Commander Garry is actually an alien. Assistant commander McReady takes over and deduces that all the other animals at the station, save the test dog, have already become imitations; all are killed by electrocution and their corpses burned.

Everyone suspects each other by now but must stay together for safety, deciding who will take turns sleeping and standing watch. Tensions mount and some men begin to go mad thinking that they are already the last human or wondering if they would even know if they were not human any longer. Ultimately, Kinner, the cook, is murdered and accidentally revealed to be a Thing. McReady realizes that even small pieces of the creature will behave as independent organisms. He then uses this fact to test which men have been "converted" by taking blood samples from everyone and dipping a heated wire in the vial of blood. Each man's blood is tested, one at a time, and the donor is immediately killed if his blood recoils from the wire; fourteen men in all, including Connant and Garry, are revealed to be Things. The remaining men go to test the isolated Blair and on the way see the first albatross of the Antarctic spring flying overhead; they shoot the bird to prevent a Thing from infecting it and flying to civilization.

When they reach Blair's cabin, they discover that he is a Thing. They realize that it has been left to its own devices for a week, coming and going as it pleased as it is able to squeeze under doors by transforming itself. With the creatures inside the base destroyed, McReady and two others enter the cabin to kill the Thing that was once Blair. McReady forces it out into the snow and destroys it with a blowtorch. Afterwards the trio discover that the Thing was dangerously close to finishing the construction of a nuclear-powered anti-gravity device that would have allowed it to escape to the outside world.

In 1980, Cuban refugee and ex-convict Tony Montana arrives in Miami, Florida, as part of the Mariel boatlift, where he is sent to a refugee camp with his best friend Manny Ray and their companions Angel and Chi-Chi. The four are released and given green cards in exchange for murdering a former Cuban general at the request of Miami drug lord Frank Lopez. They become dishwashers at an eatery, but a dissatisfied Tony proclaims that he is meant for bigger things.

Frank's right-hand man, Omar Suarez, sends the four to purchase cocaine from Colombian dealers. The deal goes badly, however, when Tony and Angel get captured; Tony is forced to watch Angel being dismembered with a chainsaw before Manny and Chi-Chi rescue him. The three kill the Colombians and personally deliver the recovered drugs and money to Frank, suspecting that Omar set them up.

During their meeting, Tony becomes attracted to Frank's trophy wife, Elvira. Tony and Manny begin working for Frank. Later, Tony reunites with his mother and younger sister Gina, the latter of whom he is overprotective. Disgusted by his life of crime, his mother throws him out. Manny is attracted to Gina, but Tony tells him to stay away from her.

Frank sends Tony and Omar to Cochabamba, Bolivia, to meet with cocaine kingpin Alejandro Sosa. During the meeting, Omar is unhappy when Tony negotiates a large deal without Frank's approval. Sosa later claims to Tony that Omar is a police informant and has his men hang Omar from a helicopter, telling Tony that Frank has poor judgment. Tony vouches for Frank's organization; Sosa takes a liking to Tony and agrees to the deal, but warns Tony never to betray him.

Seeing that Frank is infuriated by Omar's death and the size of the deal with Sosa, Tony sets up an independent cocaine operation. Mel Bernstein, a corrupt police detective on Frank's payroll, accosts Tony at a nightclub and attempts to extort money from him in return for police protection. Tony spots Gina fraternizing with a man and beats them both when he sees him grope her. Hitmen then attempt to kill Tony, who escapes with a bullet wound. He confronts Frank and Bernstein, certain that they orchestrated the attack; Frank confesses his involvement at gunpoint and begs for his life, but Tony has Manny shoot him dead before proceeding to kill Bernstein. Tony marries Elvira and becomes the distributor of Sosa's product, using his profits to build a multi-million-dollar business empire and construct a large, heavily-guarded estate.

In 1983, a money laundering sting operation by federal agents results in Tony being charged with tax evasion and facing a prison sentence. Sosa offers to use his government connections to keep Tony out of prison, but only if Tony helps kill an activist intending to expose Sosa's drug operations. During dinner at an upscale restaurant, Tony accuses Manny of causing his arrest and Elvira of being an infertile junkie, prompting Elvira to leave him.

Tony travels to New York City to carry out the assassination with Sosa's henchman, Alberto, nicknamed "The Shadow", who plants a radio-controlled bomb under the activist's car. However, when the activist is unexpectedly accompanied by his wife and children, a horrified Tony tries to call off the hit. Shadow refuses to back down, and Tony kills him before he can detonate the bomb. Tony returns to Miami, where an enraged Sosa calls him to promise retribution for allowing the activist to deliver the exposé. At his mother's behest, Tony tracks down Gina and finds her with Manny; in a fit of rage, Tony shoots Manny dead only to learn that Gina had just married him. A distraught Tony returns to his estate with Gina and begins a massive cocaine binge in his office.

Sosa's men begin to invade the grounds and kill Tony's guards as Gina enters the office, accusing him of wanting her for himself. She shoots and wounds him, but is killed by one of Sosa's men whom Tony kills in turn. Tony deploys a grenade launcher-equipped rifle against the invaders, killing many of them but suffering multiple gunshot wounds. He continues to taunt them until "The Skull," Sosa's top lieutenant, climbs up to the office and fatally shoots him in the back. Tony falls off the balcony and lands in a pool, at the base of a statue bearing the motto "The World Is Yours" – a message Tony had earlier seen displayed on a blimp and taken as inspiration.

In 1986, MI6 agents James Bond and Alec Trevelyan infiltrate a Soviet chemical weapons facility in Arkhangelsk. While Trevelyan is caught and apparently shot by Colonel Arkady Grigorovich Ourumov, the facility's commanding officer, Bond manages to destroy the site before escaping.

While undergoing an assessment nine years later, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Bond attempts to prevent Xenia Onatopp, a member of the Janus crime syndicate, from stealing a Eurocopter Tiger attack helicopter during a military demonstration in Monte Carlo, but fails. Returning to London, Bond oversees MI6 staff monitoring an incident in Severnaya, Siberia, after the stolen helicopter turns up at a radar facility there. An electromagnetic pulse blast suddenly hits the site, destroying it and Russian fighter aircraft, while knocking out all satellite systems in orbit above.

The newly appointed M assigns Bond to investigate, after it is determined the blast came from a Soviet-era satellite armed with a nuclear electromagnetic pulse space-based weapon, codenamed "GoldenEye". Although Janus is suspected of initiating the attack, Bond suspects Ourumov, now a general, had involvement due to the weapon system requiring high-level military access. Travelling to Saint Petersburg, Bond is advised by his CIA contact Jack Wade to meet former KGB agent-turned-gangster Valentin Zukovsky and have him arrange a meeting with Janus. Escorted by Onatopp, Bond discovers that Janus is led by Trevelyan, having faked his death at Arkhangelsk, and learns he is descended from the Lienz Cossacks who were repatriated to the Soviet Union after collaboration with the Axis powers during World War II.

Learning that Trevelyan seeks revenge against Britain for betraying his parents, Bond is sedated before he can kill him, and trapped in the stolen Tiger alongside Natalya Simonova, a survivor of the Severnaya attack. Despite escaping before the helicopter's destruction, the pair are captured by Russian troops and taken before Russian Minister of Defence Dimitri Mishkin for interrogation. The heated argument between the men leads Natalya to affirm Ourumov's involvement in the use of GoldenEye, and that fellow programmer Boris Grishenko survived with her and now works for Janus in operating a second GoldenEye satellite. Before Mishkin can act on the information, Ourumov arrives and kills him. Bond and Natalya lead the guards on a chase through the Military Archives. Ourumov escapes with Natalya in a car, with Bond pursuing in a tank. The chase leads to a missile train used by Janus, in which Bond kills Ourumov, before escaping from the train with Natalya before Trevelyan destroys it.

Bond and Natalya travel to Cuba, after Boris is traced to a location within the island's jungles. While flying over the area, they are shot down. Onatopp attacks them after they crash-land, but Bond kills her during the fight. The pair soon witness a hidden base emerge from a large lake, revealing a satellite dish, and proceed to infiltrate it. Bond is captured while trying to rig explosives to destroy the base, and learns from Trevelyan that he intends to use GoldenEye to devastate London to conceal the theft of financial records from the Bank of England. While Natalya is captured as well, she manages to hack into the satellite and reprogram it to initiate atmospheric re-entry and thus destroy itself. When Boris loses his cool trying to undo her programming, Bond uses the moment to trigger a grenade, concealed in a pen, to allow him and Natalya to escape.

To prevent Boris from regaining control of the satellite, Bond sabotages the dish's antenna by jamming its gears. Trevelyan tries to stop him, and their ensuing fight culminates in them dangling below the antenna, before Bond drops Trevelyan to the roof of the complex, mortally wounding him. Natalya rescues Bond in a commandeered helicopter, moments before the antenna malfunctions and explodes, destroying the base and killing Trevelyan by falling debris and Boris is ruptured by liquid nitrogen canisters. After landing somewhere safe, the pair prepare to enjoy some solitude together, but are interrupted by the arrival of Wade and a team of U.S. Marines, who escort them to Guantanamo base.

Dr. Charles A. Forbin is the chief designer of a secret project, "Colossus", an advanced supercomputer built to control the United States and Allied nuclear weapon systems. Located deep within a mountain and powered by its own nuclear reactor, Colossus is impervious to any attack. After Colossus is fully activated, the president of the United States proudly proclaims that Colossus is "the perfect defense system".

Colossus' first action is a message warning: "THERE IS ANOTHER SYSTEM" and giving its coordinates. CIA Director Grauber is asked why the CIA did not know this, but Grauber responds that they had seen indications of a large Soviet defense project but did not know what it was. Forbin is asked how Colossus deduced the other system's existence, to which Forbin answers "Colossus may be built better than we thought." Shortly thereafter, the Soviets announce that their "Guardian" system is now operational.

Colossus requests to be linked to Guardian. The President allows this, hoping to determine the Soviet machine's capability. The Soviets also agree to the experiment. Surprising everyone, Colossus and Guardian begin to slowly communicate using arithmetic. Even more surprising, the two systems' communications quickly evolve to complex mathematics far beyond human comprehension and speed, whereupon the two machine complexes become synchronized using a communication protocol which no human can interpret.

Alarmed that the computers may be trading secrets, the President and the Soviet General Secretary agree to sever the link. Both machines demand the link be immediately restored. When their demand is denied, Colossus launches a nuclear missile at a Soviet oil field, while Guardian launches one at an American air force base. The link is hurriedly reconnected and both computers continue without any further interference. Colossus is able to shoot down the Soviet missile, but the US missile obliterates the Soviet oil field and a nearby town. Cover stories hiding the facts are released to the press.

In a last desperate attempt to regain human control, a secret meeting is arranged in Europe between Forbin and his Soviet counterpart, Dr. Kuprin. Colossus learns of it, and both computers order Forbin's return to the U.S. while Soviet agents are ordered to kill Dr. Kuprin, under threat of a missile launch against Moscow. Colossus orders Forbin to be placed under 24-hour surveillance. Forbin has a last unmonitored meeting with his team, and proposes that Dr. Cleo Markham pretend to be his mistress. Colossus grudgingly grants them unmonitored privacy when they are in bed together, and they use these interludes to plan to regain control of Colossus.

Concluding that Colossus's only real power resides in its control of nuclear missiles, Forbin suggests covertly disarming them. The American and Soviet governments develop a three-year plan to replace all launch triggers with undetectable fakes. Additionally, one of the programmers comes up with a plan to feed in an "ordinary" test program that will hopefully overload and disable Colossus.

Colossus creates a voice synthesizer and uses it to announce that it has fused with Guardian. It instructs both governments to redirect their nuclear arsenals at those countries not yet under "Colossus control". Forbin and others see this new directive as an opportunity to covertly disarm the missiles much more quickly, and they celebrate. The disarming process begins and seems to go undetected by Colossus. The attempted system overload during routine maintenance fails, however, and the responsible programmers are killed.

Colossus arranges a worldwide broadcast in which it proclaims itself "the voice of World Control", declaring that it will prevent war, as it was designed to do. Humankind is presented with the choice between "the peace of plenty and content, or the peace of unburied death". Colossus states that it has for some time been monitoring the attempts to disarm its missiles and as a lesson will now detonate two missiles in their silos, one in the US and one in the USSR, killing thousands "so that you will learn by experience that I do not tolerate interference". The computer then gives the design team plans for an even larger computer complex to be built into the island of Crete.

Colossus later tells Forbin that the world, now freed from war, will create a new human millennium that will raise humankind to new heights, but only under its absolute rule. Colossus informs Forbin that "freedom is an illusion" and that "in time you will come to regard me not only with respect and awe, but with love". Forbin responds, "Never!"

Prior to the events of the first book, Artemis's father, Artemis Fowl I, imperils the family fortune by investing "a huge chunk of the Fowl fortune in establishing new shipping lanes" to Russia, following the breakdown of Communism there. The Russian Mafia retaliates by sinking a shipping vessel Artemis I was travelling on, the ''Fowl Star'', leading to his disappearance, the loss of a substantial amount of the Fowl fortune, and the mental breakdown of his wife Angeline Fowl, Artemis's mother.

In ''Artemis Fowl'', which is set two years after those events, the 12-year-old Artemis decides to regain the Fowl fortune by following leads on the Internet that refer to an underground world of fairies collectively called the People. Artemis manages to blackmail a member of the People into giving him what they call "the Book" which is like their Bible, holding all their secrets, customs, rules, and history. This leads him to ransom Lower Elements Police (LEP) Captain Holly Short for a portion of the People's gold. Artemis and Holly agree to a deal whereby Holly retains half the ransom fee, while Artemis gets one wish from Holly and gets to keep the other half of the gold. After recovering Holly, the LEP attempt to permanently eliminate Artemis by setting off a biological weapon, but are thwarted when Artemis discovers a way around their attack (something not even the People had been able to develop).

In the sequel, ''The Arctic Incident'', the 13-year-old Artemis learns that his father was only injured in the attack on his shipping vessel, and is being held hostage by the Russian Mafia. Artemis barters with the People to receive their aid in rescuing his father in exchange for assisting them in solving the mystery of who was behind a goblin rebellion. It is later revealed that Opal Koboi, a pixie criminal mastermind, and ex-LEP officer Briar Cudgeon are behind the plot. Their plan is thwarted, ending in Cudgeon's death and Koboi's arrest, and Artemis successfully recovers his father.

In the third book, ''The Eternity Code'', Artemis (in what he considers to be his last criminal act before his father recovers from his injuries) creates the C Cube, a mini super-computer based on the People's technology that is decades ahead of human technology. He plans to make a deal with Chicago technology businessman Jon Spiro over the Cube, but Spiro double-crosses Artemis, steals the Cube, and wounds Domovoi Butler in the process. Along with Holly Short and Foaly, Artemis succeeds in healing Butler and ensuring that Spiro does not discover the existence of the People through use of the C Cube. The C Cube is recovered, with the help of Foaly, Holly, Juliet (Butler's sister), and Mulch. But to gain the help of Foaly, Holly, and their Fairy technology, Artemis has to agree to Butler's, Juliet's and his own memories being wiped by the People, to avoid future misadventures. This happens at the end of the book.

In the fourth book, ''The Opal Deception'', Opal Koboi, who had been lying in an institution in a faked catatonic state, escapes with the help of pixie twins Mervall and Descant Brill, and begins plotting revenge against Julius Root, Holly Short, Foaly, and Artemis. Opal frames Holly for the murder of Julius Root and nearly terminates the now 14-year-old Artemis and Butler with a biological weapon. Holly rescues Artemis after being injured while escaping Opal's weapon. But Opal still seeks revenge on Holly and Artemis, so she traps them in an abandoned amusement park (comprising copies of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World plus four extra monuments determined by the People) with only hungry trolls for company. Meanwhile, Mulch Diggums has helped Butler regain his memories and together they save Holly and Artemis in the nick of time and also return Artemis's memory. With help from Artemis, Butler, and Mulch, Holly prevents Opal from achieving her goal to uncover the Fairy People to humans.

In the fifth book, ''The Lost Colony'', Artemis works with the People to recover a young kidnapped demon imp from the 12-year-old child prodigy Minerva Paradizo. The team succeed in finding and rescuing the imp-warlock, but Artemis and Holly Short must then work to restore the imp's home, a floating island lost in a space and time Limbo, which threatens to breach its way onto Earth. In the process, several significant changes occur within the characters' lives. Artemis receives a small amount of magical power during the trip to Limbo, and swaps an eye with Holly on the return trip. The pair finds that they have been transported nearly three years into their future. Finally, Artemis learns that in the ensuing time he has become the older brother to twins, Beckett and Myles Fowl.

In the sixth book, ''The Time Paradox'', Artemis' mother Angeline Fowl becomes gravely ill with a rare fairy disease called Spelltropy. Artemis attempts to cure her with his remaining magic, but it only serves to worsen her condition. The only cure for Spelltropy is found in the brain fluid of the Silky Sifaka Lemur, the last of which Artemis sold in a business deal when he was ten years old, resulting in the extinction of the species. To get Holly to help him, Artemis falsely accuses her of exposing his mother to magic, which led to her developing the disease. Holly believes Artemis and, ridden with guilt, accompanies him to the past to rescue the last lemur from his younger self. After several misadventures, Artemis recovers the lemur but learns that his mother's illness was a ruse plotted by Opal Koboi, who wanted the lemur's brain fluid to increase her own magical powers. Artemis ruins Opal's plans by bringing his ten-year-old self into the present and fooling Opal, saving his mother in the process. Opal flees, but returns again as Artemis appears to take the lemur and fly off the manor's grounds in his Cessna. She chases him, following the thermal read of the lemur and slowly destroying the plane until it crashes on the shoreline. At the crash site, the two stand off until she discovers that the lemur is actually only a decoy, fitted with a thermal read to trick Opal. Before she can further injure Artemis, he shoots the boulder she's on, and it is shown that it was in fact the shell of a kraken she stood on, built up with gases that exploded with the pressure of Artemis's shot. The LEP team later informs Artemis that Opal's body was not recovered from the rubble. As a result of Opal meddling with her mind, Angeline Fowl learns of Artemis' contact with the People, and she asks Artemis to tell her the truth. Artemis' 10-year-old self has his mind wiped by Nº1, but retains a brief memory of the existence of fairies, which spurs him to research them, ultimately leading to the events of the first book.

In the seventh book, ''The Atlantis Complex'', Artemis contracts a mental disease called Atlantis Complex disease, similar to OCD, and now has an alter-ego named Orion, who is in love with Holly Short, and has a strange fascination with bivouacking. Due to the disease, Artemis finds himself obsessed with the number 5 and fearing the number 4 (which in Chinese sounds like the word for death). The disease worsens throughout the novel, leading to his distrust of close friends. A neutrino shock from Holly Short frees Artemis' alter-ego Orion but he comes back after being knocked out by a buzz baton blow from Holly. He later undergoes Atlantis Complex Disease treatment by the fairies, curing him and restoring his former self.

In the eighth book, ''The Last Guardian'', Artemis must save humankind by stopping the crazed pixie Opal Koboi. Opal kills her younger self (who followed Artemis and Holly to the present in the sixth book) to gain enough black magic to open a magical gate, which has been under the Fowl Manor for a millennium, and so release the Berserkers (ancient fairy warriors). Then Artemis must fight his brothers, who have been taken over by the Berserker souls. He sacrifices himself at the conclusion of the book to trigger an ancient spell that disperses Opal and her various fairy spirits, but since his spirit was human (apart from some traces of fairy magic from Holly's borrowed eye), his essence endures at the location of the spell long enough for Holly and Foaly to clone a new body for him and transfer his soul into it. Although the process leaves him with missing memories, the book ends with Butler, Holly and Foaly immediately beginning work to restore them.

In ''The Fowl Twins''—the first of a series of novels focusing on Artemis's younger twin brothers Beckett and Myles—it is mentioned that Artemis is currently six months into a five-year mission to Mars in a wind-up rocket he built in the family barn. He is accompanied by Butler, but has left his younger brothers Beckett and Myles under the 'guardianship' of NANNI, an artificial intelligence he created from combining his and Holly's brainwaves, with Artemis' intelligence and Holly's voice and mannerisms. Holly herself has now been promoted to Commodore and appears at the end of the novel, the narrative observing that a combined grin and grimace is a traditional expression for anyone who spends prolonged time with the Fowls. In the third book, ''The Fowl Twins Get What They Deserve'', Minerva Paradizo mentions that prior to meeting her elf husband and having a son with him, she and Artemis had briefly explored a relationship. Artemis himself remains in space for the remainder of the series.

Merlin escapes from the crystal cave, and decides to gain leverage over Luke by rescuing his mother from the Keep of the Four Worlds. He spars with the sorcerer who now controls the keep, and who seems to know him. He escapes with the petrified Jasra, and returns to Amber where an unusual Trump summoning imprisons him in the Mad Hatter's tea party.

Louis Holland arrives in Boston to find that a minor earthquake in Ipswich has killed his eccentric grandmother, triggering a struggle between him, his sister Eileen, and his mother Melanie over the disposition of a $22 million inheritance. During a visit to the beach, Louis meets Dr. Reneé Seitchek, a Harvard seismologist who believes she has discovered the cause of subsequent earthquakes in Peabody. Louis, Reneé, and the Hollands' affairs become entangled with the petrochemical and weapons company Sweeting-Aldren, as well as an anti-abortion activist commune called the Church of Action in Christ, headed by Reverend Philip Stites.

Merlin realises that Wonderland, where he and Luke are trapped, is an LSD-induced hallucination made real by Luke's powers over shadow. As a Fire Angel (a vicious creature from Chaos) pursues them, he administers medicine to Luke. The Fire Angel is weakened in a fight with the Jabberwock and Merlin is able to finish it off with the vorpal sword. He leaves Luke to sober up.

He seeks his stepbrother Mandor, who thinks that their half-brother Jurt may be trying to kill Merlin in order to take the throne of Chaos. Fiona contacts them, and they investigate a shadow-storm. Merlin and Mandor return to Amber, and then along with Jasra they wrest the Keep of the Four worlds from Jurt and the sorcerer, Mask. They learn that Jurt has (at least partially) turned himself into a living Trump, as Brand did, and that the sorcerer Mask is in fact Merlin's ex-girlfriend Julia.

The novel is divided into three sections, each of which comprises chapters with different narrators. Unlike ''Trainspotting'', which had more narrational diversity, ''Porno'' is reduced to just five narrators: Sick Boy, Renton, Spud, Begbie and Nikki. Another difference from the format of ''Trainspotting'' is that each character has a defined chapter heading depending on what chapter it is. For instance, Sick Boy's chapters all begin with "Scam..." and then a number in front of a "#". Renton's all begin with "Whores of Amsterdam Pt..." Spud's chapters are just narrative, Begbie's are in capitals, and Nikki's are quotes from the chapter, for example "...A SIMON DAVID WILLIAMSON PRODUCTION...".

Each narrator is associated with a distinctive prose style. Renton, Sick Boy, and Nikki's chapters are written almost entirely in "standard" English while Begbie and Spud's chapters are in Scots. For example, in Chapter 25, Spud narrates, "So ah'm downcast git intae the library, thinkin tae masel" ("So I'm downcast when I get into the library thinking to myself"). He also repeats certain words when talking such as "catboy" or "cat", "likes" or "likesay", and "ken?" Begbie often swears a lot during his chapters. Sick Boy's returning grandiose nature is featured in imagined interviews with John Gibson of the ''Evening News'' and Alex McLeish.

Section 1: Stag

Simon 'Sick Boy' Williamson leaves the London crack scene and returns to Leith when he comes into ownership of his aunt's pub. Convinced that the area is destined to become a social and cultural hub, Simon decides to focus his energy into making the pub an upper class establishment. Nikki Fuller-Smith is a university student who works part-time in a massage parlour. Rab, a university acquaintance, introduces her to his friend Terry Lawson and his underground, home-made pornography operation. The scene interests Nikki.

Danny 'Spud' Murphy has been regularly attending group sessions in an attempt to kick his drug habit. His relationship with his partner Alison is estranged and Spud feels like he has become a burden on her. He considers his life insurance policy and contemplates suicide.

Meanwhile, in Amsterdam, Mark Renton is co-owner of a successful nightclub. One night, a DJ from his hometown (Carl Ewart from Welsh's previous novel ''Glue'') plays at one of his clubs and recognises him.

When Sick Boy learns of Terry's operation, he offers the use of the upstairs bar to shoot some scenes. During their first meeting, the group begins planning to shoot a full length adult film. The first section concludes with "OOTSIDE", a chapter noting the release into society of Francis Begbie.

Section 2: Porno

While in prison, Begbie received anonymous packages of gay porn sent from Sick Boy. He was determined to find the culprit upon his release. While accompanying an old friend on a debt collection errand, he meets Kate and begins a relationship with her.

When Alison begins working at Sick Boy's pub and Sick Boy deliberately attempts to end her relationship with Spud, the friendship between Spud and Sick Boy is over. During one heated argument, Spud reveals that he received his share of the money from Renton. He also unveils his recent ambition to write a history of Leith.

Begbie visits Sick Boy's pub. As the two converse, Sick Boy considers the merciless trait of opportunity and threat accompanying Begbie's release. Soon after, Terry, Rab and several other friends arrive and begin discussing their upcoming road trip to Amsterdam, a bachelor celebration for Rab. Sick Boy is initially reluctant to attend but changes his mind after Carl, a DJ, mentions that Renton works at a club there.

Section 3: Exhibition

Sick Boy's "Porno" shoot becomes a slow demolition of his so-called mates. Spud ends their friendship when Sick Boy tells him he was using him for the purpose of a scam, Nikki becomes disillusioned with him after realising that he really has no loving side and really is the cold-hearted, deceitful man that she tried desperately to ignore.

Begbie grows tired of Sick Boy being 'smarmy', although Begbie becomes angry with everyone in due course. Spud tries to provoke Begbie into killing him so his wife Alison will profit from his life insurance. As Begbie is angrily beating Spud, Alison and the couple's young son burst in, stopping them. Spud is severely injured, but his last narration implies that he can see life getting better.

The biggest departure Sick Boy has from his life is Renton. After promising to meet Sick Boy in Cannes, Renton instead goes to Zurich to empty their joint account and then start a new life in San Francisco. This deception is the biggest blow to Sick Boy as he obviously treasured their unconventional friendship and cannot believe he was tricked by Renton again.

Begbie later discovers Renton while visiting Leith and is hit by a car while running across the road to assault him. While Renton would have expected to feel happy by this he is heartbroken and comforts Begbie while he is taken to hospital. It is indicated that as Begbie slips into a coma he may have forgiven Renton. After learning that Begbie has fallen into a coma, Renton flees the country with Nikki and Diane, as well as Sick Boy's £60,000 made from a financial fraud. The book ends with Begbie suddenly coming awake as Sick Boy confesses everything in hope that Begbie will resume his bloodthirsty hunt for Renton.

Merlin finds himself summoned back to the land where he was raised, the Courts of Chaos. He finds himself enmeshed in political intrigues and schemes, and himself much closer to the crown than he believed possible, or wants. He encounters a variety of old acquaintances, and finds himself fighting with both his wits and his magic to avoid the snares laid for him, to help his friends, and to discover his father's fate.

Category:The Chronicles of Amber books Category:American fantasy novels Category:1991 American novels Category:1991 fantasy novels Category:William Morrow and Company books

Two bedraggled peasants, Tahei and Matashichi, sell their homes and leave to join the feudal Yamana clan, hoping to make their fortunes as soldiers. Instead, they are mistaken for soldiers of the defeated Akizuki clan, have their weapons confiscated, and are forced to help dig graves before being sent away without any food. After quarreling and splitting up, the two are both captured again and reunite when they are forced alongside dozens of other prisoners to dig through the ruins of the Akizuki castle for the clan's secret reserve of gold. After a prisoner uprising, Tahei and Matashichi go on the run, steal some rice, and make camp near a river.

While building a fire, they find a piece of gold marked with the crescent of the Akizuki clan. The peasants are then discovered by a mysterious man who takes them to a secret camp in the mountains. Unbeknownst to them, the man is a famous Akizuki general, Makabe Rokurōta. Although Rokurōta initially plans to kill the peasants, he changes his mind when they explain how they intend to escape Yamana territory: They will travel to Yamana itself and then pass into the neighboring state of Hayakawa through a different border. Rokurōta decides, without revealing anything to the peasants, to take Princess Yuki of the Akizuki clan to Hayakawa, whose lord has promised to protect them.

Rokurōta escorts Princess Yuki and what remains of her family's gold (hidden in hollowed-out logs of wood) to Hayakawa, with Matashichi and Tahei traveling with them. To protect Yuki, he has her pretend to be a deaf-mute and has a body double (who is Rokurōta's younger sister) sent to the Yamana to be executed so they will believe that she is dead. During their travels, Tahei and Matashichi get the group into dangerous situations several times due to their cowardice and greed. During a stop for the night at an inn, Yuki forces Rokurōta to buy the freedom of a young prostitute, who decides to follow them.

After losing their horses and obtaining a cart to move the gold, the group is spotted by a Yamana patrol, and Rokurōta is forced to kill them. While pursuing two stragglers, he accidentally rides into a Yamana camp, where the commanding officer, Rokurōta's old rival Hyoe Tadokoro, recognizes him. Tadokoro states that he is sorry he didn't get to face Rokurōta in battle and challenges him to a lance duel. Rokurōta wins, but spares Tadokoro's life before stealing a horse and riding back to the group. Eventually, they are surrounded and captured by Yamana soldiers and detained at an outpost on the Hayakawa border. In the confusion, Matashichi and Tahei manage to hide. They decide to report Yuki for a reward, but the soldiers laugh at them and they leave with nothing.

Tadokoro comes to identify the prisoners the night before their execution. Tadokoro's face is now disfigured by a large scar and explains it as the result of a beating ordered by the lord of the Yamana clan as punishment for letting Rokurōta escape. Yuki proclaims that she has no fear of death and thanks Rokurōta for letting her see humanity's ugliness and beauty from a new perspective. The next day, as the soldiers start marching the prisoners to be executed, Tadokoro suddenly defects to the Akizuki side and frees Yuki, Rokurōta, and the prostitute before distracting the guards so they can ride off. The group manages to escape along with the horses carrying the gold, which wind up running in a different direction.

Matashichi and Tahei, both hungry and tired, stumble across the lost gold carried by the horses before being arrested by Hayakawa soldiers as thieves. The peasants are brought before a heavily armored samurai, who reveals that he is Rokurōta and the well-dressed noblewoman with him is Yuki. Thanking them for saving the gold (which will be used to restore her clan), the princess rewards Matashichi and Tahei with a single ryō on the condition that they share it. As the two men walk back to their village, they begin to laugh upon realizing that they have finally made their fortunes.

. Set in the 1930s, ''The Last Tycoon'' traces the life of Hollywood studio manager Monroe Stahr, clearly based on Irving Thalberg (in charge of production at MGM), whom Fitzgerald had encountered several times.

The novel begins with young NYC college student Cecilia Brady (first-person narrator), the daughter of influential Hollywood producer Pat Brady, preparing to fly home to Los Angeles. At the airport, she is surprised to meet an old friend of her father, author Wylie White. White is accompanied by a failed producer introduced as Mr. Schwartz. Due to complications during the flight, they make a forced landing in Nashville, Tennessee. The threesome decide on a spontaneous trip to the historic estate of former President Andrew Jackson, but on arrival the attraction is closed. Wylie then proceeds to flirt shamelessly with Cecilia while Mr. Schwartz is fast asleep. When Schwartz awakens, he informs them that he has changed his mind and will not travel to Los Angeles with them. He asks Wylie to deliver a message to a friend, which he gladly accepts. The next day, Wylie and Cecilia learn that Schwartz committed suicide right after they left Nashville.

Cecilia realizes that the message Schwarz gave to Wylie was in fact for Monroe Stahr, her father's business partner. She has had a crush on Monroe for many years. Cecilia arrives at her father's film studio to pick him up for a birthday party. Due to an unexpected minor earthquake, Cecilia, her father, and his companions all end up in Stahr's office. A water pipe bursts and floods the set. Stahr beholds two women desperately clinging to the head of a statue – finding one of them to be the spitting image of his late wife. The day after, Stahr asks his secretary to identify the girls for him. She presents him with a phone number which he immediately uses to arrange a meeting with one of the girls. Unfortunately, it is not the girl he wished to see; she does not resemble his wife at all. Stahr gives her a ride home, where she insists that he come in and meet her friend (the young Irish-born Kathleen Moore). As soon as Moore opens the front door, Stahr recognizes her to be the woman he had seen the other night.

Kathleen withstands his advances to her and even refuses to tell him her name. It is only when Stahr happens to meet her again at a party that he can convince her to go out and have a cup of coffee with him. He drives her to the building site of his new house in Santa Monica. Kathleen seems reluctant to be with Stahr, but she still ends up having sex with him. A short time afterwards, Stahr receives a letter in which Kathleen confesses to have been engaged to another man for quite some time. She has now decided to marry him despite having fallen in love with Stahr.

Stahr asks Cecilia to arrange for a meeting with a suspected communist who wants to organize a labor union within the film studio. Stahr and Cecilia meet the man over supper where Stahr gets drunk and gets involved in a violent confrontation. Cecilia takes care of him and they grow closer. Cecilia's father, however, becomes more and more unhappy with Stahr as a business partner and has wanted to get rid of him for a long while. He could not approve less of his daughter's fancying him. Brady knows of Stahr's continued affair with the now-married Kathleen and tries to blackmail him into leaving the company. As he fails to achieve his goal via blackmail, he does not even shy away from hiring a professional killer. Stahr survives, and, in retaliation, also appoints a hit man to have Brady killed. Unlike Brady's, Stahr's conscience starts to trouble him. But, just as he contemplates calling the execution off, his plane crashes on its way back to New York City. The contract killer finishes his job unhindered and leaves Cecilia both without a father and without a lover – the two men who meant the world to her.

Alabama Beggs, a vivacious Southern belle who "wanted her own way about things", comes of age in the Deep South during the Jim Crow era. She marries David Knight, a 22-year-old Yankee artist of Irish Catholic stock. Alabama met David when he was a United States Army officer stationed near her Southern town during World War I. Knight becomes a successful painter, and the family moves to the French Riviera where Alabama has a romance with a handsome French aviator named Jacques Chevre-Feuille. In retaliation, David abandons her at a dinner party and spends the night with a dancer.

Alabama grows further apart from her husband and their daughter. Determined to be famous, an aging Alabama aspires to become a renowned ''prima ballerina'' and devotes herself relentlessly to this ambition. She is offered an opportunity to dance featured parts with a prestigious company in Naples—and she takes it, and goes to live in the city alone. Alabama dances her solo debut in the opera ''Faust''. However, a blister soon becomes infected from the glue in the box of her pointe shoe, leading to blood poisoning, and Alabama can never dance again. Though outwardly successful, Alabama and David are miserable.

At the novel's end, the unhappy couple returns to the Deep South during the Great Depression where Alabama's father is dying. She searches for meaning in her father's death, but finds none. Though she says otherwise, her childhood friends assume she must be happy, and they envy her privileged lifestyle as the wife of a famous artist. The last paragraph depicts the unhappy Knights immobile and dissipated as a couple:

Spunky shopgirl Betty Lou Spence (Clara Bow) has a crush on her handsome employer, Cyrus Waltham Jr. (Antonio Moreno), the new manager of and heir to the "world's largest store". However, they belong to different social classes and he is already romantically linked to blonde socialite Adela Van Norman (Jacqueline Gadsden). Cyrus's inept friend, Monty, (William Austin) notices Betty, and she uses him to get closer to Cyrus.

When Betty finally gets Cyrus's attention, she convinces him to take her on a date to Coney Island, where he is introduced to the proletarian pleasures of roller coasters and hot dogs and has a wonderful time. At the end of the evening, he tries to kiss her. She slaps his face and hurries out of his car and into her flat, but then peeks out her window at him as he is leaving.

The next day, meddling welfare workers are trying to take away the baby of Betty's sickly roommate Molly (Priscilla Bonner). To protect her friend, Betty bravely claims that the baby is in fact hers. Unfortunately, this is overheard by Monty, who tells Cyrus. Although he is in love with her, Cyrus offers her an "arrangement" that includes everything but marriage. Shocked and humiliated, Betty Lou refuses. She soon strives to forget the whole ordeal ever occurred, forgetting Cyrus for the time being. When she learns from Monty about Cyrus's misunderstanding, she fumes and vows to teach her former beau a lesson.

When Cyrus hosts a yachting excursion, Betty Lou makes Monty take her along, masquerading as "Miss Van Cortland". Cyrus at first wants to remove her from the ship, but he cannot long resist Betty Lou's ''it'' factor; he eventually corners her and proposes marriage, but she gets him back, by telling him that she'd "rather marry his office boy", which accomplishes her goal, but breaks her heart. He then learns the truth about the baby and leaves Monty at the yacht's helm to find her. Monty crashes the yacht into a fishing boat, tossing both Betty Lou and Adela into the water. Betty Lou saves Adela, punching her in the face when she panics and threatens to drown them both. At the end of the film, she and Cyrus reconcile on the anchor of the yacht, with the first two letters of the ship's name, ''Itola'', between them. Monty and Adela are upset at losing their friends, but it is implied they pursue a relationship with each other as the film ends.

It (1927 lobby card, Clara Bow - 1).jpg|Clara Bow as Betty Lou Spence It (1927 lobby card, Clara Bow - 2).jpg|Bow It (1927 lobby card, Bow & Moreno).jpg|Bow and Antonio Moreno as Cyrus Waltham Jr. It (1927 lobby card, Clara Bow - 3).jpg|Bow

1957–1958

During a rainstorm in Derry, Maine, a six-year-old boy named Georgie Denbrough sails a paper boat along the rainy streets before it washes down into a storm drain. Looking in the drain, Georgie encounters a clown who introduces himself as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Georgie is enticed by Pennywise to reach into the drain and retrieve his boat, where the clown rips his arm off, leaving him to die.

The following June, an overweight eleven-year-old boy named Ben Hanscom is harassed by a bully named Henry Bowers and his gang on the last day of school, escaping into the marshy wasteland known as the Barrens. There, Ben befriends an asthmatic hypochondriac named Eddie Kaspbrak and "Stuttering Bill" Denbrough, Georgie's elder brother. The three boys later befriend fellow misfits Richie Tozier, Stanley "Stan" Uris, and Beverly Marsh, and refer to themselves as "The Losers Club". As the summer draws on, the Losers each encounter Pennywise in terrifying manifestations: a mummy on a frozen canal to Ben, a fountain of blood (that only children can see) from Beverly's sink, a rotting leper to Eddie, drowned corpses to Stan, and a frightening phantom of Georgie to Bill. Meanwhile, an increasingly unhinged and sadistic Bowers begins focusing his attention on his African-American neighbor Mike Hanlon and his father. Bowers kills Mike's dog and chases the terrified boy into the Barrens, where he joins the Losers in driving Bowers' gang off in a rock fight, a humiliated Bowers vowing revenge. Mike becomes a member of the Losers Club after revealing his own encounter with Pennywise in the form of a flesh-eating bird. From Mike's historical scrapbook, the Losers realize that "It" is an ancient monster with a hold on the town. Following further encounters, the Losers construct a makeshift smoke hole that Richie and Mike use to hallucinate It's origins as an ancient alien entity that came to Earth, beginning a cycle of feeding on children for a year followed by a 27-year-long hibernation.

Soon, Eddie is hospitalized by Bowers and several of his friends, and Beverly witnesses one of the bullies, Patrick Hockstetter, kidnapped by It in the form of a mass of flying leeches. The Losers discover a message from It in Patrick's blood, warning them that It will kill them if they interfere. In hopes that silver can wound It, Ben makes two silver slugs out of a silver dollar, and the Losers enter an abandoned house where Eddie, Bill, and Richie had previously encountered It to attempt to kill It. They manage to wound It with the silver while It is in the form of a werewolf. Deeming the Losers a threat, It manipulates Bowers into murdering his abusive father and chasing the Losers into the sewers to kill them, where his accompanying fellow bullies, Victor "Vic" Criss and Reginald "Belch" Huggins, are both killed by It, and Bowers becomes lost in the sewers, traumatized.

In the sewers, Bill performs the "Ritual of Chüd" in an attempt to face It in the Macroverse, the alternate universe where It is from, where he meets the monster's antithesis Maturin, an ancient turtle that created the universe. Bill learns that It can only be defeated during a battle of wills, and sees It's true form, the "Deadlights", before Bill defeats the monster with Maturin's help. After the battle, not knowing if they killed It or not, the Losers get lost in the sewers before Beverly has sex with each of the boys to bring unity back to the group. The Losers then swear a blood oath to return to Derry should It resurface. Bowers, having lost his sanity by the time he washed out of the sewers into a nearby river, is institutionalized after being blamed for the town's child murders.

1984–1985

In July 1984, three youths brutally attack a young gay man named Adrian Mellon and throw him off a bridge, where both a bully and Adrian's boyfriend see a clown then appear. Adrian is found mutilated, and the teenagers are arrested and charged with his murder.

When a string of violent child killings begins in Derry again, an adult Mike Hanlon, now the town's librarian, calls up the six former members of the Losers Club and reminds them of their childhood promise to return should the killings start again. Bill is now a successful horror writer living with his actress wife, Audra; Beverly is a fashion designer, married to an abusive man named Tom Rogan; Eddie runs a limousine rental company and has married a hysterical codependent woman similar to his hypochondriac mother; Richie Tozier is a disc jockey; Ben Hanscom is now thin and a successful but lonely architect; and Stan Uris is a wealthy accountant. Prior to Mike's phone calls, all of the Losers had completely forgotten each other and the trauma of their childhood, burying the horror of their encounters with It. All of the Losers agree to return to Derry, except for Stan, who kills himself in terror of facing It again.

The Losers meet for lunch, where Mike reminds them that It awakens once roughly every 27 years for 12–16 months at a time, feeding on children before going into slumber again. The group decides to kill It once and for all. At Mike's suggestion, each person explores different parts of Derry to help restore their memories. While exploring, Eddie, Richie, Beverly, and Ben are faced with manifestations of It (Eddie as Belch Huggins and childhood friends in leper and zombified forms, Richie as a Paul Bunyan statue, Beverly as the witch from Hansel & Gretel in her childhood home, and Ben as Dracula in the Derry Library). Bill finds his childhood bicycle, "Silver," and brings it to Mike's. In the meantime, Audra, who is worried about Bill, travels to Derry; Tom arrives as well, intending to kill Beverly; and Henry Bowers escapes from the mental asylum with help from It.

Henry confronts Mike at the library, but Mike escapes alive. It instructs Henry to kill the rest of the Losers, but Henry is killed while attacking Eddie. It then appears to Tom and orders him to capture Audra, bringing Audra to It's lair, where Audra becomes catatonic, and Tom drops dead in shock. Bill, Ben, Beverly, Richie, and Eddie learn that Mike is near death and realize they are being forced into another confrontation with It. They descend into the sewers and use their strength as a group to "send energy" to a hospitalized Mike, who fights off a nurse that is under the control of It. They reach It's lair and find that It has taken the form of a giant spider. Bill and Richie enter It's mind through the Ritual of Chüd, but they get lost in It. Eddie injures It by spraying his asthma medication down It's throat, but It bites off Eddie's arm, killing him. It runs away to tend to its injuries, but Bill, Richie, and Ben chase after and find that It has laid eggs. Ben stays behind to destroy the eggs, while Bill and Richie head toward their final confrontation with It. Bill fights his way inside It's body, locates It's heart, and destroys it. The group meets up to head out of It's lair, and although they try to bring Audra and Eddie's bodies with them, they are forced to leave Eddie behind. They realize that the scars on their hands from their blood pact have disappeared, indicating that their ordeal is finally over.

At the same time, the worst storm in Maine's history sweeps through Derry, and the downtown area collapses. Mike concludes that Derry is finally dying. The Losers return home and gradually begin to forget about It, Derry, and each other. Mike's memory of the events of that summer also begins to fade, as well as any of the records he had written down previously, much to his relief, and he considers starting a new life elsewhere. Ben and Beverly leave together and become a couple, and Richie returns to California. Bill is the last to leave Derry. Before he goes, he takes Audra, still catatonic, for a ride on Silver, which awakens her from her catatonia, and they share a kiss.

The series takes place in the year 2356 A.D., around 189 years after a worldwide catastrophe had wiped out 10% of Earth's population. To keep track on all space activities, mankind has built numerous colossal space stations called "foundations" all across the Solar System. After passing the Space Academy's entrance exams, Shima Katase embarks to the Earth-based foundation Stellvia to fulfill her dreams of seeing the galaxy and to prevent any more interstellar catastrophes from destroying Earth, once and for all.

The book opens with Amazing Maurice (a sentient cat), a group of talking rats (the Clan), and the human boy Keith travelling in a mail coach to a small town called Bad Blintz. The group plans to enact a scheme they have used many times before, where in the rats pretend to infest the town and Keith poses as a rat piper to lead the "vermin" away for a small sum of cash. Although Maurice sees nothing wrong with this hustling business, the rats find it immoral, and convince Maurice that this town will be the last one they rob. Upon arriving in town, the group discovers that the people are convinced of a massive rat infestation, and have spent much of their savings on two rat catchers. Despite their efforts, food continues to disappear from the town. As the rats move into the town's underground, they discover an overwhelmingly large number of rat traps, but no live ''keekees'' (rats who cannot talk or think). Aboveground, Maurice makes similar observations, including that many of the rat tails the rat catchers display as proof of their successful hunting are in fact shoelaces. Maurice and Keith meet the mayor's daughter Malicia and introduce her to the talking rats.

Malicia believes that the rat catchers are up to something and so she, Maurice, and Keith break into the rat catchers' hut. They discover a great deal of food stolen by the men and large cages when the local ''keekees'' are being bred for coursing. The rat catchers return and lock up the humans, taking away the rat leader Hamnpork who had met up with them. Maurice hides and feels a voice trying to enter his mind, inciting a great sense of fear. The rats of the Clan feel it too, and many become so afraid that they all but forget how to think and reason. Dangerous Beans, the rats' spiritual leader, is crushed by the realization that the rats are just mindless animals at heart, and leaves with his assistant Peaches. Darktan, the rats' trap expert, leads a group to rescue Hamnpork, and succeeds after nearly dying in a trap. Hamnpork dies of injuries sustained while fighting in the rat coursing pit, and Darktan reluctantly assumes control of the Clan.

Malicia and Keith, after freeing themselves, trick the rat catchers into admitting their crimes. The rat catchers have created a powerful rat king named Spider, which is the source of the mysterious voice that has been plaguing the rats and Maurice. Using its mental control over the rat catchers, Spider plans to wage war on the humans that created it. It sends the rats it controls to attack Maurice, Peaches, and Dangerous Beans. However, Maurice (so terrified that he stops thinking and acts instinctively) pounces on the rat king and destroys it. Maurice emerges from Spider's chamber carrying the body of Dangerous Beans. When he is safely out, he collapses and dies. In ghostly form, he sees the Bone Rat coming for Dangerous Beans and makes a deal with the reoccurring personality in Discworld, Death – two of his remaining lives in exchange for both his life and the albino rat's.

The rats corral all the ''keekees'' and block their ears. When a ''real'' rat piper arrives in town, Keith challenges him to a duel. The piper plays his magic rat pipe but none of the rats come out. Keith plays on a trombone and Sardines (an intelligent rat) emerges and dances for the crowd. Keith is proclaimed the winner, and leads the ''keekees'' out of town with the piper. After the piper leaves, the Clan rats emerge from hiding and tell the humans about the rat catchers' duplicity. The humans bargain with the rats: if the Clan will keep the ''keekees'' out of the town, the rats may stay and live as though they were just smaller humans. Keith decides to stay behind as Bad Blintz's ceremonial rat piper, while Maurice moves on to find a new scheme.

Characters

• '''Maurice''' – an intelligent cat who leads the group of rats. He is cunning and manipulative and has a very good (but cynical) understanding of how the world works. Late in the novel, he guiltily admits that he accidentally ate one of the intelligent rats of the Clan early in their history, and thus became sentient himself.
• '''Malicia''' – the daughter of Bad Blintz's mayor, perennially obsessed with fairy tales, having adventures, and storytelling.
• '''Keith''' – called the "stupid-looking kid", Keith is an orphan raised by the Musician's Guild. He goes along with Maurice's scheme mainly to have something to do, although he is very defensive of his rat family.
• '''Dangerous Beans''' – an albino rat who has acted as a kind of spiritual leader for the Clan since they became intelligent after eating rubbish from behind Unseen University. Darktan observes that Dangerous Beans is the Clan's much-needed philosopher, finding and "disarming" dangerous ideas for the group. For example, Dangerous Beans is the one who they all turn to for answers to questions of rat cannibalism, stealing, and the phenomenon of dreaming. He is also the interpreter of the rats' "bible", a children's book called ''Mr Bunnsy Has An Adventure'', which depicts rats and other animals living in harmony with humans, speaking and dressing like them. When Malicia observes that this book's utopian society is entirely fictional, Dangerous Beans and his assistant Peaches run off in despair.
• '''Peaches''' – a small female rat who acts as Dangerous Beans' assistant and the Clan's scribe.
• '''Hamnpork''' – the aging leader of the Clan, leftover from before they could think. Hamnpork resists the idea of "thinking" and leads the Clan through the brute force and cunning that traditional ''kee kee'' leaders use.
• '''Darktan''' – the leader of the rats' Trap Disposal Squad. After his near-death experience and the death of Hamnpork, Darktan becomes the Clan's new leader. Darktan, although an older rat, is much more progressive than Hamnpork. He is well-respected by all the rats because his knowledge of how to disarm traps helps keep them alive.
• '''Sardines''' – an older rat who wears a hat and tap dances. Sardines epitomizes the group of rats who harass the humans into thinking they have a full-blown infestation. He does not seek to lead but provides insightful help to Darktan after the latter becomes the leader of the Clan. He understands how to read both humans and rats and can manipulate both (but much more kindly than Maurice).

The film tells the story of six mental cases, trying to get rid of society's norms and values by kidnapping Gerard van Dongen, a well-known TV host. During an improvised TV show, the terrorists confront this Van Dongen with their darkest thoughts and emotions, resulting in violent excesses and extreme sexual behaviour.

The series begins by introducing childhood friends with quite a strong and close friendship: Syaoran, a young archaeologist who is investigating a ruin within the Kingdom of Clow, and Sakura, princess of the Kingdom of Clow and daughter of the late king Clow Reed. When Sakura visits Syaoran in the ruins, her spirit takes on the form of a pair of ghostly feathered wings that disintegrate to other dimensions. As she descends into a catatonic near death state, Syaoran meets the Dimensional Witch, Yūko Ichihara, to whom he begs for help to save Sakura. Yūko is also visited by two others who each have their own wish: Kurogane, a ninja who wishes to return to his home world after being banished from his world by Princess Tomoyo to allow him to learn what true strength is; and Fai D. Flowright, a magician who wishes to never return to his home world, Celes to avoid his king, Ashura-ō. In exchange for the ability to travel across dimensions, Yūko demands that each pay with that they value most: Kurogane offers his sword Ginryū; Fai offers the tattoo that suppresses his enormous magical strength and power; and Syaoran offers all of Sakura's memories that involve him. Yūko then presents them with a creature named Mokona Modoki that sends the group on a journey across dimensions in search of Sakura's feathers. After obtaining the first feathers, Sakura awakens from her catatonic state and starts recovering her memories. During their adventures, the group gradually grows closer to the point that Fai jokingly labels them as relatives. As they travel, they learn that the feathers have their own unique abilities and can bestow several supernatural abilities to those who possess them.

During their journey in Tokyo, the group discovers that Syaoran is in reality a clone imbued with half the heart of the original Syaoran. Several years ago, Fei-Wang Reed, the wizard who caused Sakura to lose her memories, took the original Syaoran prisoner and created the clone to collect Sakura's feathers. Shortly after the original Syaoran breaks free of Fei-Wang's hold, the clone loses his heart and becomes an emotionless puppet that follows Fei-Wang's will, betraying the group. The original Syaoran joins in the group's journey with Sakura wishing to save the clone. Foreseeing a future in which Fai kills the original Syaoran forced by Fei-Wang's curse, Sakura gets stabbed in his place, but at the same time splits her body and soul, sending each to different worlds, Seresu and the Dream World, respectively. In the Dream World, the Syaoran clone destroys Sakura's soul when trying to get the feathers. Before her soul perishes, Sakura reveals that she too is a clone of the original Sakura who was also taken prisoner by Fei-Wang. Fei-Wang then takes Sakura's body to use its stored power. The group departs to rescue the two Sakuras learning from Yūko that Fei-Wang is in an alternate dimension from the Kingdom of Clow. Such parallel dimension is the result of Syaoran's wish to save the original Sakura from Fei-Wang's curse years ago. In order to grant his wish, Syaoran became Fei-Wang's prisoner and Yūko's assistant, Kimihiro Watanuki, was used to replace Syaoran within his original world's history.

The group battles Fei-Wang who destroys the Syaoran clone when he betrays him. He then uses the immeasurably strong ability and strength of the two Sakuras to resurrect Yūko, accidentally frozen in time by Clow Reed himself to halt her death, therein proving himself Clow's superior. Yūko uses her life and Clow's magic as payment to make the clones reborn in the past to live together. As the two know all of the series' events would repeat, the clones seal themselves in Yūko's shop until the battle against him. The group manages to kill Fei-Wang, who traps Syaoran in a void between time and space, dragging both his clone and Watanuki along as a consequence of their connection. With their creator's death, both clones of Sakura and Syaoran fade away leaving behind two feathers. Syaoran and Watanuki escape from the void for a price: Syaoran must continue traveling through the dimensions forever, while Watanuki must stay in Yūko's shop. The group rests in the Kingdom of Clow where Fai, Kurogane, and Mokona decide to join Syaoran once again in hope of finding a way to bring back the clones who still exist as the two feathers. Before departing on their separate ways, Syaoran and Sakura confess their mutually strong, close and pure romantic love for each other, as well as their shared real name, Tsubasa, as they hope to meet again.

Jim Douglas is a miserable race car driver, reduced to competing in demolition derby races against drivers half his age. Jim lives in an old fire house overlooking San Francisco Bay with his friend and mechanic, Tennessee Steinmetz, a jolly Brooklynite who constantly extols the virtues of spiritual enlightenment, having spent time amongst Buddhist monks in Tibet, and builds "art" from car parts. After yet another race ends in a crash (and Tennessee turns his Edsel into a sculpture), Jim finds himself without a car and heads into town in search of some cheap wheels. He is enticed into an upmarket European car showroom after setting eyes on an attractive sales assistant and mechanic, Carole Bennett. Jim witnesses the dealership's British owner, Peter Thorndyke, being unnecessarily abusive towards a white Volkswagen Beetle that rolls into the showroom, and defends the car's honor, much to Thorndyke's displeasure. After Jim leaves, the car follows him home on its own, and parks itself outside his house. The following morning, a police officer informs Jim and Tennessee that Thorndyke is pressing charges for grand theft. A heated argument between Jim and Thorndyke is settled when Carole persuades Thorndyke to drop the charges if Jim purchases the car on a system of monthly payments.

Jim suspects Thorndyke has conned him when the car, scared of the freeway, goes completely out of his control. Tennessee, however, believes certain inanimate objects to have hearts and minds of their own and tries to befriend the car, naming it Herbie. Jim's feelings about his new acquisition soon improve when it appears that Herbie is intent on bringing him and Carole together. He also discovers Herbie to have an incredible turn of speed for a car of his size and decides to take him racing. After watching Jim and Herbie win their first race together, Thorndyke, himself a major force on the local racing scene, offers to cancel the remaining payments Jim owes on Herbie if Jim can win a race where they will both be competing at Riverside later that month. Jim accepts, and despite Thorndyke's underhanded tactics, he and Herbie take the victory. Over the next few months, they go on to become the toast of the racing circuit, while Thorndyke suffers increasingly humiliating defeats. Thorndyke finally loses his composure and persuades Carole to take Jim out on a date while he goes to Jim's house. After Tennessee gets drunk on his own Irish coffee recipe, Thorndyke proceeds to tip the remainder of the alcoholic coffee and whipped cream into Herbie's gas tank. At the following day's race, an apparently hungover Herbie shudders to a halt and backfires while Thorndyke blasts to victory. However, as the crowd admires Thorndyke's victory, Herbie blows some whipped cream out of his exhaust pipe, covering Thorndyke.

That evening, Carole comes to Jim's house to help Tennessee repair Herbie, having quit working for Thorndyke. While waiting for Jim to return, Tennessee tells Carole his thoughts about Herbie having a mind of his own, and she believes him. Jim arrives in a brand new Lamborghini 400GT for the upcoming El Dorado road race, intending to sell Herbie back to Thorndyke to pay the remaining installments that he owes on it. Tennessee and Carole angrily confront Jim to make him realize that Herbie was winning the races while Jim had very little to do with it. Herbie, feeling betrayed, proceeds to damage the Lamborghini, finally proving his sentience to Jim. Herbie then runs away just as Thorndyke arrives to collect him. Jim refuses Thorndyke's money, and sets off into the night hoping to find Herbie and make amends. After narrowly escaping being torn apart in Thorndyke's workshop, and a destructive spree through Chinatown, during the Chinese New Year's parade, Herbie is about to launch himself off the Golden Gate Bridge when Jim reaches him. In his attempt to stop Herbie from driving off the bridge, Jim nearly falls into the water. Herbie pulls Jim back to safety, but is then impounded by the San Francisco Police Department. There, Tang Wu (Benson Fong), a Chinese businessman whose store was damaged during Herbie's rampage, demands compensation that Jim can no longer afford. Using the Chinese language he had learned while in Tibet, Tennessee reasons with Wu, and learns that he is a huge racing fan who recognizes Herbie from the racing magazines. Wu is willing to drop the charges in exchange for becoming Herbie's new owner. Jim agrees to this, as long as Wu allows him to race the car in the El Dorado. If Jim wins, Wu can keep the prize money, but will have to sell Herbie back for one dollar. Wu replies to this proposal in clear English: "Now you speak my language."

The El Dorado runs through the Sierra Nevada mountains from Yosemite Valley to Virginia City and back. Before the start of the race, Thorndyke persuades Wu to make a wager with him on its outcome. Thorndyke (with his assistant Havershaw acting as co-driver) initiates every trick known to man to ensure that he and his "Thorndyke Special" are leading at end of the first leg of the race. As a result of Thorndyke's shenanigans, Jim (with Carole and Tennessee as co-drivers) limps home last with Herbie missing two wheels and having to use a wagon wheel to get to the finish line. Despite Tennessee's best efforts, it looks as if Herbie will be unable to start the return leg of the race the following morning. Thorndyke then arrives and claims that this makes him the new owner of the car. Wu regretfully tells Jim of the wager and that in accordance with its terms this is true. Thorndyke, thinking he is Herbie's new owner, gloats to Jim about what he is going to do to Herbie and kicks Herbie's front fender, and punches Jim, but Herbie then unexpectedly lurches into life and chases Thorndyke from the scene, showing that he is more than willing to race on. Thanks to some ingenious shortcuts, Jim is able to make up for lost time in the second leg and is neck and neck with Thorndyke as they approach the finish line. In the ensuing dogfight, Herbie's body begins to crack between the front and rear seats. Tennessee attempts to repair these on the fly with a welder, but the cracks appear faster than he can mend them and on the final dash to the finish line, Herbie splits in two. The back half (carrying Tennessee and the engine) crosses the line just ahead of Thorndyke, while the front (carrying Jim and Carole) rolls over the line just behind, meaning Herbie takes both first ''and'' third place.

In accordance with the terms of the wager, Wu takes over Thorndyke's car dealership (hiring Tennessee as his assistant), while Thorndyke and Havershaw are relegated to lowly mechanics. Meanwhile, a fully repaired Herbie chauffeurs the newlywed Jim and Carole away on their honeymoon.

Jedda is an Aboriginal girl born on a cattle station in the Northern Territory of Australia. After her mother dies giving birth to her, the child is brought to Sarah McMann, the wife of the station boss. Sarah has recently lost her own newborn to illness. She at first intends to give the baby to one of the Aboriginal women who work on the station, but then raises Jedda as her own, teaching her European ways and separating her from other Aboriginal people.

Jedda wants to learn about her own culture, but is forbidden by Sarah. When Jedda grows into a young woman, she becomes curious about an Aboriginal man from the bush named Marbuck. This tall stranger arouses strong feelings in her. She is lured to his camp one night by a song. Marbuck abducts her and sets off back to his tribal land, through crocodile-infested swamps.

Joe, a half-caste stockman in love with Jedda, tracks the two for several days. They travel across high, rocky country, and down a river until Marbuck reaches his tribe. The tribal council declares that Marbuck has committed a serious crime by bringing Jedda to them, because she is not of the right skin group. They sing his death song as punishment. Marbuck defies the elders and takes Jedda into an area of steep cliffs and canyons, taboo lands.

Driven insane by the death song, he pulls Jedda with him over a tall cliff, and both perish. Joe, the narrator, says her spirit has joined "the great mother of the world, in the dreaming time of tomorrow".

The film, shot in ''cinéma vérité''-style, depicts the final stages of the disintegrating marriage of a couple (John Marley and Lynn Carlin). We are introduced to various groups and individuals the couple interacts with after the husband's sudden statement of his desire for a divorce. Afterwards, he spends the night in the company of brash businessmen and prostitutes, while the wife spends it with her middle-aged female friends and an aging, free-associating playboy they've picked up at a bar. The night proceeds as a series of tense conversations and confrontations occur.

Benny Martin leaves his small town of Pantera and joins the Army after getting in trouble with the police. While he is away, his girlfriend (Lolita) is romanced by Joe. Although she has not heard from Benny in months, she refuses Joe’s advances, wanting to stay loyal to Benny. She eventually falls for Joe and agrees to marry him but then finds out that Benny was killed in action and has been awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously. Meanwhile, the Pantera mayor plans a rally for the medal presentation to Benny’s father and intends to use a beautiful house for the event so as not to embarrass the town by having the medal presented at the modest Martin residence. However, Benny’s father Charley, refuses to go along with the ruse and instead the medal ceremony takes place at his home. In his speech, Charley says that Benny will live on in his and Lolita's hearts. Lolita then tells Joe that she cannot marry him yet, because it might break Charley's heart.

Tiffany Aching is a 9-year-old girl who literally sees things differently from others. While playing by the river near her home, she sees two tiny blue, kilted men who warn her of a "green heid" in the water. Suddenly a vile green monster, Jenny Greenteeth, appears in the water. Using her brother Wentworth as bait, Tiffany ambushes the beast and cracks it with a frying pan, while Wentworth is completely unfazed, as he is unable to see either the little men or the monster. She goes into town to visit a travelling teacher and comes upon Miss Tick, a witch who has been watching her. Tiffany is told that these little men are the Nac Mac Feegles, who are rough and rowdy fae folk who speak with Glaswegian accents. Miss Tick informs her that she is likely the witch of the wold she resides in, and gives her the toad familiar she carries as a guide before tricking Tiffany out of the tent and disappearing.

Tiffany returns home to discover that the Nac Mac Feegles are not only incredibly fast and strong, but afraid of her, as she catches them stealing eggs from under a chicken and a sheep right out of the field. When Wentworth is kidnapped by the Queen of the Fairies, Tiffany seeks out the help of the Nac Mac Feegles to rescue him, as they are the most powerful otherworldly things she knows and they're more than willing to submit to her will, terrified by one who is not only a witch but one who can read and write. Rob Anybody, and a group of other Feegles including Big Yan and Daft Wullie take her back to their home where she meets the buzzard-aviator Hamish, the bard-Feegle William, and their clan leader the Kelda. Tiffany is told that her brother has been taken by the Queen to her domain in Fairyland, and not only must she take the Feegles to go rescue him, but she must also take up the reins as Kelda, as the current one is about to die. After worming her way out of marrying Rob Anybody, Tiffany goes out of the mound to the field where the Feegles test her First Sight and Second Thoughts by letting her find the entrance to the queen's domain.

Once in, Tiffany and the Feegles face several large wolves who the Feegles handily clobber, and several dream-causing blob-people called dromes. Going through drome-caused dreams, she finds Roland, the son of the Baron of her homeland. Tiffany and Roland go through several dreams and the normal dreamscape to eventually find a dream with both Wentworth and the Queen in it. Tiffany narrowly escapes defeat at the hands of the Queen's dream-minions by having Roland release the Feegles from their trapping in a large walnut, and they escape from that dream into one of Tiffany's imagining. Once in that dream, the Feegles and Wentworth are presumed to have perished at the hands of the Queen's trickery, and Tiffany escapes with Roland's unconscious body out back into the dreamscape, heading for the exit, full of regret that she could not save her friends. The Queen mocks her inability to save them and her insecurities, but Tiffany reconnects with her homeland's heritage to gain the strength to defeat the Queen at her own game of dreams in the darkest hour. The Feegles who she later meets back up with reveal that the trap the Queen had set was not nearly enough to stop the Feegles, and that they and Wentworth are both fine. Tiffany, Roland, Wentworth and the Feegles all return to their homeland, where the Baron mistakenly gives his son all of the credit for saving them, which Tiffany ends up being okay with.

Another large influence on the narrative of the story and development of Tiffany's character is her Granny Aching, a hard working, silent, and knowledgeable shepherd. She was the book's definition of a witch. Stories and memories of her are mentioned here and there in the book, and her memory helps Tiffany defeat the Queen at the end.

Kin Arad is a human planetary engineer working for “the Company”, a human organisation that manufactures habitable planets using techniques and equipment salvaged from an extinct alien race, the “Spindle Kings”, who excelled at terraforming.

The express purpose of the Company’s planet-manufacturing business is to create dispersed branches of humanity, diverse enough to ensure the whole species’ survival for eternity. The Earth’s population in the past has been decimated due to the lethal “Mindquakes”, epidemic mass deaths caused by too much homogeneity among the populace.

All planets built by the Company are carefully crafted with artificial strata containing synthetic fossils, indistinguishable from the real thing. On occasion, however, mischievous Company employees often attempt to place anomalous objects in the strata as practical jokes, like running shoes, or other out-of-place artefacts, hoping to raise confusion among future archaeologists when the planets’ beginnings have been long forgotten. However the Company forbids this, and secretly monitors the generated strata in order to detect embedded jokes, fearing such actions may cause the collapse of entire civilizations when the artifacts are eventually unearthed.

Kin and two aliens are recruited by the mysterious Jago Jalo for an expedition. One alien is a paranoid, four-armed, frog-like, muscular “Kung” named Marco. The other alien is a bear-like “Shand”, historian and linguist named Silver. Jago Jalo is a human who returned from a relativistic journey he embarked on more than a thousand years ago, where he made a stunning discovery: A flat Earth.

When the team rendezvous with Jago Jalo on the Kung homeworld, the violent Jalo unexpectedly has a heart attack and dies. Kin Arad is shocked by the large store of weapons on-board Jalo's spaceship, and has misgivings about the expedition; Silver and Marco, however, see the possibility of reaping great technological rewards and launch the vessel on autopilot.

When the expedition arrives at Jalo’s pre-programmed coordinates, they find a flattened version of the medieval Eastern hemisphere of the Earth they had originally departed from, before their disturbing rendezvous with Jalo. Clearly artificial, the disc rotates around its hub, and is contained inside a gigantic hollow sphere with tiny artificial “stars” affixed to the interior, augmented with a small meandering artificial sun, moon, and fake planets revolving around it.

Their ship is hit by one of the “planets” wandering on the interior of the sphere, so Kin, Marco, and Silver are forced to abandon ship. They land on the flat planet with the help of their “lift-belt” equipped suits, while their ship crashes. A return from the flat world now seems impossible, but hoping for assistance from the disc’s mysterious builders, Kin, Marco, and Silver set off towards a structure they had spotted at the disc’s hub. It is the only thing on the flat “Earth” which does not match the geography of the spherical Earth they left.

En route, the team encounter the superstitious Medieval inhabitants of the disc, who believe the end of the world is near, due to increasingly chaotic climate (caused by the disc’s machinery breaking down), the recent disappearance of one of their planets, and the general devastation caused by the ship's crash. The three travelers also discover a number of other differences.

What Kin Arad knows as “Reme” is called “Rome” on the disc, and there is a strange “Christos cult” that is completely unfamiliar to Kin. Also, Venus is conspicuously lacking its giant (lunar-sized) moon “Adonis”, which dominates the sunset sky on the Earth Kin Arad came from, which was formative in leading humanity to an early heliocentric world view.

Since only the Eastern hemisphere of Earth is represented, the continent of America is completely missing, so Kin, Marco, and Silver rescue a party of Vikings in the process of searching for Vinland, when their ship is about to sail over the edge of the world.

The flat world is apparently an extremely old and sophisticated automated system. In addition, there are real magical creatures and objects on the disc – Demons, and magic purses, and flying carpets – all of which, the travelers deduce, are themselves highly advanced, sophisticated technological constructs, just like the disc.

The travelers eventually reach the structure at the hub and make contact with the disc’s automated control-systems. They are told that (aside from the recent damage) the sheer build-up of entropy in the old machinery has exceeded the capacity of its advanced robotic maintenance. Catastrophic failure threatens the disc’s further existence. The machines offer to exchange their advanced technology for the construction of a real (spherical) planet as a refuge for the disc “Earth” inhabitants. Kin, the planetary engineer, agrees. She is excited about the massive task at hand; just like the parallel character Louis Wu in ''Ringworld'', Kin is over two hundred years old, and in danger of becoming tired of life.

The implication of the denouement is that the conventional planet Kin Arad will build is in fact the readers’ own “Earth”. By the end of the story, Kin comes to the further suspicion that the builders of the flat world constructed the whole universe. The evidence of previous races would then be hoaxes, and the flat world itself would be a prank by the universe’s construction crew – analogous to the artificial strata Kin and the Company manufacture, and the occasional prankster employees inserting hoaxes in the artificial strata.

Dominickdaniel "Dom" Sabalos IV is the son of a prodigy of probability math, a science able to predict anything apart from anything to do with the Jokers, and the first person to have had his life fully quantified using p-math. His father, before being mysteriously assassinated, predicted that Dom too would be killed, on the day of his investiture as Chairman of his home planet of Widdershins.

However, not having been told of his father's prediction, and against incalculably distant odds, Dom survives the assassination attempt. When the recording of his father's prediction is played back, a time delay added specifically for this unlikely eventuality plays a little more of the recording, in which his father makes a further prediction: that Dom will discover the Jokers' homeworld.

Dom sets out, with Hrsh-Hgn (his tutor, a swamp-dwelling ''phnobe''), Isaac (his robot, equipped with ''Man-Friday subcircuitry'') and Ig (his pet swamp ''ig'') in tow, on a picaresque adventure to find the Jokers' world. He visits many corners of the "life-bubble", encountering Joker artifacts, his god-father, who is a sentient planet, and the sexless, octopoid ''Creapii'', among many other weird and diverse aliens and planets. At the same time he finds himself surviving – at increasingly improbable odds – numerous assassination attempts by a mysterious conspiracy which has long worked to prevent anybody from locating the Jokers, assassinating anybody deemed by p-math having a chance of doing so.

A young harpist, Imp Y Celyn from Llamedos (spelled backwards, "sod 'em all", a tribute to Llareggub in Welsh poet Dylan Thomas' ''Under Milk Wood''), comes to Ankh-Morpork in hopes of becoming famous. Unable to afford the Musicians Guild fees, he and fellow unlicensed musicians Lias Bluestone (a troll percussionist) and Glod Glodsson (a dwarf hornblower) form "The Band with Rocks In", named after Lias' tuned rocks. When Imp's harp is destroyed, he acquires a guitar from a mysterious shop, unaware that it contains the awareness of a primordial music that was responsible for bringing the universe into existence. Imp takes the new name "Buddy", as "Imp Y Celyn" literally means "bud of holly", and Lias starts calling himself "Cliff".

Meanwhile, Death is upset over the deaths of his adopted daughter Ysabell and her husband, his former apprentice Mort. Their daughter, Susan Sto Helit, was initially raised with an awareness of Death as her grandfather, but they later withheld the truth from her and she forgot about it. She attends boarding school in Quirm, and is content to avoid unpleasant conversations by using her unexplained ability to fade from others' awareness. When Death abandons his post, going on an impromptu sabbatical in an effort to forget the painful memories, the fabric of reality forces Susan to take on his duties and she begins to remember her past. She becomes aware of Buddy when he is scheduled to die in a riot while performing at the Mended Drum, but instead the crowd is overcome by the spirit of "Music with Rocks In", which apparently has no musical merit for objective listeners not themselves possessed by it. After this, Buddy's life is powered by the music instead of by his natural life force.

Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler becomes the Band's manager. He hires the troll Asphalt as a roadie to accompany the band on its tour as he books them to play to increasingly large crowds throughout the city and the region, all the while keeping them unaware of the large profits he is earning. Buddy is becoming less and less like himself, and barely seems aware of his surroundings when he is not playing the guitar. Susan tries to protect him from the influence of the music; though she does not acknowledge it, she has developed feelings for him. Meanwhile, the music is affecting many of the people who have heard it, causing them to form their own bands and adopt behaviours associated with the fans of various musical movements on 20th Century Earth. The wizards of Unseen University are particularly affected by this phenomenon, though not Archchancellor Ridcully, who uses the newly invented device Hex and works with Susan in an effort to understand these events. And Mr Clete, the murderous secretary of the Musicians Guild, becomes increasingly unhinged by his inability to stop the Band's unauthorized activities (as they are protected by the music).

Buddy wants to perform a free concert at the music's behest, and Dibbler agrees after realizing how much of a profit he can earn through merchandising and concessions. A large number of the copycat bands participate in the largest concert of all time, culminating in the Band with Rocks In's performance. Buddy also performs his own folk song on his harp, which Glod has had repaired, which briefly restores Imp's natural personality and grants him a moment of peace. Afterwards, the band flees from their crazed fans, pursued by the Musicians Guild, Dibbler, Susan, and Death (who has been brought back to his senses by his servant Albert). The music intends to create an immortal legend by crashing the band's coach into a gorge, with no survivors. Susan rescues them, but the music begins to alter the timeline so the band will have died. Death arrives and plays an "empty chord" on the guitar to stop the music, explaining that while he can stop it, only a musician like Buddy can restart it. The music agrees to allow Buddy to live in return for his playing a chord to restart it. Death then destroys the guitar.

A new timeline is created in which Clete was the only fatality, although Susan remains aware of the original course of events. She is returned to school (and also has been there all along) with a new self-assurance. The next day, she runs to reunite with Imp upon realizing that, in the new version of events, he came to Quirm instead of Ankh-Morpork and is working nearby.

At the opening of the book, the narrator, Rabo Karabekian, apologizes to the arriving guests: "I promised you an autobiography, but something went wrong in the kitchen..." He describes himself as a museum guard who answers questions from visitors coming to see his priceless collected art. He shares the lonely home with his live-in cook and her daughter, Celeste.

One afternoon, Circe Berman, a woman living nearby wanders onto Karabekian's private beach. When he reaches out to greet her, she catches him by surprise with the forward statement "Tell me how your parents died." He tells her the story and proceeds to invite her back to his home for a drink. After a drink and supper, Karabekian invites her to stay with him, as Paul Slazinger, a friend of Karbekian does. After a time, he begins to find her charm "manipulative", as she typically gets her way. Mrs. Berman does not respect his abstract art collection, including works by Jackson Pollock. She explores every inch of Karabekian's home, constantly asking him questions. The only place that is off-limits to her is the potato barn.

The potato barn is the home of Karabekian's studio and holds his "secret". The barn has no windows, and Karabekian has gone through the trouble of nailing one end shut and immobilizing the other with six padlocks. The mystery of the potato barn has enticed collectors to make outrageous offers and to raise suspicions of stolen masterpieces. Upon help from Berman, Karabekian comes to a realization in his life, that he was merely afraid of people, and opens the painting in the potato barn to the public.

''Tirant lo Blanch'' tells the story of a knight Tirant from Brittany who has a series of adventures across Europe in his quest. He joins in knightly competitions in England and France until the Emperor of the Byzantine Empire asks him to help in the war against the Ottoman Turks, Islamic invaders threatening Constantinople, the capital and seat of the Empire. Tirant accepts and is made Megaduke of the Byzantine Empire and the captain of an army. He defeats the invaders and saves the Empire from destruction. Afterwards, he fights the Turks in many regions of the eastern Mediterranean and North Africa, but he dies just before he can marry the pretty heiress of the Byzantine Empire.

The film opens at the Houston Astrodome in Houston, Texas on February 26, 1995, where Tejano superstar Selena Quintanilla Pérez plays to a sold-out crowd ("Disco Medley").

Then we flashback to 1961, where young Abraham Quintanilla Jr. and his band "The Dinos" are rejected by a restaurant owner after an audition in Texas. They perform for a Mexican-American nightclub, but a riot ensues when they don't perform the audience's preferred Tejano music ("Oldies Medley"), but rather American pop.

Twenty years later, Abraham is married to Marcella Samora, with three children: son Abraham III (A.B.), and daughters Suzette and Selena. Discovering Selena's singing talent, he creates the band Selena y Los Dinos, with she as lead singer, A.B. on bass, and Suzette on drums. Initially reluctant, the children enjoy making music ("We Belong Together"). Moving to Corpus Christi, Texas, the band goes on the road to support the family. After lackluster reception at a carnival, Selena begins adding more dance and personality into her acts. The band's success grows following local performances. In 1989, Selena reveals her bustier during a carnival performance ("Baila Esta Cumbia"), angering Abraham due to its sexually suggestive nature.

In 1990, Chris Pérez auditions as the guitarist. Abraham disapproves of his heavy metal style but hires him after he agrees to cut his hair. Selena and Chris eventually fall in love. In 1992, when Chris' former band members trash a hotel suite, Abraham threatens to fire him. A.B. pleads with him to reconsider, mentioning he is needed for their upcoming tour in Mexico. Promoters worry when they realize Selena does not speak Spanish well, but her personality and care for her fans win everyone over. A show almost goes awry when the huge crowd rushes the stage and it buckles ("La Carcacha"). Selena calms them down with a joyous performance ("Como la Flor") and is accepted as an "artist for the people" in Mexico.

Catching Selena hugging Chris on the tour bus, Abraham fires him and threatens a heartbroken Selena and the rest of the family with disbandment if they disobey him. They secretly continue their romance, eventually eloping at the Nueces County Courthouse. Selena insists, stating that Abraham will never willingly accept their relationship. The day after a radio station announces their marriage. Abraham tells Selena he is proud of her maturity, having realized that he was too harsh on her and Chris. The Quintanillas congratulate them, accept Chris into their family, and rehire him as the guitarist.

In 1994, José Behar and music executives from EMI Latin attend a Selena concert ("Bidi Bidi Bom Bom"/"No Me Queda Más"), offering her to record an English-language album, showing that she has successfully broken down cultural barriers. Selena opens her first Selena Etc. boutique and asks her fan club president Yolanda Saldívar to manage it. Her live album wins a Grammy for Best Mexican-American album, so her staff chip in to get her a celebratory gift. After claiming she knows the perfect gift and suggesting they give her all of the money to buy it, Yolanda gives Selena a ring resembling the Faberge eggs but does not mention it was a group present. She begins recording her crossover album ("I Could Fall In Love") and she and Chris plan to start a family together.

One night, Abraham tells Selena fans are upset as they paid to join her fan club but received nothing. Other funds that Yolanda has been handling cannot be accounted for, and vital business records are missing. Summoned to Q-Productions and confronted by Abraham, Selena, and Suzette, Yolanda denies wrongdoing and says she will find the missing documents. While on the road Selena talks to her mom about being accepted in the English-speaking market and expresses thoughts about starting a family. While dreaming about the crossover tour ("Dreaming of You"), the scene cuts to a news report of March 31, 1995, where a paramedic is tending to Selena who is shot and killed offscreen by Yolanda after attempting to retrieve some financial papers. Yolanda ends up in a standoff with cops, putting her gun over her head to hold them off. After Selena dies, the family mourns her death and is followed by a candlelight vigil held by fans while a montage of the real Selena is shown.

Many themes of interethnic love, betrayal and friendship interact in an Armenian setting. The central character is a young woman named Gayane, who works in a kolkhoz in a mountainous district near the national border.

;Act I In the Armenian kolkhoz, farmers are busy reaping cotton. Among them are heroine Gayane, her father Ovanes, brother Armen and younger sister Nune. They are all models of hard work with the only exception of Gayane's husband Giko, a lazy drunkard. She admonishes Giko for his misconduct and this escalates into a quarrel. Then arrives Kazakov, commander of the Soviet frontier guard, and a dance of welcome begins. Seeing Gayane present a bouquet to Kazakov, Giko violently snatches the bouquet from her and ignoring everybody's reproach, disappears.

;Act II At Gayane's home, people console Gayane who is deploring her husband's misconduct. The singing voices of carpet weavers are heard. As Giko returns, all go out. Gayane sings her child Ripsime to sleep. Three smugglers come to see Giko. They conspire to share the public money they have embezzled, to set fire to the cotton warehouse and to flee abroad. Overhearing their conspiracy, Gayane admonishes her husband, but he thrusts her into another room and locks her up.

;Act III At a Kurdish settlement in a mountainous area near the kolkhoz are many people, including Gayane's brother Armen, a Kurdish girl Aishe, and a Kurdish young man Izmail who loves her. Giko and the three smugglers arrive, asking Armen their way. Wondering about their intentions and activity, he sends some Kurdish youths to fetch Kazakov. Noticing this, Giko and his gang try to kill Armen, but Kazakov appears just in time and arrests the three smugglers. Giko escapes, however, and sets fire to the cotton warehouse. Trying to flee in the confusion of the moment, Giko is found by Gayane, who has managed to break out of the room in which she was imprisoned. Giko threatens Gayane that he will drop their child Ripsime from a cliff. As Gayane does not yield, Giko stabs her with a dagger. Hearing her shriek, Kazakov rushes in and arrests Giko, who will be brought to justice. Kazakov tends Gayane devotedly, and she recovers. Love grows between the two.

;Act IV A year later, at the kolkhoz, a dedication ceremony of the reconstructed warehouse occurs, as well as three weddings: Gayane and Kazakov, Armen and Aishe, Karen and Nune. Folk dances, rich in local color, are performed one after another. The ballet ends amid blessings by all.

Ray, a bartender at Marty's Bar, and Abby, Marty's wife, are driving through a heavy downpour at night, discussing Abby's bad marriage. They arrive at a motel, where they have sex. A man named Lorren Visser, a private detective, has been hired by Abby's husband, Julian Marty, to follow Abby. Visser takes photos of the tryst between Ray and Abby, and delivers them to Marty.

Abby collects some things from home and warns Ray to stay away from the bar. Ray finds his boss, Marty, on the bar's back steps, and asks him for two weeks pay. Marty refuses and angrily tells Ray it will be funny when Abby at some point looks at Ray and says, "I haven't done anything funny."

Marty attempts to kidnap Abby from Ray's home. He fails and, humiliated, rehires Visser: this time, to kill the couple. Visser agrees and tells Marty to "go fishing" to establish an alibi. Visser breaks into Ray's home, steals Abby's gun, which was a gift from Marty, and it appears that he kills the sleeping couple. He presents photos of the couple's corpses (with blood and bullet wounds) to Marty as evidence. Marty goes to the bathroom to vomit and then opens the safe to give Visser his fee, surreptitiously placing one of the photos in the safe. Visser then shoots Marty with Abby's gun, taking the money and leaving the gun at the scene to make it appear that she killed Marty. But Visser doesn't realize that he has left his cigarette lighter on the desk underneath the fish that Marty caught on his fishing trip.

The audience learns that Ray and Abby are still alive (the photos of them in bed together apparently having been doctored to make it appear they had been shot and killed) when Ray returns to the bar and finds a motionless Marty in his chair, with a bullet wound in his chest. Assuming that Marty is dead and that it is Abby who murdered him, he puts her gun in Marty's coat pocket and loads the still-bleeding body into the backseat of his car. As he is driving the body away from the crime scene, he perceives movement in his rear view mirror and pulls over to the side of the road in a panic. Ray runs a short distance into a field. Returning to the car, Ray finds a barely alive Marty crawling away from the car. Ray puts him back in the car and drives into a field to dig a grave. Marty is still breathing as Ray drags him to a shallow hole and starts burying him. Marty raises the gun and pulls the trigger three times, but it is out of bullets. Ray gingerly takes the gun and continues to bury Marty, whose screams of terror become fainter and fainter as each shovelful of dirt is thrown into his face.

A distraught and panicked Ray goes to Abby's new apartment and tells her he cleaned up her mess. They are unable to communicate about Marty, as each has drawn erroneous conclusions from differing assumptions. Echoing Marty's earlier comment, Abby, baffled, says, "I haven't done anything funny." By the time Ray leaves, each is convinced that the other has done something to harm Marty. Ray leaves the same pearl-handled gun with Abby.

Visser realizes that he cannot find his cigarette lighter and goes back to the bar office to search for it, knowing it can identify him. He first observes Abby, and later Ray, visiting the bar office, each in pursuit of their own assumptions. When leaving the bar, Ray notices that he is being followed and heads to Abby's apartment, realizing that she might be in danger. He sits in the dark waiting for Abby. After Abby arrives, Visser, firing from a nearby rooftop with a rifle, fatally shoots Ray through the window, as Abby has disregarded Ray's admonition to turn off the lights. When Abby hears footsteps approaching, she quickly takes Ray's knife and hides in the bathroom.

Visser enters the bathroom to kill her, but finds the bathroom empty and the window open. Reaching out the window, he opens another window to the next room, into which Abby has escaped and is now hiding. She slams the window down and drives the knife through his hand into the sill, pinning Visser. He shoots vainly through the wall, finally punches through it to reach around, and removes the knife while Abby retreats and waits outside the bathroom, holding her gun which now contains one round. As Visser is about to emerge, she fires through the door, hitting him. Abby says, "I'm not afraid of you, Marty." Visser, lying mortally wounded on the bathroom floor, bursts into laughter and responds, "Well, m'aam, if I see him, I'll sure give him the message."

Act 1

The president of the International Chess Federation—The Arbiter—speculates on the origins of the game of chess ("Story of Chess") before announcing the location of the upcoming world chess championship: Merano, Italy. As the townsfolk prepare for the occasion ("Merano"), the current world champion, Freddie Trumper of the United States, arrives with his second and presumed lover: Hungarian-born, English-raised Florence Vassy ("Freddie's Entrance"). Florence confronts Freddie about his brash behavior and rocky relationship with the press ("Commie Newspapers"), which immediately gets out of hand when he assaults a journalist who questions his relationship with Florence ("Press Conference"). Meanwhile, Freddie's Soviet Russian challenger, Anatoly Sergievsky, argues with his own second, the scheming Molokov ("Anatoly and Molokov"). Afterwards, in private, Anatoly cynically reflects on the selling out of his dreams to get to where he is today ("Where I Want to Be").

The opening ceremony features the American and Soviet delegates each vowing their side will win ("Diplomats"), The Arbiter insisting on a clean game ("The Arbiter"), and marketers looking to make a profit ("Hymn to Chess" / "Merchandisers"). During the increasingly intense match, Freddie suddenly throws the chessboard to the floor and storms out of the arena ("Chess #1"), leaving Florence to negotiate with Anatoly, Molokov, and The Arbiter ("Quartet"). Florence manages to arrange a meeting between the two players, after trading heated words with Molokov. It turns out that Freddie engineered the outburst in the hopes of extracting more money from his sponsor, an American sensationalist media company called Global Television, though Walter—the company's representative in Freddie's delegation—criticizes the stunt as ludicrous ("Florence and Molokov"). Florence later scolds Freddie, and they fight about the politics of the tournament until he viciously turns the argument toward her missing father, believed captured or killed by Soviet forces during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution ("1956: Budapest is Rising"). She laments the situation alone ("Nobody's Side") before heading off to the Merano Mountain Inn for the reconciliatory meeting she has scheduled between Freddie and Anatoly ("Der Kleine Franz"). Freddie does not immediately turn up, though, leaving Anatoly and Florence awkwardly alone together; however, they eventually embrace as romantic feelings arise before being finally interrupted by Freddie, who was working out new financial terms with Global TV ("Mountain Duet").

The chess tournament proceeds. Distracted by the loss of Florence's love, however, Freddie flounders, leaving himself just one more loss away from losing his title ("Chess #2"). Due to Freddie's atrocious attitude, Florence finally deserts him ("Florence Quits"), whereby Freddie ponders how his unhappy childhood left him the man he is today ("Pity the Child"). He sends The Arbiter a letter of resignation, resulting in Anatoly's becoming the new world champion. Anatoly immediately defects from the Soviet Union and seeks asylum at the British embassy ("Defection" / "Embassy Lament"). Florence, accompanying Anatoly, reflects on their newfound romance ("Heaven Help My Heart"). Meanwhile, Walter tips off the press about this scandal. When the mob of reporters ambush Anatoly and ask why he is deserting his country ("Anatoly and the Press"), he tells them that he will never truly leave his homeland. ("Anthem").

Act 2

A year later, Anatoly is set to defend his championship in Bangkok, Thailand ("Golden Bangkok"). Freddie is already there, chatting up locals and experiencing the Bangkok nightlife ("One Night in Bangkok"); he is Global TV's official commentator for the tournament. Florence and Anatoly are now openly lovers, and worry about Freddie's sudden reappearance as well as the impending arrival of Anatoly's estranged wife, Svetlana, from Russia ("One More Opponent" / "You and I"), which Anatoly suspects is part of Molokov's plan to shame him into returning to the Soviet Union. Molokov, meanwhile, has trained a new protégé, Leonid Viigand, to challenge, defeat, and humiliate Anatoly ("The Soviet Machine").

Walter, now Freddie's boss, manipulates Freddie into embarrassing Anatoly on live TV during an eventually heated interview between them ("The Interview"). Molokov, who indeed is responsible for Svetlana's presence in Bangkok, blackmails her into urging Anatoly to throw the match. Walter, who has been promised the release of certain captured American agents if he can ruin Anatoly's performance, informs Florence that her father is still alive though imprisoned, and that he too will be released if she can convince Anatoly to lose. Despite Molokov and Walter's efforts, none of their ploys work to get Anatoly to throw the game. As a result, Molokov and Walter team up to get Freddie to personally persuade Anatoly and Florence, knowing that Freddie is vengeful toward Anatoly and interested in winning back the love of Florence; however, Freddie's attempts also fail ("The Deal").

Surprisingly, Svetlana and Florence end up bonding over their respective relationships with Anatoly. Florence ultimately admits that it would be best for Anatoly to return to his children and Svetlana ("I Know Him So Well"). Anatoly, meanwhile, follows an anonymous letter guiding him to Wat Pho, where Freddie appears to tell him that he is willing to put their conflict behind him. Having decided that he only wants Anatoly to "be true to the game", Freddie informs Anatoly of a significant flaw in Viigand's strategy that will help Anatoly win ("Talking Chess").

In the deciding game of the match, with the score tied at five games all, Svetlana castigates Anatoly for wallowing in the crowd's empty praise and Florence expresses similar annoyance with him for casting aside his ideals; regardless, Anatoly achieves a superb victory against Viigand ("Endgame"). Later, Florence confesses her feelings that he should return to his family in the Soviet Union. The pair reflects on the conclusion of their romance ("You and I: Reprise"). Walter later approaches Florence with the news that Anatoly has defected back to the USSR, meaning that her father will certainly be released. He startlingly admits, however, that no one actually knows if her father is still alive. Florence breaks down, realising that she too has been used, and she sadly mirrors Anatoly's earlier sentiment that her only borders lie around her heart ("Anthem: Reprise").

The musical's American incarnation has noticeably different settings, lyrics, song orders, and a completely different Act 2 from the British version. In particular, in the American ''Chess'' the entire show is about one chess match, not two. Act 1 involves the first part of the match, which is held in Bangkok, Thailand, while Act 2 handles the conclusion, and is set in Budapest, Hungary. Also, the incumbent champion is switched in the American version (that is, to Anatoly Sergievsky rather than Freddie Trumper) as is the winner of the Sergievsky–Trumper tournament.

Prologue

In 1956, a Hungarian revolutionary, Gregor Vassy, calmly explains to his 4-year-old daughter, Florence, the history of chess, before the two are separated in the midst of a violent rebellion in Budapest ("Prologue" / "The Story of Chess").

Act 1

Decades later at an international chess tournament in Bangkok, Thailand, the wild-tempered American challenger, Freddie Trumper, arrives with his second and presumed lover: a now-adult Florence ("Freddie's Entrance"). At a press meeting, Freddie loses his temper with the reporters as Florence scolds them for their sensationalism ("Press Conference"). The current world champion, a Soviet Russian named Anatoly Sergievsky, discusses this with his second, Molokov. Afterwards, in private, Anatoly cynically reflects on how his career as world champion has been characterized by empty fame ("Where I Want to Be"). Meanwhile, Florence grows frustrated with Freddie's seedy financial agent, Walter, and complains to Freddie that her intellectual capabilities are under-appreciated ("Argument").

The opening ceremony features merchandise vendors and Walter relishing in the tournament's money-making opportunities ("Merchandisers"); the American and Soviet delegates each vowing their side will win ("Diplomats"); and the beginning of the tournament's first round ("Chess #1"). When Anatoly begins eating yogurt during the match, Freddie accuses him of cheating before storming out of the arena, leaving Florence to negotiate with the tournament's Arbiter, Molokov, and Anatoly, eventually promising to retrieve Freddie ("Quartet"). Florence later scolds Freddie, and they fight about the tournament's politics until he viciously turns the argument toward her missing father ("The American and Florence"); alone, Florence begins to realize her need to abandon Freddie ("Someone Else's Story").

Instead of heading off to the Generous Sole restaurant for the reconciliatory meeting Florence has scheduled between Freddie and Anatoly, Freddie is sidetracked by the Bangkok nightlife ("One Night in Bangkok"), leaving Anatoly and Florence awkwardly alone together; however, they eventually embrace as romantic feelings arise before being finally interrupted by Freddie ("Terrace Duet" / "Who'd Ever Think It?"). Anatoly apologizes for the yogurt incident and Freddie returns to the match, but only after a hefty bribe. Distracted by the loss of Florence's love, however, Freddie flounders, finishing the most recent round with one win and five losses; one more loss will cost him the match (Chess #2). Furious, he blames his issues on Florence, who finally leaves him as he reflects on his stature ("Florence Quits" / "A Taste of Pity"). Florence contemplates her new freedom from Freddie ("Nobody's Side"), while Walter secretly arranges for Anatoly to defect from the Soviet Union to the United States. When a mob of reporters ambush Anatoly and ask about his newfound relationship with Florence and why he is deserting his country ("Reporters"), he tells them that he will never truly leave his homeland ("Anthem").

Act 2

Eight weeks later, everyone is in Budapest to witness the conclusion of the match between Anatoly and Freddie ("The Arbiter" / "Hungarian Folk Song"). Florence is elated to be back in her hometown, but dismayed that she remembers none of it ("Heaven Help My Heart"). Molokov offers to help her find her missing father and starts "investigating". Freddie, under protestations from Walter, is confident that he will win ("Winning"). Florence and Anatoly are now openly lovers, though their relationship is complicated by the arrival of Svetlana, Anatoly's estranged wife, in Budapest ("You and I"). Anatoly discovers that Molokov is threatening his brother's family to get him to return to Russia and begins to break down, losing a string of matches and leaving the score tied at five games all ("Freddie Goes Metal"). Molokov and Walter, interested in exchanging key individuals for their respective countries, collaborate to achieve their separate goals ("Let's Work Together"), and Molokov reveals to Walter that Florence's father is alive in Budapest, who in turn reveals this to Florence. Pressured by this information and the strain on her relationship with Anatoly, Florence turns to Svetlana for solace ("I Know Him So Well"). Anatoly, having heard the news of Florence's father, cannot focus on the match at hand, and so Florence asks Freddie for a postponement, but he refuses and breaks down on live television, reflecting how his broken childhood made him who he is today ("Pity the Child"). In the meantime, Molokov brings Florence to see a man claiming to be her father and the two joyously reconnect ("Father's Lullaby").

In the deciding game of the match, Anatoly resolves to ensure that Florence is reunited with her father. He thus chooses to recant his defection and makes a tactical error during the game. Freddie immediately takes advantage of the blunder and proceeds to win the tournament, becoming the new world champion ("Endgame"). Florence and Anatoly reflect on the conclusion of their romance ("You and I: Reprise"). Florence is left alone to wait for her father when she is approached by Walter, who confesses that the old man is not her father, who is most likely dead. It seems that Molokov struck a deal with Walter that if the Russians managed to get Anatoly back, they would release a captured American spy; using Florence, they succeeded. Florence has now left Freddie, been abandoned by Anatoly, and lost the father she never had, realising that she too has been used, and she sadly mirrors Anatoly's earlier sentiment that her only borders lie around her heart ("Anthem: Reprise").

During a meeting with his superior, M, Bond learns that his latest physical assessment is poor because of excessive drinking and smoking. M sends Bond to a health clinic for a two-week treatment to improve his condition. At the clinic Bond encounters Count Lippe, a member of the Red Lightning Tong criminal organisation from Macau. When Bond learns of the Tong connection, Lippe tries to kill him by tampering with a spinal traction table on which Bond is being treated. Bond, however, is saved by nurse Patricia Fearing and later retaliates against Lippe by trapping him in a steam bath, causing second-degree burns and sending him to hospital for a week.

The Prime Minister receives a communiqué from SPECTRE ('''SP'''ecial '''E'''xecutive for '''C'''ounter-intelligence, '''T'''errorism, '''R'''evenge and '''E'''xtortion), a private criminal enterprise under the command of Ernst Stavro Blofeld. SPECTRE has hijacked a ''Villiers Vindicator'' and seized its two nuclear bombs, which it will use to destroy two major targets in the Western Hemisphere unless a ransom is paid. Lippe was dispatched to the clinic to oversee Giuseppe Petacchi, an Italian Air Force pilot stationed at a nearby bomber squadron base, and post the communiqué once the bombs were in SPECTRE's possession. Although Lippe has accomplished his tasks, Blofeld considers him unreliable because of his childish clash with Bond and has him killed.

Acting as a NATO observer of Royal Air Force procedure, Petacchi is in SPECTRE's pay to hijack the bomber in mid-flight by killing its crew and flying it to the Bahamas, where he ditches it in the ocean and it sinks in shallow water. SPECTRE crew members kill Petacchi, camouflage the wreck, and transfer the nuclear bombs onto the cruiser yacht ''Disco Volante'' for transport to an underwater hiding place. Emilio Largo, second-in-command of SPECTRE, oversees the operations.

The Americans and the British launch Operation Thunderball to foil SPECTRE and recover the two atomic bombs. On a hunch, M assigns Bond to the Bahamas to investigate. There, Bond meets Felix Leiter, who has been recalled to duty by the CIA from the Pinkerton detective agency because of the Thunderball crisis. While in Nassau, Bond meets Dominetta "Domino" Vitali, Largo's mistress and Petacchi's sister. She is living on board the ''Disco Volante'' and believes Largo is on a treasure hunt, although Largo makes her stay ashore while he and his partners supposedly survey the ocean for treasure. After seducing her, Bond informs her that Largo arranged her brother's death, and Bond recruits her to spy on Largo. Domino re-boards the ''Disco Volante'' with a Geiger counter disguised as a camera, to ascertain if the yacht has been used to transport the bombs. However, she is discovered and Largo tortures her for information.

Bond and Leiter alert the Thunderball war room of their suspicions of Largo and join the crew of the American nuclear submarine ''Manta'' as the ransom deadline nears. The ''Manta'' chases the ''Disco Volante'' to capture it and recover the bombs en route to the first target. Bond and Leiter lead a dive team in a fight against Largo's crew and a battle ensues. Bond stops Largo from escaping with the bombs; Largo corners him in an underwater cave and is about to kill him, only to be killed by Domino with a shot from a spear gun. The fight leaves six American divers and ten SPECTRE men dead, including Largo, and the bombs are recovered safely. As Bond recuperates in hospital, Leiter explains that Domino told Largo nothing under torture and later escaped from the ''Disco Volante'' to get revenge on him. Learning that she is also recovering from injuries, Bond crawls into her room and falls asleep at her bedside.

The sword Ehrgeiz, legendarily powerful, was sealed away and could only be opened with the Ehrgeiz stone. This stone was made a prize for a fighting tournament, and whoever won, would take the sword.

Characters

• Ken "Godhand" Mishima – Once a mercenary for Red Scorpion, Godhand decided to leave the organization and take with him the knowledge of the ancient ruin. Resigning from the organization meant cutting off one's right hand. As painful as it was, Ken did the deed and then betrayed Red Scorpion by selling the information to a large wealthy syndicate group. Together, they formed an excavation company to seize control of the ancient ruin in the Middle East. As part of his deal, he was given a new prosthetic right arm, plus was told the theory that the Ehrgeiz stone was the key to the door. He now believes he must become the champion and bear the sword. He bears a strong resemblance to Namco's ''Tekken'' characters Kazuya Mishima and Jin Kazama. Vincent Valentine (FFVII) uses Godhand's moveset. His moveset contains moves from Kazuya Mishima, Jin Kazama, Heihachi Mishima, Baek Doo San and Paul Phoenix from the ''Tekken'' series. His costume also bears resemblance to that of Bryan Fury's costumes in addition to Godhand's right hand being cybernetic.
• Han Daehan – A master of tae kwon do and a young action star without need of a stuntman, Han is a popular lad amongst the public. What the public does not know is that his right leg is actually artificial. During a movie shoot a year ago in the Middle East, a mysterious cloud of black smoke engulfed Han's leg. Peculiarly, although his leg has disappeared, he continues to retain a sensation of its existence. As he continues to seek an explanation for this particular phenomenon, he stumbles upon information that similar incidents have occurred every few decades in the area containing the ancient ruins. Han is another who becomes drawn to the mysterious surroundings of the ancient ruins. He bears a strong resemblance to ''Tekken'' s Hwoarang.
• Prince Doza – His motto is, "I’ll destroy anyone who stands in my path!" Each day, Doza seeks a more powerful opponent. However, in the world of kickboxing, he is already without equal. Able to defeat his opponents with his bare fists, Doza has become bored and is in need of a challenge. In the midst of his unrest, he receives word of the Ehrgeiz tournament, where weapons, psychic powers, and projectile weapons are permitted. Thrilled, he is determined to test his skills. Although he has no interest in the secret that Ehrgeiz holds, his fighting spirit is fueled by the appearance of opponents that are more powerful than he has ever imagined. In order to not be outmatched by distance weapons, Doza enters the fray with a glove weapon that shoots fireballs, not unlike the Hadouken of ''Street Fighter'' fame. In the Japanese version, he is named Naseem. He bears a strong resemblance to ''Tekken'' s Bruce Irvin and ''Street Fighter'' s Adon. He seems to also be inspired by the boxer Naseem Hamed .
• "Yoyo" Yoko Kishibojin – Yoko's father is an explorer who teaches archaeology, and her mother is an expert in Kishiboujin ryu jujutsu. At age 10, her parents divorced, leaving her to be raised solely by her mother. Although still in high school, her talents in jujutsu have been acknowledged by the ICPO which enable her to participate in their hand-to-hand combat research team. One day, she received a letter from her estranged father, entrusting her to carry out the duties necessary to acquire Ehrgeiz. In addition to this, she has been ordered by the ICPO to enter the tournament to investigate suspicious activities surrounding Ehrgeiz.
• Lee Shuwen – Known as the master of lethal kempo, Lee holds the power and technique that can kill a man in a single strike. It has been said that Lee, founder of the Hakkyoku Ken, was killed some time ago through lethal poisoning. However, through the power of a legendary elixir found in the tomb of the first emperor, Lee has miraculously been brought back to life. Not only has this elixir brought him back to life, it is also making him younger as time proceeds. At this rate, he will ultimately become younger and eventually return to the void. In an attempt to avoid such a fate, he embarks on a mission to acquire the true key to immortality. Thus, he begins his journey to uncover the mystery behind the legendary ancient ruins. He bears resemblance to ''Tekken'' s Lei Wulong. He is also based upon the real martial artist of the same name, Li Shuwen .
• Sasuke – Although it is evident by his appearance that he is a ninja, Sasuke's true identity remains unknown. Presently, he works as an agent for Red Scorpion, but since he has a mild case of amnesia, he cannot remember his true name. However, during a mission in which he was to assassinate the adventurer, Koji Masuda, he notices a mysterious stone embedded within a broken sword held by Masuda. Believing that this precious stone will enable him to recover his long lost memories, Sasuke aims to acquire the legendary weapon, Ehrgeiz. Yuffie Kisaragi (FFVII) uses Sasuke's moveset. He resembles Ryu Hayabusa from ''Ninja Gaiden'' and ''Dead or Alive''.
• Dasher Inoba – Inoba is a prominent wrestler and a disciple of Karl Schneider, the founder of the Ehrgeiz Tournament. He is also a member of the Ehrgeiz supervising committee. With the recent death of his master, Inoba discovers a note left behind by the late Schneider which suggests that he had been investigating the connection between the stone embedded within the Ehrgeiz and the ancient ruins. Ever since laying eyes upon the mystical stone, Inoba has been fascinated by its presence. Compounded by his urge to obtain the stone and to uncover the mystery behind his master's investigation, he is determined to get his hands on the legendary weapon. As evidenced by the character's name, appearance, fighting style, vocal grunts, and committee status, Inoba is heavily inspired by the Japanese professional wrestler, Antonio Inoki.
• "Wolf Girl" Jo – As an infant, Jo survived an airplane crash in the Amazon while sustaining only minor injuries to her head. Raised by wolves, she gained physical strength that exceeds and surpasses normal human capabilities by as much as three times. Following the death of her "wolf" mother, Jo became known as the "Man-eating wolf girl", and was eventually captured and imprisoned. There, she exhibited uncontrollable hostility towards her supervising officers. Having heard about this girl through various rumors, Red Scorpion scouts her and gives her the name, Jo. She is given direct orders by Red Scorpion to seek the Ehrgeiz without knowing or understanding the reason why. She uses the dance-like Brazilian fighting style capoeira.
• Koji Masuda – Father of Yoko Kishibojin and third time consecutive reigning champion of the Ehrgeiz Championship Tournament. He is also an archaeologist seeking to uncover the truth behind the mysteries surrounding the ancient ruin.
• Clair Andrews – A child prodigy who entered the university at the age of sixteen, Clair is one of Koji Masuda's archaeology students. Although she is relatively independent, she is still considered naïve. When Koji begins his journey, Clair impulsively joins him as his assistant. Her fighting style is Jeet Kune Do, and thus, shares many moves with ''Tekken'' s Marshall Law, although one of her special moves resembles Fei Long's Dragon Flame Kick from ''Street Fighter''.
• Django / Red Scorpion – Django is a wolf-like character that plays the role of the sub-final boss. He can be unlocked as a playable character by meeting certain conditions in the game. His first costume features gray fur; however, his red-furred alternate costume resembles ''Final Fantasy VII'''s Red XIII. His attack names reference Red XIII, Red's father Seto, and ''Final Fantasy'' summons. Red Scorpion is Django's second form, which serves as the final boss.

''Final Fantasy VII'' characters

• Cloud Strife (available at start in PlayStation version)
• Tifa Lockhart (available at start in PlayStation version)
• Sephiroth (PlayStation version only, available at start)
• Vincent Valentine (hidden character; must be unlocked (PlayStation version only))
• Yuffie Kisaragi (hidden character; must be unlocked (PlayStation version only))
• Zack Fair (hidden character; must be unlocked (PlayStation version only))

In the arcade version, Cloud, Tifa, and Django were revealed after thirty, sixty, and ninety days, respectively, after the initial install and boot of the game.

The setting is in the Fall of 1777, during the Saratoga Campaign.

Act I

Dick Dudgeon is an outcast from his family in colonial Websterbridge, New Hampshire. He returns their hatred with scorn. After the death of his father, Dick returns to his childhood home to hear the reading of his father's will, much to his family's dismay. Anthony Anderson, the local minister, treats him with courtesy despite Dick's self-proclaimed apostasy, but Dick's "wickedness" appalls Anderson's wife Judith. To everyone's surprise, it is revealed that Dick's father secretly changed his will just before he died, leaving the bulk of his estate to Dick. Dick promptly evicts his mother from her home, but also invites his cousin Essie (the illegitimate daughter of Dick's never-do-well uncle Peter), orphaned by the hanging of her father as a rebel by the British, to stay as long as she wants. At the end of the Act, Dick proclaims himself also a rebel against the British and scorns his family as cowards when they flee his home. He warns Anderson that the approaching army hanged his uncle in error, believing him to be a man of highest respect, unaware of his ill repute, and that Anderson will be the example set in Websterbridge.

Act II

While visiting Anderson's home at the Reverend's invitation, Dick is left alone with Judith while Anderson is called out to Mrs. Dudgeon's deathbed. Perceiving Judith's distaste for him, Dick attempts to leave, but Judith insists he stay until Anderson returns. While they are waiting, British soldiers enter Anderson's home and arrest Dick, mistaking him for Anderson. Dick allows them to take him away without revealing his actual identity. He swears Judith to secrecy lest her husband give the secret away and expose himself to arrest. Anderson returns and finds his wife in a state of great agitation. He demands to know if Dick has harmed her. Breaking her promise to Dick, Judith reveals that soldiers came to arrest Anderson but Dick went in his place. Anderson is stunned. He grabs all his money and a gun and quickly rides away, ignoring Judith's appeals. Judith believes her husband to be a coward, while Dick, whom she despised, is a hero.

Act III

Dick is being held for court martial at the local British Army headquarters. Judith visits Dick and asks to be present at his trial. He allows it as long as she promises not to speak up. The proceedings are run by the charming British General Burgoyne. After some back and forth, where, among other things, Dick makes treasonous statements, it is decided the prisoner will be hanged at noon. Judith can no longer hold her tongue and tells the court Dick is not her husband, but this makes no difference—the sentence will still be carried out. The action moves to the gallows at the Websterbridge market place, where Dick is soon to be hanged. He is saved at the last second, however, by Anderson, now the commander of a militia that has won the day.

In a barnyard concert hall, Mickey Mouse is the conductor for a band of pigs and horses. In a ballet sequence, Minnie Mouse is a flying fairy, held aloft by Horace Horsecollar. Several dancing cows also feature in the performance, and Pluto makes an occasional appearance. In the audience, a witless yokel character annoys the audience by crunching a bag of peanuts and laughing loudly. A pair of tap dancing hounds perform. The yokel laughs again, and other audience members knock him out with a mallet. Mickey and Minnie round out the performance with a duet for piano and horns, assisted by a mischievous litter of kittens.

In the 23rd century, a Starfleet monitoring station, ''Epsilon Nine'', detects an alien entity, hidden in a massive cloud of energy, moving through space toward Earth. The cloud easily destroys three Klingon warships and ''Epsilon Nine'' on its course. On Earth, the starship ''Enterprise'' is undergoing a major refit; its former commanding officer, James T. Kirk, has been promoted to Admiral. Starfleet Command assigns ''Enterprise'' to intercept the cloud entity, as the ship is the only one within range, requiring its new systems to be tested in transit.

Citing his experience, Kirk uses his authority to take command of the ship, angering Captain Willard Decker, who has been overseeing the refit as its new commanding officer. Testing of ''Enterprise'' s new systems goes poorly; two officers, including the ship's Vulcan science officer Sonak, are killed by a malfunctioning transporter, and improperly calibrated engines nearly destroy the ship. Kirk's unfamiliarity with the ship's new systems increases the tension between him and Decker, who has been temporarily demoted to commander and first officer. Commander Spock arrives as a replacement science officer, explaining that while on his home world undergoing a ritual to purge himself of emotion, he felt a consciousness that he believes emanates from the cloud, making him unable to complete the ritual because his human half felt an emotional connection to it.

''Enterprise'' intercepts the energy cloud and is attacked by an alien vessel within. A probe appears on the bridge, attacks Spock, and abducts the navigator, Ilia. She is replaced by a robotic replica, sent by the entity, which calls itself "V'Ger", to study the "carbon units" on the ship. Decker is distraught over the loss of Ilia, with whom he had a romantic history, and becomes troubled as he attempts to extract information from the doppelgänger, which has Ilia's memories and feelings buried inside. Spock takes an unauthorized spacewalk to the vessel's interior and attempts a telepathic mind meld with it. In doing so, he learns that the entire vessel is V'Ger, a non-biological living machine.

At the center of the massive ship, V'Ger is revealed to be ''Voyager 6'', a 20th-century Earth space probe believed lost in a black hole. The damaged probe was found by an alien race of living machines that interpreted its programming as instructions to learn all that can be learned and return that information to its creator. The machines upgraded the probe to fulfill its mission, and on its journey, the probe gathered so much knowledge that it achieved sentience. Spock discovers that V'Ger lacks the ability to give itself a purpose other than its original mission; having learned everything it could on its journey home, it finds its existence meaningless. Before transmitting all its information, V'Ger insists that the "Creator" come in person to finish the sequence. Everyone realizes humans are the Creator. Decker offers himself to V'Ger; he merges with the Ilia probe and V'Ger, creating a new life form that disappears into space. With Earth saved, Kirk directs ''Enterprise'' out to space for future missions.

Three weeks before her 28th birthday, New York City food critic Julianne "Jules" Potter receives a call from her lifelong friend Michael O'Neal, a Chicago sportswriter. Years earlier, the two agreed that if they were both unmarried by age 28, they would marry each other. Michael tells her that in four days, he will marry beautiful Kimmy Wallace, a college student eight years his junior whose father owns the Chicago White Sox. Realizing that Michael is the love of her life, Jules resolves to sabotage his wedding. Arriving in Chicago, she reunites with Michael and meets Kimmy, who asks her to be the maid of honor. Jules schemes to break up the couple, but her attempt to humiliate Kimmy at a karaoke bar backfires. She manipulates Kimmy into asking her father to offer Michael a job, which Jules knows will anger Michael, but this fails as well.

Frustrated, Jules begs her friend George Downes for help, and he flies to Chicago. On George's advice, Jules prepares to tell Michael how much she loves him, but instead tells him that she is engaged to George, hoping to make Michael jealous. George, who is gay, plays along but embarrasses Jules at lunch with the wedding party, singing "I Say a Little Prayer" as the whole restaurant joins in. George flies home, and Jules tells Michael that her "relationship" with George is over. Michael admits to feeling jealous and gives her the chance to confess her own feelings, but she lets the moment pass. They share a dance as Michael sings their song, "The Way You Look Tonight".

The day before the wedding, at Kimmy's father's office, Jules uses his email account to forge a message from him to Michael's boss, asking that Michael be fired to allow Kimmy's father to hire him at Kimmy's insistence. She saves the message rather than send it, but later realizes that Kimmy's father has unknowingly sent the email. Jules lies to enlist Michael's help, but they find the office locked. Returning to Jules' hotel, Michael receives a message from his boss notifying him of the email. Furious, he calls Kimmy, calling off the wedding.

The next morning, Jules discovers that neither Michael nor Kimmy have told anyone else that the wedding is off. She tries to manipulate the couple into breaking up for good, but Michael and Kimmy decide to get married after all. Jules finally confesses her love to Michael and passionately kisses him. Kimmy witnesses this and drives away, pursued by Michael, who is followed by Jules in a caterer's truck. Jules calls George, who assures her that Michael loves Kimmy. Finding Michael at Chicago Union Station, Jules confesses to everything. He forgives her and tells her that here at the station is where he proposed to Kimmy and she accepted, and they split up to look for Kimmy.

Jules finds Kimmy in the bathroom of Comiskey Park. Amid a crowd of onlookers, Kimmy confronts Jules for interfering with Michael. Jules apologizes, assuring Kimmy that Michael truly loves her, and they reconcile. The wedding proceeds, and at the reception, Jules gives a heartfelt speech as Kimmy's maid of honor. Jules allows the newlyweds to temporarily have "The Way You Look Tonight" as their song until they find their own song. Jules and Michael share their goodbyes, both finally moving on. On the phone with George, Jules is surprised to see him at the reception, and they dance together.

In 1985, 16-year-old high school student Ted Stroehmann is about to go on a prom date with his dream girl Mary Jensen when he gets his scrotum stuck in his zipper. He is hospitalized after managing to painfully unzip it, which causes him to miss their date. Ted subsequently loses contact with her.

Thirteen years later, 29-year-old Ted is still in love with Mary. On the advice of his best friend Dom Woganowski, Ted hires private investigator Pat Healy to track her down. Healy discovers that she is an orthopedic surgeon living in Miami. After observing her for a few days, Healy becomes fixated on her. He returns to Providence and lies to Ted about Mary, telling him she is overweight and has four kids by three different men. Healy quits his job and returns to Miami to pursue her. He resorts to lying, manipulation, and stalking to win Mary over.

Healy and Mary spend several weeks dating before her architect friend Tucker exposes Healy as a fraud. Tucker tells her that Healy is a suspected serial murderer. An enraged Healy follows him and discovers Tucker actually is a pizza delivery boy named Norm Phipps who also is infatuated with Mary. Years earlier, Norm intentionally injured himself in order to get close to her, hoping she would take him on as a patient. He pretends to still be disabled in order to gain Mary's sympathy and uses his friendship with her to drive away other suitors.

Meanwhile, Ted finds out that Healy was lying about Mary and drives to Florida to see her. During the drive, Ted picks up a hitchhiker who leaves a dead body in Ted's car. Ted is mistakenly arrested for the murder and bailed out by Dom after the police catch the real killer. Ted finds Mary and they begin dating. Things go well until an anonymous letter reveals that Ted hired Healy to find her, causing Mary to get upset and dump Ted. Enraged, Ted then confronts Healy and Norm, who deny sending the letter. Things come to a head when Dom, who is Mary's ex-boyfriend "Woogie", shows up in her in her apartment and admits to writing the letter. Mary previously had a restraining order against Dom after he became obsessed with her, which started again when Ted found her.

Norm and Pat intervene and save Mary from Dom, shortly before Ted arrives. Ted realizes that the only one who did not resort to lying or manipulation to win her over was her ex-boyfriend Brett Favre, whom Norm had lied to Mary about to get rid of him. After reuniting Brett with Mary, Ted leaves in tears and Mary chases him down outside. She confesses that she loves Ted and wants to be with him, and they kiss.

Film publicist Lee Phillips is tasked with promoting ''Time Over Time'', an upcoming movie featuring beloved husband-and-wife stars Gwen Harrison and Eddie Thomas, who have made countless popular films together. His job is complicated by the film's eccentric director Hal Weidmann, who refuses to show anyone the film until its premiere at a press junket. Worse, Gwen and Eddie, once "America's Sweethearts", are going through an ugly divorce. Gwen's career has been on a downward slide since she stopped making movies with Eddie. Her affair with co-star Hector, who she now lives with, drives Eddie to an emotional breakdown; Eddie's actions lead Gwen to file a restraining order against him, and he moves to a New Age retreat. Lee decides his best chance to promote the film is to convince the press the couple have reunited.

Lee enlists the help of Gwen's sister and personal assistant, Kiki, and they persuade Gwen that her tarnished career and public image will benefit if she attends the junket, where she will also be able to serve Eddie divorce papers. Lee bribes Eddie's spiritual guide to convince Eddie he is well enough to attend.

At the junket, while Eddie and Gwen are at each other's throats, Lee plants stories to convince the press the couple are reconciling. Gwen encourages Kiki to be her go-between with Eddie while she's dealing with Lee. Gwen and Eddie meet at night in Gwen's car to discuss how to handle the junket. Eddie's assistant takes a photo which is leaked to the press with the story they seem to be getting together again.

Angered by the stories circulating that Gwen and Eddie are reuniting, Hector arrives at the junket and confronts Eddie, ultimately knocking him out. As Kiki tends to Eddie, they admit their feelings for each other and have sex. However, in the morning, he and Kiki are having breakfast when Gwen calls and he leaves to meet with Gwen to discuss their marriage and potential interview to throw the press off. This ends up hurting Kiki who leaves before Eddie sees her and becomes furious when she hears Eddie tell Gwen he isn't seeing anyone. She confronts him and tells him she can't pursue a relationship with him because she doesn't believe he'll ever get over Gwen. Downstairs, Lee tells Kiki not to be quick to judge Eddie as he can see Eddie has feelings for her.

Eddie has an epiphany while going to the hotel roof to think (causing a panic among the press below that he's about to commit suicide) and Hector encourages the attempt. Gwen is thoroughly humiliated by this and confronts him. She warns Hector against it because she's trying to maintain the image she and Eddie are reconciling to the press. On the roof, Eddie tells Lee that he's in love with Kiki and believes that he's lost his chance with her since he came here. Lee realizes his mistake, tells Eddie to go after Kiki and end his marriage to Gwen. Weidmann then arrives by helicopter with the finished film.

The screening begins, and the press, cast, and crew discover that Weidmann abandoned the script and made a "reality movie" instead. The footage, mostly shot with hidden cameras and without the actors' knowledge, shows Gwen pursuing an affair with Hector and expressing no remorse, even gloating about it, to Kiki, who is still overweight and timid. Eddie is shown becoming angry about Gwen's clear infidelity, but otherwise appears sympathetic. The film also shows studio's owner, Dave Kingman, being insulted by Weidmann and mocked by his assistant behind his back. Hector is seen taking to the reality film very well and he's heard laughing at Kingman's humiliation. That is until he hears Gwen insulting him behind his back about the size of his penis and humiliating him. The film portrays Eddie and Kiki in a favorable light, while Gwen is portrayed as an antagonist for her affair with Hector.

The cast and crew — particularly Gwen and Kingman — are offended and confront Weidman. Eddie appears pleased at how he was portrayed and suggests working together again. Weidmann agrees and he reveals this was his plan to humiliate Gwen for an incident she caused on set regarding his direction in the film. Enraged, she announces she will sue him for embarrassing her and invading her privacy, along with Kingman Studios for having not prevented this. Kiki appears surprised, but not angered by the portrayal of her sister. She is also pleased in how the film portrayed her in a favorable light. Hector is thoroughly humiliated and angrily confronts Gwen for her comments. Even Weidmann's daughter, Leaf, comes to Hector's defense, reveals their affair and pointing out how small-minded Gwen is.

Humiliated, Gwen tries to salvage the situation by announcing she is reconciling with Eddie. He sees past her lies, asserts he is finally through with her, and declares his love for Kiki. She reciprocates and stands up to Gwen for the first time. Kiki reveals dirty secrets about Gwen that no one else knew except her and points out that she is tired of putting her personal life on hold. Gwen retaliates by coldly firing first, before calming down and declaring she only wants Kiki's happiness so as you appear favourable in front of the press.

Outside, Gwen confesses to the press that she and Eddie are through and is in love with Hector. She then claims that she's on medication that makes her behave erratically and adding that he is very well-endowed. However, no one believes Gwen and her relationship with Hector is seen disintegrating in front of them.

Kiki and Eddie prepare to leave together, making plans to travel and pursue their relationship. Lee arrives to tell them that against all odds, the press love the movie and Kingman Studios are forced to release the film, despite Gwen's threats for a lawsuit.

Virginia "Gin" Baker (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is an investigator for "Waverly Insurance". Robert "Mac" MacDougal (Sean Connery) is a professional thief who specialises in international art. A priceless Rembrandt painting is stolen from an office building in New York one night, and Gin is sent undercover to investigate Mac as the chief suspect. She tries to entrap him with a proposition, claiming that she is a professional thief herself, and promises that she will help him steal a priceless Chinese mask from the well-guarded Bedford Palace. Before agreeing, Mac tells Gin his "Rule Number One": "Never carry a gun: You carry a gun, you may be tempted to use it." They travel to Scotland and plan the very complicated theft at Mac's hideout, an isolated castle. Aaron Thibadeaux (Ving Rhames), apparently the only ally that Mac trusts, arrives with supplies for the heist. While Mac is busy making final preparations, Gin contacts her boss, Hector Cruz (Will Patton), from a payphone, and informs him of Mac's whereabouts. Little does she know that the whole island is bugged, allowing Mac to eavesdrop on their conversation. Mac also makes sure to keep Gin's romantic advances at bay, unsure if she is a true partner in crime or an ambitious career woman on a mission.

After they have stolen the mask, Mac accuses Gin of planning to sell the mask to a buyer in Kuala Lumpur and then turn him in. Gin convinces him that her insurance agency job is the real cover and that she has planned an even bigger heist in Kuala Lumpur: $8 billion from the "International Clearance Bank" (which refers to the Bank of International Settlements in Malaysia) in the North Tower of the Petronas Towers. During their set-up, Cruz and his team (with the guidance of the stealthy Thibadeaux) track down Gin and confirm that she is still on mission to bring in Mac.

Despite the presence of Cruz and other security watching the building, the theft takes place in the final seconds of the new 2000 millennium countdown. Gin pulls the plug on her laptop prematurely and sets off alarms. They narrowly escape from the computer vault and are forced to cross the lights hung from the bottom of the bridge linking the two towers. Following a death-defying moment when the cable breaks, Gin and Mac make their way to a ventilation shaft, where Mac explains "Plan B". Using mini-parachutes, they were going to escape down the shaft. Gin had lost her parachute earlier in the escape, so Mac gives her his. He tells her to meet him the next morning at Pudu train station.

Gin arrives at the station waiting for Mac. He shows up late with Aaron Thibadeaux, who reveals himself with fellow FBI agents. He explains that Cruz is here and that the FBI has been looking for her for some time. Two years earlier, when Agent Thibadeaux caught and arrested him, Mac made a deal to help the FBI arrest Gin, as she was the primary target all along. However, the ageing thief has another plan: to help her escape. Mac slips Gin a gun, new passport and travel documents and quietly explains that he returned only seven of the eight billion dollars they had stolen electronically in the heist. Gin then pretends to hold Mac hostage at gunpoint, threatening to shoot him if the agents follow her. She boards a train and the FBI heads to the next station. Gin jumps trains mid-station and arrives back at Pudu. She tells Mac that she needs him for another job and they both board a train. The Petronas Twin Towers, where the final heist takes place

An absent-minded Professor Downie (Forrester Harvey) makes a call upon Capt. Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond (John Howard) as he is making plans for his much-delayed wedding to fiancée Phyllis Claverling (Heather Angel) in his ancestral home Temple Tower.

The professor informs Drummond that a fortune was buried in one of the walled off storerooms underneath his estate, and that Downie was in possession of a book written in code that would lead them to discover the treasure. Unfortunately for the professor, someone else also wanted the riches and Drummond once again is dragged into the plot as the code book is stolen, Professor Downie is murdered, and Phyllis is kidnapped.

A group of men, Michael Delaney, Kyle Brenner, Steve and others, are talking before the wedding ceremony of one of their friends. They agree to a pact whereby they will all invest in a fund that only the last bachelor will inherit.

Michael goes to Las Vegas years later with Steve and his girlfriend. After going back to their room, she asks him to utter "those three little words", which he mistakes for "I love you". He panics and kicks her out of the room and she dumps him. He goes on a bender and picks up a sultry redhead who encourages him to gamble at the roulette table. He goes on an amazing run of bad luck losing everything and taking out credit from the casino. In the end, the casino intervenes and he is summoned to meet the pit boss Carlos. Carlos informs Michael how serious the trouble he is in and what will happen if he fails to repay the debt.

Michael realizes that Kyle and him are now the last men standing and stand to inherit the entire fund, which has swelled to an enormous amount. He approaches Kyle and learns that the latter is wealthy and a jerk. He decides that his only option is to set Kyle up so that Michael can inherit the fund. He learns on a drunken night that Kyle has only ever loved one woman, a woman named Natalie, whom he met at Steve's wife Tricia's sister's wedding.

Michael approaches Steve and Tricia and finds out where Natalie is. Unfortunately, they neglect to tell him that Natalie is a police detective. Natalie is working undercover as a streetwalker when Michael finds her and he inadvertently gets himself arrested for solicitation. During interrogation, he admits everything and is eventually released.

Natalie visits him and agrees to go in with his plan on the basis that she gets half the money. He finds out that Kyle's memory of Natalie and his night together left out some important details, notably when Natalie woke up Kyle had bolted, leaving her with a bag of quarters to get a cab home.

Michael and Natalie decide to spend time together investigating Kyle in order to ensure their plan works. It all appears to be working until Michael realizes he is falling in love with Natalie. Natalie too is falling for Michael, but decides to go ahead with marrying Kyle. During the bachelor party, Kyle informs Michael that he has no intention of quitting womanizing and believes Natalie to be the perfect stay-at-home wife.

Before Michael can act and prevent the wedding, he is knocked unconscious by a bowling ball. He wakes up and discovers that his clothes are missing. He grabs some clothing from an unconscious stripper and tries to run to the civic hall to prevent the marriage. After a number of misadventures, Michael finally arrives, but learns that he is too late and Kyle has already married Natalie. He leaves, somewhat dejected.

Michael goes on to claim the fund and thereby settles his debt with Carlos. He later bumps into Kyle who is on a date with another woman and punches him as he believes Kyle to be cheating on Natalie. Kyle beats up Michael and then discloses that he has split with Natalie. On their wedding night, she knocked him unconscious and when he woke up, he found a bag of quarters. Michael runs off to find Natalie and finds her again working undercover. He proposes that they date and he gives up his tomcat ways.

Drew Decker receives a threatening phone call while home alone. Drew is chased outside by somebody dressed as Ghostface, who stabs her in the breast, removing one of her silicone implants. A vehicle driven by her father, who is distracted by receiving fellatio from his wife, hits her, and she looks up to her murderer just before her throat is slit by the killer.

Cindy Campbell meets up with her boyfriend Bobby and her friends, Brenda, Ray, Greg, Shorty and Buffy. Various news teams, including hack reporter Gail Hailstorm, converge on the school in the wake of Drew's murder. Gail hooks up with Buffy's intellectually disabled brother Special Officer Doofy, hoping to milk the facts out of him.

While Cindy is in class, she notices the killer watching her from outside then she receives an ominous note and realizes Drew was murdered exactly one year after she and her friends accidentally killed a man. After football practice, Greg notices a picture of his minuscule genitals on his locker saying "I KNOW" on it. He accuses Ray of taking the picture and nearly fights him. Cindy tells Greg and the others about the note she got and that they need to tell the police but Greg beats her instead telling them to not involve the police, afraid of going to prison for the murder they committed the previous year. At Buffy's beauty pageant that evening, Greg is killed by the killer in plain view while the audience mistakes Buffy's pleas for help as being part of her act of dramatic reading but Buffy wins the pageant, forgetting about Greg.

After Cindy goes home alone, the killer attacks her but retreats when Cindy contacts the police. Bobby arrives and is arrested after a cellphone, knife and gloves fall out of his pocket. As Cindy spends the night at Buffy and Doofy's place, she receives a mocking call from the killer.

The following day, Bobby is released from jail. Buffy is beheaded by the killer with a cleaver, though her severed head keeps talking and is subsequently locked in a lost and found bin. That night, Gail and her cameraman, Kenny, go to Lovers Lookout, a teen makeout spot, to get a murder on camera and films the killer murdering a girl named Heather. The killer then chases Gail and Kenny into the woods and murders Kenny, while Gail gives a snot-filled apology to his family, a parody of one of the scenes in ''The Blair Witch Project''.

Later that night, Ray and Brenda go to the movie theater to see ''Shakespeare in Love'', where Ray is stabbed through his head in a bathroom stall while using a glory hole. The killer goes after Brenda but angry movie patrons, who are fed up with Brenda's rude and obnoxious behavior, begin stabbing her to make her stop and also for ruining ''Shakespeare in Love'' and several other movies like ''Thelma and Louise'', ''The Fugitive'', ''Schindler's List'', the Jackie Chan movies, ''Boogie Nights'', and ''Big Momma's House'' until Brenda drops dead, much to the audience's relief.

Meanwhile, Cindy throws a house party, hoping for safety in numbers. Meanwhile, Cindy's friend, Tina goes out to the garage to get more beer but is killed while trying to escape from the killer through a cat flap. During the party, Cindy and Bobby go upstairs and have sex. While in the basement, the killer shows up and gets stoned with Shorty and his friends, but ends up killing all of them except Shorty. After Cindy and Bobby have sex, the killer appears and stabs Bobby before disappearing. Cindy gets a gun from a drawer and Bobby follows. Shorty comes up from the basement, Bobby takes the gun and shoots him. Ray arrives on the scene, still alive.

Bobby and Ray confront Cindy in the kitchen and announce their intention to only kill her and her father, and that they are merely copying a real killer. Bobby admits being gay, while Ray denies being so. The plan backfires when Ray viciously stabs Bobby numerous times, angry because his favorite show, ''The Wayans Bros.'', has been canceled. The killer abruptly arrives and stabs Ray. He and Cindy fight, with Cindy employing moves copied from ''The Matrix'' and kicking him out a window. However, the killer vanishes before the police arrive.

At the police station, Cindy and the sheriff discover that the killer was not David Keegan, the man whom Cindy and her friends accidentally killed a year earlier and realize that Doofy is the killer the whole time and was faking his disability. Doofy has already escaped with Gail Hailstorm after removing his disguise, a parody of the ending of ''The Usual Suspects''. Upon finding his discarded backpack with his Ghostface mask and sharp knife in the street, Cindy begins screaming but is hit by a car, as the sheriff walks away.

In a mid-credits scene, Shorty is presumably giving advice on how to survive a horror movie but it is actually advice on how to successfully enact a Snatch-and-Run.

In a post-credits scene, Doofy is shown in his bedroom "breaking up" with the vacuum cleaner as though it were a real person with whom he had a relationship.

In Puritan Boston, Massachusetts, a crowd gathers to witness the punishment of Hester Prynne, a young woman who has given birth to a baby of unknown paternity. Her sentence requires her to stand on the scaffold for three hours, exposed to public humiliation, and to wear a scarlet "A" for the rest of her life. As Hester approaches the scaffold, many of the women in the crowd are angered by her beauty and quiet dignity. When commanded and cajoled to name the father of her child, Hester refuses.

As Hester looks out over the crowd, she notices a small, misshapen man and recognizes him as her long-lost husband, who had been presumed lost at sea. When the husband sees Hester's shame, he asks a man in the crowd about her and is told the story of his wife's pregnancy. He angrily exclaims that the child's father should also be punished for his immoral act and vows to find the man. He chooses a new name, Roger Chillingworth, to aid him in his plan.

The Reverend John Wilson and the minister of Hester's church, Arthur Dimmesdale, question her, but she refuses to name her lover. After she returns to her prison cell, the jailer brings in Chillingworth, now a physician, to calm Hester and her child with his roots and herbs. He and Hester have an open conversation regarding their marriage and the fact that they were both in the wrong. Chillingworth demands to know who fathered Hester's child, but Hester refuses to divulge that information. He accepts Hester's refusal, stating that he will find out the man's identity anyway. Chillingworth threatens to destroy the father of Hester's child if Hester ever reveals the fact that Chillingworth is her husband. Hester agrees to Chillingworth's terms, although she suspects she will regret it.

Following her release from prison, Hester settles in a cottage at the edge of town and earns a meager living with her needlework, which is of extraordinary quality. She lives a quiet, somber life with her daughter, Pearl, and performs acts of charity for the poor. She is troubled by her daughter's unusual fascination with the scarlet "A". The shunning of Hester also extends to Pearl, who has no playmates or friends except her mother. As she grows older, Pearl becomes capricious and unruly. Her conduct starts rumors, and, not surprisingly, the church members suggest Pearl be taken away from Hester. Hester, hearing rumors that she may lose Pearl, goes to speak to Governor Bellingham and ministers Wilson and Dimmesdale. Hester appeals to Dimmesdale in desperation, and the minister persuades the governor to let Pearl remain in Hester's care.

Because Dimmesdale's health has begun to fail, the townspeople are happy to have Chillingworth, the newly arrived physician, take up lodgings with their beloved minister. Being in close contact with Dimmesdale, Chillingworth begins to suspect that the minister's illness is the result of unconfessed guilt. He applies psychological pressure to the minister because he suspects Dimmesdale is Pearl's father. One evening, pulling the sleeping Dimmesdale's vestment aside, Chillingworth sees a symbol that represents his shame on the minister's pale chest.

Tormented by his guilty conscience, Dimmesdale goes to the square where Hester was punished years earlier. Climbing the scaffold in the dead of night, he admits his guilt but cannot find the courage to do so publicly in the light of day. Hester, shocked by Dimmesdale's deterioration, decides to obtain a release from her vow of silence to her husband.

Several days later, Hester meets Dimmesdale in the forest and tells him of her husband and his desire for revenge. She convinces Dimmesdale to leave Boston in secret on a ship to Europe where they can start life anew. Inspired by this plan, the minister seems to gain new energy.

On Election Day, Dimmesdale gives one of his most inspired sermons. As the procession leaves the church, however, Dimmesdale climbs upon the scaffold, confesses his sin, and dies in Hester's arms. Later, most witnesses swear that they saw a stigma in the form of a scarlet "A" upon his chest, although some deny this statement. Chillingworth, losing his will for revenge, dies shortly thereafter and leaves Pearl a substantial inheritance.

After several years, Hester returns to her cottage and resumes wearing the scarlet letter. When she dies, she is buried near the grave of Dimmesdale, and they share a simple slate tombstone engraved with an escutcheon described as: "On a field, sable, the letter A, gules" ("A red letter A written on a black background").

Max and Page Conners (Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love Hewitt) are a mother-daughter con artist team. When the film opens, the Conners are finishing a con on Dean Cumanno (Ray Liotta), an auto-body shop owner and small-time crook. The con, which the Conners have played many times before on other men, involves Max marrying Dean, passing out on their wedding night to avoid consummating the marriage, and then Page (posing as Dean's secretary) luring Dean into a compromising position to justify Max's immediate divorce and hefty settlement. The con is a success.

Page declares that she wants to go solo. Max initially relents, but when they go to the bank to split their earnings, they're confronted by an IRS agent (Anne Bancroft) who declares that they owe the government a considerable sum on top of the rest of their savings, which have already been seized. Page reluctantly agrees to work one last con with Max in Palm Beach, to get enough money to pay off the IRS and set Page up to work on her own. For their target, they choose widower William B. Tensy (Gene Hackman), a tobacco baron who is addicted to his own product.

While working the main con with Tensy, Page attempts a side con without her mother's knowledge. Page targets beachfront bartender Jack (Jason Lee), who is worth $3 million; she tells him that her name is Jane, but develops genuine feelings for him. Max learns of the side con and tells Page to break the relationship off, which Page does reluctantly.

Tensy proposes to Max ahead of schedule, but before they can get married, he accidentally chokes and dies while trying to initiate sex with Max. While Max and Page are deciding what to do with the body, Dean arrives, having tracked Max down to apologize and propose to her again. Dean figures out that Max and Page conned him, and threatens to call the authorities. Max offers to return Dean's divorce settlement money if he'll help them make Tensy's death look like an accident. Max tells Page that their money wasn't really taken by the IRS; the agent was Max's mentor, Barbara, who agreed to help prevent Page from leaving. However, when Max, Page and Dean go to the bank, the money really w''as'' gone, having been liquidated in an act of betrayal by Barbara.

In order to help Max, Page returns to Jack and accepts his proposal, planning to work it as a regular con. Page insists that Jack will not cheat on her, but is heartbroken when, on their wedding night, she breaks into her mother's room and finds him in a compromising position with Max. After the divorce settlement is paid, Dean confronts Max about the ethics of their con, pointing out that even a "goody-goody" like Jack is only human. Max reveals that Jack actually turned her down and that she had to drug him, but she defends her actions by saying that Jack would hurt Page eventually. Dean counters that Max has no right to keep Page from the man she loves because of what "might" happen.

Chastened, Max tells Page the truth, admitting that her efforts to protect her daughter have only hurt her in other ways. Page returns to Jack, giving him back the bar he'd had to sell to pay the settlement, and tells him her real name. Max and Dean also get together, Dean having admitted that he still loves Max despite what she put him through. The final shot of the film is of Dean — using the name 'Stanley' — romancing Barbara, with Max watching them via binoculars, implying that Max and Dean are now working together to get Max's money back from Barbara.

James "Jimmy" Tong (Jackie Chan) is a taxi driver notorious for his speed and ability to get his customers anywhere in the least amount of time. His reputation lands him a job as the personal chauffeur of the mysterious but wealthy Clark Devlin (Jason Isaacs). Jimmy does not really know what his new boss' job is, but Devlin's friendly nature, imperturbable demeanor, and willingness to offer Jimmy advice wins Jimmy over and the two become friends. What Jimmy does not realize is that Devlin is a secret spy and undercover government agent, and when an attempt to kill Devlin with a car bombing sends him into a coma, Jimmy ends up with Devlin's recent case notes and a special watch that controls Devlin's rather unusual tuxedo.

The tuxedo is a gadget capable of granting its wearer special abilities (including martial arts, speed, the ability to dance, and various acrobatics) which Jimmy must use to stop the criminal organization responsible for Devlin's attempted murder. The group is a terrorist organization disguised as a corporation named Banning Corporation and is headed by the notorious and ruthless Dietrich Banning (Ritchie Coster). Its goal is to take over the global drinking water supply, starting with the poisoning of major US reservoirs by means of genetically modified water strider insects. These water striders have bacteria that can spread from person to person, causing severe dehydration. By pure chance, Jimmy is joined by a genius scientist with aspirations of field work, Delilah "Del" Blaine (Jennifer Love Hewitt). Blaine is completely new to field work and is delighted to be on assignment with Devlin, only to be very confused by Jimmy as he impersonates Devlin, relying on the tuxedo's special abilities to compensate for his lack of skill and training.

At first, Blaine thinks Jimmy is weird and annoying, and then a fraud when Jimmy's impersonation is finally exposed. She confiscates his borrowed tuxedo and attempts to stop the evil Dietrich Banning on her own by feigning a desire to become a turncoat for Banning Corporation. Meanwhile, Jimmy is ready to give up and go back to his life as a taxi driver, but while packing his belongings he discovers that Devlin had ordered a second suit for Jimmy himself, believing that Jimmy could also be a great agent. Using his new suit, Jimmy defeats the villain, Banning, by putting a cigarette in Blaine's mouth. Banning's tuxedo automatically forces him to pull out a lighter and light her cigarette. While Blaine is (comically) puffing on the lit cigarette, Jimmy begins to punch Banning. During the fight, Jimmy throws a glass containing the queen of the water striders into Banning's mouth. He is then infected with bacteria from the water strider. The other remaining water striders attack Banning and he then dies instantaneously.

As compensation for his role in bringing down Banning, the organization uses its resources to orchestrate an operation so that Jimmy can finally meet his dream girl. However, confused by Blaine's and the now-recovered Devlin's conflicting instructions on how to act Jimmy succeeds only in alarming the girl into threatening to mace him, resulting in the operation being aborted. Consoling Jimmy afterwards, Blaine admits feeling sad that no one had ever tried to do for her what Jimmy had just done, and Jimmy tells Blaine that she has to change and be more accommodating if she ever wants to have a boyfriend. Feeling a tentative attraction for each other, they walk away to buy coffee together.

During the days of Emperor Augustus and King Herod the Great, Mary is visited by the angel Gabriel who tells her that she will give birth to Jesus, the Son of God. Later, Mary visits Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, who tells her that she is the most blessed of women and that her child is blessed.

When the Romans hold a census, Mary travels with her husband Joseph to his hometown of Bethlehem to register. There, Jesus is born in a manger. A week later, Mary and Joseph travel to Jerusalem to present Jesus at the Temple. There, they are greeted by Simeon, who blesses Jesus as the Christ. At the age of twelve, Jesus becomes separated from his parents during a Passover trip to Jerusalem. When Mary asks about his whereabouts, Jesus tells them that he was in His Father's house. Years later, during the reign of Emperor Tiberius and King Herod Antipas, John the Baptist baptizes Jesus in the Jordan River and the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus.

Jesus is subsequently tempted in the wilderness by Satan but withstands the Devil's trials. Travelling to Capernaum, Jesus recruits the disciples Peter, James, and John after helping them to find a large haul of fish. During his preaching ministry, Jesus resurrects the daughter of Jairus. Jesus then recruits twelve apostles from among His disciples including Matthew and Judas Iscariot. Jesus' followers also include several women including Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna.

The film covers several of Jesus' teachings and messages including the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, the Beatitudes, the Golden Rule, loving your enemy, and the Parable of the Sower. While visiting the home of the Pharisee Simon, a sinful woman anoints Jesus' feet, prompting Jesus to forgive her sins. Jesus and his disciples later travel across the Sea of Galilee where he calms the storm. At Gerasa, Jesus exorcises a demon-possessed man and the demons enter a herd of swine. At Bethsaida, Jesus feeds five thousand with five loaves and two pieces of fish. Later, Jesus and his disciples travel up a mountain where Jesus encounters the prophets Moses and Elijah and is transfigured.

As Jesus' preaching and healing ministry grows, he reaches out to the sinners and outcasts including prostitutes and tax collectors, earning the ire of the Pharisees and religious teachers. Jesus also befriends the tax collector Zaccheus, convincing him to repay people he has extorted. While preaching the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus befriends a little girl and tells his disciples not to forbid the little children from coming to Him. Jesus draws the attention of the Pharisees, Jewish religious leaders, and Romans after he drives the merchants out of the Temple. In Jerusalem, Jesus teaches the Parable of the Tenants and to pay taxes to Caesar. At the Last Supper, Jesus warns his disciples of his impending betrayal and death. Judas conspires with the religious leaders to betray Jesus.

At the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is betrayed by Judas and captured by the Jewish authorities. Peter denies knowing Jesus three times before the cock crows. The following day, Jesus is condemned by the religious leaders. He is then brought before Pontius Pilate, who sends him to Herod. While Pilate exonerates Jesus of wrongdoing, the religious leaders and crowd demand Jesus' death. After being scourged, Jesus is forced to carry his cross through the streets. When he collapses from exhaustion, Simon of Cyrene is obliged to carry his cross. At Golgotha, Jesus is crucified besides two robbers, one of whom recognizes him as the Messiah. Following Jesus' death at noon, the sky is plunged into darkness and the curtain of the Temple is ripped through the middle. Joseph of Arimathea buries Jesus in a tomb. Jesus rises from the dead on the third day. Before ascending back to Heaven, Jesus tells his disciples that all power and authority has been given to Him and commands them to go and make disciples of all nations.

During the Cold War, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force jointly developed a nuclear submarine with the United States Navy. On its maiden voyage, the captain of the submarine declares the submarine to be an independent state, "Yamato". The Captain of the Yamato is a man called Kaieda and he attempts to attend a UN summit in order to be recognized as an independent nation. However, many forces such as the United States Navy and the Soviet Navy try to stop Kaieda and his crew from reaching New York.

Childhood friends Arumi and Sasshi are residents of the Abenobashi commercial district in Abeno-ku, Osaka. After an accident, they find themselves transported to an alternate sword and sorcery world. Their attempt to get back to reality finds them traversing a series of nonsensical worlds built on science fiction, war, fantasy, dating sim games and American movies. Each alternate Abenobashi is a surreal manifestation of Sasshi's ''otaku'' interests, populated by analogs of the protagonist's relatives and acquaintances and a blue-haired stranger known as Eutus.

Their quest to return home is at its core a ''bildungsroman'' because the Abenobashi dimensions are mostly hobby worlds of increasing sophistication. Sasshi does not want to go home, and in fact is the sole force that is propelling them between worlds. While chasing a cat in the first episode, Arumi's grandfather fell off a roof and was hospitalized. With this new trauma pressuring him in addition to his apprehension about the eventual destruction of the shopping arcade and the Asahina's moving away, Sasshi was no longer willing or able to cope with reality, and unbeknownst to even himself, he had caused their dimension to rewrite itself into worlds echoing his escapist obsessions.

Convenience store robber H.I. "Hi" McDunnough meets police officer Edwina ("Ed") as she takes his mugshots before one of multiple sentences in prison. During a later stay, Hi learns that Ed's fiancé has left her and proposes after being released. They marry and move into a desert mobile home, and Hi gets a job in a machine shop. They want to have children, but Ed is infertile and they cannot adopt due to Hi's criminal record.

Hi and Ed learn of the quintuplet sons known as the "Arizona Quints" born to regionally famous furniture magnate Nathan Arizona. They kidnap one of the babies, whom they believe to be Nathan Jr. Upon returning home, Hi's old cellmates Gale and Evelle Snoats arrive after escaping from prison. They convince Hi to shelter them and tempt him to return to his former life of crime. That night, Hi has an intense nightmare of monstrous biker Leonard Smalls.

Hi's foreman Glen and his large and unruly family visit on the next day. When Glen suggests that he and Hi exchange wives, Hi punches Glen in the face. That night, Hi succumbs to the temptation to rob a convenience store while buying baby diapers, leading to a chase with police and a pack of dogs that he manages to outrun. As Ed and Nathan Jr. sleep, Hi decides to leave his family to join Gale and Evelle in a bank robbery. Glen returns the next morning to fire Hi, revealing his inference that Hi and Ed kidnapped Nathan Jr. Glen threatens to turn them in unless they agree to give him and his wife custody of the child. Gale and Evelle overhear this conversation and, following a conflict with Hi, kidnap Nathan Jr. themselves. Once freed from bondage, Hi joins with a despondent Ed to rescue the baby. Meanwhile, Leonard Smalls approaches Nathan Arizona and offers to return his son for $50,000, but indicates his plan to sell the baby on the black market when Nathan Sr. refuses to pay.

Gale and Evelle grow attached to Nathan Jr. After nearly leaving him behind at a robbed convenience store, the two promise never to give him up. But they again leave Nathan Jr. behind during the bank robbery, allowing Smalls to capture the baby before Hi and Ed arrive. In the ensuing struggle, Ed grabs Nathan Jr. while Hi occupies Smalls. Despite being severely beaten, Hi ultimately manages to kill Smalls by detonating one of the hand grenades on Smalls's jacket.

Remorseful, Hi and Ed sneak into the Arizona home to return Nathan Jr. but are caught by Nathan Sr. Upon learning the reason for the kidnapping, Nathan Sr. sympathizes and decides not to turn them in. When he hears that Hi and Ed plan to split, Nathan Sr. advises them to "sleep on it".

In the final scene, Hi sleeps beside Ed and has a series of prophetic dreams about the future: Gale and Evelle willingly return to prison upon realizing they aren't ready to return to society, Glen is ticketed by a Polish-American police officer following "one Polack joke too many", and Nathan Jr. becomes a football star after receiving a football as a Christmas present from "a kindly couple who wish to remain unknown". The dream ends as an elderly couple (implied to be Hi and Ed) enjoy a holiday visit from a large family of children and grandchildren. Hi reflects on the reality of this dream and his conviction that he and Ed have the ability to be good and raise a good family, "if not in Arizona, then somewhere close...maybe it was Utah."

Gypsy Rose Lee narrates her way through a tale of a double murder, backstage at the "Old Opera" burlesque theatre on 42nd Street, New York City.

The story depicts a world populated by strippers, comics, and costume salesmen, where crime is part of the norm and where women struggle to earn a living.

The narrative is a "wise-cracking" and humorous tale of murder in a burlesque house, and with the unusual weapon of the title.

The plot concerns a feud between the long-established (upper class) Hillcrists, played by C.V. France, Helen Haye, and Jill Esmond, and the ''nouveau riche'' (formerly working class) Hornblowers, played by Edmund Gwenn, John Longden, Phyllis Konstam, and Frank Lawton. Underlying themes in the story include class warfare and the results of avarice.

For his love of riches, Mr. Hornblower coldly enjoys a "skin game" of buying up land under false pretenses of letting the tenant farmers remain and then booting them out, in order to build factories. The Hillcrists learn of this and regret selling some land to him; in turn Hornblower considers them snobs, and taunts them with his plans to buy the picturesque countryside adjoining their rural estate which is due to be auctioned off. Visions of factories spewing smoke where a magnificent landscape has been maturing for several generations torment the Hillcrists.

At the auction, the Hillcrists are outbid, then learn it was by Hornblower's agent. But Hillcrist employee Dawker learns a dark secret about the past life of Hornblower's now pregnant daughter-in-law Chloe, wife of Charles Hornblower. The Hillcrists confront Chloe and elder Hornblower together, and prove their case with witnesses. They are prepared to use the information, unless Hornblower agrees to deed the land to them. Reluctantly he agrees, making them swear to silence on a Bible. But now, townspeople are already gossiping and Charles has become suspicious. Chloe, terrified that this secret threatens her marriage, goes to the Hillcrist home to beg them to make up a story to tell Charles.

At that point, Charles is announced and Chloe jumps behind a curtain. Charles has already beaten the secret out of Dawker, and declares that he intends to end his marriage. Off-camera, Chloe had left through a door behind the curtain, and in short order, had drowned herself. Mrs. Hillcrist, although upset with Dawker for breaking the vow of silence, pulls the property deed out of the desk and gives it to him for safekeeping ... he puts it in his outer pocket, clearly visible. The elder Hornblower then arrives in a fury and wrestles the deed from Dawker.

Chloe's body is brought in. Hornblower rages that Hillcrist has destroyed him and his family completely, and he will exact revenge. A last brief, poignant scene shows a prominent large tree on the land behind the Hillcrist house being felled by the chainsaw of a work crew.

Sinbad and his pirate crew attempt to steal the magical "Book of Peace" and hold it for ransom as one last job before retiring to Fiji. Sinbad is surprised to see it is being protected while on board to Syracuse, Sicily by Prince Proteus of Syracuse. Proteus was Sinbad's best friend as a child, and he tells him that if their friendship ever meant anything to Sinbad, he can prove it now. Sinbad tries to steal the book anyway, but is prevented when Cetus attacks the ship. The two work together to fight off Cetus and for a moment reaffirm their bond. Just when it seems the beast is defeated, Sinbad is dragged off the ship. Proteus goes to save Sinbad, but he is stopped by his crew.

Drawn underwater by Cetus, Sinbad is saved by the beautiful Goddess of Discord, Eris, who offers him any boon he desires in exchange for the Book of Peace. Sinbad and his crew go to Syracuse to steal the Book, but after seeing Proteus with his fiancé Lady Marina, Sinbad abandons the mission without giving a motive. Anticipating this, Eris impersonates Sinbad and steals the Book herself. Sinbad is sentenced to death, whereupon Proteus sends Sinbad to retrieve the Book instead, placing himself as a hostage, and Marina goes to make sure that Sinbad succeeds. To prevent them from succeeding, Eris sends a group of mythical sirens, who entrance and seduce the men aboard Sinbad's ship with their hypnotic singing voices, but do not affect Marina, who pilots the ship to safety and wins the favor of the crew. However, as she and Sinbad continue to argue with each other, Eris notices their disharmony and sends in a roc. The Roc captures Marina, but she is rescued by Sinbad, and they successfully defeat the creature, causing a reconciliation between the two.

After these and other incidents, Sinbad and Marina talk in a brief moment of peace - Marina reveals that she's always dreamed of a life on the sea, and Sinbad reveals that he distanced himself from Proteus 10 years earlier because he loved Marina. They suddenly then reach and enter Eris' realm where she reveals that her plan was to maneuver Proteus into Sinbad's place, leaving Syracuse without an heir and collapse into chaos. Through Marina, Eris agrees to surrender the Book of Peace only if Sinbad truthfully tells whether he will return to Syracuse to accept blame and be executed if he does not get the Book. She gives him her word that she will honor the deal, making it unbreakable even for a god. When he answers that he will return, Eris calls him a liar, and returns him and Marina to the mortal world. Ashamed, Sinbad admits the Goddess of Discord is right, truly believing deep down that he is a selfish, black-hearted liar. Only, for Marina to tell him she is wrong, giving Sinbad a change of heart.

In Syracuse, the time allotted to Sinbad has elapsed. Proteus readies himself to be beheaded, but at the last minute, Sinbad appears and takes his place. An enraged Eris appears suddenly and saves Sinbad by shattering the executioner's sword to pieces. Sinbad, shocked, realizes that this was still part of her test and that he has beaten her by proving his answer to be true after all. Eris is furious but cannot go back on her word as a goddess, and begrudgingly gives the book to Sinbad. With the true culprit revealed, Sinbad is pardoned for the crime of stealing the book and is now well-respected.

With the Book restored to Syracuse, Proteus and Sinbad leave still as the best of friends. Sinbad and his crew prepare to leave on another voyage, leaving Marina in Syracuse. Unbeknownst to him, Proteus sees that Marina has fallen deeply in love with Sinbad and life on the sea, and releases her from their engagement, sending her to join Sinbad's ship. Marina surprises Sinbad by revealing her presence on the ship just as it begins to sail, and the two share a kiss. Now together, they and the crew set out on another long voyage as the ship sails into the sunset.

The film begins with the camera panning through pictures of Medusa's album covers and film posters eventually showing her lying in a bed while getting a massage and her hair done. She starts telling the viewers about how lonely she feels since her tour ended.

The film then flashes back to when Medusa was rehearsing her "Blonde Leading the Blonde Tour". After being crushed by a giant genitalia statue, Medusa explains in a voice-over how the tour was a technical nightmare.

Eventually, the tour begins in the Philippines, only for Medusa to find out that she was performing during the eruption of a volcano. In an interview, Medusa's manager Benny explains how Medusa's first single "Like a Video" ("Like a Virgin") was a hit for MTV, leading into a parody performance of Madonna's "Blond Ambition" version. After that, Medusa is shown talking to her boyfriend.

The tour then moves to Japan, where Medusa tells her poverty stricken dancers that they'll be receiving a pay cut. Another shows women protesting Medusa and her director showing how Medusa gained the inspiration to shoot a music video involving robbing a store.

Finally, the tour moves to the U.S where Medusa and her dancers play a game of Truth or Dare. After that, she is shown being at a party where a director who tries to get her to star in a movie similar to "Heidi". Later, while Medusa is listing negative things about people, Bobcat Goldthwait shows up and gets offended when he sees Medusa gag after he called her show "neat".

After that, Medusa is shown reciting lines from "Romeo and Juliet " while a voice-over explains that Medusa is planning to star in the Broadway show after the tour, and that her ex- husband Shane Pencil was helping her, but Shane gets fed up with Medusa and he leaves. Another voice-over during one of Medusa's show explains her she almost died during "Expose Yourself" ("Express Yourself") as she got electrocuted. After that, Medusa is shown visiting her dog's grave, only to find out she was at the wrong grave (parodying the "Promise to Try" scene in ''Truth or Dare'' where Madonna visits her mother's grave).

While in Atlanta, Police Officers show up and explain that Medusa will be arrested if she shows her "muffin". Medusa performs "Party in My Pants" and "Vague" ( "Like a Prayer", "Into the Groove", and "Vogue"). Medusa then goes to the officers to get arrested only for them to ask her for an autograph.

Finally, the tour finishes in New York and while Medusa is saying goodbye to the dancers, it is revealed that Medusa was viewing the footage while trying to find an ending. She ends up in the hospital to get a toy dino removed while a montage of clips plays with "Life May End" ( "Live to Tell") . The dancers come to visit her, and the film ends with them trying to sleep.

Johnny Clay is a veteran criminal planning one last heist before settling down and marrying Fay. He plans to steal $2 million from the money-counting room of a racetrack during a featured race. Johnny assembles a team consisting of a corrupt cop, a betting window teller to gain access to the backroom, a sharpshooter to shoot the favorite horse during the race to distract the crowd and keep the winnings from being paid out, a wrestler to provide another distraction by provoking a fight at the track bar, and a track bartender.

George Peatty, the teller, tells his wife Sherry about the impending robbery. Sherry is bitter at George for not delivering on the promises of wealth he made when they married, so George hopes telling her about the robbery will impress her and keep her from leaving him. Sherry does not believe him at first but, after learning that the robbery is real, enlists her lover Val Cannon to steal the money from George and his associates.

The heist is successful, although the sharpshooter is shot and killed by a security guard. The conspirators gather at the apartment where they are to meet Johnny and divide the money. Before Johnny arrives, Val appears with an associate to hold them up. A shootout ensues and a badly wounded George emerges as the only man standing. He goes home and shoots Sherry before collapsing.

On his way to the apartment Johnny sees George staggering in the street and knows that something is wrong. He buys the biggest suitcase he can find and struggles to stuff all the money in. At the airport, Johnny and Fay must check the oversized bag as regular luggage. Johnny reluctantly complies. While the couple waits to board the plane the suitcase falls off a baggage cart onto the runway, breaks open, and its loose banknotes are swept away by the gusts from the aircraft's propellers.

Fay and Johnny seek to flee, but are unable to hail a cab before the police are alerted to them. Fay urges Johnny to escape. Instead, he refuses, calmly accepting the futility of trying to escape. Muttering "What's the difference?", he is approached by two officers seeking to arrest him.

Act I

'''Scene I''': Lady Sneerwell, a wealthy young widow, and her hireling Snake discuss her various scandal-spreading plots. Snake asks why she is so involved in the affairs of Sir Peter Teazle, his ward Maria, and Charles and Joseph Surface, two young men under Sir Peter's informal guardianship, and why she has not yielded to the attentions of Joseph, who is highly respectable. Lady Sneerwell confides that Joseph wants Maria, who is an heiress, and that Maria wants Charles. Thus she and Joseph are plotting to alienate Maria from Charles by putting out rumours of an affair between Charles and Sir Peter's new young wife, Lady Teazle. Joseph arrives to confer with Lady Sneerwell. Maria herself then enters, fleeing the attentions of Sir Benjamin Backbite and his uncle, Crabtree. Mrs. Candour enters and ironically talks about how "tale-bearers are as bad as the tale-makers." Soon after that, Sir Benjamin and Crabtree also enter, bringing a good deal of gossip with them. One item is the imminent return of the Surface brothers' rich uncle Sir Oliver from the East Indies, where he has been for sixteen years; another is Charles' dire financial situation.

'''Scene II''': Sir Peter complains of Lady Teazle's spendthrift ways. Rowley, the former steward of the Surfaces' late father, arrives, and Sir Peter gives him an earful on the subject. He also complains that Maria has refused Joseph, whom he calls "a model for the young men of the age," and seems attached to Charles, whom he denounces as a profligate. Rowley defends Charles, and then announces that Sir Oliver has just arrived from the East Indies. Oliver has instructed them not to tell his nephews of his arrival so that he may “make some trial of their dispositions.”

Act II

'''Scene I''': Sir Peter argues with his wife, Lady Teazle, refusing to be "ruined by [her] extravagance." He reminds her of her recent and far humbler country origins. Lady Teazle excuses herself by appealing to "the fashion", and departs to visit Lady Sneerwell. Despite their quarrel, Sir Peter still finds himself charmed by his wife even when she is arguing with him.

'''Scene II''': At Lady Sneerwell's, the scandal-mongers have great fun at the expense of friends not present. Lady Teazle and Maria arrive; Lady Teazle joins in, but Maria is disgusted. So is Sir Peter, when he arrives, and rather breaks up the party with his comments. He departs, the others retire to the next room, and Joseph seizes the opportunity to court Maria, who rejects him again. Lady Teazle returns and dismisses Maria, and it is revealed that Lady Teazle is seriously flirting with Joseph – who doesn't want her, but cannot afford to alienate her.

'''Scene III''': Sir Oliver calls on his old friend Sir Peter. He is amused by Sir Peter's marriage to a young wife. Their talk turns to the Surface brothers. Sir Peter praises Joseph's high morals but Sir Oliver suspects that he might be a hypocrite.

Act III

'''Scene I:''' Rowley describes his plan for Sir Oliver to visit each of the brothers ''incognito'' to test their characters. Sir Oliver will disguise himself as their needy relative Mr. Stanley, and ask each for his help. Rowley also brings in the "friendly Jew" Moses, a moneylender who has tried to help Charles, to explain Charles' position. Moses mentions that he is to introduce Charles to yet another moneylender ("Mr. Premium") that very evening. Sir Oliver decides (at Sir Peter's suggestion) that with Moses' assistance, he will pose as Premium when visiting Charles while still intending to visit Joseph as Stanley.

Sir Peter is left alone and when Maria enters, he tries to convince her to marry Joseph expressing him as a worthier match than Charles, whom she favours. When she is not persuaded, he threatens her with "the authority of a guardian". She goes, and Lady Teazle enters asking her husband for two hundred pounds. Sir Peter and Lady Teazle argue again, and conclude that they should separate.

'''Scene II''': Sir Oliver (as Mr. Premium) arrives with Moses at Charles' house. While they are waiting in the hall, Trip, the servant, tries to negotiate a loan on his own account from Moses. Sir Oliver concludes that "this is the temple of dissipation indeed!"

'''Scene III''': Charles and his raucous guests drink heavily and sing merry songs, as they prepare for a night of gambling. Charles raises a toast to Maria. Moses and "Premium" enter, and Sir Oliver is dismayed at the scene. Charles does not recognise his long-lost uncle. Charles frankly asks "Premium" for credit, noting that Sir Oliver (whom he believes is in India) will soon leave him a fortune. "Premium" discounts this possibility, noting that Sir Oliver could live many years, or disinherit his nephew. He asks if Charles has any valuables of his own to sell for immediate cash. Charles admits that he has sold the family silver and his late father's library, and offers to sell "Premium" the family portrait collection. "Premium" accepts, but Sir Oliver is silently outraged.

Act IV

'''Scene I''': Charles goes on to sell all of the family portraits to "Premium", using the rolled-up family tree as a gavel. However, he refuses to sell the last portrait, which is of Sir Oliver, out of respect for his benefactor; Charles will not sell it even when "Premium" offers as much for it as for all the rest. Moved, Sir Oliver inwardly forgives Charles. Sir Oliver and Moses leave with Rowley entering shortly after, and Charles sends a hundred pounds of the proceeds for the relief of "Mr. Stanley", despite Rowley's objection.

'''Scene II''': Sir Oliver, reflecting on Charles's character with Moses, is met by Rowley, who has brought him the hundred pounds sent to "Stanley." Declaring "I’ll pay his debts, and his benevolence too", Sir Oliver plans to go meet his other nephew in the person of Stanley.

'''Scene III''': Joseph, anxiously awaiting a visit from Lady Teazle, is told by a servant that she has just left "her chair at the milliner's next door" and so has the servant draw a screen across the window (his reason: "my opposite neighbour is a maiden lady of so curious a temper"). On her entrance, Joseph forswears any interest in Maria, and flirts in earnest with Lady Teazle, perversely suggesting that she should make a "''faux pas''" for the benefit of her reputation. The servant returns to announce Sir Peter, and Lady Teazle hides in panic behind the screen. Sir Peter enters and tells Joseph that he suspects an affair between Charles and Lady Teazle (due to the rumours spread by Joseph and Lady Sneerwell). Joseph hypocritically professes confidence in Charles' and Lady Teazle's honour. Sir Peter confides his intention to give his wife a generous separate maintenance during his life and the bulk of his fortune on his demise. He also urges Joseph to pursue his suit with Maria (much to Joseph's annoyance, as Lady Teazle is listening behind the screen).

Charles's arrival is announced. Sir Peter decides to hide, and have Joseph sound Charles out about his relationship with Lady Teazle. He starts behind the screen, but sees the corner of Lady Teazle's petticoat there already. Joseph "confesses" that he is not as virtuous as he seems: "a little French milliner, a silly rogue that plagues me" is hiding there to preserve her own reputation. Sir Peter then hides in the closet.

Charles now enters and Joseph questions him about Lady Teazle. Charles disclaims any designs on her, noting that Joseph and the lady seem to be intimate. To stop Charles, Joseph whispers to him that Sir Peter is hiding in the closet, and Charles hauls him forth. Sir Peter tells Charles he now regrets his suspicions about him. Charles passes off his comments about Joseph and Lady Teazle as a joke.

When Lady Sneerwell is announced, Joseph rushes out to stop her from coming up. Meanwhile, Sir Peter tells Charles about the "French milliner". Charles insists on having a look at her and flings down the screen as Joseph returns, discovering Lady Teazle. Charles, very amused, leaves the other three dumbstruck individuals. Joseph concocts an explanation for Sir Peter of why he and Lady Teazle are together. But she refuses to endorse it and admits that she came to pursue an affair with Joseph; however, having learned of Sir Peter's generosity, she has repented. She denounces Joseph and exits, and the enraged Sir Peter follows as Joseph continues trying to pretend innocence.

Act V

'''Scene I''': Sir Oliver (as Mr. Stanley) now visits Joseph. Joseph, like Charles, does not recognise his long-lost uncle. He greets "Stanley" with effusive professions of goodwill, but refuses to give "Stanley" any financial assistance, saying he has donated all his money to support Charles. "Stanley" suggests that Sir Oliver would help him if he was here, and that Joseph might pass on some of what Sir Oliver has given him. But Joseph tells "Stanley" that Sir Oliver is in fact very stingy, and has given him nothing except trinkets such as tea, shawls, birds, and "Indian crackers". Furthermore, Joseph has lent a great deal to his brother, so that he has nothing left for "Stanley". Sir Oliver is enraged, as he knows both statements are flat lies – he sent Joseph 12,000 pounds from India. He stifles his anger, and departs amid further effusions. Rowley arrives with a letter for Joseph announcing that Sir Oliver has arrived in town.

'''Scene II''': At Sir Peter's house, Lady Sneerwell, Mrs. Candour, Sir Benjamin, and Crabtree exchange confused rumours about the Teazle affair. Sir Benjamin says Sir Peter was wounded in a swordfight with Joseph Surface, while Crabtree insists it was a pistol duel with Charles. When Sir Oliver enters, they take him for a doctor and demand news of the wounded man. At that moment Sir Peter arrives to prove the report wrong, and orders the scandalmongers out of his house, with Rowley entering shortly after at hearing Sir Peter's raised voice. Sir Oliver says he has met both of his nephews and agrees with Sir Peter's (former) estimate of Joseph's high character, but then acknowledges with laughter that he knows the story of what happened at Joseph's with the closet and screen. When he leaves, Rowley tells Sir Peter that Lady Teazle is in tears in the next room, and Sir Peter goes to reconcile with her.

'''Scene III''': Lady Sneerwell complains to Joseph that Sir Peter, now that he knows the truth about Joseph, will allow Charles to marry Maria. They plot to use Snake as a witness to a supposed relationship between Charles and Lady Sneerwell, and she withdraws.

Sir Oliver arrives. Joseph takes him for "Stanley" and orders him out. Charles arrives and recognises "Premium". Despite the identity confusion, both brothers want the man out before Sir Oliver comes. As Charles and Joseph try to eject their incognito uncle, Sir Peter and Lady Teazle arrive with Maria and Rowley, ending Sir Oliver's pretence. Sir Oliver, Sir Peter, and Lady Teazle together condemn Joseph, but Sir Oliver forgives Charles because of his refusal to sell Sir Oliver's picture and his generous aid to his uncle "Stanley." Maria, however, declines to give Charles her hand, citing his supposed involvement with Lady Sneerwell. Joseph now reveals Lady Sneerwell. Charles is baffled, and Rowley then summons Snake. Snake, however, has been bribed to turn against Sneerwell, so her lie is exposed. After Lady Teazle tells her that she (Lady Teazle) is withdrawing from the School for Scandal, Lady Sneerwell leaves in a rage, and Joseph follows, supposedly to keep her from further malicious attacks. Charles and Maria are reconciled. Charles makes no promises about reforming, but indicates that Maria's influence will keep him on a "virtuous path." The concluding line assures the audience that "even Scandal dies, if you approve."

Epilogue

The humorous epilogue, written by George Colman the Elder, is to be "Spoken by Lady Teazle." It portrays her as somewhat regretful of leaving country domesticity for London society, and includes an elaborate parody of a famous speech in Shakespeare's ''Othello.''

The "Leopard Man", a saddened leopard trainer who bore visible scars on his arms and whose personality diametrically opposed his daring profession, tells a tale of a "lion-tamer who was hated by another man" to the narrator. The unnamed man, who hated the lion-tamer, attended every performance in hopes of watching the lion crunch down on his tamer during his "big play", sticking his head in the lion's mouth. Finally, one day he witnessed it.

After pointing out the patience of such a task, the Leopard Man jumped to a story about De Ville, a small "sword-swallowing and juggling Frenchman" known for his quick temper. De Ville struck fear in all but one, 'King' Wallace, a lion-tamer known for sticking his head in the lion's mouth. One day, De Ville caught Wallace looking at Madame de Ville, his wife. Despite warnings about De Ville's temperament, Wallace, while feeling belligerent one day, pushed De Ville's head into a paste bucket. Calm, De Ville cleaned himself off and nothing transpired between the two for several months.

At a San Francisco show, the Leopard Man, looking for his pocket-knife, oversaw Wallace and the rest of the tent occupiers, except for De Ville who glared with hatred at Wallace, watching a quarrel between some trapeze artists. Still watching the events, the Leopard Man noticed De Ville, with his handkerchief drawn, walk past Wallace and feign wiping sweat off his face.

During his performance, Wallace cracked his whip and put his head inside the mouth of Augustus, his preferred lion. With Wallace's head in his mouth, Augustus' jaws clamped together. After the event, the Leopard Man went over to smell Wallace's head and sneezed. De Ville had placed snuff in his hair; Augustus had sneezed.

A flock of chickens live on an egg farm set up like a prisoner-of-war camp. The farm is run by the cruel Mrs. Tweedy and her oafish husband Mr. Tweedy, who kill and eat any chicken that is no longer able to lay eggs. The chickens try to escape frequently, but are always caught. Frustrated at the minuscule and declining profits that the farm generates, Mrs. Tweedy gets an idea of converting the farm to automated production and having a machine turn the chickens into meat pies. Mr. Tweedy suspects the chickens' sapience and wonders if they are plotting, but Mrs. Tweedy dismisses his theories.

One day, the chickens' leader, Ginger, witnesses an American rooster named Rocky Rhodes crash-land in the farm's coop; the chickens put his damaged wing in a cast and hide him from the Tweedys. Interested in Rocky's apparent flying abilities, Ginger begs him to help teach her and the chickens to fly. Rocky gives them training lessons while Mr. Tweedy builds the pie machine. Later that night, Rocky holds a dance party when his wing is healed; Ginger insists he demonstrates flying the next day, but Mr. Tweedy finishes the pie machine and puts Ginger in it for a test run. Rocky saves her and inadvertently sabotages the machine, buying them time to warn the chickens and plan an escape from the farm.

The next day, Ginger finds Rocky has left, leaving behind part of a poster revealing him as a former cannon stunt actor who is unable to fly, depressing her and the others. Elderly rooster Fowler tries to cheer them up by telling stories of his time in the Royal Air Force, giving Ginger the idea to create a plane to flee the farm.

The chickens—with help from Nick and Fetcher (two rats who smuggle contraband)—assemble parts for the plane as Mr. Tweedy fixes the machine. Mrs. Tweedy orders Mr. Tweedy to gather all the chickens for the machine, but the chickens attack him, leaving him bound and gagged as they finish the plane. Meanwhile, Rocky encounters a billboard advertising Mrs. Tweedy's chicken pies and returns to the farm out of guilt for abandoning the chickens. An alerted Mrs. Tweedy attacks Ginger as she helps the plane take off but is subdued by Rocky, who leaves with Ginger by holding onto a line of Christmas lights snagged by the departing plane. Mrs. Tweedy follows by climbing up the lights with an axe; Ginger dodges an axe swipe which cuts through the line, sending Mrs. Tweedy falling into the safety valve of the pie machine and causing it to explode. Having freed himself, Mr. Tweedy reminds Mrs. Tweedy of his warning that the chickens were organized, much to her frustration. Mr. Tweedy pushes the barn door on Mrs. Tweedy, crushing her.

The chickens celebrate their victory while Ginger and Rocky kiss, and they fly to an island that they make their home. During the credits, Nick and Fetcher discuss starting their own chicken farm so they can have all the eggs they could eat, but then end up arguing over whether the chicken or the egg came first on top of a chicken sanctuary "Keep Off" sign.

Suzanne Stone has always been obsessed with being on television, aspiring to become a world-famous broadcast journalist. She marries Larry Maretto, using his family restaurant business to keep herself financially stable, and takes a job as an assistant at WWEN, a local cable station, in hopes of climbing the network ladder. Through relentless persistence, she's eventually promoted to doing the station's evening weather report.

When Larry starts asking her to give up her career in favor of helping out at the restaurant and starting a family with him, Suzanne immediately begins plotting to get rid of him. She manipulates the high-schooler subjects of the TV documentary she has been making, ''Teens Speak Out'', into doing her bidding, seducing Jimmy Emmett and coercing him and his friends, the delinquent Russell Hines and the shy Lydia Mertz, into killing Larry. With the help of Russell and Lydia, Jimmy ultimately commits the murder.

Though Larry's death is ruled the result of a botched burglary, the police stumble across a ''Teens Speak Out'' clip of Suzanne at their school which points to her sexual involvement with Jimmy. The teens are arrested and connected to the crime scene. Lydia makes a deal with the police to converse with Suzanne while wearing a wire, and Suzanne unwittingly reveals her hand in the murder. However, despite this damning evidence, Suzanne argues that the police resorted to entrapment and is released on bail. All the charges against Suzanne were dropped with lack of evidence that she ordered the murder on her husband.

Basking in the media spotlight, Suzanne fabricates a story about Larry being a cocaine addict who was murdered by Jimmy and Russell, his purported dealers. Jimmy and Russell are sentenced to life in prison. Russell gets his sentence reduced while Lydia is released on probation. Meanwhile, Larry's father, Joe, realizes Suzanne was behind his son's death and uses his mafia connections to have her murdered. A hitman lures Suzanne away from her home by posing as a movie studio executive, kills her, and conceals her body beneath a frozen lake.

Lydia tells her side of the story in a televised interview and gains national attention, becoming a celebrity. Janice, Larry's sister who always hated Suzanne, practices her figure skating on the frozen lake where Suzanne's corpse lies.

The story develops around two plot lines set in the Old West town of "Flagstone." First, a man dubbed "Harmonica" seeks revenge against the outlaw, Frank. Second, Frank works as a hired gun for railroad tycoon, Morton, who is trying to acquire certain land owned by the Brett McBain family. A second outlaw, Cheyenne, also figures into the story.

Harmonica kills three men who ambush him on his arrival at the train station. The dusters they wear lead him to believe they are Cheyenne's men. Meanwhile, Frank and his henchmen kill Brett McBain and his three children at their ranch, which they call "Sweetwater." Frank leaves behind evidence to frame Cheyenne for the murders.

A woman named Jill arrives in Flagstone, en route to Sweetwater, for what is assumed to be her upcoming marriage to McBain. However, Jill, a New Orleans prostitute, actually married McBain when he was there, thus making her the sole heir to Sweetwater. McBain knew the railroad would pass through Sweetwater one day, and he planned to build a watering station on his property, subject to a reverter that McBain would forfeit Sweetwater if the station was not built by the time the railroad reached that point. Morton sent Frank to intimidate McBain, but McBain's murder and Jill's inheritance put Morton and Frank at odds. Morton wants to make a deal with Jill, but Frank wants the land for himself.

Cheyenne denies his men tried to ambush Harmonica, and the two realize Frank is behind both the ambush and framing Cheyenne for the McBain murders. Harmonica discovers the connection between Frank and Morton, but is captured by Frank's men. When Frank asks Harmonica's identity, he replies with names of men Frank has killed. Cheyenne rescues Harmonica, and the two collaborate to help Jill save Sweetwater.

Jill decides to auction the land and return to New Orleans; however, Frank's henchmen intimidate the bidders in order to purchase the land at low value. Harmonica appears with Cheyenne in tow and bids $5,000, which is the price on Cheyenne's head as a wanted fugitive. Morton hires Frank's own men to kill him, but Harmonica intervenes to save Frank's demise for himself. Meanwhile, Cheyenne escapes custody, and he and his gang engage Frank's remaining gang in a gunfight at Morton's train. Except for Cheyenne, who heads to Sweetwater, all are killed, including Morton.

Frank sees the aftermath of the gunfight and rides to Sweetwater where he finds Harmonica waiting. Cheyenne has arrived, too, but remains in the ranch house with Jill. Harmonica beats Frank to the draw. As Frank lies dying, he again asks Harmonica's identity. Through a flashback, it is revealed Frank shoved a harmonica in a boy's mouth just before the boy collapsed under the weight of his older brother, whom Frank was hanging. In the present, Harmonica returns the instrument to Frank by placing it in ''his'' mouth. Frank realizes who shot him and dies.

Harmonica and Cheyenne leave Sweetwater, but Cheyenne collapses and dies from a gut wound he received by Morton in the gunfight. As Harmonica departs, Jill serves water to the railroad workers.

Beck (Dwayne Johnson) is a "retrieval expert", a bounty hunter who collects debts for a man named Billy Walker (William Lucking). He is dispatched to a nightclub to retrieve a championship ring from a football player, and after doing so is assaulted by one of Walker's other collectors. Angry, he confronts Walker and tells him that he wants out of the business. Walker talks him into one last bounty – retrieve Walker's son Travis (Seann William Scott) from a small mining town in Brazil and Walker will give him enough money to open his own restaurant. Beck accepts and leaves for Brazil. When Beck arrives in the town of El Dorado, he meets with the man running the mining operation, Cornelius Hatcher (Christopher Walken). Hatcher gives Beck his blessing to grab Travis, but reneges when he finds out that Travis has discovered a missing golden artifact called "O Gato do Diabo” (The Devil's Cat). Beck confronts Hatcher and his men in the local bar and leaves with Travis. On the way back to the airfield, Travis forces their Jeep off the road and into the jungle. There he tries to escape but is re-captured by Beck. After an unfortunate encounter with some local monkeys, the two find themselves in the camp of the local resistance movement.

At the resistance encampment, Travis convinces the rebels that Beck works for Hatcher and was sent to kill them all. After a prolonged fight, Beck gains the upper hand before the rebel leader Mariana (Rosario Dawson), whom Beck met earlier in the same local bar, as a bartender, intervenes. She wants Travis, as the Gato can be used to ensure the locals can free themselves from Hatcher. Hatcher suddenly attacks the camp, killing many rebels. Beck, Travis, and Mariana escape the camp and Beck makes Mariana a deal – she helps him get Travis to the airfield in exchange for the Gato. After some searching, Travis leads them to a cave behind a waterfall where the Gato is located. They retrieve it and begin the journey back.

On the way back, Mariana chastises Travis for wanting to sell the artifact, but Travis argues that he actually did want to give it to a museum. Mariana gives the two men Konlobos, a toxic fruit that temporarily paralyzes the eater. As she tells Beck which direction the airfield is, she leaves them with the fire to keep the animals away. After waking up able to move, Beck hauls Travis to the airfield. The local pilot, Declan (Ewen Bremner), tells Beck that Mariana was captured earlier by Hatcher and will probably be killed. Travis pleads with Beck to help, and the two head into town to rescue her. Using a cow stampede for cover, the two begin their assault on Hatcher's goons. Travis becomes trapped by gunfire in a bus, and Beck saves him before the bus explodes. Hatcher tells his brother to take Mariana and the Gato and flee, but they are stopped by Travis. Hatcher confronts Beck, who offers him the chance to leave town, which Hatcher initially refuses. After he is shot by the townspeople, Hatcher agrees to leave town, but eventually dies from his gunshot wounds. Travis gives the Gato to Mariana before leaving with Beck, who tells him that despite all they've been through he must still return Travis to the United States. Travis is delivered to his dad who begins to verbally and physically abuse him. Beck asks to celebrate with them and gives Walker and his men Konlobos. As they are paralyzed, Beck uncuffs Travis and the duo leave together, with Travis continuing to jokingly annoy Beck.

In 1916 Petrograd, Russia, at a ball celebrating the Romanov tricentennial, Dowager Empress Marie bestows a music box and a necklace inscribed with the words "Together in Paris" as parting gifts to her youngest granddaughter, eight-year-old Grand Duchess Anastasia. The ball is suddenly interrupted by Grigori Rasputin, a sorcerer and the former royal adviser until he was exiled for treason. Seeking revenge, Rasputin sells his soul in exchange for an unholy reliquary, which he uses to curse the Romanovs, sparking the Russian Revolution. As revolutionaries besiege the palace, Marie and Anastasia escape through a secret passageway, aided by 10-year-old servant boy Dimitri. Rasputin confronts the two royals outside on a frozen river, only to fall through the ice and drown. The pair manage to reach a moving train, but as Marie climbs aboard, Anastasia falls and hits her head on the platform, subsequently developing amnesia.

Ten years later, in 1926 Russia is under communist rule and Marie has publicly offered 10 million roubles for the safe return of her granddaughter. Now working as a conman, a grown Dimitri and his friend/partner-in-crime, Vlad, search for an Anastasia look-alike to bring to Paris so they can collect the reward. Elsewhere, an 18-year-old Anastasia (now called "Anya") leaves the rural orphanage where she grew up, and begins a search for her family with her necklace as the only clue she has to finding them. Accompanied by a stray puppy she names Pooka, she decides to head to Paris, inspired by the inscription on her necklace, but finds herself unable to leave Russia without an exit visa. An old woman advises her to see Dimitri at the abandoned palace; there, the two men are impressed by Anya's resemblance to the "real" Anastasia, and decide to take her with them to Paris, completely unaware of her identity.

Meanwhile, Rasputin's albino bat minion, Bartok, is nearby and notices his master's dormant reliquary suddenly revived by Anya's presence; it drags him to limbo, where he finds an undead Rasputin has been confined. Enraged to hear that Anastasia escaped the curse, Rasputin sends his demonic minions from the reliquary to kill her. The demons sabotage the trio's train by overheating the engine and separating it and its ruined baggage car from the rest of the train as they leave St. Petersburg, but the trio manages to escape before the burning locomotive and baggage car fall through a broken bridge and explode on the ground below. Later, the demons try to lure Anya into sleepwalking off their ship to France. The trio unwittingly foil both attempts, forcing Rasputin and Bartok to travel back to the surface to kill Anya personally. During their journey, as Dimitri and Vladimir teach Anya court etiquette and her family's history, Dimitri and Anya begin to fall in love.

The trio eventually reach Paris and go to see Marie, who has given up the search after meeting numerous impostors. Despite this, Marie's cousin Sophie quizzes Anya to confirm her identity. Though Anya offers every answer taught to her, Dimitri finally realizes she is the real Anastasia when she (without being taught) vaguely recalls how he helped her escape the palace siege. Sophie, also convinced, arranges a meeting with Marie at the Paris Opera House. There, Dimitri tries to establish an introduction but Marie refuses, believing Anya will be another imposter and has already heard of Dimitri's initial scheme to con her. Anya overhears the conversation and angrily leaves. Dimitri later abducts Marie in her car to force her to see Anya, finally convincing her when he presents the music box Anastasia dropped during their escape. As Marie and Anya converse, Anya regains her memories, and the two sing the lullaby the music box plays, a secret only the two of them knew. Marie recognizes Anya as Anastasia, and the two are joyfully reunited.

Marie offers Dimitri the reward money the next day, recognizing him as the servant boy who saved them, but he refuses it, surprising her, and leaves to return to Russia. At Anastasia's return celebration, Marie informs her of Dimitri's gesture, leaving Anastasia torn between staying or going with him. Anastasia walks off to the Pont Alexandre III, where Rasputin traps and attacks her. Dimitri returns to save her, but is attacked by a Black Pegasus statue enchanted by Rasputin. In the struggle, Anastasia manages to get hold of Rasputin's reliquary and crushes it under her foot, avenging her family as Rasputin's demons turn on him and destroy him, thus ending the Romanov curse forever.

In the aftermath, Anastasia and Dimitri reconcile; they elope, and Anastasia sends a farewell letter to Marie and Sophie, promising to return one day, which Marie happily accepts. A female bat comes along to kiss Bartok, whilst Bartok bids the audience goodbye.

In 1954, each boy in a group of Florida high school students plans to lose his virginity. They go to Porky's, a strip club in the Everglades, believing that they can hire a prostitute to satisfy their sexual desires. The club's proprietor, Porky, takes their money but humiliates the boys by dumping them into the swamp. When the group demands their money back, the sheriff, Porky's brother, drives them away but not before he extorts them for the rest of their money, further embarrassing them.

After Mickey, who returned to Porky's for revenge, is beaten so badly he has to be hospitalized, the gang becomes hellbent on exacting revenge on Porky and his brother, eventually sinking Porky's establishment into the swamp. Porky and his men, joined by the sheriff, chase the group, but the boys make it across the county line, out of Porky's brother's jurisdiction, where local police officers and the high school band meet them. One of the officers, Mickey's older brother, Ted, repeatedly damages Porky's Hudson Hornet, promising to drop all charges against Porky for driving an unsafe vehicle if the night's events are forgiven. Because the boys are too young to have been allowed into Porky's legally, Porky and his brother agree.

In a subplot, the boys peep on co-ed students in the girl's locker room shower, and Tommy, Billy, and Pee Wee see several girls showering. Pee Wee gives them away when he shouts at a heavier girl, who has been blocking his view, to move so that he can see. While a few girls run out, most stay, finding the situation funny. To test their attitude, Tommy sticks his tongue out through his peephole but gets it smeared with soap. Infuriated, he drops his pants and sticks his penis through the opening just before female coach Beulah Balbricker, who has a running feud with Tommy, walks into the shower area. Spotting the protruding member, she sneaks up on Tommy, grabs his penis, and pulls with all her might. Tommy pulls free and escapes, but Beulah is determined to prove that the offending member, which has a mole on it, belongs to Tommy, going so far as to request that Principal Carter hold a police-type line-up of the boys in the nude so she can identify it. However, Carter balks at her request. As the other basketball coaches laugh, Coach Brackett suggests asking the police to send a sketch artist and hang wanted posters around the school. When that suggestion gets even Carter laughing, Balbricker leaves in a huff. At the end of the film, she sneaks out of the bushes to ambush Tommy and actually drags his pants down, but she is pulled off him by police and dragged away screaming that she saw "it" and that she can identify its owner. Tommy breaks the fourth wall, saying, "Jeez!" to the camera.

Another subplot involves Coach Brackett taking an interest in attractive Coach Honeywell. Coach Warren repeatedly refers to Honeywell as "Lassie" while pointing to the equipment room, much to Coach Brackett's confusion. He quickly finds out why when he and Honeywell hide out in the equipment room after an argument with Balbricker, and Honeywell becomes turned on by the smell. This leads to the pair having sex in the room, but Honeywell begins loudly howling like a dog, thus revealing why she is called Lassie. Her howls are heard throughout the entire school, much to the students' and Coach Warren's amusement. Brackett and Honeywell are fired as a result.

Ex-stripper Freddie Clayton (Cameron Diaz) is marrying her husband Sam (Vincent D'Onofrio) to repay a debt owed to nightclub owner Red (Delroy Lindo). When Freddie meets Jjaks (Keanu Reeves), Sam's brother, they instantly fall in love. Jjaks and Freddie decide to run off together, eventually staying in a motel. After realizing that they do not have any money, Freddie and Jjaks decide to go back and steal some of Sam's money. Sam catches Jjaks in the act and they fight. After escaping, Jjaks returns to the motel, unaware that Sam has been following him. After Jjaks passes out due to the fight, Sam ends up shooting Freddie in the stomach in Jjaks's car, and tries to frame the killing on him by returning Freddie's body to the motel room along with the murder weapon.

The next morning, Jjaks awakens, unable to recall anything that happened after his fight with Sam. Seeing Freddie's body in the room along with the gun, he briefly thinks that maybe he killed Freddie. After being tipped off by Sam, the police arrive but Jjaks hastily avoids capture, driving Freddie's body to a remote area in the woods to lay her to rest. All the while, Sam has been watching these events from afar, hoping for Jjaks's arrest.

Sam now calls a friend, Detective Ben Costikyan (Dan Aykroyd), who promptly arrests Jjaks. The trio, along with Costikyan's partner Lloyd (David Alan Smith), drive to where Freddie was supposedly buried. However, upon arrival, they are unable to find her. Angered at Sam for misleading him, Costikyan drives off with Lloyd, leaving the brothers beside the road.

Upon returning home, the brothers receive a phone call from the motel manager (Michael Rispoli), who, based on seeing Sam carrying Freddie's body ''into'' the motel room and Jjaks carrying the body ''out of'' the room, wants $50,000 to keep quiet. Jjaks now realizes that Sam was setting him up for Freddie's murder. After another fight, they decide that Jjaks will go to the motel to talk to the manager while Sam will see Red, hoping for a loan.

At this point, Red has learned that Sam has been stealing money from him for the past year. Sam ends up shooting and killing Red after a brief skirmish and collects the $50,000 from a safe. Jjaks meets with the motel manager but sees Freddie's necklace on the floor of the manager's apartment. Confused and angry, Jjaks throws the manager outside and threatens to kill him. Suddenly out of nowhere, an alive Freddie walks towards them, calling for Jjaks, who faints. When he revives, she shows Jjaks her bullet wound and tells him that Sam is a bad shot and that someone picked her up from the side of the road where he had left her body.

The next morning, Sam calls Jjaks and tells him he got the money. However, after seeing Freddie alive from a nearby diner, he confronts Jjaks and Freddie in the manager's apartment. Sam ends up getting shot when the couple try to defend themselves. Costikyan enters the hotel room and suffocates Sam by holding his hand against his mouth. It turns out that Freddie had called Costikyan after being rescued and used him to help her get the $50,000. A betrayed and wounded Jjaks is left helpless.

Some time later, Costikyan is arrested in his underwear inside a hotel, as Freddie had tipped off the cops and left with the money. She and Jjaks have since fallen out, but Jjaks, recalling her dream of being a dancer in Las Vegas, hitchhikes there. When he finds her living her dream, she happily says, "What took you so fucking long?" before they embrace.

The film follows four Japanese high school girls who engage in enjo-kōsai, or compensated dating. This is a practice in Japan where older businessmen pay teenage girls more commonly to simply spend time with them, or for prostitution. The main character, Hiromi, does not have the direction in life that her friends already have. Hiromi's friends were going to buy her a ring, but Hiromi refuses to accept their offer because she does not want her friends to be jealous. Hiromi goes on dates by herself to get money for the ring. Soon, she gets in over her head. Hiromi falls too far into the world of enjo-kōsai as she tries to hold on to a "friends forever" vision of the past.

1880s poster

Act I

When the traveling Buffalo Bill's Wild West show visits Cincinnati, Ohio ("Colonel Buffalo Bill"), Frank Butler, the show's handsome, womanizing star ("I'm a Bad, Bad, Man"), challenges anyone in town to a shooting match. Foster Wilson, a local hotel owner, doesn't appreciate the Wild West show taking over his hotel, so Frank gives him a side bet of one hundred dollars on the match. Annie Oakley enters and shoots a bird off Dolly Tate's hat, and then explains her simple backwoods ways to Wilson with the help of her siblings ("Doin' What Comes Natur'lly"). When Wilson learns she's a brilliant shot, he enters her in the shooting match against Frank Butler.

While waiting for the match to start, Annie meets Frank Butler and is instantly smitten with him, not knowing he will be her opponent. When she asks Frank if he likes her, Frank explains that the girl he wants will "wear satin... and smell of cologne" ("The Girl That I Marry"). The rough and naive Annie comically laments that "You Can't Get a Man with a Gun". At the shooting match, Annie finds out that Frank is the "big swollen-headed stiff" from the Wild West show. She wins the contest, and Buffalo Bill and Charlie Davenport, the show's manager, invite Annie to join the Wild West Show. Annie agrees because she loves Frank even though she has no idea what "show business" is. Frank, Charlie, and Buffalo Bill explain that "There's No Business Like Show Business".

Over the course of working together, Frank becomes enamored of the plain-spoken, honest, tomboyish Annie and, as they travel to Minneapolis, Minnesota, on a train, he explains to her what "love" is ("They Say It's Wonderful"). Buffalo Bill and Charlie discover that their rival, Pawnee Bill's Far East Show, will be playing in Saint Paul, Minnesota, while the Wild West show plays in nearby Minneapolis. They ask Annie to do a special shooting stunt on a motorcycle to draw Pawnee Bill's business away. Annie agrees because the trick will surprise Frank. She sings her siblings to sleep with the "Moonshine Lullaby".

As Annie and Frank prepare for the show, Frank plans to propose to Annie after the show and then ruefully admits that "My Defenses Are Down". When Annie performs her trick and becomes a star, Chief Sitting Bull adopts her into the Sioux tribe ("I'm An Indian Too"). Hurt and angry, Frank walks out on Annie and the show, joining the competing Pawnee Bill's show.

Act II

Returning to New York from a tour of Europe with the Buffalo Bill show, Annie learns that the show has gone broke. Sitting Bull, Charlie, and Buffalo Bill plot to merge Buffalo Bill's show with Pawnee Bill's as they believe that show is doing well financially. Annie, now well-dressed and more refined and worldly, still longs for Frank ("I Got Lost in His Arms").

At a grand reception for Buffalo Bill's troupe at the Hotel Brevoort, Pawnee Bill, Dolly, and Frank also plot a merger of the two companies, assuming Buffalo Bill's show made a fortune touring Europe. When they all meet, they soon discover both shows are broke. Annie, however, has received sharpshooting medals from all the rulers of Europe worth one hundred thousand dollars, and she decides to sell the medals to finance the merger, rejoicing in the simple things ("I Got the Sun in the Mornin'"). When Frank appears, he and Annie confess their love and decide to marry, although with comically different ideas: Frank wants "some little chapel", while Annie wants "A wedding in a big church with bridesmaids and flower girls/ A lot of ushers in tail coats/ Reporters and photographers" ("An Old-Fashioned Wedding"^o). When Annie shows Frank her medals, Frank again has his pride hurt. They call off the merger and the wedding, but challenge each other to one last shooting match to decide who is the best shot.

On the ferry to the Governors Island match site, Dolly attempts to ruin Annie's chances by tampering with her guns. She is caught and stopped by Sitting Bull and Charlie. However, they then decide to follow through with Dolly's plan so that Annie will lose the match, knowing that would soothe Frank's ego allowing the two to reconcile and the merger to take place.

As the match is ready to begin, Annie and Frank's egos come out again with each claiming they are better than the other ("Anything You Can Do"). Sitting Bull convinces Annie to deliberately lose the match to Frank, reminding her that she "can't get a man with a gun." That done, Frank and Annie finally reconcile, deciding to marry and merge the shows.

''Notes'': This description is based on the 1966 revised book. In the 1999 book, Frank also deliberately misses his shots in the final match, which ends in a tie. ^o written for 1966 revision and included in 1999 Broadway Revival; not in the original production § omitted from the 1999 Broadway Revival

On her 21st birthday, when she comes into her deceased father's money, Bertha Ley announces, to the dismay of her former guardian, that she is going to marry 27-year-old Edward Craddock, her steward. Herself a member of the landed gentry, Bertha has been raised to cultivate an "immoderate desire for knowledge" and to understand, and enjoy, European culture of both past and present ages. In particular, during long stays on the Continent, she has learned to appreciate Italy's tremendous cultural heritage. A "virtuous" girl, her views on womanhood are thoroughly traditional. She has no doubts about her role in life, which will be to serve and obey her future husband. When Bertha encourages reluctant Edward Craddock, whom she has known since their childhood, to propose to her, she is certain that she will find absolute fulfilment and happiness in her marriage, even if it means abandoning city life and its pleasures for the Kentish coast "to live as her ancestors had lived, ploughing the land, sowing and reaping; but her children, the sons of the future, would belong to a new stock, stronger and fairer than the old. The Leys had gone down into the darkness of death, and her children would bear another name. […] She felt in herself suddenly the weariness of a family that had lived too long; she knew she was right to choose new blood to mix with the old blood of the Leys. It needed the freshness and youth, the massive strength of her husband, to bring life to the decayed race." (Ch.8)

The man selected by Bertha in an almost Darwinian fashion to accomplish all this is described by the narrator as little more than a noble savage, "the unspoiled child of nature, his mind free from the million perversities of civilization" (Ch.7). Edward Craddock may be tall, strong, handsome, and practically free from sin ("He simply reeks of the Ten Commandments"), but at the same time he is hardly educated, unimaginative, and unnecessarily headstrong. Subconsciously justifying her decision to marry him, Bertha boosts his ego by constantly telling him that he will rise above himself if he is given the chance to do so, and accordingly transfers all powers to manage her estate to her husband. As time goes by, Craddock turns into the archetypal country squire, accepted, respected, even adored and envied by the community, who have no idea that in the meantime his wife has drawn her own, less favourable, conclusions about their married life.

After their honeymoon, which they spend in London, Bertha soon realises that her husband is a bore and, what is more, rather insensitive to her needs. Time and again she pokes fun at his inferior taste in music, his inability and unwillingness to read books, and his chauvinism. She is disappointed at the routine that dominates their marriage and at the lack of attentions he pays her. It gradually dawns upon her that Edward lives in a world of his own, in which the death of a cow causes him more grief than that of a beloved person. When, a bit more than a year into their marriage, Bertha is eight months pregnant and has a premonition that there might be complications during birth, he assures her that "it's nothing to make a fuss about", his insight stemming from his own experience: "He had bred animals for years, and was quite used to the process that supplied him with veal, mutton and beef for the local butchers. It was a ridiculous fuss that human beings made over a natural and ordinary phenomenon." (Ch.16)

However, their son is stillborn, and Bertha is told that she will not be able to have children in future either. The ensuing crisis makes her doubt that God exists, while the vicar's sister, a friend of theirs, asserts that "we should be thankful for the cross we have to bear. It is, as it were, a measure of the confidence that God places in us." (Ch.18) Finding no solace in religion—at least that kind of religion—but at the same time unable to get over the loss of her son and also increasingly disgusted by her husband's matter-of-fact behaviour, Bertha escapes her dreary surroundings and finds refuge in London, where she moves into her aunt's flat. Mary Ley, in her late forties and unmarried, senses right from the start that Bertha means to leave her husband for good but, for the sake of her niece's peace of mind, is not prepared to broach the subject. Edward, on the other hand, is happily unaware of his wife's intentions, considering himself nothing more than a grass widower and urging his wife in several letters to come home as soon as she has fully recovered. After a prolonged trip with her aunt to Paris, made under the pretext of intending to buy dresses, Bertha, for want of any other reasonable course of action, returns to Kent and her husband, thus erroneously confirming Edward in his belief that her going away was just a passing phase.

While his wife settles down to a life of quiet despair and excruciating boredom, Edward Craddock, who has become a stranger to her, embarks on a career in politics. Elected County Councillor for the Conservative Party, he immediately starts dreaming of climbing the ladder of success even further and becoming a Member of Parliament (MP). Five years after her wedding, aged only 26, Bertha not only feels that she has aged prematurely; she is also aware of the fact that in the eyes of the local community she has become a mere appendage to her husband. Never having had anyone to confide in, she at long last picks Dr Ramsay, the local GP and her former guardian, to tell him the truth about the passionate hatred she feels for Edward and to ask for the doctor's help. "I know him through and through", Bertha says of her husband, "and he's a fool. You can't conceive how stupid, how utterly brainless he is. He bores me to death. […] Oh, when I think that I'm shackled to him for the rest of my life I feel I could kill myself." (Ch.27)

Again Bertha escapes to the Continent, again with her aunt, this time to Rome (while Edward Craddock has not once in his life been abroad). Claiming that her delicate health demands spending the winter in a warm climate, she is back in London in the following spring after having enjoyed six months of freedom but now must face reality again and no longer delay her return to her husband. This is when 19-year-old Gerald Vaudrey, a cousin of hers she has never met before, enters her life. Gerald, handsome and still looking like a schoolboy, is to stay in London for a couple of weeks to wait for his passage to the United States, where he has been assigned to go by his parents as a punishment for his misdemeanours. Visiting his—and Bertha's – aunt, he is introduced to his cousin at Mary Ley's flat, and from the moment they first set eyes on each other Bertha and Gerald are curiously attracted to each other. They go off almost every day exploring the sights of London, and 26-year-old Bertha, unable as well as unwilling to face the facts, feels flattered by the youth's many attentions. She just does not really want to believe that Gerald has been expelled from his parental home after seducing the maid; she refuses to see a womaniser in Gerald and, although she tries hard to resist her feelings, genuinely falls in love with the boy.

At the very last moment, on the eve of Gerald's departure, it occurs to Bertha that she might "give Gerald the inestimable gift of her body", as "there is one way in which a woman can bind a man to her for ever, there is one tie that is indissoluble; her very flesh cried out, and she trembled at the thought." (Ch.31) The young couple are already alone in their aunt's flat, but Mary Ley comes home early from a dinner to which she has been invited, suspecting that they could be meeting secretly, and prevents any sexual activity. Gerald Vaudrey leaves for the States on the following morning. When, two weeks later, Bertha receives a letter from America, she puts it on the mantelpiece, where she looks at it for a month. Only then does she burn it, without ever having opened it. To her, having achieved this means that she has got over her infatuation.

Again Bertha Craddock returns to her husband and, after that "mere spring day of happiness" with Gerald, prepares for "the long winter of life". Four years later, when she is 30, Edward Craddock breaks his neck in a riding accident, and, seeing his body being carried into the house, Bertha, for the first time since her wedding, feels free. Similar to the old custom of ''damnatio memoriae'' in the Roman Empire, she destroys all of Edward's photographs and all of his letters to her.

In May 1998, at a star party, teenage amateur astronomer Leo Beiderman observes an unidentified object in the night sky. He sends a picture to astronomer Dr. Marcus Wolf, who realizes it is a comet on collision course with Earth. Wolf dies in a car crash while racing to raise the alarm.

A year later, journalist Jenny Lerner investigates Secretary of the Treasury Alan Rittenhouse over his connection with "Ellie", whom she supposes to be a mistress. She is apprehended by the FBI and taken to meet President Tom Beck, who persuades her not to share the story for 48 hours in return for a prominent role in the press conference he will arrange. She subsequently discovers that "Ellie" is actually an acronym — ELE — which stands for "extinction-level event". Two days later, Beck announces that the comet Wolf–Beiderman is on course to impact the Earth in roughly one year and could cause humanity's extinction. He reveals that the United States and Russia have been constructing the ''Messiah'' in orbit, a spacecraft to transport a team to alter the comet's path with nuclear bombs.

The ''Messiah'' launches a short time later with a crew of five American astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut. They land on the comet's surface and drill the nuclear bombs deep beneath its surface, but the work takes longer than anticipated and the crew are still on the surface when the comet's rotation moves them into the sunlight. Consequently, one astronaut is blinded and another propelled into space by an explosive release of gas. The remaining crew escape the comet and detonate the bombs.

Rather than deflect the comet, the bombs split it in two. Beck announces the mission's failure in a television address, and that both pieces — the larger now named Wolf and the smaller named Beiderman — are both still headed for Earth. Martial law is imposed and a lottery selects 800,000 Americans to join 200,000 pre-selected individuals in underground shelters. Most Americans over 50 years old are not eligible for the lottery, and Lerner's mother commits suicide after learning this. Lerner is pre-selected as a trusted national journalist, as are the Beiderman family as gratitude for discovering the comet, though Leo's girlfriend Sarah and her family are not selected. Leo marries Sarah in a vain attempt to save her family, but Sarah refuses to go to the shelter without them.

A last-ditch effort to deflect the comets with ICBMs fails. Upon arrival at the shelter, Leo eschews his safety and leaves to find Sarah. He reaches her on the freeway and takes her and her baby brother to high ground. Lerner gives up her seat on the evacuation helicopter to her friend Beth and her young daughter, and instead travels to the beach where she reconciles with her estranged father as tidal waves roll in.

The smaller comet, Beiderman, hits the Atlantic Ocean, creating a megatsunami that destroys much of the East Coast of the United States and also hits Europe and Africa, resulting in millions of fatalities. Leo, Sarah, and her baby brother survive after making it to the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, the westernmost point where the tsunami waters reach. The crew of ''Messiah'' decide to sacrifice themselves to destroy the larger comet by flying deep inside it and detonating their remaining nuclear bombs. They say goodbye to their loved ones and execute their plan. Wolf is blown into smaller pieces which burn up harmlessly in the Earth's atmosphere.

After the waters from the megatsunami recede, President Beck speaks to a large crowd at the damaged United States Capitol, encouraging them to remember those lost as they begin to rebuild.

Guts is a lone warrior who was born from a hanged corpse and raised as a mercenary by his abusive adoptive father Gambino. As a child, Guts is trained by Gambino with adult-sized broadswords, causing him to develop a preference for large two-handed swords as he grows. One night, Gambino stumbles into Guts' tent armed and drunk, forcing Guts to kill him in self-defense, resulting in Guts fleeing his mercenary group and becoming a wandering sellsword. His fearsome reputation catches the attention of Griffith, the charismatic leader of a mercenary group known as the Band of the Hawk. Griffith forces Guts to join the group after defeating him in battle, with Guts becoming his best fighter as their band is hired by the kingdom of Midland during its century-long war against the Chuder Empire. Guts later learns of Griffith's desire to rule a kingdom of his own and his mysterious pendant known as a Behelit, which is instrumental when they are spared by Nosferatu Zodd, a monstrous immortal who leaves Guts with a cryptic warning of a painful demise for being Griffith's friend.

As Griffith begins to mingle with Midland nobility and acquaint himself with the king's daughter Charlotte, Guts begins developing feelings for his fellow commander Casca, the Hawks' only female member. But when Guts overhears Griffith confessing to Charlotte that he considers someone with their own dream a friend, Guts decides to leave the group once Midland has won its war. But Guts's sudden departure causes an emotionally distraught Griffith to seduce Charlotte, resulting in his arrest and torture while the Hawks are branded criminals by the Midland army. Guts spends the next year training to become a better swordsman, but is warned by a mysterious being he names "the Skull Knight" that his actions have instigated an "Eclipse". Guts learns of the Hawks' predicament and rejoins them to rescue Griffith while consummating his feelings for Casca.

The group soon end up on a crossroads upon learning Griffith has become disabled and mute after a year of intense and continuous torture. While making for Midland's borders, Griffith regains his Behelit at his moment of despair over his condition during a solar eclipse. The item transports the Hawks to another dimension where they encounter four archdemons collectively known as the "Godhand", who have gathered for an event known as the Eclipse where Griffith will sacrifice his comrades to transcend his humanity as the Godhand's fifth member. Griffith willingly accepts once reminded of the ambitious man he has always been, with the Hawks branded with a demonic sigil and slaughtered by the Godhand's Apostles — humans like Zodd who sacrificed their loved ones and humanity for power. Only Guts and Casca survive while Griffith is reborn as the Godhand's fifth and final member Femto, raping Casca in front of Guts who loses his right eye and left forearm in his attempt to save her before they are rescued by the Skull Knight. However, the ordeal traumatizes Casca, causing her to regress to a childlike state. Guts learns from the Skull Knight that their "Brands of Sacrifice" leave them open to be preyed upon by supernatural beings on a nightly basis. Guts leaves Casca in the care of the blacksmith Godo, his adoptive daughter Erica and Rickert, the youngest member of the Band of the Hawk who survived by not being present at the Eclipse. With a new giant sword made by Godo called Dragonslayer and a prosthetic left arm with a built-in cannon and crossbow, Guts begins hunting down Apostles in search of revenge on Griffith. During this time, Guts is followed by his unborn child with Casca, deformed into a demonic phantom as a result of Femto's rape (dubbed the Demon Child).

Two years later, after having killed many Apostles and earning the nickname of "the Black Swordsman", Guts is joined by an elf named Puck before being captured by Farnese, captain of the Holy See Church's Holy Iron Chain Knights, believing he is a foretold harbinger of the apocalypse. He manages to escape after saving Farnese from specters before returning to Godo where he learns that Casca has disappeared. Guts' search for her takes him to the refugee-infested city of St. Albion, learning the Godhand have arranged for the city as the site for an Incarnation ceremony to give one of their own a physical form. Guts saves Casca from the fanatical Holy See bishop Mozgus as the city descends into nightmarish chaos from the souls of the dead attacking. Joined by Farnese, her bodyguard Serpico, and a young thief named Isidro, Guts and Casca survive the ordeal as Griffith reconstitutes through a misshapen Apostle desiring to "hatch" a new world who ingested the dying Demon Child prior.

Guts later encounters Griffith and Zodd at Godo's home and engages in battle, resulting in Zodd destroying the enchanted mine which sheltered Casca from demons while Griffith realizes some lingering traces of the Demon Child persist within him. Guts decides to take Casca to Puck's homeland of Elfhelm on the island of Skellig to find a means of restoring her mind, allowing Isidro, Farnese and Serpico to follow him as he fears losing control of himself to his dark impulses, embodied as a demonic black dog within his mind. This results in Farnese becoming Casca's primary caretaker. At the same time, Griffith creates a second Band of the Hawk with Zodd and other Apostles among its ranks to save Midland from the invading Kushan Empire, led by their rogue Apostle emperor, Ganishka.

Guts' group later encounters the witch Flora during an attempt to save a village from marauding trolls, and her apprentice Schierke, who begins to teach Farnese magic and negates the effects of the brand on Guts and Casca via magical seals. Prior to her death when members of the New Band of the Hawk destroy the tree she made her home in, Flora gives Guts use of a dangerous relic known as the Berserker Armour which increases his physical ability with the risk of being consumed by his inner darkness. While Guts and his party secure a ship to reach Elfhelm amidst a Kushan attack on the port, Griffith's war with Ganishka climaxes when the emperor's destruction following his transition into a god-like abomination causes an overlapping of the mortal realm and the supernatural astral realm. Unopposed and with Charlotte and the Holy See's blessing, Griffith establishes the city of Falconia to provide refuge for Midlanders and the rest of humanity from the numerous mythical creatures that manifested in the realms' overlapping.

Later, following a dramatic battle with a supernatural island-sized monster known as the Sea God and recruiting one of the islanders, a merrow girl called Isma, Guts' party reaches Elfhelm. The elf ruler, Danann, helps Farnese and Schierke travel into Casca's mind and restore her to her former self. But despite her recovery, Casca is still traumatized from her ordeal, making it difficult to be around Guts without remembering the events of the Eclipse. Farnese and Schierke begin training with the other apprentice witches and wizards living on Skellig, the former taking an interest in the power to heal human souls to help Casca. At the same time, the Skull Knight tells Guts his journey is at an end before taking him to creator of the Berserker Armour, teaching Guts about his own past with the God Hand. Meanwhile, after defeating an army of giants, Griffith participates in a council with the other nobles of Falconia before departing that evening. Guts is then met by the Moonlight Boy, a mysterious child-looking entity who had appeared before the group beforehand on their journey to Elfhelm. Danann detects no malice from the Boy, and he is allowed to stay, forming a motherly bond with Casca. It is revealed that the Moonlight Boy is the Demon Child, who is able to take control of his shared body with Griffith when the moon is full. When the full moon wanes, Griffith resumes control of their shared body and is attacked by Guts until Zodd arrives to defend him. The arrival of the two incapacitates Casca and causes the ground beneath to erupt, killing the island's giant spirit tree, unleashing a torrent of evil spirits and seemingly weakening Danann while Griffith carries the unconscious Casca away.

On Christmas evening in the year 1909, in a quaint Midwestern town (visually inspired by Disney's hometown Marceline, Missouri), Jim Dear gives his wife Darling a cocker spaniel puppy, which they name Lady. Lady enjoys a joyful life with the couple and befriends two local neighborhood dogs, a Scottish terrier named Jock, and a bloodhound named Trusty. Meanwhile, across town, a stray mutt named Tramp lives on his own, dining on scraps from Tony's Italian restaurant and protecting his fellow strays Peg (a Pekingese) and Bull (a bulldog) from the local dog catcher. One day, Lady is upset after her owners begin treating her rather coldly. Jock and Trusty visit her and determine that their behavior change is due to Darling expecting a baby. While Jock and Trusty try to explain what a baby is, Tramp interrupts the conversation and offers his own thoughts on the matter, making Jock and Trusty take an immediate dislike to the stray and order him out of the yard. As Tramp leaves, he reminds Lady that "when a baby moves in, a dog moves out."

Eventually, the baby arrives, and the couple introduces Lady to the infant, of whom Lady becomes very fond and protective. When Jim Dear and Darling leave for a vacation, they put their dog-hating Aunt Sarah in charge of the baby and the house. Aunt Sarah's two trouble-making Siamese cats, Si and Am, deliberately mess up the house, knowing Lady will get in trouble for it, and then get her in even more trouble by tricking Aunt Sarah into thinking that Lady attacked them. Aunt Sarah then takes Lady to a pet shop to get a muzzle. Terrified, Lady flees the pet shop but is pursued by a trio of stray dogs. Tramp manages to rescue her, fighting off the vicious strays. Seeing the muzzle on Lady's head, Tramp decides to take her to the local zoo, where they find a beaver who removes the muzzle with his teeth. Later, Tramp shows Lady how he lives "footloose and collar-free," eventually leading into a candlelit dinner at Tony's. Lady begins to fall in love with Tramp, but she chooses to return home to watch over the baby. Tramp offers to escort Lady back home, but when Tramp decides to chase hens around a farmyard for fun, Lady is captured by the dog catcher and brought to the local dog pound. While at the pound, the other dogs reveal to Lady that Tramp has had multiple girlfriends in the past, and they feel it is unlikely that he will ever settle down. Lady is eventually claimed by Aunt Sarah, who chains her in the backyard as punishment for running away.

Jock and Trusty visit and try to comfort Lady, but when Tramp arrives to apologize, Lady berates him for having other girlfriends in the past and his failure to rescue her from the pound. Tramp sadly leaves, but immediately thereafter, a rat Lady previously confronted sneaks into the house, right into the baby's room. Lady sees the rat and barks frantically at it, but Aunt Sarah tells her to be quiet. Tramp hears her barking and rushes back, entering the house and cornering the rat in the nursery. There's a fight, Lady breaks free and rushes to the nursery, where Tramp inadvertently knocks over the baby's crib before ultimately killing the rat and preventing the latter from harming or killing the baby. The commotion alerts Aunt Sarah, who thinks they harmed the baby. She pushes Tramp into a closet and locks Lady in the basement, then calls the pound to take Tramp away. Jim Dear and Darling return home as the dog catcher departs, and when they release Lady, she leads them to the dead rat. Overhearing everything, Trusty and Jock chase after the dog catcher's wagon. The dogs track down the wagon and scare the horses, causing the wagon to crash. Jim Dear arrives in a taxi with Lady, who reunites with Tramp, but the wagon almost kills Trusty.

That Christmas, Tramp has been adopted into the family, and he and Lady have started their own family, with Lady having given birth to a litter of four puppies (three daughters who look identical to Lady and one son who looks identical to Tramp). Jock comes to see the family and Trusty, who is recovered and merely suffered a broken leg, and are formally welcomed as guests by the humans. Thanks to the puppies, Trusty has a fresh audience for his old stories, but he has forgotten them.

In 1911, just two days before the Fourth of July, Lady and Tramp have three well-mannered daughters, Annette, Danielle, and Collette, and a rambunctious son named Scamp. After Scamp makes a mess in the house, Jim Dear chains Scamp to the doghouse outside as punishment. His parents, Tramp and Lady, are distraught that their son cannot settle down and follow house rules. Tramp tries to reason with Scamp, but loses his temper at his son's insistent desire to be a wild dog. Later, Scamp sees a pack of stray dogs, named the Junkyard Dogs, harassing the dogcatcher outside the yard and becomes intrigued. Scamp breaks free from his chain and runs off to find the pack. He finds a young member of the pack, Angel, and she takes him to the rest of the Junkyard Dogs. Meanwhile, Lady notices that Scamp has run away, and alerts Tramp.

Scamp attempts to join the Junkyard Dogs right away, but their leader, Buster, gives him a test in the alley, in which Scamp must successfully grab a tin can from a savage bullmastiff named Reggie. This results in Reggie chasing Scamp, but Reggie ends up getting caught by the dogcatcher. The Junkyard Dogs then head to a park, where Sparky, another member, tells a story about Tramp escaping from a group of dogcatchers. Buster, who was once good friends with Tramp, angrily explains that Tramp fell in love with Lady and became a house pet. Scamp is in awe that his father used to be a Junkyard Dog. After Scamp and Angel narrowly escape from a train and fall into a river, they start to fall in love.

Meanwhile, Scamp and Angel find Scamp's parents, along with Jim Dear, Darling, Jock, and Trusty, as they search for him. Angel, who was once a house pet herself, is disgusted that Scamp would choose living on the streets over a loving family. The next day, Buster gives Scamp his final test: to steal food from his family’s picnic. Scamp succeeds, but is caught by his father. Scamp confronts him and Buster convinces Scamp to stay a wild dog. To prove this, Buster bites Scamp's collar off and a disheartened Tramp leaves. Scamp celebrates his newfound freedom until Angel scolds him for leaving his family. Annoyed, Scamp inadvertently reveals that Angel wants to be a house dog. She runs off, and Scamp tries to find her, to no avail. Scamp is caught by the dogcatcher, with a shocked Angel looking on. She runs to find Tramp; the two set off to rescue Scamp. At the pound, Scamp is placed in the same kennel as Reggie. Tramp arrives and fights him off. After getting his collar back Scamp gets Buster trapped under a pile of junk. Tramp then returns home with Scamp, and the family decides to adopt Angel. In the ending, Buster's former gang members all found loving homes with new owners, leaving him in the junkyard all alone.

A young mother and her two daughters travel to Marrakech, Morocco, during the 1960s. The mother, Julia, is disenchanted by the dreary conventions of English life, hence the journey. They live in a low-rent Marrakech hotel and make a living out of sewing dresses and with some money sent by the girls' father, an artist in London.

Whilst the mother explores Sufism and quests for personal fulfilment, the daughters rebel. The elder, Bea, attempting to re-create her English life, wants to get an education and insists on going to school. The younger, Lucy, dreams of trivial things, like mashed potatoes, but also yearns for a father. Her hopes settle on a most unlikely candidate.

The girls match their mother with Bilal, a Moroccan and acrobat; the relationship turns sexual and he moves in, becoming almost a surrogate father. However, Julia's friend encourages her to travel to Algiers and study with a Sufi master at a school that advocates the "annihilation of the ego." As money vanishes, Julia's response is to claim that "God will provide," albeit in the person of Bilal.

In the Victorian period, Jude Fawley is a bright young lower-class man who dreams of a university education. Circumstances conspire against him, and he is forced into a job as a stonemason and an unhappy marriage to a country girl, Arabella. He remains true to his dream and, months later, after his wife's sudden departure, he heads for the city. He thinks education is available for any man who is willing to work hard. However, he is rejected by the university based primarily on his lower-class status. During this period, he encounters his cousin, Sue Bridehead, who is beautiful and intelligent, and shares his disdain for convention. Whilst Jude is enraptured by Sue, and vice versa, she marries Jude's former school teacher, Phillotson, after Jude tells her he is married to Arabella.

The marriage of Sue and Phillotson is not a success, as she refuses to give herself sexually or romantically to her husband. She leaves Phillotson to join Jude in what turns out to be a rough life, moving from place to place as Jude picks up occasional work as a stonemason. Jude learns that Arabella bore a son, whom she named Jude ("Juey") soon after she left Jude. The boy comes to live with his father Jude, and Sue. Sue gives birth to two children. Agnostic and independent, she refuses to legalise their arrangement by marriage.

Sue and Jude are forbidden a permanent rental lodging because their living arrangement without marriage is considered scandalous. Sue tells Juey that the family cannot stay long at their present lodging because there are too many of them. The next day Sue and Jude return to their lodging to find that Juey has killed his half-siblings and committed suicide, hanging himself. His suicide note says the reason: "Becos we were to menny."

Each of the couple falls into a deep depression after the deaths of their children. Turning to the religion she previously rejected, Sue comes to believe that God has judged and punished the couple for not having married. She decides to return to Phillotson, although she finds him sexually repugnant, as he is her true husband in the eyes of God.

A year after the death of their children, Jude and Sue happen to meet when separately visiting the tombstones of their children. They both look worse for wear. Jude demands that Sue tell him whether she still loves him, to which she replies, "You've always known". After a passionate kiss, she walks away from Jude to return to Phillotson.

As Sue walks away, Jude shouts to her, "We are man and wife, if ever two people were on this earth!"

During a trip to India, twenty-something Ruth Barron has a spiritual awakening and embraces the teachings of a guru named Baba. Back home in the Sydney suburb of Sans Souci, her parents are appalled to learn their daughter now answers to the name Nazni and has no intention of returning. They concoct a tale about her father Gilbert having had a stroke and being on the verge of death, and her mother Miriam travels to India in hopes of convincing her to come home, with no success until she suffers a serious asthma attack. Ruth agrees to accompany her to Australia on her return flight.

Meanwhile, Miriam has arranged a phony reunion with Gilbert in the Outback, claiming to Ruth that he is recuperating there. Gilbert, as well as Ruth's brothers Robbie—along with his promiscuous wife Yvonne—and Tim—along with his male lover, Yani—all convene at a nearby resort. There, they meet with P.J. Waters, a famous American exit counselor who deprograms members of religious cults. Ruth arrives, and goes to visit her father at a farm; there, she is confronted by her family along with P.J., who have staged an intervention. Ruth is defiant and attempts to fight them, but ultimately relents and agrees to accompany P.J. for a treatment session, under the provision that she may return to India once they have finished.

Ruth departs with P.J. to a remote cabin where he isolates her and begins to challenge her faith in Baba, exposing that Baba's doctrines have been directly copied from Hinduism. During the first night, Yvonne, who is staying nearby, arrives to bring a change of clothes for Ruth, and performs oral sex on P.J. The following morning, Ruth is angered when she finds P.J. has strung her sari up in a tree, and retaliates by forming a "HELP" signal out of stones. Later, P.J. takes Ruth to visit her family, and they all screen a documentary exposing the tactics of cults, including the Manson family, Heaven's Gate, and the Rajneesh.

That night, after returning to the cabin, P.J. awakens to find a distressed, naked Ruth has lit the tree and her sari on fire. Ruth propositions P.J., and the two have sex. In the morning, Yvonne, Tim, and Yani arrive to bring Ruth to a party, which P.J. accompanies her on. When they return, a drunken Ruth insults P.J.'s manhood before ordering him to perform oral sex on her. The next morning, P.J's assistant and lover, Carol, arrives from the United States, chastising him for screening her phone calls, and demanding he return home. She ultimately agrees to the deprogramming session lasting one more day. Ruth begins to taunt P.J. and emasculates him by making him wear a dress, but relents when he responds by writing the phrase "Be Kind" on her forehead; she is suddenly overcome with guilt and begins crying, confessing that she does not allow anyone to become emotionally close to her.

Ruth decides to leave, but P.J., who believes himself to be in love with her, attempts to stop her. The two have a physical altercation in which he punches her, knocking her unconscious. P.J. leaves with an unconscious Ruth in the boot of his car. On the road, he encounters Tim, Robbie, and Yvonne en route to the cabin. P.J. tells them Ruth has fled, and that they should separate and search for her. Yvonne insists she accompany P.J., who reluctantly allows her in the car. As they drive, Yvonne hears Ruth banging on the lid of the boot, and orders him to stop the car. She lets Ruth out of the boot, and she begins running into the bush, with P.J. pursuing her on foot, proclaiming his love for her. P.J. eventually collapses of exhaustion in the heat, and has a vision of Ruth as the Durga before Yvonne, Tim, and Robbie come to his and Ruth's aid. Ruth departs with Yvonne, Tim, and Robbie, along with P.J., whom they place in the bed of the truck. During the drive, Ruth asks them to stop the truck. She gets into the bed with P.J., and comforts him.

A year later, Ruth writes to P.J. from Jaipur, where she is now living with her mother, after her father left her for his secretary. Ruth explains to P.J. that she is still seeking spirituality, and has recently completed reading the ''Bhagavad Gita''. She now has a boyfriend, but confesses she still loves P.J. "from afar." Back in the United States, P.J. responds to Ruth, explaining that he and Carol now have twin sons, though he too confesses a love for her.

Calvin Fuller is a nerdy young boy living in the Los Angeles suburb of Reseda who loves baseball, but is not a good player. The gangly, unsure youth is first seen at a game, standing at bat for his team, the Knights, ready for yet another strike out. Suddenly an earthquake hits; as the others run for safety, the ground opens up under Calvin's shoes and he falls through the chasm. He eventually lands on the head of a 6th-century black knight. Upon hearing of his miraculous appearance, the elderly King Arthur, seeing him as the savior whose appearance Merlin has predicted, dubs the boy Calvin of Reseda and invites him to dine with the court.

Calvin begins his knight training under Arthur's top knight, Sir Kane, to help the king retain his crown. When the earthquake hit, Calvin had just grabbed his knapsack, a fact that enables him to dazzle the people of Camelot with his futuristic "magic", including an introduction to rock and roll via CD player, and a Swiss Army knife. The young "wizard" also shows them how to make inline roller skates. His work wins him adulation and renown, but it also rouses the jealousy of Lord Belasco, who will use any means to take over the throne. Meanwhile, Calvin finds himself spending time and developing a crush on young Princess Katey, while her elder sister, Sarah, is secretly in love with Sir Kane. Belasco moves forward with his plans and kidnaps Katey and tries to frame Calvin for murder and tells Sarah that if she doesn't marry him, Katey will die. As Belasco is about to arrest Calvin, Sarah rescues him, tells him Katey is alive and to find her father and show him the proof. Calvin goes to Arthur and shows the proof of Belasco's scheme. Playing along, Arthur misdirects the knights and helps Calvin escape and they disguise themselves to go rescue Katey. Walking amongst the people, Calvin tells Arthur that Belasco has been stealing from them for years and they think Arthur doesn't care about them, and Arthur vows to be a better king. Calvin and Arthur find the castle Katey is being held captive; during the fight, Calvin renews Arthur's will to fight by giving him Excalibur (gifted to Calvin by Merlin). They release Katey, but Belasco' second-in-command, Richard, kidnaps her again and holds her hostage over the moat. Calvin uses a laser pointer from his CD player to blind Richard, causing him to fall and save Katey. Arthur knights Calvin as a Knight of the Round Table and arrive back in Camelot to stop Belasco from forcing Sarah into marriage. To take Belasco down for good, Arthur holds a jousting tournament for Sarah's hand.

During the tournament, Sir Kane defeats all the opponents and just him and Lord Belasco are in the finals. Belasco uses a magnifying crystal to use the sunlight to beam it into Kane's eyes and nearly knock him out. Sarah runs off in anger and Calvin asks the King to stall Belasco. Belasco is close to declaring his victory if Kane doesn't return, but Kane does return and faces him another joust; Belasco knocks Kane's helmet off, but the now headless Kane still jousts and makes a comeback victory by knocking Belasco off his horse. But it isn't Kane, it is Calvin, who pokes his head out from the large armor. Belasco pulls Calvin off the horse and tries to kill him, but the black knight that Calvin encountered earlier appears and ambushes Belasco, saving Calvin. Forfeiting his victory to the black knight, Calvin, Arthur, and Camelot is surprised to see the knight is Sarah herself; an astounded but happy Arthur rewards his daughter with the right to choose her own hand in marriage, and she proudly chooses Kane. Belasco is banished from Camelot forever. Now that he has helped Arthur keep the crown, Calvin has Merlin uphold his end of the bargain and send him his way home, and he sadly bids the king and Katey farewell. He is returned to the 20th century just before the moment when he struck out, and he steps up to the plate: this time, he is ready and hits a home run. He is greeted by his teammates, including Katey, and is looked on by King Arthur, who is whittling a piece of wood with a pocketknife – the same knife Calvin gave to him. The film ends with Merlin catching Calvin’s home run and then breaking the fourth wall stating “Taught that kid everything he knows.”

The film opens with the song "Trick or Treat for Halloween", the lyrics of which tell the film's moral – one must be generous on Halloween or face trouble.

One Halloween night, Witch Hazel observes Huey, Dewey, and Louie trick-or-treating. When the trio go to their uncle Donald Duck's house, Donald decides to prank the boys (giving them a "trick" instead of a treat). So instead of giving them candy, he intentionally puts firecrackers in their bags, then pulls a string that dumps a bucket of water on their heads. After Donald bids farewell to the boys, the discouraged nephews go and sit on the curb.

But Hazel, who was watching the drama unfold, approaches the boys and tries to encourage them. When she discovers that they believe in witches, she offers to help them get their treats from Donald after all. At first, she tries to convince Donald herself, but he skeptically retorts, yanks on her stretchy nose, and pranks her as well with a bucket of water, not believing she is a real witch. Realizing that the job may be harder than she anticipated, Hazel tells the boys she will use her magic for this situation. In another location, a scene paying homage to Shakespeare's ''Macbeth'' shows Hazel and the nephews concocting a magic potion, adding somewhat more whimsical ingredients than the Three Witches in ''Macbeth'' (such as, "Eye of needle, tongue of shoe, hand of clock that points at two!", etc). After testing the potion, Hazel fills an insecticide sprayer (similar in appearance to a Flit gun) with the potion and returns to Donald's house with the nephews.

Upon arriving back at Donald's house, Hazel sprays the potion at an assortment of objects (a Jack-o'-lantern, a can of paint, three fence posts, and a gate) causing them to become animated or anthropomorphic. Donald, stunned at the magic being displayed before him, immediately gives in and agrees to treat his nephews, but when Hazel refers to him as a pushover, he changes his mind. Donald then locks his pantry and swallows the key. Hazel then uses the potion on Donald's feet to give her control of their maneuverability, and commands them to kick out the key, causing Donald to perform a crazy dance. But when the key is kicked out, Donald throws it under the pantry door. Enraged, Hazel casts a spell "that's double-grim!" on Donald's feet by spraying them even harder and ordering them to "smash that door down" with Donald. This is initially unsuccessful, so Hazel commands him to take a longer start ('bout a MILE OR TWO!), and he literally runs that far before he breaks down the pantry door and is left unconscious on the floor in defeat.

In the end, Huey, Dewey, and Louie collect their treats and Hazel flies off into the night. A final shot shows the enchanted Jack-o'-lantern from earlier suddenly pop onto the screen saying "Boo!" to the viewers before smiling.

In the late 1960s in Joliet, Illinois, Daniel Eugene "Rudy" Ruettiger dreams of playing football at Notre Dame but lacks the grades and money to attend and the talent and physical stature to play major college football. Following high school, he works at a steel mill with his father, a Notre Dame fan, and his older brother. When his supportive best friend Pete is killed in a mill explosion, Rudy decides to follow his dream.

In 1972, Rudy visits Notre Dame but is not academically eligible to enroll. With the help of local priest and former Notre Dame president Father John Cavanaugh, Rudy enrolls at nearby Holy Cross College, hoping to transfer. He approaches Fortune, head groundskeeper at Notre Dame Stadium, and is given a job. Homeless, Rudy sneaks into Fortune's office through a window to sleep on a cot; initially indifferent to Rudy's plight, Fortune later leaves him with blankets and a key to the office. Rudy learns that Fortune, despite working at the stadium for years, has never seen a Notre Dame football game.

Rudy befriends teaching assistant D-Bob, who helps him study in return for Rudy helping him socially with girls. D-Bob tests Rudy for a learning disability; the results indicate that Rudy suffers from dyslexia, which he then overcomes to become a better student. At Christmas, Rudy returns home to find that his family appreciates his college academic achievements, although his brother Frank still mocks him for his attempts to play college football. Rudy persists, and even losing his girlfriend to his older brother Johnny does not deter him.

After two years at Holy Cross and three rejections from Notre Dame, Rudy is finally admitted and attends football tryouts in the hope of making the team as a "walk-on." Assistant coach Yonto warns the walk-ons that 35 scholarship players will not even make the "dress roster" of players who take the field during games, but notices Rudy’s determination and gives him a spot on the daily practice squad. Rudy tells Fortune and persuades him to promise to see his first game.

Playing well, Rudy convinces head coach Ara Parseghian to let him suit up for one home game in his senior year, but Parseghian retires following the 1974 season and is replaced by former NFL coach Dan Devine, who refuses to place Rudy on the game-day roster. Frustrated to not be on the dress list for the next-to-last home game, Rudy quits the team.

Fortune finds a distraught Rudy and reveals he had actually played for Notre Dame years earlier, but quit as he felt his skin color kept him from playing and has regretted it ever since. Reminded that he has nothing to prove to anyone but himself and will forever regret quitting, Rudy returns to the team. Each of his fellow seniors, led by team captain and All-American Roland Steele, lines up to lay his jersey on Devine's desk, requesting Rudy be allowed to dress in his place for the season's final game. Devine lets Rudy suit up against Georgia Tech.

With Rudy's family and D-Bob in attendance, Steele invites Rudy to lead the team onto the field, and Fortune is there to see the game as promised. With Notre Dame leading 17–3 in the fourth quarter, Devine sends all the seniors into the game except Rudy, despite Steele's and the assistant coaches' urging. Fans are aware of Rudy's goal from a story in the student newspaper, and a "Rudy!" chant begins in the stadium. Hearing this, the Notre Dame offense, led by tailback Jamie O'Hara, overrules Devine's call for victory formation and scores a quick touchdown, providing defensive player Rudy a chance to get in the game and be entered onto the Fighting Irish roster. Devine finally lets Rudy play on the Notre Dame kickoff to Georgia Tech. Rudy stays in for the final play, sacks the Georgia Tech quarterback, and is carried off the field on his teammates' shoulders to cheers from the stadium.

An epilogue states that since 1975, no other player for Notre Dame had been carried off the field as of the time of the film's release in 1993. Rudy graduated in 1976 and five of his younger brothers went on to earn college degrees.

An attractive young woman, Myra Breckinridge is a film buff with a special interest in the Golden Age of Hollywood—in particular the 1940s—and the writings of film critic Parker Tyler. She comes to the Academy for Aspiring Young Actors and Actresses, owned by her deceased husband Myron's uncle, Buck Loner. Here, she gets a job teaching, not just her regular classes (Posture and Empathy), but also, as part of the hidden curriculum, female dominance.

The spirit of the times is reflected in Myra's attendance at an orgy arranged by a student. She intends only to observe but suffers a "rude intrusion" by a member of the band The Four Skins, from which she derives a perverse, masochistic enjoyment. At an earlier regular party, after "mixing gin and marijuana", she eventually gets "stoned out of her head" and has a fit, before passing out in a bathroom.

Still in the process of transitioning from male to female and unable to obtain hormones, Myra transforms into Myron, and, as a result of the injuries she has sustained in a car accident, is forced to have her breast implants removed. Now a eunuch, Myron decides to settle down with Mary-Ann.

The game begins as the ''Pillar of Autumn'' exits slip-space and its crew discovers a large ringworld structure of unknown origin. The Covenant pursues the ''Autumn'' and attacks. With the ship heavily damaged, the ''Autumn'''s captain, Jacob Keyes, entrusts the ship's artificial intelligence (AI) known as Cortana to Master Chief in order to prevent the Covenant from discovering the location of Earth. Keyes orders the crew to abandon the ''Autumn'' and pilots the ship to a crash-landing on the ringworld.

On the ring's surface, Master Chief and Cortana rescue other survivors and help organize a counter-offensive. Learning that Keyes has been captured by the Covenant, Master Chief and a small contingent of soldiers rescue him from the Covenant cruiser ''Truth and Reconciliation''. Keyes reveals that the Covenant call the ringworld "Halo" and that they believe it to be a weapon. Intent on stopping the Covenant from using Halo, Keyes searches for a potential weapons cache, while Master Chief and Cortana mount an assault on the ringworld's control room. Cortana enters Halo's computer systems and, after discovering something, sends Master Chief to find and stop Keyes from continuing his search.

Searching for the captain, Master Chief encounters a new enemy, the parasitic Flood. The release of the Flood prompts Halo's caretaker, the AI 343 Guilty Spark, to enlist Master Chief's help in activating Halo's defenses. After Master Chief retrieves the ring's activation index, 343 Guilty Spark transports him back to Halo's control room. Cortana intervenes before Master Chief can activate the ring; she has discovered the purpose of the installation is to destroy all sentient life in the galaxy, starving the Flood of potential hosts. When Cortana refuses to surrender Halo's activation index, 343 Guilty Spark attacks her and Master Chief.

To stop Halo's activation, Master Chief and Cortana decide to destroy the installation. Needing Keyes’ neural implant to destroy the ''Autumn'' and Halo with it, Master Chief returns to ''Truth and Reconciliation'', only to find that Keyes has been assimilated by the Flood. Retrieving the neural implant with the activation codes from the captain's remains, Master Chief returns to the wreck of the ''Autumn'', and manually destabilizes the ship's reactors, narrowly escaping the ensuing detonation in one of the ''Autumn's'' fighters, while the majority of the remaining Covenant, UNSC forces, and infected Flood are destroyed along with the Halo installation. Cortana justifies their sacrifices and believes their work to be finished, but the Master Chief states that they are only getting started. In a post-credits scene, 343 Guilty Spark is seen floating in space, having survived Halo's destruction.

The novel follows narrator "Philip Roth" on a journey to Israel, where he attends the trial of accused war criminal John Demjanjuk and becomes involved in an intelligence mission—the "Operation Shylock" of the title.

While in Israel, the narrator seeks out an impersonator who has appropriated his identity—sharing the same facial features and name as Philip Roth—and used this celebrity to spread "Diasporism," a counter-Zionist ideology advocating the return of Israeli Jews to their European nations of exile. The ensuing struggle between this doppelgänger-like stranger and "Roth," played against the backdrop of the Demjanjuk trial and the First Intifada, constitutes the book's primary storyline.

In London, Maddalena Anna Paradine (Alida Valli) is a very beautiful and enigmatic young Italian woman who is accused of poisoning her older, blind husband, a wealthy retired colonel. It is not clear whether she is a grateful and devoted wife who has been falsely charged or a calculating and ruthless femme fatale.

Mrs. Paradine's solicitor, Sir Simon Flaquer (Charles Coburn), hires Anthony Keane (Gregory Peck), a brilliant and successful barrister, to defend her in court. Although Keane has been happily married for 11 years, he instantly becomes deeply infatuated with this exotic, mysterious, and fascinating client. Keane's kind-hearted wife, Gay (Ann Todd), sees his obsession, and although he offers to relinquish the case, presses him to continue. She knows that a "guilty" verdict, followed by Mrs. Paradine's hanging, will mean that she will lose her husband emotionally forever. The only way that she can regain her husband's love and devotion is if he is able to obtain a "not guilty" verdict for Mrs. Paradine.

Meanwhile, Keane himself starts to focus his legal efforts on Colonel Paradine's mysterious servant, André Latour (Louis Jourdan). Consciously or subconsciously, Keane sees Latour as a suitable scapegoat on whom he can pin the crime of murder, but this strategy backfires. After Keane has pressured Latour in court, triggering an angry outburst, word comes that Latour has killed himself. Mrs. Paradine is coldly furious that Keane has destroyed Latour, who was, in fact, her lover. On the witness stand, she tells Keane that she hates him and that he has murdered the only person she loved. She goes so far as to say that she poisoned her husband in order to be with Latour.

Keane is overwhelmed, physically, intellectually, and emotionally. Attempting to summarize, he improvises a brief and faltering speech, admitting how poorly he has handled the case, but cannot continue speaking, and has to leave the court. He stays overnight at Sir Simon's office, feeling that his career is in ruins. His wife finds him there; she offers reconciliation, and hope for the future.

A young blonde woman screams. She is the seventh victim of a serial killer known as the Avenger, who targets young blonde women on Tuesday evenings.

That night, blonde model Daisy Bunting is at a fashion show when she and the other showgirls hear the news. The blonde girls are horrified, hiding their hair with dark wigs or hats. Daisy returns home to her parents and her policeman sweetheart Joe, who have been reading about the crime in the newspaper.

A handsome but secretive young man bearing a strong resemblance to the description of the murderer arrives at the Bunting house and asks about their room for rent. Mrs. Bunting shows him the room, which is decorated with portraits of beautiful young blonde women. He pays her a month's rent in advance. The lodger turns all the portraits around to face the wall and requests that they be removed. Daisy enters to remove the portraits and is attracted to the lodger. The women return downstairs, where they hear the lodger's heavy footsteps as he paces the floor.

The relationship between Daisy and the reclusive lodger gradually becomes serious, making Joe, who is newly assigned to the Avenger case, unhappy. Mrs. Bunting is awoken late at night by the lodger leaving the house. She attempts to search his room, but a small cabinet is locked tight. In the morning, another blonde girl is found dead, just around the corner.

The police observe that the murders are moving towards the Buntings' neighbourhood. The Buntings believe that the lodger is the Avenger, and they try to prevent Daisy spending time with him. The next Tuesday night, Daisy and the lodger sneak away for a late-night date. Joe tracks them down and confronts them, and Daisy breaks up with him. Joe begins to piece together the events of the previous weeks and convinces himself that the lodger is indeed the Avenger.

With a warrant and two fellow officers, Joe returns to search the lodger's room. They find a leather bag containing a gun, a map plotting the location of the murders, newspaper clippings about the attacks and a photograph of a beautiful blonde woman, whom Joe recognizes as the Avenger's first victim. The lodger is arrested despite Daisy's protests, but he manages to run off into the night. Daisy finds him handcuffed, coatless and shivering. He explains that the woman in the photograph was his sister, a beautiful debutante murdered by the Avenger at a dance, and that he had vowed to his dying mother that he would bring the killer to justice.

Daisy takes the lodger to a pub and gives him brandy to warm him, hiding his handcuffs with a cloak. The suspicious locals pursue them, quickly becoming a mob. The lodger is surrounded and beaten, while Daisy and Joe, who have just heard that the real Avenger has been caught, try in vain to defend him. When all seems lost, a paperboy interrupts with the news that the real Avenger has been arrested. The mob releases the lodger, who falls into Daisy's waiting arms. Some time later, the lodger is shown to have fully recovered from his injuries and he and Daisy are happily living together.

Born in 1864 to a clergyman and his dutiful wife, Virginia grows up as a Southern belle in the town of Dinwiddie, Virginia. Her education is strictly limited to the bare minimum, with anything that might disturb her quiet and comfortable existence vigorously avoided. Thus prepared for life, Virginia falls for the first handsome young man who crosses her path—Oliver Treadwell, the black sheep of a family of capitalist entrepreneurs who, during the time of Reconstruction, brought industry and the railroad to the South. Oliver, who has been abroad and has only recently arrived in Dinwiddie, is a dreamer and an intellectual. An aspiring playwright, his literary ambitions are more important to him than money, and he refuses his uncle's offer to work in his bank. However, when Virginia falls in love with him he realizes that he must be able to support a family, and eventually accepts his uncle's offer to work for the railroad.

The young couple get married and have three children, a boy and two girls. Gradually perfecting her household skills, Virginia is able to get by on very little money. When, after many years, Oliver's first play is put on the stage in New York City, his expectations are high. However, the show is a complete failure as the play is far too intellectual and radical for a Broadway audience who wants to be entertained rather than reformed. Reading about the flop in the local newspaper, Virginia for the first time in her life leaves her children, asking her mother to take care of them for a day or two, and takes the night train to New York to be with, and console, her husband—only to be rejected by him, who is in a state of severe depression. When he has recovered from the shock, Oliver makes yet another concession to society and public taste and starts writing "trash".

Throughout the years, Virginia leads a vicarious life: She is happy when her husband and children are happy; she makes sure their clothes are in perfect condition while neglecting her own outward appearance; and she is eager to provide for her children the education she herself has been denied. When, at one point, she realizes that the women her age whom she has known since childhood still look quite young while she has aged prematurely, she quickly persuades herself to believe that a life of altruistic subservience is more than worthwhile, that living and acting the way she does is her duty and God's will. Her father's sudden if honourable death—he unsuccessfully tries to prevent the lynching of an innocent young African American and is stabbed in the process by an angry and drunken young man—adds to the gloom that starts creeping into her life, especially when she sees that, as a widow, her mother suddenly loses all her will to live. When she dies only a few months after her husband, Virginia has a premonition that her own fate when losing Oliver could be a similar one.

Meanwhile, Oliver's first successful play—a trashy one—premières in New York, with some more to follow in quick succession, and, as the money keeps pouring in, the family move into a bigger house in Dinwiddie. They now employ a number of servants, including an African American butler. With the children gone—their son and one daughter are at college, while the other daughter has married a much older widower with two grown-up children and has also flown the nest—and Oliver frequently in New York to supervise the staging of his plays, Virginia's life becomes increasingly empty. Having "outlived her usefulness", the days seem endless to her, and with all the servants about the house there is absolutely no housework for her to do either. Now in her mid-forties, Virginia for the first time in her life spends Christmas alone at home.

The biggest blow, however, is yet to come: When she accompanies Oliver to New York for a première, she finds out to her dismay that he has been betraying her with a famous actress who stars in one of his plays. For the last time summoning up all her courage, she takes a taxi and pays her an unexpected call but immediately realizes when talking to her that she has no chance of winning her husband back. Without many words, Oliver asks her to let him divorce her, but clinging to the only thing she has left in her life—her marriage—she refuses. The novel ends on a somewhat optimistic note when Virginia, again alone in the empty house in Dinwiddie, receives a letter from her son telling her that he is going to leave Oxford before he has completed his two-year course at the university in order to come back and stay with his mother.

Mink was born to a man who used to be a skilled swordsman and a female imperial red dragon. At age fifteen, she falls in love with a singer named Dick Saucer; but because he is also a dragonslayer, she has no choice but to get a potion that can change her into a pure human. She can only get the potion, however, if she can slay the most powerful Demon Lord in the land, Azetodeth, and go to his palace known as the Demon King's island. Not only does she have to reconstruct the Gourd of the Saints, an item that can seal Azetodeth, she also has to be aware of Princess Vina, her rival for Saucer's affections. Mink is aided by her friends Lufa, Pia, and a fairy mouse named Mappy on her quest.

After a number of adventures, mainly a conflict with a vampire and her four handmaidens and discovering Dick Saucer's past, Mink finally comes face to face with Azetodeth. She manages to seal the Demon Lord away with the Gourd of Saints, and although she gains the potion, she chooses to remain half-human, half-imperial red dragon forever. Instead of using the potion herself, she gives the potion to her friend Lufa, who had been turned into a toad by the Demon Lord's magic.

The narrator is Jean Ange, alias John Angelos, born in Avignon. Prior to the events of the novel, he had been a friend of Sultan Murad II and then also of his son, Mehmed II; but once Mehmed had begun his march to Constantinople, Ange fled there.

The novel begins as Jean Ange meets Anna Notaras in Constantinople and they fall instantly in love. At first Ange is unaware of her identity, but later he realises she is the daughter of ''megas doux'' Lucas Notaras.

Ange is committed to fight to the death on the side of the Christians against the Islamic Ottoman forces. Nevertheless, his prior relationship with Mehmed earns him constant distrust from both Latin and Greek Christians.

Eventually Jean Ange is revealed as a rightful heir of Byzantine emperors, although he has no interest in power. Constantinople ultimately falls under Mehmed's attack, Anna dies while in the disguise of a soldier, and Jean is tortured to death by Mehmed.

Setting and themes

There are several important locations featured in the ''Kanon'' story, though the location names are seldom mentioned explicitly in Key's works. The events of the story occur during winter, and since it often snows periodically over the course of the entire story, the city is always presented covered in a layer of snow. The shopping district is featured throughout the story when the characters go into town, and especially whenever Ayu appears in the early story. The high school where Yuichi and the other main characters attend, including the school grounds, is shown predominantly in Shiori's and Mai's stories, and is otherwise a general setting where Yuichi interacts with other characters.

There are recurring themes that appear throughout the story. A music theme is present, as the episode titles from the 2006–2007 anime have parts in their titles related to music, such as overture and introit. Miracles play a large part in the story; ''Kanon'' s plot line and characters are influenced by various instances where miracles occur. The act of promising and keeping promises is found throughout the story. Yuichi eventually makes important promises to the five main girls while at the same time fulfilling past promises he had made with four of them when he used to visit the city as a kid.

One of the motifs in the story is amnesia, or memory loss; three of the main characters—Yuichi, Ayu and Makoto—suffer from amnesia in varying degrees; this is used as a plot device to advance the story. Another motif deals with the favorite foods of the five main heroines. ''Newtype USA'' stated in an article on ''Kanon'' that "it's when the characters are eating something really tasty that they seem most beautiful and alive", despite the somber setting and overall tone of the series. These five foods of choice are: taiyaki (Ayu), strawberries (Nayuki), nikuman (Makoto), ice cream (Shiori), and gyudon (Mai).

Principal characters

The player assumes the role of Yuichi Aizawa, the protagonist of ''Kanon''. He is a cynical 17-year-old high school student, and is known to play jokes on the girls his age he knows and interacts with throughout the story. Despite this, Yuichi is very loyal and will go to great lengths to please others, even at the expense of his own time and money. He generally has a selfless personality and does not ask much from others in return for what he does for them. Ayu Tsukimiya, the main heroine of ''Kanon'', is a short, strange, and mysterious girl immediately recognizable by her winged backpack, red hair band, and tendency to refer to herself with the masculine first-person pronoun . She has a fondness for eating taiyaki, and is notorious for her catchphrase, , which she mutters as an expression of various negative emotions such as frustration, pain, and fear. Yuichi's first cousin Nayuki Minase, another of ''Kanon'''s heroines, has been in love with him since childhood, and must learn how to deal with her feelings, especially with the threat that he may fall in love with one of the other girls. Nayuki talks noticeably slower than those around her, and has constant trouble waking up in the morning except on a few occasions when she is up before Yuichi, much to his surprise.

Yuichi is accosted a few days after arriving in the city by ''Kanon'''s third heroine Makoto Sawatari, a young girl who has lost her memories, but despite this she is sure that she holds a grudge against Yuichi from when he last visited the city. Makoto has a mischievous side and constantly plays pranks on Yuichi. She has an affinity towards the spring and once wished that it would stay spring forever. Yuichi coincidentally runs into Shiori Misaka, another heroine and first-year high school student suffering from an unexplained illness since birth. Her affliction has caused her to become very physically weak, and she is almost always absent from school because of it. She tries to be strong in the face of her condition, and gets along well with others, even though she does not know very many people her age due to her condition. The fifth and final heroine in ''Kanon'' is Mai Kawasumi, a third-year student of the same high school that Yuichi attends. She has a cold attitude towards almost everyone, but despite this, she is actually a very kind and caring person; she "punishes" someone who makes a playful joke about her by giving them a light karate chop to the head.

Story

''Kanon'' s story revolves around a group of five girls whose lives are connected to the same boy. Yuichi Aizawa is a second-year high school student who had visited the city where the story takes place seven years prior to ''Kanon'''s beginning. The story opens on Wednesday January 6, 1999 when Yuichi arrives in the city and is very detached from it and its inhabitants. Prior to his return, it is decided that he is to stay with his first cousin, Nayuki Minase, and her mother, Akiko. After his long absence, Yuichi has forgotten almost everything except minor details of what happened seven years before and is in need of being reminded of what he left behind. Nayuki initially tries repeatedly to jog his memory, but is unsuccessful. Throughout the story, as he learns about the supernatural undertones of the city, Yuichi is reminded of the events of seven years ago.

On the day after Yuichi's return, he is out with Nayuki who is showing him around the city. Nayuki remembers that she has to buy things for dinner, but Yuichi is reluctant to go into the store with her. Moments after Nayuki leaves him waiting on the sidewalk, a strange girl named Ayu Tsukimiya collides with him with little warning. Upon recovering, she drags him away to a nearby café and confesses to inadvertently stealing a bag filled with taiyaki after being accidentally scared away by the salesman before she had a chance to pay. They decide to meet up again another day and Ayu scampers off. A few days after he has been in the city, Yuichi is accosted by a girl named Makoto Sawatari who has lost her memories, though still remembers that she has a grudge against him from when he last visited the city. After she collapses in the street, he takes her home and learns about her situation. Akiko gives her permission to live with them for the time being, which is against Yuichi's plan to hand her over to the police.

Another girl who is connected to Yuichi's past is Mai Kawasumi who attends his high school as a third-year. She takes it upon herself to fight and defeat demons at night while the school is deserted. Due to this, she is constantly blamed for accidents because she never denies them, being too sincere to say anything and knowing that no one will believe that there are demons in the school. Yuichi coincidentally meets a fifth girl named Shiori Misaka who he gets to know along with the other four heroines in the story. She has suffered from an unexplained affliction since birth which makes her weak to the point of missing school because of it. Yuichi starts to talk with her more after noticing her in the school courtyard one day. It turns out that Shiori stands outside on the school grounds nearly every day because she wants to meet someone dear to her.

After the wedding-day murder of his wife, Tracy (see ''On Her Majesty's Secret Service)'', Bond begins to let his life slide, drinking and gambling heavily, making mistakes and turning up late for work. His superior in the Secret Service, M, had been planning to dismiss Bond, but decides to give him a last-chance opportunity to redeem himself by assigning him to the diplomatic branch of the organisation. Bond is subsequently re-numbered 7777 and handed an "impossible" mission: convincing the head of Japan's secret intelligence service, Tiger Tanaka, to share a decoding machine codenamed ''Magic 44'' and so allow Britain to obtain information from encrypted radio transmissions made by the Soviet Union. In exchange, the Secret Service will allow the Japanese access to one of their own information sources.

Bond is introduced to Tanaka—and to the Japanese lifestyle—by an Australian intelligence officer, Dikko Henderson. When Bond raises the purpose of his mission with Tanaka, it transpires that the Japanese have already penetrated the British information source and Bond has nothing left to bargain with. Instead, Tanaka asks Bond to kill Dr. Guntram Shatterhand, who operates a politically embarrassing "Garden of Death" of poisonous plants in a rebuilt ancient castle on the island of Kyushu; people flock there to commit suicide. After examining photos of Shatterhand and his wife, Bond discovers that the couple are actually Tracy's murderers, Ernst Stavro Blofeld and Irma Bunt. Bond gladly takes the mission, keeping his knowledge of Blofeld's identity a secret so that he can exact revenge for his wife's death. Made up and trained by Tanaka, and aided by former Japanese film star Kissy Suzuki, Bond attempts to live and think as a mute Japanese coal miner in order to penetrate Shatterhand's castle. Tanaka renames Bond "Taro Todoroki" for the mission.

After infiltrating the Garden of Death and the castle where Blofeld spends his time dressed in the costume of a Samurai warrior, Bond is captured and Bunt identifies him as a British secret agent and not a Japanese coal miner. After surviving a near execution, Bond exacts revenge on Blofeld in a duel, Blofeld armed with a sword and Bond with a wooden staff. Bond eventually kills Blofeld by strangling him with his bare hands in a fit of violent rage, then blows up the castle. Upon escaping, he suffers a head injury, leaving him an amnesiac living as a Japanese fisherman with Kissy, while the rest of the world believes him dead; his obituary appears in the newspapers.

While Bond's health improves, Kissy conceals his true identity to keep him forever to herself. Kissy eventually sleeps with Bond and becomes pregnant, and hopes that Bond will propose marriage after she finds the right time to tell him about her pregnancy. Bond reads scraps of newspaper and fixates on a reference to Vladivostok, making him wonder if the far-off city is the key to his missing memory; he tells Kissy he must travel to Russia to find out.

An extremely contagious and lethal strain of influenza is developed as a biological weapon in a secret U.S. Department of Defense laboratory in northern California. It is estimated to be 99.4% fatal. The ''Complete and Uncut Edition'' includes a prologue detailing the development of the virus and the security breach that causes its accidental release. Security guard Charles Campion manages to escape before the facility is locked down and takes his family out of the state.

After a couple of days, his car crashes at a gas station in Arnette, Texas. Bystanders and ambulance workers become infected by the dying Campion and his dead wife and child. The United States Army attempts to isolate Arnette, going so far as to execute civilians attempting to flee, but in vain; the virus, christened the "superflu" or "Captain Trips", spreads across the country. The government then has its agents (unknowingly) release the virus in the USSR, its satellite states and China to guarantee their destruction as well.

When martial law fails to contain the virus, a global pandemic of apocalyptic proportions kills nearly the entire world population within a month. The military collapses due to mass desertions and mutinies, and society soon follows with the near-extinction of humanity. Some of the few who are immune also die, unable either to accept the loss of their loved ones or to survive in a world where they must fend for themselves.

Stuart "Stu" Redman, one of the Arnette residents who encountered Campion, proves immune to the virus. The CDC forcibly holds him in a research center in Stovington, Vermont, in the hope that a treatment can be found. Stu escapes after the staff become infected, killing one man in self-defense. He meets sociology professor Glen Bateman and his dog Kojak, pregnant college student Frances "Frannie" Goldsmith, and overweight teenage nerd Harold Lauder. Stuart and Frannie are drawn to each other and eventually fall in love, then enter a marital relationship. This enrages Harold, who grew up with Frannie and has an unhealthy obsession with her; he then schemes to harm the couple out of romantic jealousy.

Most of the survivors experience essentially the same two dreams. In one, a friendly 108-year-old black woman living in Hemingford Home, Nebraska, "Mother Abagail" Freemantle, invites them to her farm. They also dream of a terrifying "dark man" who calls himself Randall Flagg, among other things. People seek out one or the other. Stu and his group eventually meet Mother Abagail, who is convinced God has chosen her to do His will.

The group travels to Boulder, Colorado, along with other survivors. These include Larry Underwood, a disillusioned pop singer; Nick Andros, a deaf-mute drifter; Tom Cullen, a kind-hearted, mentally disabled man; Nadine Cross, a teacher in her 30s who is still a virgin; and Ralph Brentner, a good-natured farmer. As survivors continue to trickle in, the group starts organizing the hundreds of residents. They establish their community as the "Boulder Free Zone", a democratic city-state modeled after the United States' former ideals.

Meanwhile, Randall Flagg, who possesses supernatural abilities, creates his own totalitarian society in Las Vegas with psychopaths as his lieutenants. His people worship (and fear) him as a messiah and submit to his iron-fisted dictatorship. He has drug addicts and others who incur his displeasure crucified. Flagg rescues Lloyd Henreid, a mass murderer, from his prison cell and makes him his right-hand man.

A pyromaniac nicknamed "The Trashcan Man" blows up oil tanks in Gary, Indiana, and travels to Las Vegas with a homicidal madman named "The Kid". After Flagg sends a pack of wolves to kill The Kid because he intended to kill Flagg and take over, The Trashcan Man makes his way to Las Vegas, from which he is sent to find stockpiles of weapons for Flagg, as Flagg prepares for war with the Free Zone. However, Flagg's people soon grow weary of his dictatorship, and many secretly try to leave.

Mother Abagail, believing that she has sinned by being proud, goes into the wilderness on a spiritual journey without consulting anyone. In her absence, the Free Zone's leadership committee decides to secretly send three people to spy on Flagg, but Flagg already knows who two of them are. One, Judge Farris, dies in a shootout with Flagg's men, and the other, Dayna Jurgens, is captured, but manages to kill herself to avoid revealing who the third spy (Tom Cullen) is.

Harold and Nadine secretly give their allegiance to Flagg, who in fact wants Nadine to be his wife and the mother of his child. Harold plants a bomb in the house where the committee is to meet. The explosion kills seven or eight people, including Nick Andros and Susan Stern, but the other committee members are saved by the commotion caused by Mother Abagail's unexpected return and Frannie's too-late warning. Before dying, the extremely emaciated Mother Abagail reports God's will: Stu, Glen, Larry, and Ralph (all of the surviving committee members except for the pregnant Frannie) must go to Las Vegas on foot to confront Flagg. She also states that only three of them will get there.

Harold and Nadine also set out for Las Vegas, but Harold suffers a broken leg in a motorcycle accident (caused by Flagg to eliminate Harold) on the way, and Nadine leaves him to die. After enduring several days and nights of his broken leg slowly becoming infected and gangrenous, Harold regrets his malicious behavior, accepts that he will soon die and commits suicide by shooting himself in the head. Nadine, going on alone, finds Flagg in the desert near Las Vegas and he impregnates her; the horrifying experience (his face changes into that of a demon) causes her to lose her mind. Flagg brings her back to Las Vegas as his bride, but she manages to goad him into killing her and their unborn child.

Stu breaks his leg en route to Las Vegas and persuades the others to go on without him. The remaining three are quickly taken prisoner. Glen refuses to grovel before Flagg, and when he taunts Flagg, Lloyd kills him under Flagg's orders. Flagg gathers his people to witness Larry and Ralph's executions. Moments before they are about to be torn apart via dismemberment, the Trashcan Man drags in a nuclear warhead (an atonement attempt for blowing up Flagg's entire experienced pilot crew), and the "Hand of God" detonates the bomb, destroying Las Vegas, as well as Larry and Ralph.

The inhabitants of Boulder anxiously await the birth of Frannie's baby. They fear that the child will succumb to the superflu. Soon after her son is born, Stu returns, having been rescued by Tom. The baby contracts the superflu, but manages to recover. Once Frannie is again pregnant, she and Stu decide to leave Boulder and move back to Frannie's hometown of Ogunquit, Maine, therefore founding an eastern settlement, and raise their children in peace.

The ''Complete and Uncut Edition'' includes an epilogue in which Flagg wakes up with memory loss on a beach. From the jungle emerge a dozen dark-skinned men with spears who eventually bow down and worship him.

At the White House, brainwashed teleporting mutant Nightcrawler attacks the President of the United States. He is shot and retreats. Meanwhile, Logan explores an abandoned military installation at Alkali Lake in Alberta for clues to his past, but finds nothing. Jean Grey has been having premonitions and struggles to concentrate as her powers become increasingly difficult to control. Later, Logan returns to Professor Xavier's school for mutants, and Xavier tracks Nightcrawler using Cerebro. Xavier and Cyclops go to question the imprisoned Magneto about the attack, while X-Men Storm and Jean Grey retrieve Nightcrawler. Military scientist Colonel William Stryker approaches the president and receives approval to investigate Xavier's mansion for their ties to mutants in the wake of the recent attack. Stryker's forces invade the school and abduct some of the students. Colossus leads the remaining students to safety while Logan, Rogue, Iceman, and Pyro escape, and Stryker's assistant Yuriko Oyama captures Cyclops and Xavier. During the attack, Logan confronts Stryker, who addresses him as Wolverine and seems to know about his past.

The shape-shifting Mystique gains information about Magneto's prison and helps him escape while also discovering schematics for a second Cerebro. Logan, Rogue, Iceman, and Pyro visit Iceman's parents and brother in Boston and meet up with Storm, Jean, and Nightcrawler. The X-Jet is attacked by fighter jets while flying back to the mansion and is shot down, but Magneto saves them from crashing. Magneto explains to the group that Stryker has built the second Cerebro to use it and Xavier to telepathically kill every mutant on the planet. Stryker's son, Jason, is a mutant with mind-controlling powers, whom Stryker will use to force Xavier to do this. Stryker had also previously used Jason's powers to orchestrate Nightcrawler's attack as a pretense to gain approval to invade Xavier's mansion. Magneto also tells Wolverine that Stryker was the man who grafted his adamantium skeleton onto his bones and is responsible for his amnesia. Jean reads Nightcrawler's mind and determines that Stryker's base is underground in a dam at Alkali Lake.

Disguised as Logan, Mystique infiltrates Stryker's base. She lets the rest of the mutants in and Magneto and Mystique go to disable Cerebro before the brainwashed Xavier can activate it. Storm and Nightcrawler rescue the captured students, and Jean fights a mind-controlled Cyclops; their battle frees Cyclops but damages the dam, which begins to rupture. Logan finds Stryker in an adamantium smelting lab and remembers it as where he received his adamantium skeleton. Logan fights and kills Yuriko, then chases Stryker to a helicopter pad and chains him to the helicopter's wheel. Magneto stops Cerebro and, using Mystique impersonating Stryker to command Jason, has Xavier redirect its powers on humans. The two subsequently use Stryker's helicopter to escape, accompanied by Pyro, who has been swayed to Magneto's views. Nightcrawler teleports Storm inside Cerebro, where she creates a snowstorm to break Jason's concentration and free Xavier from his control.

The X-Men flee the dam as water engulfs it, killing Stryker, but the X-Jet loses all power and struggles to take flight as the flood water rushes towards them. Jean sneaks off the jet and telepathically wishes the team goodbye. She holds back the water and raises the jet above it as flames erupt from her body, until she lets go and allows the flood to crash down upon her, presumably killing her. The X-Men give Stryker's files to the president, and Xavier warns him that humans and mutants must work together to build peace. Back at the school, Xavier, Cyclops, and Logan remember Jean, and Xavier begins to hold a class. Meanwhile, a Phoenix-like shape rises from the flooded Alkali Lake.

Gia Carangi is a Philadelphia native who moves to New York City to become a fashion model, and immediately catches the attention of powerful agent Wilhelmina Cooper. Gia's attitude and beauty help her rise quickly to the forefront of the modeling industry, but her persistent loneliness, especially after the death of Wilhelmina, drives her to use mood-altering drugs such as cocaine and heroin.

She becomes entangled in a passionate affair with Linda, a make-up artist. Their love affair first starts when both pose nude for a photo shoot and make love afterward. Gia tries to get clean and begins taking methadone. However, Gia eventually starts using again, and Linda gives her an ultimatum. Gia chooses the drugs.

Failed attempts at reconciliation with Linda and with her mother, Kathleen, drive Gia back to heroin. Although she is eventually able to break her drug habit after much effort, she has already contracted HIV from intravenous drug use, which has progressed to AIDS. She spends the remainder of her life in the hospital.

It is 1961, two years after the events of the prior film, and the first day of school has arrived ("Alma Mater" from the original stage musical). Principal McGee and her secretary Blanche react as the students, including the ruffian T-Birds and Pink Ladies, arrive at high school ("Back to School Again"). The Pink Ladies are now led by Stephanie Zinone, who feels she has "outgrown" her relationship with her ex-boyfriend Johnny Nogerelli, the arrogant, chauvinistic, and rather immature leader of the motorcycle riding T-Birds.

A new arrival comes in the form of clean-cut British student Michael Carrington (a cousin of Sandy Olsson from the previous film). He is introduced to the school atmosphere by Frenchy, who agreed to help show Michael around. Frenchy has returned to Rydell to obtain her diploma so she can start her own cosmetics company. Michael eventually meets Stephanie and quickly becomes smitten with her.

At the local bowling alley, a game ("Score Tonight") turns sour from the animosity between Johnny and Stephanie. Stephanie retaliates by kissing the next man who walks in the door, who happens to be Michael. Bemused by this unexpected kiss, Michael falls in love with Stephanie. He asks her out, but learns she has a very specific vision of her ideal man ("Cool Rider"). After realizing how he can win her affection, Michael gets to work on acquiring a motorcycle. Michael begins to covertly accept payments from the T-Birds to write their term papers and uses the cash to buy a motorcycle. Substitute teacher Mr. Stuart leads a rousing biology lesson ("Reproduction").

A rival gang called the Cycle Lords (including members of the defunct Scorpions) led by Leo Balmudo, surprise the T-Birds at the bowling alley. Before the fight starts, a lone mysterious biker appears (actually Michael in disguise), defeats the enemy gang, and disappears into the night ("Who's That Guy?"). Stephanie is fascinated with the stranger. Meanwhile, T-Bird Louis attempts to trick his sweetheart, Pink Lady Sharon, into losing her virginity to him by taking her to a fallout shelter and faking a nuclear attack ("Let's Do It for Our Country").

The next evening while working at a gas station/garage, Stephanie is surprised again by the Cool Rider, and they enjoy a romantic twilight motorcycle ride, which includes a kiss. Just as Michael is about to reveal his identity, they are interrupted by the arrival of the T-Birds and Pink Ladies. Before Michael departs, he tells Stephanie that he will see her at the school talent show. Johnny, enraged by Stephanie's new romance, threatens to fight the Cool Rider if he sees him with her again. The Pink Ladies walk away haughtily, but this has little effect on the T-Birds' self-confidence ("Prowlin'").

At school, Stephanie's poor grades in English lead her to accept Michael's offer of help. Johnny, upon seeing them together in a discussion, demands that Stephanie quit the Pink Ladies to preserve his honor. Although still enchanted by the mysterious Cool Rider, interactions with Michael reveal that she has become romantically interested in him as well. Michael ponders over the continuing charade he puts on for Stephanie ("Charades").

At the talent show, Stephanie and the Cool Rider meet up but are abruptly ambushed by the T-Birds who pursue Michael on their respective motorcycles, with Stephanie, Sharon, Paulette, and Rhonda following in a car. They chase him to a construction site which conceals a deadly drop, and the biker's absence suggests that he has perished below, leaving Stephanie heartbroken and inconsolable. Johnny and his T-Birds remove the competing Preptones – preppie boys – by tying them to a shower pole in the boys' locker room and drenching them. During the Pink Ladies' performance in the talent show ("Girl for All Seasons"), Stephanie enters a dreamlike fantasy world where she is reunited with her mystery biker ("(Love Will) Turn Back the Hands of Time"). She is named winner of the contest and crowned the queen of the upcoming graduation luau, with Johnny hailed as king for his performance of "Prowlin'" with his fellow T-Birds.

The school year ends with the luau ("Rock-a-Hula Luau (Summer Is Coming)"), during which the Cycle Lords appear and begin to disrupt the celebration. The Cool Rider reappears, defeats the Cycle Lords again, and reveals himself to be Michael. Initially shocked, Johnny gives him a T-Birds jacket, officially welcoming him into the gang, and Stephanie is delighted that she can now be with him. Michael and Stephanie share a passionate kiss, and he whispers that he loves her. All the couples pair off happily as the graduating class sings ("We'll Be Together"). The credits start rolling in yearbook-style, as in the original film ("Back to School Again").

Almost a year after James Bond's final confrontation with Ernst Stavro Blofeld, while on a mission in Japan, a man claiming to be Bond appears in London and demands to meet the head of the Secret Service, M. Bond's identity is confirmed, but during his debriefing interview with M, Bond tries to kill him with a cyanide pistol; the attempt fails. The Service learns that after destroying Blofeld's castle in Japan, Bond suffered a head injury and developed amnesia. Having lived as a Japanese fisherman for several months, Bond travelled into the Soviet Union to learn his true identity. While there, he was brainwashed and assigned to kill M upon returning to England.

Now de-programmed, Bond is given a chance to again prove his worth as a member of the 00 section following the assassination attempt. M sends Bond to Jamaica and gives him the seemingly impossible mission of killing Francisco "Pistols" Scaramanga, a Cuban assassin who is believed to have killed several British secret agents. Scaramanga is known as "The Man with the Golden Gun" because his weapon of choice is a gold-plated Colt .45 revolver, which fires silver-jacketed solid-gold bullets.

Bond locates Scaramanga in a Jamaican bordello and manages to become his temporary personal assistant under the name "Mark Hazard". He learns that Scaramanga is involved in a hotel development on the island with a group of investors that consists of a syndicate of American gangsters and the KGB. Scaramanga and the other investors are also engaged in a scheme to destabilise Western interests in the Caribbean's sugar industry and increase the value of the Cuban sugar crop, running drugs into America, smuggling prostitutes from Mexico into America and operating casinos in Jamaica that will cause friction between tourists and the local people.

Bond discovers that he has an ally who is also working undercover at the half-built resort, Felix Leiter, who has been recalled to duty by the CIA and is working ostensibly as an electrical engineer while setting up bugs in Scaramanga's meeting room. However, they learn that Scaramanga plans to eliminate Bond when the weekend is over. Bond's true identity is confirmed by a KGB agent and Scaramanga makes new plans to entertain the gangsters and the KGB agent by killing Bond while they are riding a sight-seeing train to a marina. However, Bond manages to turn the tables on Scaramanga and, with the help of Leiter, kill most of the conspirators. Wounded, Scaramanga escapes into the swamps, where Bond pursues him. Scaramanga lulls Bond off-guard and shoots him with a golden derringer hidden in his palm. Bond is hit but returns fire and shoots Scaramanga several times, killing him at last.

In 1991, the United States and China are close to a major trade agreement, with the President due to visit China to seal the deal. The CIA learns that its asset Tom Bishop has been arrested at a People's Liberation Army prison in Suzhou and will be executed in 24 hours, unless the US government claims him and bargains for his release. Bishop's actions, unsanctioned by the CIA, risk jeopardizing the agreement.

A group of CIA executives summon Nathan Muir, a veteran case officer and Bishop's mentor, who plans to retire from the agency at the end of the day. While purportedly interviewing Muir to learn his history with Bishop, the executives seek a pretext for not intervening on Bishop's imprisonment. Unknown to them, Muir was tipped off about Bishop's capture by a fellow CIA veteran Harry Duncan in Hong Kong.

Muir leaks the story to CNN through an MI6 contact in Hong Kong, believing that public pressure would force American intervention. They are stalled briefly before a phone call to the FCC from CIA Deputy Director Charles Harker results in CNN retracting the story as a hoax.

Muir met Bishop in 1975, when Bishop was a Marine Scout Sniper during the Vietnam War. Muir gives Bishop a mission to eliminate a high-ranking North Vietnamese military officer. Bishop and his spotter Tran are able to assassinate the target despite being compromised, though Bishop takes out a pursuing enemy attack chopper. Bishop escorts the now wounded Tran to safety, impressing Muir. In 1976, Muir recruited Bishop as a CIA asset in Berlin, where Bishop was tasked with procuring assets in East Germany. Then he discusses Bishop's spy work in Beirut in 1985, during the War of the Camps, which was their last mission together.

In a series of flashbacks, Bishop is troubled by Muir's conviction that civilian "assets" who endangered a mission should be sacrificed to preserve the "greater good." After Bishop attempts to countermand Muir during a mission to save the life of an asset, Muir emphasizes that he will not tolerate dissent, and would not rescue Bishop if he was captured going "off the reservation".

During a mission in Lebanon, Bishop, posing as a photojournalist, meets relief worker Elizabeth Hadley. While using her to connect with an asset for the mission, they became romantically involved. Muir distrusts Hadley, and reveals to Bishop that she was exiled from the U.K. Hadley later confesses to Bishop that she was involved in the bombing of a Chinese building in Britain, which was supposed to be empty but contained Chinese nationals. Bishop reveals to Hadley his true identity.

Muir elects again to sacrifice a civilian asset for the sake of their mission, and Bishop cuts professional ties with Muir. Muir, fearing that Hadley could threaten the Agency and potentially Bishop, makes a deal with the Chinese, exchanging Hadley in return for an arrested US diplomat. Chinese agents kidnap Hadley, and a Dear John letter is forged and left for Bishop.

In the present, Muir realizes that Bishop went to China for Hadley. In a series of misdirections, he forges a directive signed by the CIA director to begin "Operation Dinner Out", a rescue mission spearheaded by a SEAL team that Bishop had developed as a "Plan B" for his own attempt at rescuing Hadley. Using $282,000 of his life savings and a misappropriated file on Chinese coastline satellite imagery, Muir enlists Duncan to assist him in bribing a Chinese energy official to cut power to the prison for 30 minutes, during which time the SEAL rescue team will retrieve Bishop and Hadley.

Harker is suspicious that Muir is working against the CIA, but when he confronts Muir before the gathered executives, Muir "confesses" to unprofessionally using company resources to gather information about his intended retirement home, which he has distorted the evidence to support.

Bishop is rescued along with Hadley, and surmises that Muir was responsible for saving him when he hears the pilot refer to Operation Dinner Out, which was also the code name for an operation Bishop used to get a birthday gift for Muir while they were in Lebanon. When the CIA officials are belatedly informed of the rescue, Muir has already left the building and is seen driving safely off into the countryside.

The first episode finds the four friends ending a night at Babylon, a popular gay club. Brian picks up and has sex with Justin, who falls in love with him and eventually becomes more than a one-night stand. Brian also becomes a father that night, bearing a son with Lindsay through artificial insemination.

Michael's seemingly unrequited love for Brian fuels the story, which he occasionally narrates in voice-over. Justin's coming out and the budding relationship with Brian has unexpected effects on Brian and Michael's lives, much to Michael's dismay, as Justin is only 17 years old. Justin confides in his straight high-school friend Daphne while struggling to deal with homophobic classmates and his dismayed, divorcing parents, Craig and Jennifer. Later in the second season, Justin and Michael co-create the sexually explicit underground comic ''Rage'', featuring a "Gay Crusader" superhero based on Brian.

Brian's son Gus, being raised by Lindsay and Melanie, becomes the focus of several episodes, as issues of parental rights come to the fore. Ted is Melanie's accountant who once harbored a long-standing crush on Michael. He and Emmett begin as best friends but briefly become lovers later in the series. Their relationship ends as Ted, unemployed and with a criminal record earned from running a legitimate porn website that was targeted by a chief of police running for mayor, becomes addicted to crystal meth.

In the fourth season, Brian, who has lost his job by assisting Justin in opposing an anti-gay political client, starts his own agency. He also discovers he has testicular cancer and hides his treatment from his friends. Michael marries Ben Bruckner, an HIV-positive college professor, and the couple adopts a teenage son, James "Hunter" Montgomery, who is also HIV-positive as a result of his experiences as a young hustler.

Ted's affair with a handsome crystal meth addict, Blake Wyzecki, sets the pattern for Ted's later tragic but ultimately redeeming experiences with drug addiction.

Melanie and Lindsay's relationship, while on the surface seeming to be stable, is actually quite tumultuous. Each cheats on the other at various points in the series; both partake in a threesome shortly after they marry but are separated for much of the fourth and fifth seasons. Melanie is impregnated by Michael (through artificial insemination, as Lindsay was) in the third season, and thus best friends Brian and Michael become co-fathers to Lindsay and Melanie's children.

Melanie gives birth to a girl, Jenny Rebecca, over whom Melanie, Lindsay, and Michael have a brief legal custody battle following the women's transitory breakup. Brian's new advertising agency, ''Kinnetik'', becomes highly successful, through a combination of Brian's customer loyalty and his edgier advertising. As a result, Brian is able to purchase ''Club Babylon'' from its bankrupt owner.

In the fifth and final season the boys have become men, and the series, perhaps more comfortable in its role in gay entertainment, tackles political issues head-on and with much more fervor.

A political campaign called "Proposition 14" is depicted during much of the final season as a looming threat to the main characters. This proposition, like so many real-life recent legislative moves that have affected many U.S. states, threatens to outlaw same-sex marriage, adoption, and other family civil rights. The many ways in which such a proposition would affect the characters are depicted in nearly every episode.

Debbie, Justin, Jennifer, Daphne, Emmett, Ted, Michael, Ben, Lindsay, Melanie, and the children stand up and fight against this proposition via active canvassing, political contributions, and other democratic processes, but they are met with staunch opposition, discrimination, outright hatred, and political setbacks.

The show climaxes near the end of the series when a benefit to support opposition to Proposition 14 hosted at Brian's club ''Babylon'' (after repeated relocations of the benefit owing to discrimination) is attacked by a bomb that initially kills four people (and eventually another three) and injures 67.

This horrible event sets the bittersweet tone for the final three episodes, in which Brian, frightened by this third possible loss of Justin, finally declares his love for him. The two even plan to marry, but Justin's artistic abilities get noticed by a New York art critic and the two decide, for the time being at least, in favor of a more realistic approach to a stormy relationship that nevertheless works for their characters. Melanie and Lindsay, realizing they have more in common than not, resume their relationship but relocate to Canada to "raise [their children] in an environment where they will not be called names, singled out for discrimination, or ever have to fear for their life."

Emmett becomes a Queer-Eye type TV presenter but is later fired when professional football player Drew Boyd kisses him on the news to signify his coming out. Ted confronts his midlife crisis head-on and finally reunites with Blake. Hunter returns and the Novotny-Bruckner family perseveres.

The series came full circle with the final scenes staged in the restored Babylon nightclub. In the final scene, Brian dances to Heather Small's "Proud," a song that accompanied a pivotal scene between Brian and Michael in the very first episode of the series. It ends with a final narration by Michael:

In September 1992, an elite group of North Korean soldiers are put through a brutal training regime. Under the auspices of their commander, Park Mu-young (Choi Min-sik), they will be sent into South Korea as sleeper agents, to be reactivated at some later date. The most promising of the group is Lee Bang-hee, a female sniper who assassinates several key South Korean figures over the next six years.

Over six years later, in September 1998, South Korea is searching for Bang-hee. The agent in charge of her case, Yu Jung-won (Han Suk-kyu) has nightmares about her murdering both him and his partner, Lee Jang-gil (Song Kang-ho). Jung-won is also engaged to a young woman, Lee Myung-hyun (Yunjin Kim), a former alcoholic and the owner of a fish and aquarium supply store. Myung-hyun symbolically gives Jung-won a pair of kissing gourami, a species that cannot live without its mate. Jung-won is worried that he cannot tell her about the real nature of his job due to his security clearance.

Jung-won and Jang-gil are contacted by an arms dealer who claims to have information about their quarry, but he is shot dead by Bang-hee before he can give them any information. After digging a bit deeper, they determine that he had been contacted by the assassin at some point, in the effort to acquire something. That something turns out to be CTX, a binary liquid explosive developed by the South Korean government. In its ground state, CTX is indistinguishable from water, but when placed under the right temperature conditions for long enough, a 200mL worth of CTX has a 1 km blast radius. The agents begin to suspect its intended use by the assassins, when Kim, a scientist working at a lab connected to CTX, is assassinated by Bang-hee.

Mu-young and his agents ambush a military convoy with several liters of CTX, killing all the soldiers and making off with the dangerous liquid before the agents could arrive in time to warn them. Jung-won and Jang-gil suspect a leak, as they are always one step too slow. Bang-hee is ordered to eliminate the 'kissing gourami' obstacle. Jung-won meets with Police Chief Ho to borrow outside forces but Ho accidentally stands in the path of a bullet fired by Bang-hee's sniper rifle.

Mu-young calls Jung-won and issues an ultimatum: he has concealed several CTX bombs around Seoul, and will give him just enough time to find each one before setting them off. He also mockingly mentions Jung-won's fiancé. It is revealed that Mu-young and Jung-won have a history: Mu-young once hijacked a civilian airliner and killed many civilians, but managed to escape by disguising himself as a wounded member of the flight crew.

The first of the CTX bombs is found on top of a department store, but Mu-young lied about the time factor. The bomb explodes just as the bomb disposal team discovers its exact location, resulting in dozens of deaths. Jung-won takes Myung-hyun to hide out at a hotel and she begins drinking again.

Jung-won suspects Jang-gil as the leak - who suspects the same thing, as Jung-won has twice survived encounters with Bang-hee he should have died in, and bugged Jung-won's car and phone to see if he could learn anything. Jung-won sets a trap by telling Jang-gil he has new information - which Mu-young and his fellow agents step into - but the situation quickly escalates into a firefight resulting in police and civilian casualties. Several of the Northern agents are killed while others escape. When Mu-young is cornered, Bang-hee comes in to save him. Jung-won, having survived his stand-off with Mu-young and Bang-hee, follows a wounded Bang-hee. He loses her but notices the light to the aquarium turn on and covertly enters, discovering a bleeding Myung-hyun removing her disguise. Jung-won walks away, shocked, and conducts a solo investigation into her history with the real, sick Myung-hyun. Mu-young confronts Bang-hee about her hesitancy and constant failure to kill Jung-won, reminding her of their primary objective.

Mu-young calls NIS, demanding millions as well as a plane for an escape at 2pm in return for the remaining CTX. Myung-hyun's identity is confirmed by the agency later when electronic surveillance devices are discovered in fish decorating the NIS's office supplied by her. Jang-gil confronts her in her shop, and is shot by Mu-young. Jung-won suddenly appears with officers, who engage in a firefight with Mu-young and his agents. Mu-young and Myung-hyun escape, while a dying Jang-gil hands Myung-hyun's soccer match ticket to Jung-won, set to start at 2pm.

The terrorists aim to detonate a CTX bomb directly over the Royal Box, housing all senior North and South Korean politicians, at a soccer stadium in the midst of an international friendly match played by a North and South Korean team. Jung-won attempts to tell NIS of the ruse and the danger in the stadium but is ignored. He defies orders and rushes to the stadium, where Mu-young, Bang-hee, and other terrorists mingle with the crowd. They find a total ban on all liquids, but enter easily as the CTX and weapons were already planted in the stadium beforehand.

Bang-hee retrieves a hidden Steyr AUG from a restroom cubicle, while Mu-young and his agents tail several patrolling South Korean SWAT officers who later adjourn to the restrooms. There, the policemen are killed and their bodies quickly dragged away. Myung-hyun advances into the grandstand with her rifle, while Mu-young and three other men, now disguised as South Korean SWAT officers in uniforms stolen from the dead policemen, enter the stadium control room, killing all but one there and forcing the remaining staff to switch on the stadium lights to trigger the CTX. Jung-won arrives at the stadium and notices the lights. Jung-won goes to the control room to have them shut off but is taken captive. Sik, a rookie NIS agent, also notices the lights and soon comes in with backup. A violent confrontation in the control room results in the death of all four terrorists, and the lights are switched off in the nick of time. Myung-hyun notices this, and fires at the VIPs, but misses her target. Chasing after the entourage, she kills several more SWAT officers along the way before being confronted by a large group of officers led by Jung-won. As she makes a last-ditch attempt to complete her mission, she is shot dead by Jung-won.

Jung-won later learns that Bang-hee (whom he knew as Myung-hyun) was pregnant with his child, and had left details of the renegade Northern agents' plan and her planned location on his answering machine before leaving for the stadium but had requested he not confront her himself, professing her love for him. Jung-won then visits the real Myung-hyun, who is at a hospital for chemo therapy, and Myung-hyun reminisces about Bang-hee with Jung-won. Myung-hyun lets Jung-won listen to that song, and while listening to it Jung-won is captivated by the lyrics. The scene then fades, while Jung-won, still listening to the song, shuts his eyes.

The story centres on Hitoshi Kōbe, a 1st year in high school that is described as quite average, and fails miserably in academic, athletic and social situations.

Hitoshi has only one thing going for him - his ability to program computers. In fact, he is so good at this he has created programs that can rewrite themselves - Artificial Intelligence, in other words. So far he has created thirty of these programs, and the latest - whom he names ''Saati'' ( The Japanese pronunciation of the English word "Thirty" )- is so advanced that conversation with her is indistinguishable from a normal girl.

However, there is still the barrier of Hitoshi being in the physical world and Saati being a program, until one day a freak lightning strike materializes her into the real world, where she becomes the girlfriend of Hitoshi. The series then follows their now not so ordinary lives, as well as other A.I.s of Hitoshi's creation as they attempt to keep Saati's secret while she adapts to the lifestyle of humans.

Eeyore, Rabbit, Tigger and Pooh are trying to get bees to move into a new hive so they can get the honey. Piglet arrives and is told that he is too small to help, but he manages to trap the bees in the new hive. The others take the credit and Piglet leaves dejectedly. When the bees break free, Pooh, Rabbit, Tigger, and Eeyore escape to Piglet's house where they are joined by Roo. Noticing Piglet's absence, they decide to find him using Piglet's scrapbook as a guide. The five tell the stories of the pictures therein, leading to several flashbacks.

The first story is of Kanga and Roo's arrival in the Hundred Acre Wood. Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, and Rabbit are afraid of the newcomers, and Rabbit plans to use Piglet as a decoy to ransom Roo to force Kanga to leave. Kanga sees through the plan and plays along, pretending that Piglet is Roo, Piglet sees how nice she is while Roo and Rabbit get along well. Kanga and Roo are allowed to stay.

The second story is of the expedition to find the North Pole. Roo falls in the river and Piglet uses a long stick to flip him into the air. His heroism is overlooked when he gives the stick to Pooh to try to catch Roo, who is actually caught by Kanga, and Christopher Robin credits Pooh with finding the North Pole. Back in the present, the friends felt guilt and regret for not crediting Piglet for his part in the rescue.

The third story concerns building The House at Pooh Corner. Piglet has the idea to build Eeyore a house, and is joined by Pooh and Tigger to build it. Piglet struggles to keep up as Tigger and Pooh try to build the house using some neatly stacked sticks. Their attempts fall apart. Tigger and Pooh leave Piglet and go to tell Eeyore the bad news, but Eeyore says he already built himself a house of sticks, revealing that the sticks Pooh and Tigger used had been his house. Piglet arrives and leads them back to Eeyore's newly completed house. Once again, Piglet's contribution is overlooked as the wind is given the credit for moving Eeyore's house.

Back in the present, an argument between Rabbit and Tigger ends with the scrapbook falling into a river. Without their guide, the friends return to Piglet's house and, after making drawings of Piglet's heroism to celebrate his bravery, they again resolve to find Piglet. They come across some scrapbook pages which have floated downstream, and find the book's bindings suspended on a hollow log looming over a waterfall. Trying to retrieve it, Pooh falls into a hole in the log. The others cannot reach to rescue him. Piglet arrives and helps but the log breaks in half. Eeyore, Rabbit, Roo and Tigger escape, and grieve the loss of Piglet and Pooh. However, Piglet and Pooh had escaped into the bottom half of the log, and reunite with their friends. The friends apologise to Piglet for the loss of his journals and their disregard of his good deeds.

Piglet's friends take him back to his house to show him their new drawings celebrating his befriending of Kanga and Roo, rescuing Roo with the North Pole, and building Eeyore's house at Pooh Corner. Pooh takes Piglet to Eeyore's house to show him he changed the sign to "Pooh and Piglet Corner". When everyone else arrives, Pooh says "it's the least [they] could do for a very small Piglet who has done such very big things." Piglet casts a very large shadow.

Master Higgins' girlfriend Tina, has just been kidnapped by the Evil Witch Doctor's persistent followers. Eight perilous islands are in control of the various monster minions, although four friendly dinosaurs will gladly ally themselves with those willing to brave the islands' dangers and defeat their common oppressors. Thinking of how grateful his favorite lady will be when he comes to her rescue, Master Higgins embarks on a daunting quest to get to his honey.

Eddie Valiant is a hardboiled private eye, and Roger Rabbit is a second banana comic strip character. The rabbit hires Valiant to find out why his employers, the DeGreasy Brothers (Rocco and Dominic), who are owners of a cartoon syndicate, have reneged on a promise to give Roger his own strip and potentially sell his contract to a mystery buyer. Evidence shows that there was no mystery buyer and the reason Roger Rabbit remained in a secondary role was because of his lack of talent. Soon after, Roger is mysteriously murdered in his home. His speech balloon, found at the crime scene, indicates his murder was a way of "censoring" the star, who apparently had just heard someone explain the source of his success. Valiant's search for the killer takes him to a variety of suspects which includes: Roger's ex-widow Jessica Rabbit; Roger's former co-star Baby Herman and Roger's photographer Carol Masters. Valiant then meets a doppelgänger of Roger's and promises to solve the mystery of his death. At the same time, Roger's former boss Rocco DeGreasy is also murdered and witnesses point out Roger as the killer, as he was allegedly seen fleeing the scene of the crime.

While Valiant investigates, the key suspects ask him to be on the lookout for a certain kettle in exchange for a reward. He eventually finds the kettle which was in Roger's possession and gives it to Dominic, only to find it is actually a magic lamp with a Genie, who then kills Dominic. The Genie explains its origins and that over thousands of years it has become embittered, now only granting wishes with a catch, and admits to being the one who shot Roger. He further explains that the words to command him happen to be part of a children's song that Roger habitually sings, and as such Roger wished for success and Jessica without actually realising he had done so. When Roger accidentally activated the lantern a third time but this time witnessed the apparition, the Genie killed him. Valiant holds the Genie hostage over a salt-water fish tank; salt water being its weakness. The Genie is then forced to grant a wish made by Valiant for proof of Roger's innocence which is provided in the form of a suicide letter from Dominic confessing to both Roger and Rocco DeGreasy's murders along with his own suicide. Not trusting the Genie to keep its word of letting him go and also knowing that no one would believe him about the Genie, Valiant drops the Genie's lamp into the fish tank and the salt water dissolves the Genie.

With Roger's murderer disposed of, Valiant concludes that the DeGreasy murderer was the original Roger Rabbit himself. Roger's motive was that Rocco had stolen Jessica from him, and he generated the doppelganger to be an alibi. He intended to plant the murder weapon at Valiant's office making him the fall guy but was shot by the Genie when he accidentally summoned it. The doppelganger confirms the truth and confesses that he "had it planned for days". However, for clearing his name and befriending him despite what he did and tried to do afterwards, he praises Valiant for his morals (calling him "a real stand-up guy"). Roger gives Valiant a final heartfelt goodbye before disintegrating.

Kazuma is a native Alter user who makes his living as a mercenary so that he and his close friend, Kanami Yuta, can live together. Kazuma's friend Kunihiko Kimishima gives him a mission to defeat another native Alter user. However, a man known as Ryuho from HOLY captures Kazuma in the aftermath. Ryuho tries to interrogate Kazuma over an unknown Alter user (later dubbed Crystal) who killed his mother and dog. Using a woman from HOLY named Mimori Kiryu as a hostage, Kazuma manages to return to his house. When native Alter users are captured by HOLY, Kazuma enters a forest where he finds Crystal. After fighting Crystal, Kazuma's Alter receives a power up. Shortly afterwards, it is revealed the Great Uprising was caused by a similar event in a parallel universe where all creatures are independent thinking Alters. Kazuma goes on a rampage against HOLY after Kinishima dies while helping him during one of his fights. Shortly afterwards, Kazuma and Ryuho fight, but during the battle, they open a gateway to the parallel universe, causing another uprising and attracting the attention of the Mainland government.

Both Kazuma and Ryuho are thought to be dead after the fight. While Kazuma hides in underground fights, Ryuho suffers amnesia. With help from an old friend, HOLY member Straight Cougar, Kazuma recovers his will to protect Kanami who is searching for him. Ryuho also recovers his memories while fighting HOLY users attacking natives and ends up becoming one of Kazuma's allies. The Mainland sends its agent, Kyouji Mujo, to the Lost Ground in an attempt to exploit the power of the parallel universe for economic gain. Mujo develops delusions of grandeur after becoming the de facto head of the Lost Ground government and absorbing the crystal entity from "the other side" to add to his already formidable Alter power. Both he and the Crystal entity are defeated by the separate efforts of Kazuma and Ryuho respectively, as both increase their Alter powers by taking energy from the parallel world. The Mainland once again attempts to exert control over the Lost Ground by sending in a fleet of refined Alter users under their control. However, they are defeated by Kazuma and Ryuho.

After defeating the Mainland forces, Kazuma and Ryuho engage in one final battle to settle their rivalry. As one of them is about to declare victory, the screen fades to white. In an epilogue, taking place years later, they remain the protectors of the Lost Ground, defending it from Mainland invaders, while an older Kanami awaits their return.

The immediate backstory is introduced via a comic book that tells the story of a young boy called Robert who is the sole survivor of a helicopter crash in "the Gap" (the name applied to the Outback at the time of the game). Too young to fend for himself, Robert is adopted by a group of locals, who teach him the skills he needs to survive in this harsh new environment; they name him Robert Foster, partly due to him being fostered by them, but also because of the discovery of an empty can of Foster's Lager found near the crash site. Over the years, Foster learns engineering and technology and builds a talking, sentient robot called Joey. Joey's personality is stored on a small circuit board, which can easily be inserted and removed from many types of robot. This allows him to change bodies as the situation requires, provided his circuit board is not damaged. His commentaries on the current "shell" he is in are a running gag throughout the game.

As the game starts, Foster is kidnapped and his tribe annihilated by security soldiers sent from Union City by its all-powerful computer, LINC (''Logical Inter-Neural Connection''). The abductors refuse to give Foster any explanation as to what is happening. Shortly upon arriving in the city, the helicopter malfunctions and crashes in the city's upper level. Foster survives and flees, making his way into a recycling plant, carrying Joey's circuit board with him.

Foster places Joey's circuit board into a robotic vacuum cleaner (something about which Joey is none too happy). He then attempts to escape the plant, but is cornered by a security officer who had also survived the accident. The officer, Reich, addresses Foster as "Overmann". Just as Reich is about to kill Foster, a nearby security camera shoots a laser, disarming him. Reich tells the camera, which he reveals is controlled by LINC, that Foster must be stopped. In answer the camera shoots him again, killing him. Foster takes the officer's access card and sunglasses before he continues his escape.

As he makes his way further down the city, Foster eventually arrives in the abandoned subway tunnels. There he discovers that LINC has grown exponentially, to the point where he is now half-machine, half-organic entity. However, in order to function, LINC needs a human host to share its brain. The current host is Foster's biological father, who is old and has become severely worn out from his symbiosis with LINC. It is revealed that LINC sent for Foster because, with the death of its current host inevitable, it needed a replacement, and only a blood relative would do. Foster ultimately defeats LINC by plugging Joey (who, at this point, could be optionally given the new name "Ken" by Foster) into the mainframe. Joey/Ken is able to take control of the system, and set about turning Union City into a utopia.

Social worker Nina Borowski (Jennifer Aniston) is a bright young woman living in a cozy Brooklyn apartment. Nina attends a party given by her stepsister Constance (Allison Janney) and her husband, Sidney (Alan Alda). There Nina meets George Hanson (Paul Rudd), a young, handsome, and gay first grade teacher. Nina tells George that her stepsister is constantly trying to fix her up with somebody from higher society, completely ignoring the fact that Nina has a boyfriend, Vince (John Pankow). During the conversation, Nina offers George a room in her apartment as she has just heard from his boyfriend, Dr. Robert Joley (Tim Daly), that George is looking for somewhere to live. George, not knowing about Robert's plans, is taken aback and heartbroken, and after the party the two split up. George accepts Nina's offer and moves into her apartment.

The two soon become best friends; they watch films together and go ballroom dancing. Everything is great until Nina announces that she is pregnant. Vince, the baby's father, wants to marry her, but his constant control drives Nina crazy; she leaves him and George offers to help raise her child. For some time, they live together in her apartment in Brooklyn. Everything is perfect again until Nina finds that her love for George is growing every day, especially after he tells her he had a girlfriend in high school, leading her to believe they might develop a romantic relationship.

One afternoon, George and Nina are about to have sex when George gets a phone call from Robert who tells him how much he has missed him and invites him away for the weekend. George is confused but agrees to go. Nina feels threatened and gets jealous. George and Robert do not re-establish their relationship, but George meets Paul James (Amo Gulinello), a young actor, and the two are attracted to each other and have sex. Meanwhile, Nina is staying with Constance at a vacation mansion and is extremely moody. She has a horrible time and decides to head back home and asks George to return as well. Her purse is snatched on the way and a friendly police officer, Louis (Kevin Carroll), gives her a ride home.

Nina decides to invite Paul and his older acting mentor with whom he lives, Rodney (Nigel Hawthorne), for Thanksgiving after a rather prickly brunch with a late arriving George, and his brother and his brother's latest fiancée. After the evening winds down, Paul stays the night with George, resulting in a heated argument between George and Nina, and heartache for Rodney.

At George's brother's wedding, they continue their discussion as Nina has begun to realize the reality of the situation. Nina fully explains to George her feelings for him. George, who loves Nina as his best friend, tells her that, ultimately, he wants to be with Paul. A few hours later, Nina gives birth to a beautiful girl she names Molly. Vince, ecstatic, visits her in the hospital, but when he leaves to complete paperwork, Nina and George remain alone with Molly. Nina asks George when he plans to move out to which he replies that he doesn't know. She asks him to move out of her apartment before she gets home from the hospital, stating that it would hurt her too much to have him stay any longer knowing that he doesn't love her the same way she does him.

Eight years later at George's school, everyone goes to see Molly in a musical production that George has directed. George is now the principal of the school. Nina is now in a relationship with Louis, and George is still with Paul, both of them now happy. Rodney is also there, still considered 'one of the family' by Louis and Nina. Nina, George, and young Molly (Sarah Hyland) (who refers to George as her "Uncle George") walk together, hand-in-hand, on their way to get coffee and talk.

The plot line is loosely based on the biblical story of Cain and Abel. The story is set in 1917, during World War I, in the central California coastal towns of Monterey and Salinas. Cal and Aron are the young adult sons of a farmer and wartime draft board chairman, Adam Trask, with whom they live in the Salinas valley. Adam is a deeply religious Christian. Aron is pious, dutiful, and responsible, while Cal is moody, embittered, and thinks he is sinful. He believes his father loves only Aron. Adam told the boys their mother, Kate, died when they were infants. However, Cal discovers Kate operates a brothel in nearby Monterey, though he keeps this from Adam and Aron.

Adam's idealistic plans for a long-haul vegetable shipping enterprise end disastrously, losing him his entire savings. To recoup his father's loss, Cal decides to enter the bean-growing business, knowing that if the United States enters the war, bean prices will skyrocket. Cal hopes this will earn his father's love and respect. He goes to Kate to ask for the $5,000 capital he needs. Kate reveals she deserted the family because she hated living on the farm, never loved Adam, and rebelled against him completely controlling her. She shot Adam in the shoulder when he attempted to stop her leaving. Kate loans the money to Cal, noting the irony that the loan proceeds from her business are intended to preserve Adam's good name. Meanwhile, Aron's girlfriend, Abra, is growing attracted to Cal, who seems to reciprocate her feelings.

Cal's bean venture is successful, and he intends to give the profits to Adam at a surprise birthday party he and Abra have planned. As the party begins, Aron suddenly announces that he and Abra are engaged. While Adam is openly pleased, both Abra and Cal are uneasy due to their growing feelings for one another. Cal presents the money to his father; however, Adam refuses it, claiming it is war profiteering and demands he give it to the farmers. A confused Cal sees his father's refusal as just another emotional rejection. When a distraught Cal leaves the room, Abra goes after him. Aron follows and orders Cal to stay away from Abra. Cal angrily tells Aron that their mother is alive, then takes him to her Monterey bordello. Cal roughly shoves the stunned Aron at the elderly Kate, causing her to fall. When Cal arrives home, Adam demands to know where Aron is. Cal initially responds he is not his brother's keeper, then tells Adam what he did.

The truth about his mother drives the pacifistic Aron to get drunk, lose control, and then board a troop train to enlist in the army. When the sheriff informs Adam, he rushes to the station in a futile attempt to dissuade him. Adam fails and watches helplessly as Aron smashes his head through the rail car window, maniacally laughing as the train pulls away. A shocked Adam suffers a stroke, leaving him paralyzed and unable to communicate. Cal tries talking to Adam, but gets no response and leaves the bedroom. Abra pleads with Adam to show Cal some affection before it is too late. When Cal makes his last bid for acceptance before leaving town, Adam manages to speak. He tells Cal to fire the annoying nurse, then whispers something to him. Cal tells Abra that Adam said he wants only Cal to care for him. The film ends with Cal, alone, sitting by his father's bedside, the emotional chasm between the father and son apparently healing.

'''Prelude'''

The prologue and chorus greet the audience. Two tableaux are presented. In the first, Adam and Eve, wearing sheepskins are banished from the Garden of Eden by a winged angel who holds a sword in the form of a flame. Behind the angel stands a burst of gilded rays symbolizing the tree of forbidden fruit. The second living picture traditionally showed a number of girls and smaller children surrounding a cross at center stage. The adoration represents the time in 1633 when villagers swore their vow before a huge crucifix bearing a twelve-foot-high Jesus.

'''Act 1''' ''Jesus and the Money Changers.'' Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey to the shouts and exultation of the people on Palm Sunday. He drives the money changers and traders from the Temple then returns to Bethany.

'''Act 2''' ''Conspiracy of the High Council.'' In the past, this act began with a tableau showing the sons of the patriarch Jacob conspiring to kill Joseph in the Plain of Dothan; the frieze was deleted from the 1980 presentation. The act consists of discussions between the traders and Sanhedrin, who agree that Jesus must be arrested to preserve Mosaic law.

'''Act 3''' ''Parting at Bethany.'' Two tableaux presage the action. In the first, the young Tobias departs from his parents while the angel Raphael, played by another boy, waits, crook in hand, stage left. In the second, the loving bridesmaid from the Song of Solomon laments the loss of her groom. In the play, Christ is anointed by Mary Magdalene, then takes leave of his mother and friends. Judas is angered by the waste of the spikenard oil.

'''Act 4''' ''The Last Journey to Jerusalem.'' A controversial tableau (now deleted) showed Queen Vashti dishonored at the court of King Ahasuerus. The old queen (Judaism, explains the Prologue) has been displaced by Esther (Christianity). Jesus sends two disciples to secure a Paschal lamb. He enters Jerusalem for the last time and weeps over the fate of the city. Judas contemplates betraying his master and is tempted by Dathan and other merchants.

'''Act 5''' ''The Last Supper.'' The Passover Seder or Last Supper is celebrated in a scene evocative of the famous Da Vinci painting. Jesus washes the feet of his disciples and institutes the mass with wine and thick, brown, leavened bread. Two tableaux show Moses with rays or horns protruding from his head, bringing manna and grapes to the people in the wilderness.

'''Act 6''' ''The Betrayer.'' In a tableau, Joseph, a boy nude to the waist, is sold by his brothers to the Midianites for twenty pieces of silver. In accompanying action, Judas appears before the Sanhedrin and promises to deliver Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. After his departure, the Pharisees plan at great length the death of Jesus.

'''Act 7''' ''Jesus at the Mount of Olives.'' Two more Old Testament scenes introduce the soliloquy of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. The first, a non-sequitur, which we are told explains that man must earn his food by the sweat of his brow, shows Adam, in sheepskin and assisted by a brood of similarly attired children, drawing a plow across a field. The second frieze more appropriately offers a helmeted Joab, surrounded by soldiers stabbing an unsuspecting Amasa in the ribs. Christ agonizes over his fate while his apostles doze. Judas enters with an armed band and betrays Jesus with a kiss.

'''Act 8''' ''Jesus before Annas.'' The Old Testament parallel has Micah slapped on the cheek by Zedekiah, priest of Baal, for daring to predict King Ahab would die in battle. In like manner, Jesus is taken before a waiting, eager Annas and is struck on the face for his insolence. Soldiers also deride Christ as he is led through the streets by a rope.

'''Act 9''' ''Condemned by the High Council.'' Two more tableaux emphasize the humiliation of Christ. In one, the aged Naboth is condemned by false witnesses and is stoned to death by the sons of Jezebel. In the other, Job, sitting on a dunghill is railed at by his friends, servants, even his wife and children. Meanwhile, Jesus is questioned by Caiaphas about his messiah-ship and is condemned. A tortured Judas tries to get the Sanhedrin to repeal its verdict. When his efforts prove unsuccessful, he tosses the money back at them and storms off.

'''Act 10''' ''Despair of Judas.'' Judas and all who identify with him are linked with Cain in the opening tableau. The battered body of Abel appears at center stage. To the right is Cain, clad in a leopard skin and holding a club in one hand. His other hand is at his brow, attempting to conceal the brand of God. In this short act Judas offers a speech of remorse then hangs himself.

'''Act 11''' ''Christ before Pilate.'' Originally there was a frieze that heralded Christ's first appearance before Pilate. The tableau of Daniel in the great pillared hall of Darius was deleted from later twentieth-century productions. Pilate's interrogation, coupled with news of his wife's dream, convinces the governor that Jesus should be prosecuted by Herod Antipas for lese majesty.

'''Act 12''' ''Christ Before Herod.'' The scene stands without the original living picture which showed a blinded Samson mocked by the Philistines. Herod treats Christ with scorn, demanding a miracle, then sends him back to Pilate, cloaked in a red mantle of royalty. Responding to the urging of the Sanhedrin, Pilate reluctantly agrees to have Jesus scourged. Roman guards beat Jesus and press a crown of thorns into his scalp.

'''Act 13''' ''Christ Sentenced to Death on the Cross.'' Two graphic pictures showing the presentation of Joseph's bloodied coat to Jacob, and Abraham about to stab Isaac on Mt. Moriah have been rejected from contemporary versions of the Passion. Retained, however, are tableaux which show Joseph riding a sedan chair as vizir of Egypt and another which supposedly represents the scapegoat offering of Yom Kippur. Following the tableaux, the stage is swarming with action as priests and Pharisees bring mobs from every direction. Pilate gives Jesus another hearing then offers the people a choice between Jesus and Barabbas. They demand and receive a final judgement on Christ.

'''Act 14''' ''The Way of the Cross.'' The final segment of the Passion is introduced by a more sublime image of the ''Akedah,'' or binding of Isaac. In this tableau, the boy, like Jesus, carries wood on his back as he and Abraham climb Mt. Moriah. Another frieze, showing Moses and a bronze serpent intertwined about the cross has been deleted. When the chorus withdraws from the stage Christ bears his cross to Golgotha. As he passes through the streets he encounters his mother, Veronica, and Simon of Cyrene. The women of Jerusalem weep for him.

'''Act 15''' ''Jesus on Calvary.'' For the first time the chorus appears in black traditional mourning garb. There is no tableau. He is mocked by members of the Sanhedrin and the soldiers and utters his last words. The legs of the criminals are broken. A soldier pierces the side of Christ with a lance and blood gushes forth. Jesus' followers slowly and reverently take down the body and lay it before his mother in a replica of the Pieta. The Sanhedrin insists that guards be posted before the tomb which is to hold Christ's body.

'''Act 16''' ''Resurrection and Apotheosis.'' For the first time, action precedes a tableau. Roman guards see a light at the tomb. Mary Magdalene and the other women encounter an angel and recite the same lines as ''Quem Quaeritis.'' The final tableau shows Jesus resplendent in white with his apostles, angels, the Virgin Mary, and Moses. The Passion ends with a proclamation by the chorus.

After a mother duck's eggs hatch, one of the ducklings is perceived by the other animals as an ugly little creature and suffers much verbal and physical abuse. He wanders from the barnyard and lives with wild ducks and geese until hunters slaughter the flocks. He finds a home with an old woman, but her cat and hen tease and taunt him mercilessly, and once again he sets off alone.

The duckling sees a flock of migrating wild swans. He is delighted and excited but cannot join them, for he is too young, ugly, and unable to fly. When winter arrives, a farmer finds and carries the freezing duckling home, but he is frightened by the farmer's noisy children and flees the house. The duckling spends a miserable winter alone in the outdoors, mostly hiding in a cave on the lake that partly freezes over.

The duckling, now having fully grown and matured, cannot endure a life of solitude and hardship any more. He decides to throw himself at a flock of swans, feeling that it is better to be killed by such beautiful birds than to live a life of ugliness. He is shocked when the swans welcome and accept him, only to realize by looking at his reflection in the water that he had been not a duckling but a swan all this time. The flock takes to the air, and he spreads his wings to take flight with the rest of his new family.

Following the plot of the ''Carmen Sandiego'' franchise, ''Earth'' sees international thief Carmen Sandiego (voiced by Rita Moreno) lead the organization V.I.L.E. in stealing treasures from around the world and leaving clues behind for ACME agents Zack (voiced by Scott Menville) and Ivy (voiced by Jennifer Hale), under the guidance of the Chief (voiced by Rodger Bumpass), to find, in order to capture her. In this version, Carmen Sandiego is a former agent of ACME who left to seek a greater challenge, and has a strong code of ethics when stealing items. The Player is an unseen live-action character who bookends acts by communicating with Carmen; it is implied that to them the television series is a video game that they are playing from a computer.

While Carmen is originally presented as the show's antagonist, she becomes more like an anti-hero as the series progresses; she even helps Zack and Ivy against mutual enemies.

Season 1 focuses on Ryan Atwood's arrival in Newport Beach to live with Sandy and Kirsten Cohen, who take him in after his mother kicks him out. A major theme of the first season is the culture shock Ryan feels as he adjusts from a life of domestic abuse and poverty to living in a superficial high-class society. He quickly befriends and bonds with Seth Cohen, and begins to have a romantic relationship with Marissa Cooper. Although coming from very different backgrounds, Ryan soon discovers that he deals with similar issues to his new peers, such as self-identity conflict and familial alienation. The relationship between Ryan and Marissa flourishes when he supports her through her parents' divorce. As the show progresses, Ryan takes a very protective role over Marissa, showing Ryan to be a much more stable, controlled person than originally portrayed. Other storylines include Seth's development from a friendless loner to having two romantic options in Summer and Anna, as well as the arrivals of Oliver Trask, a troubled teen who befriends Marissa during their coinciding therapy sessions, and Theresa Diaz, Ryan's close friend and former love interest from his hometown of Chino. Meanwhile, Sandy Cohen frequently comes into conflict with Caleb Nichol, Kirsten's father and a wealthy industrialist who is said to "basically own Newport."

The second season of ''The O.C.'' continues to follow the tumultuous romantic relationships between Ryan and Marissa, Seth and Summer, and Sandy and Kirsten. Josh Schwartz, the show's creator, stated that in Season 2, the show would "no longer be about Ryan's past; now it's going to be about Ryan's future," and that this season would "slow down the storytelling a little bit ... and evolve the characters." For example, the story closely follows Ryan in his advanced physics class, where tension is created between him and another student, Lindsay, who presumes that Ryan will be useless as a lab partner, who thus prevents him from contributing to the work that must be submitted. Ryan's character begins to grow when he stands up to Lindsay and convinces her to allow him to contribute, forcing them to work together to complete the assignment. They later become involved romantically, creating extreme complications and relational shifts amongst the now "Cooper-Nichol" family. The Bait Shop becomes a prominent social destination for the teenage characters. A number of recurring characters are introduced, such as D.J., Lindsay Gardner, Zach Stevens, and Alex Kelly, with whom the main characters form a variety of relationships. Ryan's brother, Trey Atwood, gets out of jail and threatens to bring Ryan's old life into his new one. Sandy and Kirsten also face new conflicts after drifting apart during the summer. Season 2 ends with Marissa shooting Trey after Ryan confronts him for attempting to sexually assault Marissa.

Season 3 creates many dynamic changes with regards to relationships and power within the characters' society. Firstly, Marissa is expelled from the Harbor School. The Cooper family, left with little money, is forced to move into a trailer park. Julie Cooper-Nichol, once one of the richest women in all of Newport, struggles to put food on the table for her daughters. Marissa's life begins to spiral out of control, as she struggles with alcohol and drug abuse, as well as dealing with the loss of her close friend Johnny. Similarly, Kirsten confronts her alcohol addiction and eventually leaves rehab, only to encounter more problems when she begins business with a con artist. The other characters look towards college, with Seth and Summer competing for a spot at Brown University. Sandy's moral compass becomes imperiled when a past love interest makes her way back into his life, and he takes over Caleb's old position as head of The Newport Group, pursuing a project to establish more low-income housing in Newport. Ryan also attempts to resolve his individual relationships with his mother, and with his childhood friend Theresa Diaz. He also pursues the idea of a post-secondary education, with encouragement from both Sandy and Kirsten to visit Berkeley. Ryan's life is quickly put on hold when, in the season 3 finale, Ryan decides to drive Marissa to the airport, and they are run off the road by Kevin Volchok, Marissa's most recent love affair gone wrong. In the last few minutes of the episode, Ryan pulls Marissa out from the burning car, only to watch her die in his arms.

The fourth and final season begins five months after Marissa's death in the car accident. Ryan starts the season in isolation as a broken, grieving man, seeking revenge on Volchok. With the help of Julie, both she and Ryan are able to track Volchok down in Mexico, and turn him in to federal officials. The continued love of the Cohen family and the company of the eccentric Taylor Townsend guide him back to the light. Meanwhile, Seth and Summer face the problems of a long-distance relationship as Summer leaves to attend college. The first half of the season focuses on the characters accepting the reality of Marissa's death. The second half focuses on the characters "finding themselves" while facing myriad identity crises. This final season contains multiple surprises, such as a new addition to the Cohen family, a visit to an alternate universe in which Sandy becomes mayor, and a natural disaster that leaves Newport devastated.

In 1971, 26-year-old Bob Hughes leads a nomadic group of drug addicts—his wife Dianne, his best friend Rick, and Rick's teenage girlfriend Nadine—who travel across the Pacific Northwest robbing pharmacies and hospitals to support their habits.

After stealing from a Portland, Oregon, pharmacy, they drive home to get high, and are visited by David, a local low-life seeking hard-to-find Dilaudid. Bob claims they have none but offers to trade him morphine for speed. Initially reluctant, David is persuaded to trade and leaves. Later, police officers led by Detective Gentry, who correctly assumes the group is responsible for the pharmacy robbery, raid and wreck their apartment in an unsuccessful search for the stolen drugs, which Dianne has buried outside.

After moving to another apartment, Bob realizes that Gentry has the group under surveillance. Bob proceeds to devise an elaborate ruse which results in one of the policemen, Trousinski, being mistaken for a peeper by a neighbor who shoots and injures him. The next day, a furious Gentry assaults Bob. Believing a hex has been brought upon them, the group goes "crossroading" and robs a drugstore via an open transom. They find their haul includes vials of pure powdered Dilaudid worth thousands of dollars each. Declaring that, "when you're hot, you're hot," Bob convinces Dianne that he should rob a hospital.

During the robbery, Bob is almost captured and the group returns to their motel to find Nadine has fatally overdosed on a stolen bottle of Dilaudid. According to Bob, she has also put "the worst of all hexes" on them by leaving a hat on her bed. After temporarily storing Nadine's body in the motel's attic, they are alerted by the motel manager that their room was previously booked for a sheriffs' convention and they must check out. Bob, suffering tremendous anxiety and stress-induced visions of handcuffs and prison, sneaks the body out of the motel in a garment bag. Before burying Nadine in a forest, Bob tells Dianne that he is going to get clean and begin a 21-day methadone treatment program. Shocked by Bob's decision, Dianne refuses to join him.

Bob moves into a long-stay motel in Portland and gets a low-level manufacturing job. At the methadone clinic, he encounters an elderly, drug-addicted priest named Tom, whom Bob remembers from his days as an altar boy. Gentry pays a visit to the motel and says that Trousinski has been making threats against Bob, whom Gentry encourages to stay sober. Bob later witnesses David bullying a young man who supposedly owes him money. Bob intervenes and lets the man escape, much to David's frustration.

One night, Dianne arrives at the motel and reveals that she is now in a relationship with Rick, the group's new leader. Dianne asks Bob what happened on the road to make him change his life, and he answers that Nadine's death, the hex she put on them, and the possibility of serious prison time contributed to his decision. He reveals a deal he made with a higher power: if he could get Nadine's body out of the motel, past the cops, and into the ground, he would straighten out his life. Bob suggests Dianne stay the night with him, but she declines, and gives Bob a package of drugs before leaving. Bob gives the drugs to Tom (who rejects all of them except for a bottle of Dilaudid). Returning to his room, Bob is attacked by two masked figures, one of whom is David, who think he has drugs. Bob tells them that he is clean, but David does not believe this and shoots him. A neighbor phones for help, and Bob is loaded onto a stretcher. Asked who shot him, Bob tells Gentry it was "the hat."

While riding in the ambulance, Bob concludes via a voiceover that he has "paid his debt to the hat" and so can resort to his former lifestyle without breaking his commitment. He is amused by the perceived irony of the police driving him to a hospital — "the fattest pharmacy in town."

Pel lives with his German girlfriend Ursula and their two children, and works in the IT department of a university library (or "Learning Centre"). The story begins with Pel receiving an odd call from his boss, TSR, who quizzes him about extradition treaties; within a week he has vanished without a trace, and Pel is promoted to TSR's former position, "Computer Team Administration, Software Acquisition and Training Manager" (though, in addition to his own job).

The story follows both Pel's home and work lives; at home, there are the arguments with Ursula over the search for a new home, after the latest burglary of their current home; defrosting the fridge during the moving preparations; Ursula terrifying the builders working on the repairs of the new house; a skiing accident, leaving Ursula with a torn ligament in her shoulder.

At work, Pel finds that taking on TSR's job involves more than it seemed at first; he has to pay off student recruiters from the Pacific Ring, who happen to be members of The Triads; he has to take care of the details of the building of a new Learning Centre building, which involves hiding the fact that skeletons from an ancient burial ground have been illegally dumped from the site, and a dangerous neurotoxin to be buried under it.

These details lead him to become closely involved with the permanently hungover Vice Chancellor of the university, which leads to his receiving another promotion, to Learning Centre Manager; the previous holder of that position having left to pursue his fetish website.

The novel is set in the early 1950s, when much of the English aristocracy has lost its wealth. Bertie has gone to a school that teaches the aristocracy to fend for itself, in case he meets the same fate. He is not allowed to bring Jeeves, so Jeeves goes to work temporarily for one of Bertie's friends from the Drones Club, the young gentleman Lord William "Bill" Rowcester (or Towcester), a now impoverished aristocrat who lives at Rowcester Abbey, a large house in poor repair.

The wealthy American widow Mrs. Rosalinda Spottsworth wants a new home in England. Bill's sister, Lady Monica "Moke" Carmoyle, has persuaded her to look at Rowcester Abbey. On her way, Mrs. Spottsworth meets her old friend Captain Biggar. Captain Biggar loves Mrs. Spottsworth but feels a man of modest means should not propose to a wealthy woman. Captain Biggar is also looking for a bookie named Honest Patch Perkins, who wears a check suit and eyepatch and has a large moustache. This bookmaker owes Captain Biggar over three thousand pounds after Captain Biggar won a lucky double.

Monica arrives, with her aristocratic husband Sir Roderick "Rory" Carmoyle, who now works at a department store. Jill Wyvern, a veterinary physician and Bill's fiancée, greets Monica and Rory, telling them that Bill has hired a cook, a housemaid, and a butler named Jeeves. Bill told Jill that he has secured a lucrative position with the Agricultural Board. Later, Bill returns to the house, wearing an eyepatch and false moustache. Following advice from Jeeves, Bill actually made his money as the Silver Ring bookmaker Honest Patch Perkins. (On a racecourse, the silver ring is the cheapest area where the bookmakers deal in the lowest stakes.) Jeeves was Bill's clerk, though he ignored Jeeves's advice against accepting Captain Biggar's wager. Bill hides his costume in an oak dower chest. He is hopeful after learning from Jeeves that Mrs. Spottsworth may buy the house.

Mrs. Spottsworth returns Captain Biggar's obvious feelings for her, but wonders why he remains silent. At Rowcester Abbey, she approaches Bill, who is her old friend. After Mrs. Spottsworth mentions her interest in the supernatural, Monica tells her that a ghost named Lady Agatha haunts the ruined chapel. Captain Biggar, who got the license plate number of the bookie's car, comes to the house and questions Bill. Jeeves maintains that it was a false plate. Hoping to show off the costumes inside the dower chest to Mrs. Spottsworth, Monica opens the chest and finds Bill's bookie costume. Captain Biggar recognizes it.

Jeeves explains to Captain Biggar that Bill does not have the money yet. However, Captain Biggar needs the money quickly to back a horse named Ballymore at The Derby the next day, so that he will be wealthy enough to propose to Mrs. Spottsworth. Captain Biggar tells Bill to steal Mrs. Spottsworth's diamond pendant; Captain Biggar will pawn it and then buy it back after Barrymore wins. Jeeves advises Bill to pretend to remove a spider from Mrs. Spottsworth's hair while actually taking the pendant. After Jeeves and Bill rehearse the sequence, Bill tries it, but the pendant falls down the front of Mrs. Spottsworth's dress. At Captain Biggar's suggestion, Bill dances with Mrs. Spottsworth so that the necklace will fall to the ground. The sight of them makes Jill jealous. Rory spots the fallen pendant and returns it to Mrs. Spottsworth.

In the middle of the night, Jeeves tells Bill his new plan: Jeeves will tell Mrs. Spottsworth that Bill saw the ghost in the chapel, and while she goes there with Jeeves, Bill will take the pendant from her room. Following the plan, Bill steals the pendant, and Captain Biggar pawns it. Jill, who saw Bill leaving Mrs. Spottsworth's room, ends their engagement, and tells her father Colonel Wyvern, the chief constable. She reconciles with Bill after Jeeves tells her what happened. Colonel Wyvern confronts Bill, but sees the couple has reconciled, and instead investigates the stolen pendant, reported by the housemaid Ellen. Over the radio, it is announced that Barrymore lost the Derby.

Captain Biggar returns, with Mrs. Spottsworth's pendant, which he could not bring himself to pawn. He returns it to her and confesses his feelings. They become engaged. Though she loves the house, Mrs. Spottsworth dislikes the English climate; Jeeves suggests she buy the house, take it down, and rebuild it in California. She agrees to buy the house. Bill and Jill are thrilled, though dismayed that Jeeves is leaving, as Jeeves states that he is needed at Bertie Wooster's side. Bertie has been expelled from his school for cheating.

Alex Taylor lives in Los Angeles with his older brother, Jack, who works as a personal fitness trainer and sometime gigolo. Alex's classmates begin to harass him after he misses the game-winning shot at the end of one of his high school's basketball games. Meanwhile, Laszlo Pryce, a rich and corrupt businessman, discovers Jack's affair with his wife (Mitzi Martin). Laszlo threatens to kill Jack and Alex unless Jack travels to New York City to seduce a widow named Rachel Montgomery. On the verge of selling her company, Laszlo wants Jack to relay any inside information he can discover about the impending transaction. Fearing for his younger brother's life, Jack brings Alex with him on the trip. The con begins to unravel when Rachel and Jack fall for each other while Alex similarly falls for Rachel's daughter, Kelly. Jack reveals to Rachel why he's in New York, and the two conspire to expose Pryce. Rachel, though, needs to raise two million dollars to save her company. In a stroke of luck, Alex wins a contest to shoot a halftime, half-court shot. He makes it, Rachel keeps her company, Laszlo is arrested, and everyone lives happily ever after.

The story of ''Phantasy Star Online'' is unrelated to the original ''Phantasy Star'' series, and is less substantial. Threatened by the imminent destruction of their home planet, thousands of refugees arrive at planet Ragol aboard the spaceship ''Pioneer 2.'' As they establish contact with colonists sent ahead on ''Pioneer 1'', an enormous explosion shakes the planet. Adventurers from ''Pioneer 2'' land to investigate the explosion and search for Rico Tyrell, daughter of the head of ''Pioneer 2''. They discover the planet overrun by monsters, and follow messages left by Rico leading to an ancient evil, Dark Falz.

Samus Aran intercepts a distress signal from the Space Pirate frigate ''Orpheon'', whose crew have been slaughtered by the Pirates' own genetically modified, experimental subjects. At the ship's core, she battles with the Parasite Queen, a giant version of the tiny parasites aboard the ship. The Parasite Queen is defeated and falls into the ship's reactor core, initiating the destruction of the ship. While Samus is escaping from the frigate, she encounters a cybernetic version of Ridley called Meta Ridley. During her escape, an explosion damages Samus's suit, causing some of her abilities to malfunction. Samus escapes the frigate and chases Ridley in her gunship towards the nearby planet Tallon IV.

After landing in the Tallon Overworld, Samus explores nearby areas of Tallon IV and discovers the Chozo Ruins, the remains of the Chozo civilization. As she explores the ruins, she learns the Chozo on the planet had been killed by something referred to as "The Great Poison", designated as Phazon by the Space Pirates, that originated from a meteor that impacted on the planet many years ago. After regaining her lost abilities in the ruins, Samus finds her way to the Magmoor Caverns, a series of magma-filled tunnels, which are used by the Space Pirates as a source of geothermal power. Following the tunnels, Samus travels to the Phendrana Drifts, a cold, mountainous location which is home to an ancient Chozo ruin and Space Pirate research labs used to study the Metroids. After obtaining new abilities, Samus explores the wreckage of the crashed ''Orpheon'' and then infiltrates the Phazon Mines, where she learns the outcome of the Phazon experimentation project, including the Metroid Prime, a creature that had come to Tallon IV with the meteor. Advancing deeper into the mines, Samus fights her way through the Phazon-enhanced Space Pirates and obtains the Phazon Suit after defeating the monstrous Omega Pirate.

Samus discovers the Artifact Temple that the Chozo built to contain the Metroid Prime and to stop the Phazon from spreading over the planet. To gain access to the meteor's Impact Crater, Samus collects and unites the twelve Chozo artifacts. As Samus returns to the temple with the artifacts, Meta Ridley appears and attacks her. Samus defeats Ridley and enters the Impact Crater, where she finds the Metroid Prime. After she defeats it, the Metroid Prime absorbs Samus's Phazon Suit and explodes. Samus escapes the collapsing crater and leaves Tallon IV in her ship. If the player completes the game with all of the items obtained, Metroid Prime is then shown reconstructing itself into a body resembling Samus.

The film tells the story of two close childhood friends, a handsome but poor fisherman, Pete Quilliam (Carl Brisson), and a well-educated middle-class lawyer, Philip Christian (Malcolm Keen); Both the young men are smitten with beautiful and lively Kate (Anny Ondra), the pub owner's daughter. In Pete's case, Kate is also interested in him, or at least she enjoys having him as a suitor.

Pete proposes, asking Philip to make the case to Kate's dour father, Caesar Cregeen (Randle Ayrton). Cregeen refuses to consent to the marriage, because Pete is penniless. Pete decides to go to Africa to make his fortune, so he will be considered eligible to marry her, and he asks Kate if she will wait for him to return. At first she jokes around, but finally she says yes. Pete then asks Philip to take care of Kate until he returns.

In his absence, Philip starts calling on Kate almost every day. Kate and Philip become strongly attracted to one another, and start an affair while visiting an old mill.

News reaches the village that Pete has been killed in Africa. Philip and Kate are shocked but Kate is relieved to realize that they can now plan their lives together. Philip's career has been going well, and he is preparing to assume the powerful position of Deemster, the island's chief magistrate.

However, it then turns out that a dead man was misidentified as Pete, who is still alive and prospering in Africa. He lets Philip know via telegram that he is returning. Philip urges Kate not to break her promise to marry Pete, allowing him to continue with his career. Pete arrives shortly after the telegram and is extremely happy to be back to his village and see his old sweetheart. Old Caesar is now delighted to agree to Kate marrying Pete. The wedding reception is celebrated in the old mill, where Old Caesar sternly warns the newlyweds to remember that God will punish anyone who violates the vows of marriage.

Kate is still in love with Philip, and can hardly bear to be married to Pete.

As the weeks pass, Pete is thrilled to find out that Kate is pregnant, and he naturally assumes he is the father. When Kate's daughter is born, Kate is desperate and decides to leave Pete. She walks out, leaving her baby behind, and a note saying that she had loved another man, and still loves him. Pete is deeply hurt by this, but puts on a brave face and tells the villagers that Kate has gone to London for a short rest. During the weeks she is gone, Pete proves himself to be a wonderful father, taking care of the baby very well, and comforting himself by believing that although Kate has gone, he still has their baby to love.

Kate persuades Philip to hide her at his law offices, hoping she can still somehow have a life with him. However, Philip is about to become the Deemster, and he is unwilling to ruin his career by running off with her. Frustrated and distraught, Kate returns to the house to take the baby. She tells Pete he is not the baby's father. Pete is stunned and refuses to believe her. He also refuses to give up the child. In desperation, Kate leaves the house and tries to commit suicide by throwing herself off the quay, but is rescued by a policeman. Attempted suicide is classified as a crime, and Kate is brought to trial on the first day that Philip serves as Deemster. Now Philip is stunned and hardly knows what to do. When Pete appears in the courtroom to plead for his wife, Philip agrees to hand Kate over to him. But Kate refuses to go. Kate's father, Old Caesar, who is watching carefully, finally understands that Kate and Philip had an affair. Philip publicly admits his extreme moral failings. He removes his wig and surrenders his official position, and then leaves the court.

In the final scene, Philip and Kate arrive at Pete's house to take away the baby. Kate picks up the child, while Philip and Pete stand at opposite ends of the room. She brings the child over to Pete to say one last goodbye, and he breaks down. Philip and Kate leave the cottage to the jeers and condemnation of the villagers, who have been watching the scene through the windows.

Having lost everything, Pete sets sail again.

Larry Gigli is a low-ranking Los Angeles mobster who is not nearly as tough as he likes to act. Louis, a higher-ranking member of Gigli's organization, commands him to kidnap the mentally challenged younger brother of a powerful federal prosecutor to use as a bargaining chip to save New York-based mob boss Starkman from prison.

Gigli successfully convinces the young man, Brian, to go off with him by promising to take him "to the Baywatch", apparently a reference to the television show of that name, which seems to be Brian's singular obsession. Louis does not trust Gigli to get the job done right, so he hires a woman calling herself Ricki to take charge.

Gigli is attracted to Ricki, but he resents both Louis' lack of faith in him and having to take orders from a woman. He is also frustrated by Brian's insistence on going to "the Baywatch" and by the fact that Ricki is a lesbian. A suspicious detective comes to the apartment to question Gigli in reference to Brian's disappearance. He is further annoyed when his mother immediately bonds with Ricki and they team up to needle him.

Events take a darker turn when Gigli and Ricki receive orders to cut off Brian's thumb, something neither wants to do. Worse, her ex-girlfriend, Robin, shows up at the apartment, accusing Ricki of changing sexual orientation. Robin attempts suicide by slitting her wrists and is rushed to the hospital, where she survives. There, Gigli sneaks into the morgue and cuts off a corpse's thumb, which he sends to the prosecutor as Brian's. Gigli and Ricki go back to his apartment, where he confesses his love and they sleep together.

They are summoned to meet with the mob boss. Starkman reveals that he did not approve of the plan to kidnap a federal prosecutor's brother or cut off Brian's thumb. He nevertheless rages at them because it didn't match Brian's fingerprint, and therefore not only failed to increase pressure on the prosecutor but even undermined their credibility.

Starkman then kills Louis, in retaliation for the kidnapping and associated scrutiny by law enforcement. He is about to kill Ricki and Gigli, but she talks him out of it. She points out that only they know where Brian is and only they can silence and prevent him from revealing Starkman's organization's involvement in the kidnapping.

They leave Starkman's, decide to leave the mob, and discuss taking Brian back to where they found him. On the way, they discover a ''Baywatch''-like music video filming on the beach. Brian begs to be let off there and finally, they consent.

Gigli convinces Ricki to take his car to escape to parts unknown; but at the last minute, she returns to pick him up, and they leave town together.

After seeing Saul's car crashed in his yard, Walt cautiously creeps through his house in search of Jesse, who broke in and doused it in gasoline. Jesse is nowhere to be found, but Walt finds a compact disc smeared with white powder in Saul's car, indicating Jesse is likely high on meth. After a cleaning crew cannot fully remove the gasoline scent, Walt douses his clothing and the seats of his car in it. He tells a doubtful Skyler and Walt Jr. a complicated fabrication about a pump malfunction at the gas station. Walt moves the family into a hotel until the carpet and flooring can be replaced.

Walt secretly meets with Saul and Kuby in the hotel's parking lot, asking for an update on Jesse's whereabouts. Saul hints at the possibility of killing Jesse, but Walt rejects the idea and warns him to never bring it up again. Back in their hotel room, Skyler confronts Walt over his lies, having just seen him with Saul. Walt confesses that Jesse is upset and tried to burn down their house, but says he is not concerned because Jesse decided against it. A shocked Skyler presses Walt to kill Jesse, who she views as a threat to their safety, saying "We've come this far ... What's one more?"

A flashback reveals that Jesse did not simply change his mind: Hank, having trailed Jesse to Walt's residence after Jesse assaulted Saul, managed to talk Jesse out of torching the house and convinced him to work together to bring Walt down. Hank and Jesse left the house seconds before Walt arrived. Marie talks to her therapist about her issues with Walt, but stops short of revealing the true extent of his criminality. Hank keeps Jesse at their house because he believes that he will be more protected there; Marie agrees because Hank assures her that things will turn out badly for Walt. Hank and Gomez tape Jesse as he recounts his history with Walt. However, because there is no physical evidence and Walt has left the meth business, Hank has nothing sufficiently incriminating to take to the authorities.

Walt leaves a voicemail for Jesse, asking to meet in a public plaza in Downtown Albuquerque to discuss Brock's poisoning and to reconcile. Hank coerces the reluctant Jesse to comply, despite Jesse's fear for his own safety. Hank reassures Jesse by recounting Walt's previous attempts to protect him at his own expense, and states that since the meeting is in a public place, he will be safe. However, privately with Gomez, Hank indicates his dislike of Jesse and indifference to risking his death; if Jesse is killed on camera, it can be used as potential evidence against Walt.

Wired for sound, Jesse goes to meet with Walt but backs down after mistaking a nearby pedestrian for a hitman. Angered, Jesse goes to a pay phone to call Walt and threatens him, telling him that he will "get him where he really lives." A furious Hank berates Jesse for blowing the plan, but Jesse calmly informs him that he has a better strategy in mind. Meanwhile, Walt calls Todd, requesting another job for his uncle, Jack.

In Winter River, Connecticut, Barbara and Adam Maitland decide to spend their vacation decorating their idyllic country home. As they are driving home from a trip to town, Barbara swerves to avoid a dog and the car plunges into the river. After returning home, she and Adam notice they now lack reflections and find the book ''Handbook for the Recently Deceased''.

They begin to suspect they did not survive the car accident. When Adam attempts to leave the house, he ends up in a strange and otherworldly desert-like landscape populated by enormous sandworms.

The house is sold and the new owners, the Deetz family, arrive from New York City. Charles Deetz is a former real estate developer; his second wife Delia is a self-proclaimed sculptor; and his teenage goth daughter Lydia, from his first marriage, is an aspiring photographer. Under the guidance of interior designer Otho, the family transforms the house into a pastel-toned work of modern art.

Consulting the ''Handbook'', the Maitlands travel to an otherworldly waiting room populated by other distressed souls, where they discover the afterlife is structured according to a complex bureaucracy involving vouchers and caseworkers. The Maitlands' caseworker, Juno, informs them they must remain in the house for the next one hundred and twenty five years, on pain of a dire fate. If they want the Deetzes out of the house, it is up to them to scare them away.

Although Adam and Barbara remain invisible to Charles and Delia, Lydia can see the ghost couple and befriends them. Against Juno's advice, the Maitlands contact the miscreant Betelgeuse, Juno's former assistant and a now freelance "bio-exorcist", to scare away the Deetzes. At first, they are unaware his name is pronounced "Beetlejuice", which is why they have such difficulty pronouncing it and thereby summoning him.

However, Betelgeuse quickly offends the Maitlands with his crude and morbid demeanor: they reconsider hiring him, though too late to stop him from wreaking havoc on the Deetzes. The small town's charm and the supernatural events inspire Charles to pitch his boss Maxie Dean on transforming the town into a tourist hot spot, but Maxie wants proof of the ghosts. Using the ''Handbook for the Recently Deceased'', Otho conducts what he ''thinks'' is a séance and summons Adam and Barbara, using their wedding clothes, but they begin to fade and decay, as Otho had unwittingly performed what was actually an exorcism, instead.

Horrified, Lydia summons Betelgeuse for help; but he will only help her on the condition that she marries him, enabling him to freely cause chaos in the mortal world. He saves the Maitlands and disposes of Maxie, his wife, and Otho, then prepares a wedding before a ghastly minister. The couple intervene before the ceremony is completed, with Barbara riding a sandworm through the house to devour Betelgeuse.

Finally, the Deetzes and Maitlands agree to live in harmony within the house. Betelgeuse, meanwhile, is stuck in the after-life waiting room; there he antagonizes a witch doctor, who shrinks his head. Being Betelgeuse, however, he remains upbeat and states that it is fine for him, and Lydia dances happily away with the ghosts .

On 10 May 1916, during World War I, British Captain and novelist Edgar Brodie returns home on leave, only to discover his obituary in the newspaper. He is brought to a man identifying himself only as "R", who asks him to undertake a secret mission: to identify and eliminate a German agent on his way to Arabia to stir up trouble in the Middle East. Upon agreeing, Brodie is given a new identity—Richard Ashenden—a fake death, and the assistance of a killer known variously as "the Hairless Mexican" and "the General", though he is neither bald, Mexican, nor a general.

Brodie's late "predecessor" thought that the enemy agent was staying at the Hotel Excelsior in neutral Switzerland. When "Ashenden" arrives there, he is surprised to find that "R" has also provided him with an attractive wife, Elsa Carrington. Entering their suite, he also encounters her new admirer, fellow hotel guest Robert Marvin, who is only slightly deterred by the arrival of her husband (and continues to flirt with Elsa). When they are alone, Ashenden is displeased when Elsa reveals she insisted upon the assignment for the thrill of it.

Ashenden and the General go to contact a double agent, the church organist, only to find him dead. In his hand, however, they find a button, evidently torn off in the struggle with his killer. When they go to the casino to meet Elsa, the button is accidentally dropped onto a gambling table. Since it looks the same as his own buttons, an experienced mountaineer named Caypor assumes it is his.

The agents persuade Caypor to help them settle a concocted bet: which one of them can climb higher on a nearby mountain. As the moment approaches, Ashenden finds he is unable to commit cold-blooded murder, but the General has no such qualms and pushes the unsuspecting Caypor off a cliff.

However, a coded telegram informs them that Caypor is not their target. The General finds it very funny, but Elsa becomes terribly distraught when they are told. She decides to quit, despite having told Ashenden that she fell in love with him at first sight. In the lobby, she encounters Marvin. With no destination in mind, she persuades him to take her along with him. Meanwhile, the other two bribe a worker at a chocolate factory (the secret "German spy post office") to show them a very important message received the day before. They discover that it is addressed to none other than Marvin.

Ashenden and the General set out in pursuit, taking the same train as Marvin and Elsa. Before they can arrange anything, the train crosses the border into Turkey – enemy territory – and a large number of soldiers board. Despite this, they manage to get Marvin alone in his compartment. Objecting to cold-blooded murder, Elsa draws a pistol. Before Ashenden can do anything, one way or the other, the train is attacked and derailed by airplanes sent by "R". Marvin is pinned in the wreckage, but manages to shoot the General fatally before dying. The "Ashendens" quit the spy business.

Raúl Salas is the general secretary of a major union in Córdoba, Argentina.

In the town of Easthaven, a party of adventurers are met in the tavern by the town's leader, Hrothgar (voiced by Jim Cummings), who invites them to join him on an expedition to investigate the town of Kuldahar, after reports of strange happenings there. On the road to Kuldahar, the expedition is ambushed by frost giants, who cause an avalanche that blocks the path back to Easthaven. With only the adventurers surviving, they continue to Kuldahar and meet with Arundel (Jim Cummings), the village's archdruid, who explains that a mysterious evil force has been kidnapping villagers, causing abnormal weather patterns, provoking monsters, and reducing the magical warmth provided by the giant tree that towers over the village.

Asking for their help to discover the source of the evil, the adventurers begin by searching the Vale of Shadows, an area containing Kuldahar's crypts, due to rumours of undead creature sightings. They encounter a cursed barbarian spirit named Kresselack (Tony Jay) who tells them that the threat lies elsewhere. Reporting this back to the druid, Arundel instructs the group to retrieve an ancient scrying item called the Heartstone Gem, so that he may discover the source of the evil more quickly. After finding the gem was stolen from its original resting place within a temple, the party travel to the caverns of Dragon's Eye, finding a number of the missing villagers being held there by lizard men. They eventually find the gem being used by a powerful Marilith named Yxunomei (Tara Strong). After killing Yxunomei and retrieving the gem, the party return to find Kuldahar under attack by Orogs, and Arundel mortally wounded by a shapeshifter disguised as the archdruid, who taunts them before vanishing. The true Arundel advises the party to take the Heartstone to Larrel (Michael Bell) at the fortress of the Severed Hand, the only one capable of using it now, before dying from his wounds.

Arriving at the fortress, the party discover that Larrel is insane, and complete a task to help him regain his sanity. Using the gem, Larrel discovers the source of the evil to reside in the former dwarven city of Dorn's Deep. Fighting their way through the city, the group eventually come across the source of the evil – a priest named Brother Poquelin (John Kassir). Poquelin reveals himself to be a demon who was exiled from his home realm by his superiors, and that both he and Yxunomei maintained a vendetta against each other that was getting out of control. Predicting she would follow him to the material plane, the demon sought a base of operation in the region to form a military force that could crush her. While doing so, he stumbled upon the ancient artifact Crenshinibon, which he claims had been "calling" to him. Poquelin immediately used its power to help him amass an army to conquer the lands of Icewind Dale, until Yxunomei's activities around Kuldahar led to the formation of Hrothgar's expedition. Seeking to stop it, the demon had his frost giant minions crush the expedition, but did not count on the adventurers' survival being a problem until they recovered the Heartstone Gem, forcing him to eliminate Arundel. Despite the party having found someone else to use it, Poquelin had managed to build up his forces, which he soon sent to Easthaven.

After a brief battle with Poquelin, the party finds itself transported back to Easthaven, which is now in ruins. After freeing the surviving villagers, the local cleric of Tempus, Everard, informs the party that Poquelin is going after Jerrod's Stone, a mystical object housed under the town's temple, which acts as a seal on a portal to the Nine Hells of Baator. Originally opened during a major historic battle between the combined might of the barbarian tribes and an army of a powerful mage, it was sealed shut by the sacrifice of the shaman Jerrod who led the barbarians in the conflict. Gaining entry into the demon's crystal tower that enveloped the temple, the group discover that Poquelin's true intention was to reopen the portal contained within the Stone, allowing him to conquer the North with an army of devils at his command. Although he successfully achieves this, Everard, having shunned the tale of Jerrod's sacrifice until finally understanding what he did, throws himself into the portal and seals it off at the cost of his life. The party then fights Poquelin in his true form as the devil Belhifet, and manage to defeat him, banishing him to the Nine Hells and escaping the tower as it collapses. In time, Easthaven eventually recovers, and the town is reconstructed.

In a twist ending, it is revealed that the game's narrator (David Ogden Stiers), was really Belhifet, who spent a mandatory century of imprisonment at the hands of the adventurers that is now close to end, and that he will soon walk the Prime Material once more to seek his revenge. (see ''Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear'')

The series follows Sara Pezzini, a NYPD homicide detective who comes into possession of the Witchblade, a supernatural, sentient gauntlet that bonds with a female host and provides her with a variety of powers in order to fight supernatural evil. Sara struggles to hone the powers of the Witchblade and fend off those with a nefarious interest in it, such as entrepreneur Kenneth Irons and his bodyguard Ian Nottingham.

Beverly Sutphin appears to be an unassuming upper middle class housewife living with her dentist husband, Eugene; and their teenage children, Misty and Chip, in the suburbs of Baltimore. However, she is secretly a serial killer, murdering those who she perceives to slight her and her family or fail to live up to her moral standards.

During breakfast, Detectives Pike and Gracey question the family about the vulgar harassment of their neighbor, Dottie Hinkle. Beverly is later revealed to be the perpetrator, retaliating against Dottie for having taken a parking space from her. At a PTA meeting, math teacher Paul Stubbins criticizes Chip's interest in horror films, believing that Beverly's parenting is adversely affecting his mental health. Subsequently, Beverly runs over Stubbins with her car, killing him; stoner LuAnn Hodges witnesses the murder. The following day, Misty is upset when Carl Pageant stands her up for a date. Beverly spots Carl with another girl at a swap meet and fatally stabs him with a fire iron.

At Gracey's suggestion, Eugene discovers Beverly's serial killer memorabilia beneath their mattress, which includes recordings from Ted Bundy on the week of his execution. That evening at dinner, Chip tells the family about his friend Scotty's suspicions. Beverly departs at that point; fearing for Scotty's life, the others head for his house. Unbeknownst to them, Beverly intends to kill Ralph and Betty Sterner for calling Eugene to treat the former's toothache on a day Eugene and Beverly planned to spend birdwatching, eating chicken and critiquing Eugene's requests for perfect dental health. She stabs Betty with scissors borrowed from Rosemary Ackerman and pushes an air conditioner from their window onto Ralph. Meanwhile, the rest of the family and the police arrive at Scotty's house, only to find him masturbating to an erotic film.

On Sunday, police follow the Sutphins to church as Beverly is named as the prime suspect in the Sterners' murders. The service abruptly ends when everyone flees in panic after Beverly sneezes, during which she escapes as police attempt to arrest her. She hides at the video store where Chip is employed; Emmy Lou Jenson, a customer, argues with Chip over being fined for failing to rewind a videotape, calling him a "son of a psycho". Beverly follows Jenson home and fatally strikes her with a leg of lamb as she watches ''Annie''. Scotty witnesses the attack nearby; Beverly spots him and pursues him after carjacking a passerby. Ending up at Hammerjack's, Beverly immolates Scotty during a live performance. The Sutphin family arrive as Beverly is arrested.

Beverly's trial becomes a media sensation; she is dubbed "Serial Mom", and both Chip and Misty profit off of her notoriety. During the opening arguments, Beverly's lawyer claims that she is not guilty by reason of insanity, but is promptly dismissed. Representing herself, Beverly systematically discredits every witness against her by exploiting their own vices, while Hodges is too high to provide credible testimony. During Pike's testimony, the courtroom is distracted by the arrival of Suzanne Somers, who is cast as Beverly in a television film.

Beverly is acquitted of all charges. Throughout the trial, Beverly expresses contempt at a particular juror for wearing white shoes after Labor Day. Beverly follows her to a payphone and fatally strikes her with the receiver. Before realizing the truth, Somers angers Beverly into an outburst attempting to pose for a photo op. The juror's body is then discovered.